Sarah tabled the community agreements discussion for tonight.

Kara appreciated the smooth return to school coming back from Winter Break. Kara appreciated middle school students and middle school team to help with traffic. Echoed by Sarah.

Sarah appreciated Daniel who's been helping in Primary.

Daniel appreciated Tobie, Jodi, Steph, and Melody for staying and leading the Family Education Night on mathematics. Emily echoed this appreciation.

Greg appreciated Evan for joining the Board as a member.

Greg appreciated Krishna for all her years of service to the school as the Head of School.

Sarah appreciated Krishna's thoughtfulness around the timing of her transition to support the school.

Amy appreciated Daniel for answering questions during committee meetings.

No comments on items not on the agenda.

No public comments on items not on the agenda.

Tabled.

Krishna shared about recent and upcoming events, including Family Engagement Night yesterday; Winter NWEA happening now; OUSD Board Vice President Hutchinson coming to visit February 5th; No School 2/16 for Staff PD day; Family Observations are the week week of February 20; and Conferences are week of February 26. Krishna shared enrollment applications updates and the school will join the Enrollment Fair this coming weekend. Sarah asked and Greg shared OUSD's latest application numbers that were shared at OUSD's most recent board meeting. Kara asked and Krishna responded that the school won't fill up a Primary classroom with additional Kinder students in the scenario of having fewer TK students, because that has impacts in the later years throughout Lower Elementary grades. On Staffing, the school recently welcomed Mx. T as a Support Teacher in Manzanita and Ms. J as a Student Support Assistant. Currently looking to hire another SSA. Greg asked and Krishna shared that she is the only member of the administrative team that has stated that they don't intent to return to the school in the same role.

No public comments on this item.

Krishna shared an overview of the LCAP, and update on the school's 2023-2024 LCAP. This year there is a new requirement for the board to receive a midyear update on the LCAP. Krishna and her team added midyear data updates to the goal metrics and action items. Academic growth data overall is trending higher than the prior year, and in subgroups. Chronic absence rates are trending lower than the prior year, but the attendance rate is also. Krishna shared that there are some metrics that aren't updatable midyear, like if measured by SBAC. Krishna clarified that there was no template provided for this update, and Greg clarified that there is a template provided to use at the end of 2023-2024 as part of the 2024-2025 LCAP adoption.

No public comments on this item.

Sarah shared how the Board had prior discussion with the Head and Assistant Head on goals that would drive the school to being widely successful over the longer term. The Admin team and staff developed six goals and have been working on them for over a year now. This proposal is a reflection from the Admin team on what is still needed in terms of investment for more progress to be made, and across all the goals. The staff have had access to this proposal, too, but also need more time to weigh-in. Most of the progress has been in the goals related to the day-to-day operations of the school, and less progress has been made in the larger goals of Montessori credentialing and training, fundraising, and serving three year olds and the facilities and Human Resources implications of that in Primary classrooms. Sarah asked and Daniel clarified that the admin team all worked on this proposal. Greg asked if the admin team was looking for the Board's approval and if so tonight. Krishna clarified, no, not tonight, and that the Board's work will likely be more so to approve a final budget, and that this proposal is a preliminary recommendation that will get further refined for consideration in the budget. The basic consideration is whether or not, and then also how much investment to make and for how long, if the investment requires to utilizing the fund balance. Emily commented that it's important for parents and the FAC to also work in alignment towards the same goals, and perhaps help more in some areas as volunteers. Sarah echoed that comment.  The Board discussed the need to focus on school facilities improvement, including with families, and that there hasn't been sufficient capacity to really dream bigger. Krishna shared that the school can operate its status quo as is, but can't grow the training center or consider serving three year-olds without upfront investment. How the potential new positions would be incorporated into the organization chart was discussed. Greg offered that the Finance committee could spend time in February looking at a more detailed financial scenario. Amy commented about the discrete areas of the proposed work and if there are different scenarios to consider on how best to staff up the proposed FTE. Daniel commented that the idea is for the initial investment in capacity would need to bring in revenue to pay for itself and more. Sarah shared next steps of the Finance committee discussing financial scenarios and Executive and Governance committee discussing organizational structure scenarios. In the meantime, staff, FAC, and the public can continue to do discuss and weigh-in on the proposal.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gf5SICWjpMBft5r6LThxjKor2Xy-dov_q9jii5XgDgw/edit#heading=h.zfmkyxtx7kzv

No other public comments on this item.

Sarah shared the current Head of School job description and asked the Board and participants to read and make suggestions or comments. The job description is available under the Documents of this meeting. After reading, the discussion was that the document was recently adjusted and will continue to work as is. Emily asked the group discussed if there's a weighting of importance of some areas over others. Sarah shared that it will be important to look at a candidate in the context of the team's existing capacities, and how the pieces might fit (or not). Sarah then shared a proposal for a search process, which would be to invite staff to an internal process first. Any qualified internal candidates would go through three panels: students; teachers & families; and Board. The proposal is available under the Documents of this meeting. If no internal candidate is hired, then the Board would search for an external candidate. Greg asked and Sarah clarified that all qualified internal candidates who submit an application can access the panels process. The Board discussed using the school's applicant tracking system. The Board discussed inviting applications next week, helping hosting panels, and the Board panel happen at the next meeting. The Board discussed interviewing some questions in public where appropriate, and some in closed session. Greg commented that he was glad the Board would first consider any internal candidates, and that it can be risky in that any internal candidate not offered the role might consider leaving the school. The benefits, though, of taking that risk are that it's possible to find the right person much sooner and without an expensive search.

No other public comments on this item.

Marcela shared FAC election results, including her serving as President; Rachel and Emily Taylor are Co-VPs; Sara Kagan Real is Secretary; Evan is the Board rep, along with Ann who was elected previously; Sarah and Jill are Facility working group co-leads; Lauren is the Academic work group lead; Community building lead is Kara.

Marcela and the FAC leaders will be hosting Mondays at 2:30pm once a month, the next one is February 12th. The next FAC Zoom is this coming Wednesday at 8:30pm. These are a way for more folks to attend one or the other meeting to help with engagement. Greg shared his appreciation for all the new leaders and volunteers.

Emily shared how she hopes the FAC can support more with school Goings Out and field trips.

No public comments on this item.

Kara gave the report. Tobie joined the last meeting and Daniel's presentation to the committee is included in the public documents. The committee discussed a lot of different data sets including attendance, NWEA, staff/student/family survey results, and the LCAP update.

There were no questions or public comments on this item.

Greg shared that the OUSD agendized their school calendar the prior night for approval. [Note, OUSD did not approve that item, and is expected to take it back up at a future Board meeting, and OUSD staff indicated moving their First Day later but still within the same week as proposed.] Greg shared about the Governor's January budget proposal and less than one percent cost of living adjustment. Greg shared about the upcoming elections that include Alameda County Board of Education Trustees and the importance of participating and voting. Greg asked for help with a website audit process and Amy volunteered. Greg shared about OUSD's proposal for possible criteria on which to consider school mergers.

No public comments on this item.

None.

At 7:39pm, Sarah announced that the board would go into closed session on Public Employee Performance Evaluation - Head of School. There were no public comments.

The board returned to open session at 8:09pm. Sarah shared that no actions were taken.