• Welcome to our guest Tennessee Charter School Center team, and we thank you for joining the Frayser Community Schools Board meeting.
• I'm always getting back centered on why we started this; the school as the center of the community. This month as I completed my CEO evaluation, my portion of it, I just was encouraged by being able to go back and think through all of the things that we have accomplished.
• Despite the challenges, everyone around the country is facing, I want us to take a moment to remember the vision. Those of you who have evaluated me, if you saw the comments, you would recognize all of the things we've done to date. School is the center of the community and us being intentional about embracing our place in this space. To lead and be the change agents in the communities that we serve. We make sure that we are celebrating ourselves in this extremely challenging year.
• We developed the first drive-by graduation and it seemed like the other schools in the city copied us because we were able to pull it off. The drive-by-graduation was something we designed with a little more detail than other schools. Our students were given a backpack with keepsakes in them, so they would never forget the community and their experience at MLK. 
• Also, for the seven years, our organization has been in the black. For many organizations, this is unheard of as it relates to our budget. We provided our student's laptops and do our wellness checks from the telephone calls to our parents, and we've pulled it off.
• Despite the challenges we have faced with our wellness checks, it was beneficial to do the self-evaluation because it allowed me time to reflect on what we have done over the past year.  I want to thank the Board and FCS staff for all of our expertise, which has allowed us to move forward in this direction in a pretty positive way, and you for allowing me to continue to lead and serve alongside you. I'm proud of the work that we've done. And I am pretty sure the people are paying attention to the fact that the small mom-and-pop charter organization, over in West Tennessee, is black founded, and it's predominantly black leadership.
• Standing at the gate to be what the community needs us to be for the families, the students we serve. So I thank you, and I appreciate you all for allowing me to continue serving and leading this organization.
• We always celebrate those who are a part of our family. Today is the day to celebrate Erik Henneghan, who is our board vice-chair. Eric has been named the Associate Project Manager at All World Project Management. We always want to celebrate when our folks are recognized for the skillset they have. So I like to congratulate Erik as he moves to this next part of his career. Thank you for being a part of our team. We appreciate it, and we wish you well in this next era of your career. 

• Thank you all for allowing us to be here today. We want to share some of the things we're working on and get some feedback from you all today.
• So our purpose today is to tell you who we are, discuss the current governing board resources that we currently offer.
• My name is Joshua Perkins, and I am the Director of Quality Schools and Programs. I oversee school support, resources, and governing board professional development. So, any of those things, you can reach out to me and I'll do my best to provide whatever the issue or concern is or whatever resource you need.
• And we also have Jaques Hamilton, which a lot of you are familiar with. He's our Programs Coordinator and he oversees our governing board training compliance and our bimonthly governing board meetings, which is something that we're trying to take up a notch this year.
• Right now, our governing board resources include the ad council. This is one of our monthly meetings held only for the Shelby County Charter schools. We did open it up statewide when we had some presenters from the Tennessee Department of Education, but these meetings are specifically for Memphis schools, Shelby County schools; and this is an opportunity for you to discuss the state and county policy agenda. Any policies that you think should be changed or implemented are where these conversations are had. We also discuss grant updates, requirements, and deadlines.
• If you have any suggestions or policies that you would like to discuss, you're more than welcome to email Carra Powell. She's our Director of Policy here for Shelby County, and her e-mail is carra@tnchartercenter.org.
• Our bi-monthly board meetings are something that we've implemented this current year, and these meetings are bi-monthly and led by different charter schools within the state. And so, we would love Dr. White if you, your board, would like to present.
• Usually, it's the board chair and a school leader, but you're more than welcome to pick any board member of your choice. We want to discuss successes and challenges, especially during this pandemic. And share best practices and the opportunity for schools to talk amongst each other. You want to talk through some challenges with other schools who might have already experienced them; this is the opportunity to do that. Jaques oversees these meetings and they've been very successful. 
• Also, we have charter one-on-ones, typically for new schools and any schools that want to expand. With this you have facility training, operations training, finance training, and a timeline guide that we provide.
• If you all feel the need to join these meetings or even share it with someone you know is a new operator that wants to open a school, please share the information.
• Governing board compliance is one of the things that's heavily discussed for board members. Every year, we know that annual training must occur so new members have 12 months to complete training from their start date and turn in their documentation to  TCSC. All documentation goes to Jaques; he oversees the process and makes sure he turns it into the authorizers to let them know that you are compliant.
• Notice the public meetings and I like that this meeting is being recorded - including meeting date, time, and location. If virtual, you must provide the meeting link, it should be posted for those who would like to join. 
• We want to know how we can better support you.

Greg Thompson:

Cash Flow Forecast Cash balance as of 4/8/2021: $4.6M

*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

Increase in BEP for Teacher Raises: TN passed a law to increase the BEP for FY2021 (2% increase to the teacher salary portion of the formula) to enable teachers to receive a 2% increase in salaries. The practical effect of this was an increase in the BEP amount from $9,571 per student to $9,642 per student. That resulted in a $82K revenue increase for FCS for this fiscal year. FCS has provided a 2% increase to all of its employees retroactive to the beginning of the year (about a $150K expense impact on the budget).

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 as did the March payment (which is not yet reflected in the following financials), but we need to monitor future BEP payments to see if there will be any true ups with an adjusted ADM. Potential impact could be -150K+. We will monitor this allocation and continue to update the finance committee and board.