There were no comments at this time

Artie reviewed previous meeting actions. 

Artie reminded members that the annual retreat will be held in June and the date that most trustees' are available is Saturday June 4th, 2022. The meeting will be be conducted in person with a zoom link available and will begin at 8am.

Most important of these goals, other than the HoS evaluations is Board and Committee membership. We have done well but we need to attract additional volunteers.

Please see the meeting packet for details.

Kim Ginsberg will begin on Monday May 2nd as the new HR person

Stephanie Brant has been hired to become the new Dean of Students and will begin in September.

An additional 7th/8th grade math teacher, Chris Doyan has been hired for the Fall.

Two Endicott teaching fellows have been hired to begin in September.

Dr Cohen presented his slide deck of his annual goals and progress to date.

Please see packet for details of the presentation.

Questions were asked by Paul, Ian, Nick and Rudy regarding various aspects of the presentation.

John Steinburg, as always, presented an enlightening insight into all of the surveys and evaluations. Despite concern from the HoS regarding the validity of the VAl-Ed surveys, John assured us that it is the most robust survey available and stands behind it 100%.

The good news, aside from a couple of concerning differences, the staff, HoS and Board are, in the main, aligned in their perception of the school and its leadership. In the words of Martha Stewart, "that's a good thing".

Please see meeting packet for all of the survey results. Please note that names have been redacted from all comments.

Year end HoS survey packet is to be completed and returned to Artie by noon on Monday, 5/9/22.

Monsieur Herve, with additional, and much needed input from esteemed MCCPS Business Manager, Jeff Barry, presented the budget for the 2022/23 school year.

Again, the budget is based on a conservative enrollment of 224 students. This together with a proposed increase in PPE from the state and only a 1% increase in healthcare costs has allowed us to raise staff salaries 5% across the board as well as hire an additional math teacher, Dean of students and much needed Human Resources manager.

Saturday June 4th for retreat 8:00am-1:00pm.

Please send along items for the retreat agenda

Beginning with the May meetings all committee's should go to hybrid format. A quorum of board and committee members must be present in person for the meeting to adhere to OML.

Committee member Nick Santoro presented the Trustee self evaluation that the Governance committee has been working on. It was decided that the committee would have one more crack at fine tuning it before presenting back to the Board at the May meeting.

Rudolphe presented the monthly financials. All looks well and we can look forward to finishing the school year in the black. Well done to Jeff Barry and the entire FinCom membership for their work throughout the year.
 

Artie shared that the Personnel committee worked on finalizing the staff report/survey.

Committee Chair Jess Xiarhos shared that the committee will be presenting their Criteria for Excellence to families in May.

The committee will also provide the Board with a presentation of the MCAS results at the Mat Board meeting

Chair Ian Hunt shared that the next meeting will be held on May 2nd. 

Their last meeting focused on helping to highlight future fundraisers  

Bottom line, we really need volunteers for any future initiatives to be viable. Volunteerism is at the heart of all Charter Schools and we need to reinvigorate the community and have them be a part of the school ethos once again.

Chair Nick Santoro shared that there had been two sparsely attended Parent focus evenings, one in person and one via Zoom. Nevertheless, there was some valuable input from those present.

A student focus group was also held for the student body and the staff focus group will follow in early May.

Chair, Will Rockwell shared that the Mural artist is booked and ready to start working, with student input, during the first week of May, weather permitting.

Kitchen Renovation is high on the kist of priorities and work will take place during the summer break.

HVAC inspections are complete and we are awaiting suggested courses of action..whatever the prognosis this will be a large ticket item.

Regarding the roof, replacement will need to happen sooner than later. This too will require a large outlay of funds. There are minor repairs needed for the roof in the short term.

NDack shared that there was no meeting held in April.

Next meeting set for a yet to be scheduled date in May.

There was no comment at this time!

Paul spoke regarding some disparities in comments by staff in the surveys and given the large number of newer staff, suggested that perhaps staff could benefit from some form of tutorial regarding how charter schools operate, where school funding derives from as well as the educational format being, in the main, classroom teacher driven.

Some redactions of names need to be made on the parent surveys before making the final packet/minutes public.

Reminder that HoS evaluations due back to Artie by noon on May 9th.

Productive, insightful, and adhered to the "Goldilocks mantra" of not too long, not too short..Just right!