L. Kovalesky.:

ES and Secondary highlights

    Parent conferences next week

    Love of reading

    WISH week assembly - student led, great event

All school 24/25 master schedule creations, teacher offer letters, spring break and CMAS Testing. 

Student Highlights

    Met MS TSA Chapter for the 10th year

    TSA - HS/MS over 12 placements

    Science Olympiad- 2 teams qualified for state and ranked 4th and 6th out of 29 teams

    Andrew Hathaway accepted to the Air Force Academy

    Two National Merit finalists- Spencer Neucks and  Luke Paulka

    Anirudh Rao National STEM Champion in STEM Challenge

M. Gasser:

Standards Based Learning- Secondary teachers discussed pros and cons of SBL

SBG Working Group is exploring an option that would eliminate the need for Mastery Connect

Sandbox compared to Mastery Connect

BOD Comments:

Are you getting feedback from teachers about inconsistency between teachers about how they enter things?

    Yes, now we are trying to standardize so that it can come down to PD planning where our assessments can be planned and expected.

Is there a way to create a parent friendly view that we can see the grades? 

    Sandbox can eliminate some missteps here. 

I suggest you invite parents who have been frustrated with it to come take part in the group. 

Were we the first school in the district to do SBL? 

    No, we were one of the first. Douglas county is working toward greater participation. 

M. Cartier:

Colorado League of Charters Conference - We were able to network with a lot of people to talk about networking and communications

Bellwether Consulting- 

We met from 9-5 today. There are 3 other schools going through the process which is about 1/2 way done. The BOD members took a survey. 

Growth Opportunities Update-

The plan is to have the governance committee and BOT review. The survey will be discussed next month. 

Draft Plan: Deepen and Expand-

DEEPEN: Add a preschool (100 students), Homeschool program (100 students), and summer school classes/camps (500 students) to the existing location.

EXPAND: Add 2 elementary schools within a 15 minute drive of the Highlands Ranch campus that will educate 450 K-5 students and 100 preschool students at each campus. 

Enrollment Plan-

Intent to return form- 1406 kids have an intent to return. We are also engaging with communications and marketing to have a sales funnel website. We are hiring a new Associate Director of Enrollment.  The effects of these changes will be evident in 18 months. 

BOD Comments-

Have you decided how you will staff the Summer School?

    We would use current STEM teachers who want extra work over the summer. 

Can you explain the Homeschool program? 

   Students are at home 4 days per week and at STEM one day per week to take electives and socialize. We would hire a Homeschool Director.

Regarding enrollment, I think it would be great to also ask our girls "What can we do to keep you here, and how can we attract more girls to this school?" 

    Yes I think looking at girls vs. Boys in the enrollment and retention numbers would be great.   

S. Ake:

Shared a projection of where we will finish at with finances for this year. 

Mill Levy- 

We did get the first half of the Mill Levy (based on 1396 students)STEM received $1089/ student. That money has started to come in and will continue through the rest of the year. 

Interest income - 

We estimated $40-50,000 per year, and it sits at about 12-13 million. We are currently at approximately $60,000 interest. 

End of year projections- 

    We are looking toward getting a lot of our facilities repairs/maintenance completed before the end of June. We have an estimate to repair the roof and do some RTU Units repairs, and we are working on finding out if it is doable to complete using this year's budget. 

Budgeting Annual Cycle- 

October - December- Dreaming, strategic thinking operational plans

January - February- Turn Operational plans into next year's budget

February - March- Refine with current year's projection to finish the year and confirm PPR

April 15th- proposed budget due to DCSD

May 31- Adopted budget due

September 15th-Update based on enrollment

December 15th- Report to DCSD

S. Ake shared the Budgeting Overview & Process and introduced a new process.

New Process- 

We have created 15 budgets for each department, S. Ake created a template and shared it with each department. They accumulated the information and sent it back. This will help the staff leadership have some ownership over their part of the budget and we will also use it as a tool for alignment together. 

Next Steps- 

1.    DCSD announced that they would do 5% increase and the PPR went down by $100 per student. These are 2 negatives for us. We are incorporating this cost to the 2024-25 budget and looking at what we can do this year to take expenses off next year's budget. 

2.   Finalizing budgets for 2024-2025 school year: Operational Budget, Capital Projects Budget, Grants Budget, Fundraising Budget.

3.   Work with BOD Treasurer to finalize budget,

4.   Continue research and develop plan for potentially using cash reserves if needed

The Fundraising annual fund is visible on the website. Focus on three pillars- Academics, Enrichment, Athletics. 

Policy review is done.

Handbooks review ongoing.

The mid-year check in with CIO is complete. Discussions entailed renewal, compensation, etc. 

K. Reyna and E. Quigley will meet with M. Cartier on Tuesday. There will be a Zoom on March 26th to discuss decisions on compensation that can affect the budget. All BOD members will take a look at our calendars to see if we can reach quorum. The zoom meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 26th- Tuesday 6:00 PM. This will need to be confirmed with K. Reyna and I. Kalra. 

The budget will be shared one week before the next BOD meeting. Any feedback we have on the budget, will be discussed then. The final approval of Budget and CIO salary will be made May 14th.

Nominee for STEM Board of Directors Treasurer: Darrell Lomelino

Timeline for Election:

All biographies and photos (if desired) should be submitted 1 week before election, April 22nd. This should give enough time for everyone to view the candidates. 

Election will run April 28-May 4.

Board training tentatively scheduled all day on June 21st. This may be rescheduled after confirming with all board members. 

CIO Contract Renewal 

Handbooks

Bellwether

Center for Strength