Denise informs the Board about the monthly financials. We are still seeing some deficits in several areas i.e. expenses/supplies. Some of this has to do with underestimating facility costs. 

We have the beginning of an issue with the high school lease based on an assessment done by the city of Springfield before the renovations were completed, we are looking to resolve this situation. 

Denise also talks to the Board about a potential budget revision. We do have a contingency that would cover the deficit but that is not what we want to do. We are hoping to cover the deficit in other ways i.e. ESSER funds. 

Rachel says this is concerning but we want to be proactive and pull the ESSER funds in and that will allow us to still end with a surplus. The bigger issue here is longer term, if these are the facility costs, we underestimated them in our longer term projections. We will need to re-do our projections, We will need to approve a new budget if the variances in certain line items are more than 10% and we know they will be. 

Dale asks how much of the projections not matching are due to "environmental" issues?

Rachel says we should have anticipated the taxes increasing more than we did - we may need to file an abatement if they continue to rise. Additionally, the cost of doing business is high right now. We are contracting a lot with employees because of the staffing issues and that is expensive. 

Denise adds that things like furniture and utility costs at the high school are definitely higher due to environmental factors. It's a combination of several things. 

Dale asks if we owned the building or if Friends owned the building, would there be property tax?

Rachel says no. This is definitely part of the conversation we are beginning with our attorney and the city. 

Rebecca asks why this didn't happen at Pine Street?

Rachel says:

1.) There was an abatement in process, so the taxes actually went down. Also, there was no major construction here. Then we bought the building five years later. 

2.) The city was less involved in the Pine Street project - they since have become much more hands on with charter school projects. 

Denise says in January we will look at revising the budget at the Board level with projections. 

Rebecca updates the committee about academic achievement. 

Attendance: We are re-committed to the importance of attendance which was significantly impacted by the pandemic. Data is being tracked more proactively and we are engaging in ways to improve this such as attendance campaigns with families. 

The approach to professional development has changed this year. A return to basics or back to what was being done pre-pandemic like deep diving into individual students' academic data and tracking that. Recommitting to these practices will lead to achieving our goal this year which is to double student achievement. 

The committee also discussed some ELA ANet data for grades 5-8. 7th grade data is a bright spot whereas 8th grade needs the most support. 8th grade was most impacted by the pandemic and has also had the most teacher turnover this year. 

Homework: We are also recommitting to the importance of homework and we are seeing a correlation with homework completion and higher academic achievement.

Rachel also mentions that only 20% of our teaching staff was with us pre-pandemic. We also have many new leaders. We are in a period of rebuilding. 

1.) We had a great PD day on 11/8. We focused on individual student data and did a deep dive into individual students and our plans for accelerating learning. 

2.) We are rebuilding in a time where staffing shortages are making things very difficult. We know we will see increases in student achievement this year because we are very focused on accelerating learning in specific ways. 

1.) Things with the High School are going great. We have had two College and Career Advisory Board meetings to date and they have been very successful. We are hoping to continue to build this group out. 

2.) We just completed a writing readiness assignment and have determined 50% of our class is eligible for the college course. We are happy with this but looking to continue to increase eligibility. On Friday, they also had their first Student Led Conferences (SLCs) where the students led their own conference and talked to their parents about their GPAs, how they can improve their habits to improve their work, etc. 

In preparation for the SLCs, we needed to get student grades. Student grades are managed through our learning management system, PowerSchool, and it has been a huge challenge. This has been time consuming and uncovered some gaps we may have internally. 

3.) There was an opportunity that came up recently from DESE related to STEM. It is one which a high school partners with a STEM employer and offers work based learning experiences for students. This program would align early college with work based learning opportunities for students. We went to STCC since we already have a partnership with them and they had already partnered with West Springfield High School who already have a program running. Rachel made a pitch to to STCC, because you can have more than one high school partner, and they agreed for us to join them on the grant. STCC put in a letter of intent and we were named as a partner. The first year is just a planning grant and it will give us a chance to determine whether or not this a good fit for us. 

A community tours spreadsheet is attached to the packet and we wanted to remind the Board that you are welcome to join. If there is anyone you would like to share the school with or you just want to visit yourself, these tours are a great time to come. You can also contact Nikki to schedule a time to walk the school with Rachel at your convenience. 

The Board discusses meeting in person moving forward.

Rebecca suggests having regular zoom meetings but also having four times per year (quarterly) that we meet in person. This allows for the "best of both worlds".