Committee Chair Cecelia Russo reported:
BSNBCS is serving breakfast to 450 students, lunch to 670 students and snacks to over 760  students.

The return to the school building was met with great staff enthusiasm and excitement. Some faculty facilitated Zoom calls with families/students in preparation for the first day. Some faculty actually visited students home. 

BSNBCS will be the 1st charter school to host a virtual best practices sharing conference with Critical Friends (a state association of Charter schools which includes Buffalo and Albany)  on October 4 between 9 and 11;30am.

The school was awarded two grants - one for $1 million. These grants were  discussed and  accounted for or noted in our 2021-22 budget forecast.  

Professional Development is going well. 

Dates for Academics//Family Life Committee sent. The next meeting is October 14th. 

CFO Lisa-Renee Brown and ED Nicholas Tishuk reported:
We are in shape at $5 million. Our escrow balances are solid. In addition to feeding our students, we are giving our teachers the tools they need to get the job done without red tape or bureaucracy. 
We also paying for additional security. 
We have no material significant or extraordinary expenses. 
Our afterschool program is free. Our trips are free (including graduation and senior trip). Our lunch is free. 
We are in a strong financial position. 
The auditors were in two weeks ago. An interim audit has been completed. 
We are candidates for a single audit, now that we are a School Food Authority. The funds for food money has pushed us into this "single audit" candidate category. 
We will be calendaring dates for our annual financial audit. 

We have over 100 401K participants, with a few aging inactive accounts that we need to transition from under the BSNBCS umbrella. 

All board meetings have been calendared for the year on BOT. Trustees were asked to RSVP in advance for all the meetings now to ensure we can secure an in-person quorum. 

ED Nicholas is taking the lead on Board Recruitment. He is working with various organizations to identify potential board trustee candidates. More details to come on candidates. 

Emeritus policies will be uploaded to our permanent board records. 

Our 2020-21 board assessment is almost complete. There is just one outstanding assessment that needs to be completed.  
 

Chair Tamikka Pate reported:
Within two weeks the Development Committee's framework will be shared with the Board. 

ED Nick Tishuk shared:
BSNBCS has been working with the District Management Group (DMG) for the past three school years to develop our policies and frameworks, in partnership with several school districts across the country. Our three main points of focus with these partnerships have been on safety planning during the pandemic, equity in education and strategic planning. As a part of our membership with DMG, we have access to their virtual clinics on different topics.

If you are interested in committing to attending the three hour session next week on Tuesday, from 1pm-4pm, please let him know, He will register you for the event. If you are not able to commit to the full three hours, but are interested in getting looped in, He'll be happy to do a debrief for any interested folks, 

Equity in Education: Making it Core
Tuesday, September 28, 2021 1:00 - 4:00PM ET

BSNBCS (and all NYS school districts/charter schools) is required to keep a 'district safety plan' in place and review it periodically. It documents our planning for emergencies, hazards, evacuations and coordination to keep our building safe. After we established this protocol five years ago, there have been relatively few changes to the plan, usually consisting of updating dates to the current school year or other minor adjustments. Last year, we added our COVID safety protocols as an annex to the document.

NYS requires us to codify the existing plan and have it be reviewed by the board for approval. The  attached  2021-22 version,  has no major updates from last year's approved version, other than the updated dates. Once approved by the Board, we can post this updated version to our website, completing the compliance requirement.