Frayser Community Schools
Minutes
FCS Board Meeting (Web Meeting)
Date and Time
Tuesday March 9, 2021 at 5:30 PM
Location
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Directors Present
A. Cathey (remote), C. Houston (remote), E. Henneghan (remote), J. Thornton (remote), K. Adams (remote), M. Matthews (remote), M. Shepherd (remote), R. Dowell (remote)
Directors Absent
T. Hartwell
Ex Officio Members Present
B. White (remote)
Non Voting Members Present
B. White (remote)
Guests Present
B. Lawson (remote), Katie Wise (remote), L. Warren (remote), T. Hervey (remote)
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance and Guests
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
A. Cathey called a meeting of the board of directors of Frayser Community Schools to order on Tuesday Mar 9, 2021 at 5:35 PM.
C.
Approve Minutes
R. Dowell made a motion to approve the minutes from FCS Board Meeting (Web Meeting) on 02-09-21.
K. Adams seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.
II. CEO Updates
A.
Remembering the Vision
Dr. Bobby White:
- I want to commend and recognize MLK Prep for their Black history program. The program was terrific!
- I also want to mention that MLK Prep is an ASD vaccination site for COVID-19 shots; our school and our organization is at the forefront of this effort and we hosted the first round of vaccination shots last Friday. The second round will be available on March 26. As I always say - we view schools as center of community and were more than a data point. We always serve the community more so than any other operators or organization. As board members, you all should be proud that that's what we are as an organization.
- If everyone can, let's support Mrs. Dowell, who will be speaking with legislators in Washington, DC, via zoom. She will be talking about school infrastructure through the National PTA in an effort to increase the federal budget for infrastructure for aging schools.
III. Academic Excellence
A.
Academic Excellence Committee Updates
Mr. Brett Lawson:
- We currently have 300 students who, at some point along the way, indicated that they wanted to be learning on campus. We have a process in place for parents to indicate whether or not they want their child to be learning on or off campus.
- Each of the schools has an administrator designated to managing students who are approved to return to campus. This allows us to make sure that we weren't overloading the schools.
- This process has started and has gone fairly well; the principals started asking what we do if they don't show up? Many people indicated that they would come to school, but then they didn't come. That's fine if they're learning from home, we're going to keep the attendance based on whether or not they're actually showing up in class online. So, it really doesn't matter to us whether they're home or at school as long as they're getting into class and learning.
- We have another process to connect with students who indicated they would return to school, but they are not showing up physically on campus or virtually. We require those students to resubmit their form to attend class on campus.
- We have started a contact tracing process and I've developed movement logs. When a student comes on campus and gets their temperature checked, they are logged in. When they move to the classroom, they are logged in that specific classroom, and if they leave to go to the restroom, the teacher logs their exit. You can look at a specific time on the logs and see if a student came into contact with anyone. We also use seating charts to see who the students are sitting next to on any given day. All those documents get turned in at the end of the day. The designee scans and sends one copy to the principal another copy to me. It's super low-tech, but we don't have many kids on campus right now and we're trying to decide a faster way to document all movements.
- There are some enterprising teachers at the high school who have experimenting with the process - using a QR code on the door. Students scan the QR code as they go enter and exit a room.
IV. Finance
A.
Finance Committee Updates
Katie Wise:
Cash Flow Forecast
- Cash balance as of 3/4/2021: $4.6M
BEP Revenue – Revenue is currently based on 1,167* students (approximately $10.9M) for FY21
- MLK: 585.7 students
- Westside: 331.7 students
- Humes: 250.05 • Total: 1,167 students
*Note: FCS may see a drop in ADM as a result of the truancy work it’s undertaken the last several weeks. See slide 4 for more information
Public Grants Frayser Community Schools has approximately $3.7M in non-recurring, COVID related grants and $1.9M in public grants that are awarded each year to ASD authorized charter schools
ESSER 2.0
- Frayser Community Schools is expecting to receive $2.9M in grant funding as part of ESSER 2.0. FCS will be able to expend funds through the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
January’s interim financials do not yet account for two components that may come into play for BEP payments March – June, 2021:
- Increase in BEP for Teacher Raises: TN passed a law to fund a ~2% raise for teachers. The final amount and how these funds will be passed on to districts and the ASD and then to charter schools will be more clear once FCS receives its BEP payment and statement with the increase. The state has indicated this should happen in March. Once FCS has received and analyzed the payment, the plan is to offer FCS staff stipends in the amount 2% of full year compensation. This would amount to ~150K. We will provide more information about the final additional revenue and stipend expenses by the next meeting.
- BEP True Up for declined enrollment: As a result of FCS’s work to locate students who were chronically absent, several students were dropped from the attendance list. February’s BEP payment held steady, but we need to monitor March onward to see if there will be a true up with an adjusted Period 7 (February) ADM, which is weighted at 35% of the BEP allocation for the year. Potential impact could be -150K+. We will monitor this allocation and update you by the next meeting.
V. Governance
A.
Governance Committee Updates
Mrs. Arlinda Cathey:
- Board Membership Updates: We're resuming our recruitment process, specifically gearing up to bring on new board members by the start of the new fiscal year (July).
- The Governance committee has developed a google form for all board members to participate in nominating strong candidates for board membership.
- We have a shortlist of individuals that we want to have some conversations with and we're also looking to engage with current or previous FCS parents for board membership as well.
- I want everyone to think about specific individuals that could serve with us, so we've listed preferred areas of expertise and insights that we want potential board members to possess.
- I will be sending an e-mail after the meeting with the link to the board member nomination form. We're accepting nominations through the end of this month. If, by chance, you talk to somebody after March 26, please, of course, share their information with us. What we're looking to do is build a database, that way, when we have individuals roll-off the board, we now have a database we can use.
- CEO and ED Evaluation: As I shared at the Board meeting last month, we will be doing two evaluations this year, one for Mr. Lawson as our ED and the second one for Dr. White, as our CEO.
- This is our first year doing two evaluations and its important to do so given how we're thinking about the leadership of our organization, how we are evaluating their performance, and providing insights specifically for areas where we want to improvement.
- Starting March 10 the ED evaluation will be released directly to board members and network staff and it'll be open from March 10-30. We will then transition as we move into April to the the evaluation for Dr. White, which will be released on April 1 and it will be open for submission until April 20.
- We're seeking 100% participation in these evaluations from the board and network staff. We encourage everyone to take these evaluations seriously due to decisions towards bonuses. Of course, all of the funding decisions go into planning for our budget specifically for the upcoming fiscal year, so I send reminders out about these evaluations. Please know that it is coming from the best place, not me trying to bug you, but me trying to allow you to participate in this beautiful, democratic process.
- TCSC: We will have visitors for the April board meeting, specifically, the Tennessee Charter School Center. They have been reaching out to charters throughout Memphis as they are looking to join board meetings to provide updates regarding how they are attempting to strengthen their relationships with charters across the state.
- They will provide us with a lot of insight around trainings and programming. As you all may remember, Tennessee Charter School Center administered the training we completed in October and November. Tennessee Charter School Center provides oversight and guidance for charters to complete state mandated trainings so this is an excellent opportunity for them to come and tell us about a lot of the new, exciting projects and initiatives they're engaged in and it's also a good opportunity for us to ask them questions too.
Dr. Bobby White:
- Humes Housing Project: About two years ago, Natalie McKinney of Whole Child Strategies, Dr. Catherine Cushinberry of City Year, and I started to talk about this idea of transitional housing and teacher residential housing. We started thinking about creating a zone around Humes with so many blighted properties and land near/around Humes, like the I Promise School Lebron James has in Akron.
- They are building homes, residential facilities for families and young teachers for future residents. A resource center will be built in the neighborhood and all appropriate partners will be available for families.
- We are past the concept phase and moving towards trying to figure out how to make this happen in the Humes area. I know many of you all know Paul Young, who we would work with to acquire this land.
- Again, City Year, Whole Child Strategies, and Frayser Community Schools, in conjunction with Humes as the anchor school.
- The idea right now is for us to own the property and manage it. City Year is a national organization, and they're not going to own and operate the property. Whole Child Strategies - for whatever reason it's not a part of their purview.
- Frayser Community Schools, I thought that this would be something that we could do. I'm not sure that it will be the board's will as we continue to talk about this. I wanted to bring it to your attention today from our conceptual, high-level view.
VI. Development
A.
Development Committee Updates
Mr. Erik Henneghan:
- FCS Day Celebration: The event is scheduled for Sunday, May 23rd. I have spoken to Pastor Floyd, and the location is locked in.
- Regarding the next steps, we will walk through logistics, cameras, and equipment. We're still going to host the event online like we did last year due to COVID-19.
- Results will still be even better actually with the talent that we're bringing to the table, so I'm confident that having the event virtually still makes sense. I want to thank everyone for attending the special meeting to talk about the co-host, Mario Bradley.
- Thank you again to the team who were able to work on the MOU. We have the contract signed and I was able to get that to Ms. Warren yesterday.
- Our agenda will be similar to last year and we have some new talent on the schedule. I also like the idea Dr. White had about bringing some of our students to perform. So as we get more information on that, I'll be able to share with you all who those students are.
VII. Network Updates from the CEO
A.
Pertinent Network Updates and Developments
No new updates at this time.
No new updates at this time.
VIII. Closing Items
A.
Adjourn Meeting
There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 7:00 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
A. Cathey
Documents used during the meeting
- FCS Finance Update 3-9-2021.pdf
- Humes Housing Strategy - Overview.pdf
- HUMES HOUSING PROJECT PROPOSAL.pdf