J. Crowell, Terry Maxey and Aaron Mendelson arrived late, just following the approval of the minutes.

Introduction from Lily Newman. Lily shared her personal and professional background with the board. Her role as Director of High School Design is to lead an inclusive design process.  Her unique experience is going to contribute to our high school design. 

Lily talked about the process for forming the design team and some of the design features we anticipate building out once we have our team in place to inform them. The Board is super excited for the concept that we have for the High school and Lily invited their questions. Lily explained  the importance of providing a "bridge" for the students in the transition between High School going in to college and the benefit of early college programming. She described some of the important things to look for and vet in an early college partner. Question about  if we will provide internships or other pathways for students who may not choose college. Lily talked about how to include internships into the curriculum and design, there are challenges but it is possible. 

Lily asked trustees to share their hopes and fears about the high school. Matt Landon talked about the importance of dissemination and creating a program that isn't so unique it can't be replicated elsewhere. Dale Janes asked about attrition assumptions and how we will compete with larger high schools, how we will ensure we have enough students to meet our enrollment numbers. Lily talked about the need for strong counseling department and mental help support and needs for students and enough guidance to support students around their individual needs and goals. 

The trustees thanked Lily and share their enthusiasm about having her on our team. 


 

Governance Committee reported that the committee drafted goals for the year and will share them out with the board in September. Reminded other committees to draft goals for FY21 and be ready to share at the September meeting. 

First month of our Fiscal year and all is going well. The audit is done, it when really well. The auditors will present the report to the finance committee in September and Denise will present the final results in the October meeting. 

Rebecca shared that the committee had a deep discussion around specialized student populations and historically marginalized learners. Jonathan Swan, Director of Student Services attended the committee meeting to share more about his work regarding IEP's and 504's and how student services look during remote learning. 

School start on September 15th.
We are working a lot on the attendance and be prepare for the start of the year.
Profession and development is happening in both schools.
We are still working on where the teachers are working on remotely if the are going to the school or if they are doing from home in a professional way?
The importance to have excellent communication with the students, teachers and parents.
 Providing a Communication campaign using our website and school social media.

 

Facility:
Working on finding our own space for the high school, or getting a temporarily space. In addition to the RFP to solicit space that we can lease or own, we are exploring the possibility of co-locating on a college campus. This could provide a lots of opportunities, but at the same time we have a lot of things to consider and what is best for the students and the long term viability of our high school.