• Ray recognized Lindsey for putting together the Stakeholder Presentation and leading the charge on our strategic planning this year. 
• Danielle recognized Maggie for being helpful in taking minutes for the Board and for taking on many tasks that aren't hers, Lindsey Sims all the work and organization to put on another successful Multicultural fair, Lindsey Paquette for all the work she's done to prepare and conduct the Strategic Planning session and for the many hours in preparing for the Stakeholder Presentation and to Ms. Amy Pierre-Johnson for taking the open staff seat for the School Accountability Committee. 
• Lisa recognized Ms. Mallick for her work on the presentation for the elementary prospective parent nights. Ms. Krill, Mr. Ryan, Ms. Nerz, Mr. Williams, Ms. Walsh, Mr. Granger, Dr. Greene, and the senior class leadership for their planning and assistance with senior parking spots. Lindsey Paquette for her work on the Strategic Planning session and the Stakeholder Presentation. Danielle Fox for handwriting over one hundred personal thank you notes for staff.
• Samantha recognized Mari, a parent and translator who spent time with those who came for the Ministry of Japan collaboration and Kate Sivarajah for planning the collaboration with the Ministry of Japan. 
• Meryl recognized the teachers who did conferences in a different format this year
• Shaun recognized all the work that the theater students did in preparing for the play, Clue.
• Lindsey recognized Thersea and Robin for their work on the UIP, Lumakar for willingness to serve as the SAC chair for his first year, 

• Lindsey: Zoo field trip, Camp Timberline field trip, Colorado Gifted And Talented Conference
• Shaun: 3 cross country meets
• Meryl: Conferences, Colorado Gifted And Talented Conference
• Samantha: Recognition Dinner for Lynne and Shaun Huang
• Lisa: Colorado Gifted And Talented Conference, senior parking spot painting day, varsity girls volleyball games
• Danielle: Colorado Gifted And Talented Conference, Multi-Cultural Fest
• Ray: Multi-Cultural Fest 

Mr. Wayne Granger presented the Executive Director of Operations and Finance Report:

• Lunch: Elementary lunch is time consuming. Plan is to hire a second person to help. Parent volunteers have been a huge help! Getting closer to consistency!
• Had a meeting with My Kids Lunch regarding vegetarian options - limited options but working to find a solution.
• Enrollment: October count should come in at 1575-1577 for enrollment which is less than what is budgeted. The difference will come from other areas in the budget, not a concern that we will need to make any cuts.
• Received a first draft of a template of the new website.
• Adams County Video Project: Theme will likely be tied to kids who have been here k-12, the path of an eagle.

Lynne Whitney presented on the quarterly financials for September:

• Discussed the 2 numbers being represented in the financial update for Days Cash on Hand and which one was to be used for the KPI.
  • Lynne suggested that the KPI number for Days Cash on Hand (152 days) should come from Unrestricted Cash, which includes fundraising, athletics and student accounts. 
• Teachers are no longer using their own devices to work on which led to a large increase in technology funds as teachers are now using provided devices. 
• Year to Date lunch program expenditure: Have not been reimbursed from the state. 
  • Cost is roughly $12,000/week with the cost $4.30/meal. 
  • Cost is backfilled to be close to what we are spending. The state program is a $250mil program which is not close to what's going to be need to cover it. 
  • Currently playing it by ear and continuing to provide what we need to our students.
  • Financial impact long term is still to be determined. Reimbursement is to cover food served only, not those who have to be hired to serve those meals, which will come out of school budget.

Dr. Robin Greene presented the Executive Director of Academics Report:

• Recognized Kelly Stewart for all her work on admissions and Dr. Cynthia Rundquist for re-establishing what a professional learning committee looks like.
• There were over 70 adults that attended the prospective parent night. 
• 28 kindergarten and first grade student applicant were tested using the KBIT assessment on October 25th.
  • KBIT assessment is a brief intelligence test to measure general intellectual ability
• The COGAT test will be administered on October 28th.
  • COGAT assessment is a general abilities test, focusing on reasoning ability. It is different from an IQ test. Done for students 5 years and older.
• Different tests are administered because KBIT can be done on 4 year olds to assess cognitive abilities and is more culturally friendly.

Jenn Roach, Human Resources Manager, presented the operations report:

• Keeping focus on Reimagine Report, dedicated the month of November as the "Month of Thanks". 
• Begin and end the month with the admin team cooking and serving a meal to the staff
• Smoothies, coffee and donuts
• 15 minute massage chair
• Treat cart with a label expressing our gratitude for the staff, telling them how much we appreciate them and that we know that we cannot do what we do without them

Beyond the month of November, 

• Birthday cake and fruit tradition that everyone loved, will be done once a month
• Birthday bulletins
• Birthday boxes available to decorate doors and celebrate each other
• Writing monthly cards - expectation is for admin to write at least 3 a month

• Parent: 10th year attending board meetings, noted it's been a long time since they've been in a joyful and happy environment where the community feels better. Not necessarily that they were bad before but recently they've felt better.
• Teacher: Thanked those involved for the fulfillment of the soccer score board, stating it meant so much to the kids who have been working so hard. Also mentioned the senior parking spot painting day had a significant impact on team building. The kids were excited, encouraged each other, offered to help anyone who needed it.
• Amy Pierre-Johnson: Introduced herself for the nominated staff seat for the School Accountability Committee. 
  • Has been a school counselor for 23 years in k-8
  • 16-17 years have been working with gifted kids
  • Began at Stargate as a special ed para and transitioned to a counselor
  • Interested in SAC to look at what we do and evaluate how to continue to improve on that, explaining even when we're doing a good job, there's always room for improvement

Report

Discussed Amy Pierre-Johnson's nomination, is the only staff member who has expressed interest in fulfilling the last open seat, will be a 1-year seat that she can reapply for at the beginning of next year. 

Will vote later in the meeting to appoint her for the School Accountability Committee.

Dispute Resolution Policy - Change 3 board members present to 2 board members to keep consistent

• Improvement Plan not mentioned in the Dispute Resolution, as previously discussed within the Staff Handbook.
  • Problem seeking to address - If an employee is on an improvement plan, they need to know they're on an improvement plan. How do we know that they know they're on a plan, should they seek counsel from the Board?
  • Problem resolution section needs to contain the process. 
  • Wayne will add wording to add to Staff Handbook so that employees will know they're on an improvement plan.

Recruiting Committee Charter

Made minor changes to create continuity within the term section, removed g as it is out of the scope of the recruiting committee and cleaned up the confidential section.

Discussed hiring a third party consultant to do an overview of the bylaws and policies to identify gaps and determine how to make bylaws longer lasting.

• Beneficial to bring in a set of fresh eyes. Consultant, Carleen, has extensive involvement with charter schools. 
• Can get deliverables out by March.
• Proposal can be found here. 

• Changes need to be made to Board Calendar to ensure there is adequate time between BOY, MOY and EOY evaluations.

Proposal for Parent and Staff Satisfaction Survey is $4,000

• Includes reviewing the existing survey together, will advise if changes are needed.
• Build approved survey questions into Qualtrics
• Distribute surveys to parents and employees
• Write up a parent satisfaction report
• Write up an employee satisfaction report

Benefits are that there are no personal bias with using an outside the organization as results are confidential which is designed to encourage honest and transparent feedback. 

Amy Pierre-Johnson has been nominated for the open staff position for the 1-year SAC position. SAC has already voted her appointment. 

Per Election Policy 1.6, "Should a vacancy occur on the elected committee or an insufficient number of candidates exist, the vacancy shall be filled within sixty days by a majority vote of the combined elected members of the Committee and the Board, unless the vacancy occurs within 120 days of the next election. The newly selected member shall hold the position until the first SAC meeting following the fall election, at which point the seat shall be filled via the election process."

Lindsey and Lisa will work on the tracking documents throughout the year. 

• To what level do stakeholders need to be involved in the input of this development? Community voices (Community, Staff, Students) could deliver deficiencies and share their opinions of what they think? Do comprehensively with Mission and Vision.
• Will create a task force for the mission and vision and strategic planning task force (Stargate Next) 
  • Lindsey will lead this, board members will attend as able, will be called under working sessions
  • Discussed soliciting the Social Research Lab to be the secretary for this meeting and then code the results and provide report of discussion/ideas
    • Include both a morning and afternoon session
  • Rough time line - communications to go out early November for idea survey and volunteers for working sessions to be held the first week of December with 2 working sessions. Check with Social Research Lab to help in the analysis of those.
  • January plan is to identify the major themes

Discussed above

• Viewed past meeting attendance via virtual presentation since meetings began being presented.
• Some felt it was necessary to continue to project meetings as well as all presentations
• Difficult to project when it's left to the Board to control the logistics
• Wayne will look at different options to broadcast all gatherings (presentations and meetings)

• Screeners (COGAT) vs Full Scale IQ scores
  • Many psychologists actually prefer an actual score to a percentile rank (more intuitive to understand but compresses what is actually going on) EX: 99%ile to 95%ile are VASTLY different with different neurodivergent needs
• Whole grade acceleration 
• Social Emotional relation to high achievement - discussed the rate of depression, anxiety being so much higher in students of high achieving programs. 
• Myths of certainty and control - how do you talk to these analytical kids who want an answer right now when things are so difficult to understand. 
• Gifted education review focusing on culturally responsiveness of population. 
• GT fair - taking a passion project with design thinking and presenting to a full district. 

November 27th at 8:30 - Lisa & Meryl

Coffee Chat - November 9th at 8:30am

Discussed who would attend the Colorado League of Charter School Conference in February