Dr. Bobby White:

•  In remembering the vision, I would like to pass it over to Ms. Adams. We both witnessed and experienced something with our students, with our schools, as we started testing that we had not anticipated.
• We thought that the coronavirus in the pandemic was more robust than maybe our communities were because of how challenging it's been for us to get students in the building since we've been back in person. But, we had a pleasant surprise, specifically in our middle schools.
• She and I started this journey together, at Westside Middle, leading in the school. I want Ms. Adams to share some of the good news that she got or some things that happened in her school related to the students coming into the building to test. Because I think that speaks to who we are, school the center of the community. People in the community believe in us enough to know that their schools are safe. 

Ms. Kimberly Adams:

• Thank you for giving me a few minutes to state that I was so surprised about the number of students that have come into our building actually to test. Remember, we were speaking in the last meeting, and Dr. White had mentioned, and I concur that we were not going to get the 80% of the students into our buildings. At Westside Elementary, we have 100% of fourth-graders have tested. We're at 96% now, a third-grade, and we're still like 97% in our fifth grade. They were excited to be there.
• I know Westside Middle is hitting the same type of numbers, well, in the high eighties, nineties of kids coming into the building. And it was shocking because we have been away from them for a whole year, and we felt no disconnect. 
•  I had a third-grader come in today who was doing a makeup test. And I said I'm so glad you're here. She said I wanted to come, but my mom wouldn't bring me; I'm happy to be here. So for her to say, she was glad to take the TN Ready to do her part for our school to stay in a good position. You know, it goes to show and her being a third-grader, and this is her first real testing year. So, for her to know and understand a culture, like, hey, we need you, and for them, this step, and it's just been outstanding in both schools.
• Now we're moving into the Summer Learning Academy at Westside  Elementary. And, you know, Westside Elementary has signed up 135%, well over the expectation of what we're supposed to do in a district. People are calling me and asking, what did you do? And I didn't do anything outside of the normal; Frayser embellishments that I have a tendency to do at Westside. I say, hey, I'm just going to sign you up. Are you coming, OK? I sign them up instead of having the parents doing it. So when I talk to mom, I say, "mom, we have a summer academy. Do you want your child to come?  Mom says, sure, OK, let me sign them up. So we make it as easy as possible for them. But they have that amount of trust to say, hey, we trust you, Ms. Adams, we're going to send our babies. 

Cash Flow Forecast
Cash balance as of 5/11/2021: $4.65M
BEP Revenue – Revenue is currently based on 1,166* students (approximately $11M) for FY21
• MLK: 582.7 students
• Westside: 336.6 students
• Humes: 246.5
• Total: 1,167 students

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.

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 $9,687 per student. That resulted in a $135K 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.
• BEP payments have held steady as did the March payment (but we will continue to monitor future
• BEP payments to see if there will be any true ups with an adjusted ADM).

Erik Henneghan:

• I'm excited about what's happening right now with the fundraiser and I just want to update you on what we've been discussing for the last couple of weeks.
• We've been working with Ms. Williams on marketing. I also know Ms. Cathey sent out an e-mail to the board with text message templates, sponsorship templates, the event flyer, and a lot of information about the event that you could be able to pass along. We also started marketing last week as well.
• We've been getting great feedback from the flyers. We've placed it on Facebook from the Frayser Community Schools Facebook page, so I want to let you all know about that. We've also sent the individual flyers to all of the performers. They have the show's run, event flyer, and all of the information they can pass along to everyone for the show, so everyone has the communication. I ask again, you all continue to share the flyer. Please continue sending the text message template and sponsorship template to your network and fundraising leading up to the event.
• Currently, we have five donors already who have donated funds to the event. So, we'll include that as a great start, and we're going to continue to build on it. So, I asked the board to continue to push this to your network, so we can continue to raise funds.
• I want to talk about logistics a little bit to give everyone some information. Cedrick and I spoke to Lieutenant Price; we received his contact information from Mrs. Dowell in the development meeting. Cedrick was able to work with him to get security for the event. I am meeting with Mr. Hill, Pastor Floyd's, son this week to go over the event, and we're going to be map out the parking lot. I will have a map for you all as well. I know last year we had many volunteers for the event, so I'm going to ask, again, we still need volunteers. I'm going to ask all Board members, and I'll send an e-mail asking you guys. 

Cedric Houston:

• Lieutenant Price will have two officers at the event, and I will be there. He asked that I contact him a week before to make sure everything is the same. He might add additional officers as well. So we'll have the officers there for approximately three hours. 

Mr. Brett Lawson:

• Evening, I have some good news to report on our TN Ready testing. I think you all have seen the numbers. Dr. White sent those out to you. The trend that we are witnessing is fascinating. As we've already talked about, Westside is leading the way in getting kids back and taking the test; you know, continuously getting 89% to 95% on first try on a test.
• Humes is close to that, and they are still doing make-up testing and getting some kids back. They still can get to the same level with their testing, as well.
• Now MLK, on the first test, has been hitting much slower; some test in the 50% mark. Many kids are coming back in for make-up testing once they have been called.  The counselors call, let the parents know, give the make-up time. So there seems to be some dynamic at the high school around not wanting to be there for the initial testing coming on the make-up days. Ms. Mickey said this morning that "students think it will be quicker" when they come in on the make-up. And in some cases, that might be true; they can make up all the tests that they missed in one day. So they just wanted to take care of it all in one day, so they're waiting around.
• The ASD let us know last week that there are primary pick-up or delivery dates for all the testing materials, even though the test window does not close until this Friday. They want us to start bringing things in tomorrow and Thursday. So they've asked for us to sign up for each school and deliver the materials back. There is a make-up window that extends on for another two weeks. So if we hold back materials that we need for students who have not taken the test, we're still able to work for two weeks to get kids to come in and do make-ups.
• At this point, I'm very confident that we will make 80% at each of the locations. We still have so many more coming at the middle school that that percentage, as a network,  will come out to 80% for all three of our schools. We should be able to meet the criteria and get the waiver on the test for this year. 

Dr. Bobby White:

• Over the last year or so, you know I've been troubled by who we are as an organization. We're not represented how or what I started the organization to be. We tended to start to look a lot more like with schools; I wanted to separate ourselves from,
• There are some pockets of greatness in pockets of excellence in all of our schools. And yes, Humes seems to be this beacon of light as far as the school is the center of the community.
• Our organization is actively anti-racist, and how we treat our students and what our discipline numbers look like, who we say we are as a black-run, black, founded organization. We have a majority of black teachers serving poor black children. That just began to bother me when the data wasn't adding up. And, you know, over this past year, since we've been out, I wanted to re-energize our organization from the standpoint of understanding those things and being markedly different.
• So, keeping the things going well, we're moving to a couple of things that we have not done well, but then, we're now going to make it part of what we do, meaning, one, being a no-suspension school. The only time students will be suspended in our schools from this point forward is for zero-tolerance offenses. We will have a process to deal with behaviors, but they will only be suspended for zero-tolerance offenses moving forward
• We were awarded a grant in each school for the trauma-informed training and what it will look like when we plan it all out. We can't talk about that in detail right now. But those are things that will be in place with us having a restorative justice component at MLK and those other pieces that we talk about. We are going to be better, and we're going to be a little different. I want people to know there is a black-run organization that is actively anti-racist. Understands that even though most of the staff are black, they have these unconscious biases, the driver, their decisions around, discipline, and the actions they take against black and poor students.
• Even though we don't have any white students in our school, we're still following what everyone else follows that relates to our students. And I'm genuinely excited about the fact that I am 100% back to being Bobby L. White Jr, the guy I was before I left Memphis City Schools; when I was a principal in Westside. And I'm not taking any excuses for it anymore. We're going to either be this kind of an organization or cease to exist because it makes no sense for us to continue and look exactly like Frayser High School. We have to be different, and we're going to be different. 
• When we come back to the board meeting, we would have had more time, the principles, and our network innovation team to flesh out what all of these pieces are going to look like. We've already put that restorative justice position into MLK's budget for next year.

Mrs. Arlinda Cathey:

•  I want to let everyone know Dr. Marcus Matthews submitted his resignation from the board. I hope you all will wish him well and still stay in contact with him. 
• We have been connecting with new potential board candidates. So, Kirby Tucker with the University of Memphis, Rex Hamilton with Shelby County Schools are nominations that we receive from Joia, so we're super thankful for her nominations. Jasmine Tremble is with FedEx, one of my nominations. We have set up one-on-one's with them for this week. I wanted everyone to know.
• I will move forward with sharing their apps and resumes with the rest of the board.  We will hold open sessions with other board members that can join. That way, every one can meet with them and ask them questions before moving them onto their last one-on-one, which will be with Dr. White. At the next board meeting, I hope to bring a vote on their candidacy or, at least, board membership.
• We have also been in conversations with two FCS parents, Lisa Coleman and Carla Tolbert. We're not putting them through as much of a hefty vetting process as we have for our regular board candidates. It's been one-on-one with Dr. White and myself. They already have buy in with FCS.  We're very excited to bring them to the board just as parent representatives; and have a solid parent advisory representative. So, that is extremely exciting. The board nomination form is still out there if you have thought of someone you would like to recommend.
• In regards to the CEO and executive director evaluations, thank you to everyone for taking time out of your schedule to submit their feedback. We have completed collecting responses for both Dr. White and Mr. Lawson. We sat down and reviewed the board's responses and the network staff to provide an overall evaluation and analysis of their performances over this past year.
• The next step is that the Governance Committee reconvenes and will share all of the information in a report prepared for the June board meeting. Lastly, I wanted to let everyone know that I will be sending out a survey regarding our annual board retreat. I'm looking to gather feedback around the preferred date and time format. As we continue to move back to in-person meetings and in-person gatherings gradually, I would like to get a sense of where everyone is regarding your feelings around coming back together for at least a retreat in person. I also want to see if they're already vacation dates that are out there. So, that way, we can attempt to align all of our schedules and have a day, not a full day, but at least more than a couple of hours to work on some things break out into communities. I do plan on reaching out to the Tennessee Charter School Center to see if they would be open to facilitating some sessions with us and help us develop some concrete goals for the upcoming year. So please be on the lookout for that survey. It will be coming to you soon.

No update at this time.