E. Womer read the mission statement.

D. Palmer read the Zoom webinar rules.

No community comments.

• Celebrations - athletics; Math Madness team will be advanced to the elite 8; Robotics Team "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" won an award
• Admissions and Marketing
  • Charlotte Parent Fair
  • Charlotte's Best Ad and Banner
  • Hosting 5 Virtual Q&A Sessions
  • Three Tuesday tours in December
  • December Preschool outreach campaign - 100 preschools identified
  • Social Media: Facebook, Instagram
  • 300 applicants to SA for the 25/26 School year
  • Group testing will begin on Saturday, January 25th and February 1, 2025
  • Private testing is due February 7, 2025
  • Dominique mentioned that the Board is available to help with the group testing and tours
  • Daniela asked which pre-schools were identified - Mr. Carper said they identified pre-schools that are not associated with CMS. 
• Professional Development Plan
  • Depth and Complexity training (December 6th next training)
  • Vertical Planning
  • Teacher's Professional Development Plans
• Observations and Evaluations
  • This year, SA is required to use the NC Educator Evaluation System
  • Comprehensive: Beginning teachers: Pre-observation conference with teacher followed by 3 observations
  • Standard: Experienced teachers: one formal observation with a pre-conference; 2 formal or informal observations and a summative evaluation.
  • Abbreviated: Teachers employed for more than 3 years; two informal observations 
  • Professional Development Plan - professional growth plans are required for all teachers
  • Dominique asked what is the typical duration of the observation - Mr. Carper said it is typically 45 minutes to the entire class for the Comprehensive and Standard and 20 minutes for the Abbreviated.

• We have had one nomination for a Board member director position and we will be scheduling an interview soon.

• The 2023-2024 Audit Report that was approved in the October Board meeting was submitted for charter renewal. 
• This was the last document requested of us. 
• We expect to hear a decision January or February 2025

• BACKGROUND - NC lawmakers passed a bill to require schools to safety threats. HB 605 requires assessment of and intervention with an individual whose behavior poses a risk to the safety of school staff, students, or self, including suggested definitions of threat levels with examples of behavior that would be considered a threat under given definitions. 
• Ms. Zagorski has put forward a procedure that complies with the guidance issued by the Center of Safer Schools. This procedure is attached for reference. 
• Erica Womer asked about the last sentence regarding "developing these policies". Malik said that the Board did technically develop the policy as required but then the administration pulled information from the Center of Safer Schools. The requirement from the Center of Safer Schools was confusing regarding the wording. Daniela and Malik explained the details of the decisions more specifically. 

• FYI - We have inquired with the other committees about the need to update certain policies and ask that they include policy edits on their various committee agendas so that we can provide assistance if needed, as necessary (i.e. Media policy etc).

• Our school will benefit from having a policy outlining the appropriate use of video surveillance in our school within the boundaries of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
• The Governance Committee has prepared a policy attached for the first read to the Board.
• Policy requirement - Need to establish parameters on retention, who can use the information, and who can request the video footage. 
• The school will then determine the procedures behind the policy. The committee met with the administration to discuss different scenarios. 
• Will be asking the Board to approve at the next meeting.
• Enrique asked about the time frame and whether or not it is adequate. The committee did discuss with the administration and agree that the time frame is adequate. However, there is language in the policy where additional time can be requested.
• Enrique asked if we have the ability to blur faces and/or redact portions of the video if needed. Malik said that these items were discussed and researched to appropriately include within the policy.
• Erica asked if the retention periods are mandated by law. Malik said they are not but they based that retention time on the system space/memory limitations.

AGC current numbers:

• Pledges $166,441
• Donations $81,544
• Total to date about $249K (about 55% of financial goal)
• about 67% and donations are about 33% of the total.

SA family participation is 52.7%. Thanks4Giving pledge drive is on until November 30.

Parent Ambassadors will continue to reach out to families about pledging. Thank you to the Parent Ambassadors who do a great job reaching out to families.

• Strategy planning meeting about where we have been with regards to expansion and where we plan to go from here.
• December 4th at 6pm, the meeting is public
• Dominique said that we will have more to share in the January board meeting about this December committee meeting and a survey will be coming soon for families.

• General overview of what is going on this year. 
• Part time counselor is helping with K-3rd grades. Ms. Chicano focuses on grades 4-8th.
• Service projects to help the kids give back to the community, including the school we are helping recover from Hurricane Helene  (Fernleaf). 
• Bully prevention month was October
• Align Eagle Vision Awards and SOAR awards
• Book club on the book: Anxious Generation

• The Middle School Computer Science Program is under review to comply with new state requirements.  The target completion is March 2025 for the 2025 - 2026 school year 
  • For reference, the requirement is found here: Computer Science Graduation Requirement | NC DPI
  • Malik asked if the Computer Science program is only for High School and Middle school. Dominique said that they will focus first on the High School course and then will consider how to incorporate the Middle School course. 
  • Mr. Carper said one of the issues is making sure we have adequate staff to teach the curriculum. Dominique said that we do have a couple of staff members qualified to teach some of the classes within the course list.
• Social Studies and Science Curriculum Update 
  • Ms. Z led vertical planning the week of Nov. 18th - looking at the curriculum across all of the grades.

• The committee is reviewing sample policies before drafting proposed changes.  
• The draft will be sent to the Policy Committee in January for their review.
• The goal is to share with the board in February for the first read to the Board

• The Whole Child Committee will lead the Parent Survey development and launch in mid to late January.
• The survey will include questions about foreign language options and incorporate questions from the Whole Child and FAST committees.
• The Survey Draft will be sent to the Board for feedback 

• Finance Committee updates
  • The Finance Committee met last week.
  • Discussed some challenges they are having with the current accounting firm. Enrique asked if we would need to have two firms running in parallel. Adam said that is what we would need to do from about July to October. If we opted to proceed, we would need to explore getting RFPs in the early part of 2025. Adam will talk with the existing firm first to see if things improve.
• Financial Dashboard Redesign in January 2025
  • Adam redesigned the dashboard to meet our current needs.
  • Summarized the Quarterly Financial Snapshot
  • We are in a very strong financial position.

No community comments.

No closed meeting this week.