Veritas Preparatory Charter School
Minutes
Board of Trustees Meeting
Zoom Meeting
Date and Time
Tuesday December 21, 2021 at 4:30 PM
Location
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Meeting ID: 879 4469 7628
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Meeting ID: 879 4469 7628
Passcode: 912934
One tap mobile +13126266799,,87944697628#
Dial by your location
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 879 4469 7628
Find your local number: https://vpcs-org.zoom.us/u/k8aG053ZG
Trustees Present
A. Errichetti (remote), A. Mendelson (remote), D. Ford (remote), D. Fuller (remote), D. Janes (remote), L. Doherty (remote), M. Landon (remote), R. Martin (remote), R. Sela (remote)
Trustees Absent
J. Crowell, T. Gabinetti, T. Maxey, X. Delobato
Guests Present
N. Gauthier (remote), R. Romano (remote)
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
D. Janes called a meeting of the board of trustees of Veritas Preparatory Charter School to order on Tuesday Dec 21, 2021 at 4:33 PM.
C.
Approve minutes
D. Fuller made a motion to approve the minutes from Board of Trustees Meeting on 11-18-21.
A. Errichetti seconded the motion.
The board VOTED unanimously to approve the motion.
II. Executive Director Report
A.
High School Updates
Potential of an Industry Advisory Board for the High School is discussed. The Board would meet 6-8 times per year. We want to make sure our program stays relevant over time and employers can provide consistent input. Input will help us decide on internships, course trajectories, etc. These relationships can also lead to potential fundraising opportunities, community partnerships. The ask is if you could reach out to your contacts who are directly to our High School pathways (Business and Entrepreneurship, Liberal Arts/Social Services (e.g., law, education, social work), Health Sciences, Engineering, and Computer Science). Please reach out to these contacts and put them in touch with our Director of High School Design, Lily Newman, by the end of January 2022. Please see the document attached as part of the agenda for further information.
Matt asked if there is a target size for this group?
Rachel said no but we don't want it to be too big.
Lisa asks is there anyone you really want us to get to?
Rachel says health science potentially but she'll let you know if there are any more specific areas.
Dale asks what about accounting or financial planning?
Rachel says one pathway is entrepreneurship and business and these things could fall under that umbrella. We can even talk to the heads of HR to talk about hiring trends and talent pipelines.
Dale asks what about the head of a bank to learn about the financial institutions? Dale just wants to make sure that we are open to these types of contacts as well before he decides who to reach out to.
Rachel says yes.
Dales asks what about large medical practices like Baystate, how are we going t make sure we're not all targeting the same person/people?
Nicole will create a contact spreadsheet on google docs so we can avoid overlap.
Rachel wants mostly to talk to people who know the strategic hiring needs and talent pipelines of their organization to help us make good, programmatic decisions for the High School.
Dale asks what are the next steps?
Rachel says by January 22nd if you would reach out to 3-5 contacts and connect us to them that would be our ask.
Lisa asks if there are any segments we don't want?
Rachel says we are trying to build our industry advisory board around specific pathways that we are designing our high school around so focusing on those areas would be a great place to start.
The next item is the option for additional space at the High School sooner than we anticipated.
Rachel frames the conversation that the goal here is a discussion. The high school facility is coming along beautifully and on time and this should be celebrated. In our lease agreement, we would occupy the first floor in phase 1 and the next year Greenfield Development would develop the the second floor. Joe, Greenfield Development, came to them recently and said there is an opportunity to for the school to lease the full space in early. Rachel and Lynne see many pros to doing it. The one con is money. The pros are: the project gets done now and we don't have a project hanging out there to get done later (who knows what will happen with COVID and it would be better not to have construction going on upstairs when we're in the building), we would have the ability to utilize additional space for potential distancing in the future- ensure students can stay or quickly return to in-person learning. Competing priorities for the funds would mainly be hiring more talent but the pool is dry and we are still carrying vacancies for positions we had hoped to fill this year.
Rachel does not know exact figures yet. We currently have a lease that outlines the prices for phase I and phase II. It basically doubles the rent in Year 2.
Dale thinks we should go forward, figure out what the numbers look like and if we can, take the space early. It makes sense to him to have Joe do add ons, it is more economical in the long run.
Ann asks if they know what the additional costs would be?
Rachel says the only thing on the table right now is the original lease agreement. They have to discuss it further. If we can, then Denise says she would be in favor of getting what we need done now.
Aaron says he would be in favor of this but he's wondering about what would be sacrificed if we went ahead with this. Rachel said it would be a growing surplus. There are not currently a lot of competing operational priorities. Rachel does believe this is a good decision.
Dale thinks there is a consensus for Rachel to go forward and continue to discuss this and get the figures.
B.
Carando Drive Lease Amendment Vote
M. Landon made a motion to authorize authorize Rachel to sign an amendment to the lease which increases the rent and incorporates wiring for IT and security features. .
A. Mendelson seconded the motion.
At the time of signing/negotiating the lease for the High School, we thought the costs for wiring and security features related to IT would be funded through an E-Rate grant. This grant came in a little lower and we allocated the funds other places. Now, with the walls open, it makes sense to have to developer just do it unless we want to stop the project and go out to bid for this project. This is for a change in the scope of the job.
Lynne shared more about costs: Mike Sweet and the developer's attorney are saying between 1,000 and 1,500 per month for the next five years. $12,000-19,000 annually.
David asks if we already approved basic lease price?
Rachel says yes, last year around this time.
Dale asked have we evaluated what we need and are sure this will provide that.
Rachel said yes, it is a project that will have to be done now or later.
C.
Vote re: School Calendar Updates 2021-2022
D. Fuller made a motion to Vote to approve the amended school calendar for the 2021-22 school year.
R. Martin seconded the motion.
Vote to approve the amended school calendar for the 2021-2022 school year.
*Wellness Day added 11/12 (the day after Veteran's Day to allow for a long weekend).
*Day added to the end of the year 6/24 to make up for 11/12 Wellness Day.
D.
Executive Director Evaluation
Ann thanks those of you who have competed Rachel's evaluation already. The deadline is January 12th. After that, Ann will draft a CEO memo and meet with Rebecca, Matt and Rachel. Rachel's new goals are due in the beginning of February. We should target presenting this evaluation and new goals at the February Board meeting.
Follow up with Tony to remove him from the Board officially. Aaron thinks we should ask him if there is anyone else he would recommend to the Board.
Ann also mentioned you can start and stop the evaluation, you do not have to do it all at once. She only gets a notification that someone has completed an evaluation, not access to everyone's individual responses. Board on Track aggregates all the information.
III. Board of Trustees Strategic Priorities
A.
Vote to approve and adopt strategic priorities
D. Fuller made a motion to accept and approve strategic priorities as presented.
R. Martin seconded the motion.
Denise asks if we have only two goals?
Dale says there are two areas - aspirational and operational - but bullet points underneath those. Dale thinks within these priorities, there are measurable goals related to things like academic achievement.
Ann asks how do we see the Board implementing tracking for the aspirational goals? Reviewing them on a regular basis?
Dale would like to see moving forward we look at these priorities on an annual basis to assess where we are and where we're going.
Matt asked about equity and where we landed last time on how to incorporate that.
Rebecca said seeing how that is guiding a lot of our work, it may be a problem only showing up in the aspirational portion of the priorities.
Rachel said that's a good point and we did think about where it was important to be incorporated and where it made sense.
Add overarching statement that equity is our focus should be added to the top of the document and we will revisit next month.
This is on hold. Motion was withdrawn.
IV. Academic Achievement Committee
A.
Academic Achievement Committee Report
Rebecca talked about the reading that the Academic Achievement committee looked at during their last meeting. It was about culturally responsive teaching. Creating independent vs. dependent learners was discussed as well as individualism vs. collectivism and how we incorporate these concepts into the classroom.
Ann said she gained some insights from this reading and appreciated the conversation and Jonathan's perspective during the academic achievement committee meeting.
Dale also found the reading beneficial.
Rebecca says we will continue to refer to this book as we move forward. She thinks there are practices that are already being implemented but there are other things we can layer in that don't necessarily related to academic rigor.
V. Finance Committee
A.
Finance Committee Report
Denise says enrollment is stabilized, expenses look stable and are projected to remain within budget. Other student services had increased like summer school transportation but it is stable. On the capital budget side we do expect some increase, especially for the HS due to supply and labor increases. Our investment fund has been fully funded and we got our first report.
Matt has been working with Steven Howard from Seely Howard to talk about the implementation of the portfolio. With our conservative stance, we may be down a percent or so but we are in good shape. We would like to get Steve in to talk to the Board and also form an investment committee. The key here is understanding our use of the money will be looking out over time.
B.
Vote re: Operating Bank Accounts Signer
D. Ford made a motion to approve and add Jonathan Swan, Director of Student Services, as an authorized signer on the following operating bank accounts; Veritas Preparatory Charter School account ending #2991 and Friends of Veritas Preparatory Charter School account ending #2332.
R. Sela seconded the motion.
This is for an emergency back up plan in case Rachel is unavailable for some reason.
VI. Governance Committee
A.
Governance Committee Report
David says we talked about trustee recruitment and fine tuning the onboarding process for new trustees. Xiomara had some good ideas related to recruitment including the Latino Chamber of Commerce. We are looking for diversity, not just racial, but also related to skillsets.
VII. Closing Items
A.
Adjourn Meeting
There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 6:02 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
A. Errichetti
Documents used during the meeting
- Industry Advisory Board ask to VPCS Board.docx
- VPCS SY22 Calendar NEEDS APPROVAL.doc
- DRAFT of Board of Trustees 5 Year Strategic Priorites Plan 2021.docx
- Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain Chapters 1 & 2.pdf
- December Financial Reports for the Board.pdf
- December Friends Summary for the Board.pdf
- December Friends SNP for the Board.pdf
- Board of Trustees Terms of Service 2021-2022.docx