Discussed as part of our goals in previous section. A document will be formulated and shared to gather all committee members' ideas and thoughts related to an official onboarding process for new trustees. 

Look at trustee term of service spreadsheet. We will be loosing 6 trustees terms ending in June 2022. 

Aaron mentioned Latino Chamber of Commerce for recruitment purposes.

Xiomara said she is familiar with organization.  It went dormant for a while but is now back and being revitalized. There is also the Lewis Chamber (LGBTQ chamber).  She recently attended a launch event.  Xiomara said she can talk to both chamber presidents about trustee recruitment.

David asked what is the relationship between the aforementioned chambers and the Springfield Chamber of Commerce?

Xiomara said we have the ERC and Springfield Chamber, the Latino Chamber is their own entity where anyone can pay membership dues if they want to be a part of it. More focused on community building, development, legislative work, programming. 

David asks if they have an educational arm?

Xiomara says, yes, the Latino chamber does. In Springfield over 50% of Latino descent, so education is at the forefront.  They really want to be a hub for the voice of the people rather than the voice of the businesses. 

David asks if they have a membership list?

Xiomara will check in with President of Latino Chamber - Aaron Melendez.

David says when talking to the President see if he knows any members who are focused on or interested in education.

Aaron thinks we need to have a target, see where we're at and then have current Board members see if they know anyone who could fill these roles. 

Xiomara mentioned Andrea Williams from the High School Advisory Board. 

Aaron said we need to be careful with union issues if someone is currently a teacher.

Xiomara says we should look at the demographic of the school and having the Board be reflective of that. 

Tom says the 50% diversity goal for the Board came from the Board currently not being that diverse and so we wanted to take steps to improve. 

Aaron thinks this is a long term goal and it should be reflective of the population of the school. 

Nicole says let's look at the document to see where we will be at the end of the year with whose leaving.  We can then determine who we think might be the right fit for those vacant seats. 

Xiomara agrees with Aaron that we should have a goal with a timeline, it takes time. We need to be thinking about diversity more broadly.  Not just race and ethnicity but ability, etc. 

Rachel said Veritas demographics are not in front of her but she guesses 75% LatinX, 20% African American, 4% white, 1% Asian American. She will share actual demographics (related to race, students with disabilities, ELL, etc.). We should add a column to our Trustee spreadsheet how trustees identify so we can look at our current roster and look at vacant seats and determine who would be the right fit for those seats. We probably won't find enough people for this cohort to fill all the slots we currently have.  It may also mean certain Board members moving off the Board to make room for new, diverse trustees.

Xiomara thinks we also need to consider industry representation on the Board as well.

Rachel agrees that is part of diversifying the Board.

Tom says the most powerful Boards that do the most good are the ones that have trustees with varied skillsets. We tend to have a lot of executive skillsets such as legal, management, etc. 

Rachel can talk about strengths of Board members currently: finance skills, legal. Deficits: advocacy/political support, access to capital (talk about this more next meeting as we look at Board member terms of service - what strengths and what deficits do we currently have and what should we be looking for). Dale actually brought this up to Rachel this month related to terms ending and increasing diversity over time. 

Tom thinks we can learn a lot from Ann because she brought a lot to the Board even though she wasn't racially diverse.

Rachel agrees, you have to look at all levels of diversity at the same time as skillsets being brought to the table. 

Tom says, let's make it easy for people to step down from the Board to allow for more Board diversity but still have an advisory role. 

Rachel says maybe we need a mini strategic plan/ Board maturity model that normalizes people stepping away from the Board but not loosing all involvement. We could even create an Emeritus Board member group and people can be as active as they are able or want. 

Next meeting we can:

1.) Review Trustee onboarding plan

2.) Review/Discuss important documents (technical guides that explain accountability for charters, common criteria for charter schools, current accountability plan)

3.) Look at Trustee spreadsheet and determine what we are looking for moving forward in terms of diversity and skillsets.