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Brent Nielsen

Things are going well in PVPA and are in production season and getting prepared for end of school year and planning for next year.

That includes course catalogue which has been proposed.

There's a block task force which have met and come up with recommendations for block schedule which will be shared at curriculum day on March 22nd. 

There may be some changes to make things easier based on needs expressed by academic teachers. 

Other important information for planning next year is applications. Lottery closed Feb. 10th and pull was Feb. 17th. 

Sandra Courtney hared information about offers based on lottery. 

85 students last year applied for 7th grade and this yea over 100. Offered 72 class spots and over 60 who have accepted offer.

Only 10 denied spots.

Will offer to students on wait-list 8-11th based on needs so will offer seats. Right now only have 2 8th grade offers out

Will have shadow days the end of month and Accepted student days following. 

Brent Nielson

• Two nights of WOFA show Friday and Saturday. This was the 15th show. The costume and set was amazing.
• The next show is April 7th Catalyst
• April 15th BSU having a fundraiser show "Black Excellence.. Tribute to the Divine 9". This will be a fundraiser for them to go to an HBCU tour in collaboration with the MLK Center in Springfield.
• Sunday, April 19th Holyoke St. Patricks Day Parade, seniors will be participating to raise money to go towards their prom and other activities. 
• Middle school productions happening
• Two policies talked about with the Governance committee:
  • Enrollment Policy Change: 
    • Extend enrollment policy to include seniors due to Paulo Freire in Chicopee did not have their charter renewed and missed the deadline due to the deadline in which the news was shared. The date in which Paulo Freire will close is June 30th. PVPA received four applications, 1 from CAP and does not qualify and 3 are Paulo Friere and are musicians and if we extend the enrollment policy we would offer to these three students and move our senior class to 60 students. This would also allow an opportunity to balance the class and we would not have to put additional students in the senior class based on this. 
    • Transcripts- the students will still need to meet our minimum academic requirements for classes but will pro-rate their arts classes. 
    • Will Paulo Freire assist with classes are needing support for classes over the summer? Students have to demonstrate that they have met the requirements to be promoted to the next grade. The date in which this has to be documented is August 15th.
    • We can change/ resend the enrollment policy next year to go back to previous policy if needed. This change is to extend the opportunity to these three students. 
    • David Potter made a motion to accept the amended extended enrollment policy. It was second and passed unanimously.
  • Student Parking Policy
    • Policy to track who our student drivers are. Ensures student drivers have to follow the rules. 
      • The policy does not impact any space issues. 
    • David Potter made a motion to accept the student policy and Azizah Yasin second. Motion passed unanimously
• An email was shared regarding the School's report card that included a link to the report. The presentation with the information was shared regarding who PVPA is (break down of students). 
  • Mass of Charter Schools is having an advocacy week which they have annually. Their primary focus this year will be (1) To get more parity with the facilities funding to increase to per pupil (2) Educator diversity act. They have asked PVPA to host this meeting with members who reside in Chicopee where we will talk about PVPA and the diversity act. If this act gets passed, it will provide funding to all schools to assist with promoting the retention of teachers of color.
  • Overall, charter schools in MA have a higher percentage of students of color, low income, and special needs than public schools and are three times more likely to have a teacher of color than public schools. 
  • We want to see our percentage of staff equal our student population. We are making improvements but need to increase and need to improve our attendance and MCAS. 

Neil- We did not have a meeting and do not have a firm budget. We will have a budget by the next meeting and have budget to be approved by May.

We discussed proposals for extending the enrollment and parking at the last meeting. 

David Potter discussed May 15th being the wrap up in which surveys will go to Board of Trustee. This will follow the April meeting which will include strategies based on what Brent filled out in September and we will fill out the survey answering the same questions. 

The direct reports/ leadership team will have the same process. This is anynimous through board on track.

After this the committee will complete a memo which will be shared with Brent prior to being shared with the Board which will be discussed at the June board meeting. 

We will then create recommendations, proposals for next year. 

Jenna Sardella- 

• Middles School, meeting with middle school representatives to discuss the Middle School Dance. MCAS is a priority for the middle school teachers.

Shannon- 

• High School, working with administrators to discuss absences or students who are late due to chronic illness, etc. 
• Mock trial semi-finals are happening in Boston
• Midterm reports are due in a couple of weeks. 

• Show season and MCAS 
• Just completed WOFA and have Catalyst coming up. 
• Mock Trials, changed to the Boston 28th for finals
• Fundraising: participating in the St. Patrick Parade to receive $700.00 for participating. 
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No updates. We missed meetings due to unforeseen circumstances and pushed the dates back based on this. The date has now changed to around March 22nd.

• Azizah Yasin appointed to Governance Committee
• Sasha Viand appointed to the Finance Committee
• Vanessa Ford appointed to the Governance Committee

• Next month (April) will have to be in person. We need to have an in-person Qurom 

• Summer retreat planning dates will be shared based on putting out a poll. The retreat is usually the 1st or 2nd week in August. 
• We will get a report on the Board of Trustee diagnostic survey was 50% so we will discuss this information.