Frayser Community Schools
Minutes
FCS Board Meeting - October 2021
Date and Time
Tuesday October 19, 2021 at 5:30 PM
Location
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 990 2081 9458
Passcode: xHj49e
Directors Present
A. Cathey (remote), J. Thornton (remote), K. Adams (remote), K. Tucker (remote), M. Shepherd (remote), R. Dowell (remote)
Directors Absent
R. Hamilton
Ex Officio Members Present
B. White (remote)
Non Voting Members Present
B. White (remote)
Guests Present
B. Lawson (remote), G. Thompson (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 Oct 19, 2021 at 5:40 PM.
C.
Approve Minutes
K. Adams made a motion to approve the minutes from FCS Board Meeting - September 2021 on 09-14-21.
R. Dowell seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.
II. CEO Updates
A.
Remembering the Vision
Dr. Bobby White:
- I was excited for our young people today. Twenty-one of our students received scholarships today for their academic greatness! It simply was the best day that we've had at MLK in at least four or five years. I was in tears, and Commissioner Love was in tears. It was just one of those days that we needed.
- And I remember why we started this some years back for days like this, and I couldn't have been prouder of the group of students there today, how they handled themselves and how Dr. Peterson represented us, as our community, our organization.
- And that truly touched me and everybody in there today. Whether it was Shelby County Schools, employees, pastors, community members, politicians, or whoever they were, they all talked about Dr. Peterson's message. And so it was just a great day all around.
III. Finance
A.
Finance Committee Updates
Mr. Greg Thompson:
Financial Report:
Cash Balance:
- As of 10-18-2021: $2.94M ~72 days of cash (lower cash due to not receiving BEP in July as well as upfront purchases that will be grant reimbursed).
Enrollment:
- Projecting lower enrollment- 1,089 vs. 1,155 original budget
BEP funding
•Currently calculated at $10,029 (less 2.5% fee from ASD) or $9,778.28 per student. This is slightly higher than the number used for the board approved budget ($9,457.50).
•ASD will initially fund FCS based on enrollment from the ending of last fiscal year (see table below)
•A true-up (based on actual enrollment) will occur prior to the end of the calendar year (typically in October).
•We anticipate enrollment being lower than numbers in the board approved budget.
Schools MLK 575 Westside 330 Humes 250 Total 1,155
FY2021-2022 Grants
- FCS will continue to receive a significant amount of funding in federal grants this year and over next several fiscal years (for ESSER 2.0 and ESSER 3.0)
Financial Update
Financial Update
IV. Academic Excellence
A.
Academic Excellence Committee Updates
Mr. Brett Lawson:
- COVID right now, as in the rest of the community, is really on a downturn. We had not had any cases pop up since the week before we left for fall break. So not a lot of activity is happening around that, and that is fantastic news. Hopefully, we can get everybody healthy and back into the school building for the rest of the year.
- Regarding updates about academics and curriculum, we are still looking at our significant trends in the beginning part of the year. We did a walkthrough with instruction partners, which gives us a baseline for the year. It's not all that indicative of too much about what we're doing. But we did notice, in our new curriculum we picked up on a few things that we could quickly address around teachers using the actual curriculum versus veering off and doing things differently. Even though we had reinforced the previous curriculum, we first adopted expeditionary learning four years ago. So fixing those are easy fixes once we see what's going on there.
- Dr. Hervey has done a great job in leading the MCLs to start using walkthrough tools similar to the same walkthrough tools that we use with instruction partners. That feedback is valuable to help the teachers understand what they need to do.
- In addition to that, we've done our iReady diagnostic testing at the beginning of the year. And right now, we're in the middle of our case assessment. If you remember, some time back, we've talked about this before. The case assessment closely mirrors the actual tests that students take at the end of the year. And so, we'll get some essential data from that once that information comes back. This time, we will have the principals and their teams create a response to that data and tell us exactly what they're going to do to improve that data moving forward.
- We've also continued with our four disciplines of execution work this year. The principals have created lists of 18% of their students they believe can move to proficient on a test at the end of the year. And if we can move to 18% proficient again, according to percentiles, from a few years ago, that would get us completely off the list. And that's exactly what we want to do. We want to show we can meet a goal. We have names of the students; we know what they need because we're looking at those diagnostic tests and the case assessments, and we know how to address what they need to move them forward to proficiency.
- So we talked about ESSER money earlier and one thing that we had not done in previous years was start our tutoring programs early in the year. We typically waited until the end, right before the test, and hurry up and let's get ready for the test. Well, that's not what we're doing this year. We're using that extra money to start that tutoring now. And so the following Monday, everybody will have tutoring running. The idea is that we're tracking that 18% of students to make sure that they're coming to tutoring.
- We're taking a different approach to make sure that our schools are academically sound. You have to build a nucleus of students who can show proficiency and then start building from there. So we're concentrating hard on using this tutoring program to build that nucleus of proficient students and then expand from that back point moving forward. So that's where we are academically, not a lot of data or numbers to report today. But that can certainly be something that we do in future meetings.
- Talking about enrollment, I think Dr. White covered this very well. You know, I think we have the names listed wrong in the minutes. I think it's MLK Prep, Humes, and then Westside on the sheet. So Westside is actually at 102% of their enrollment projection. They were projected at 325, and they're actually at 332. MLK were projected at 570, and they're at 595. Humes was projected at 260, and they're actually at 204. So those neighborhood trends are doing what we thought they would do as new apartment complexes open. We expect MLK and Westside to continue to grow and enrollment, and we've got a lot more renovation going on than just the Renaissance. So it's happening all over Frayser. And a lot of those kids will be zoned to us, so we expect that enrollment can continue to increase and Humes will continue to be problematic.
- There's, the development has already occurred, for the most part in that area as far as residential housing goes. There is not as much moving from the east of Humes, but we haven't seen a huge jump in enrollment. And I would be encouraged and just, like character change that might occur when we move under Shelby County. I would hope that they would send some students our way by partitioning the zones differently. But barring that, even changing from an ASD school to a Shelby County Schools charter might lend us a little bit of a bump. But I agree that that's a complicated conversation that we will need to have sooner rather than later; on what our benchmarks will be on making decisions on that as we move through the rest of this.
V. Governance
A.
Governance Committee Updates
Mrs. Arlinda Cathey:
- Everyone should have received an email from me with the details about the Board Smart Training. I'm hoping that everyone is clear in regards to how to access the training and how to complete the evaluation form after each training session to share information with the Tennessee Charter School Center.
- Since it is mid-October, we are getting weekly reminders from their staff to make sure that every board member meets this requirement. So they want to make sure that we meet our November 15 deadline.
- So, I'll say to everyone, please set aside time to view those training to complete the form after each session. Once we get into November, I'll probably have check-ins with everyone to see where you are and if by chance you need a little bit more time with regards to some of the trainings, we'll develop a plan for it. At this moment in time, we have a wealth of time to get it done, but if you're having any issues, just let me know.
- Regarding board recruitment updates, I want to let everyone know this is a process we are engaged in throughout the year. Maybe certain parts of the year we're more heavily engaged, depending who may be rolling off, who may be preparing for a transition. Dr. White introduced Mr. James Dennis, to me, who is former executive director with Memphis Scholars. I have followed up with him to schedule a one-on-one, and we will move forward with the vetting process for him as a board member.
- So for at least Kirby and Rex, although you all just went through the process most recently, you're pretty familiar with the process, which involves couple of different interviews that take place. There's an opportunity for the entire board to connect with this individual to ask questions as well as a talk with Dr. White after it. Once we get this process with Mr. Dennis up and running, I will be reaching out to everyone to coordinate an opportunity for us to meet to interview him. But I do want you guys to be aware of that. That's upcoming.
- Lastly, in regards to updates with the parent trigger petition for West Middle School, Mr. King isn't on a call, but he did send out an email earlier today to update us about where we are. If you haven't seen the email already, I'll give you a quick gist of it.
- He informed us that the requirement is having at least 60% of parents with children currently enrolled at Westside sign the petition. The goal was 199 signatures by October 31. Now, we're at 210 and counting. So we have met the thresholds.
- I think it'll be great if we can continue to have more signatures come in to demonstrate full support for FCS as the operator of Westside moving forward.
- I want to give kudos, although he's not on the call to Mr. King. He is doing great work to make sure we meet this goal, with the Parent Mixer held earlier this month. Kudos to all board members who participated in the phone bank to help Mr. King coordinate the Parent Mixer.
- The ASD is monitoring our signatures, so there's no question about our signatures being valid. Hopefully, by the end of the week, we'll have another email back out to you guys letting you know how the commissioner ruled on it.
VI. Development
A.
Development Committee Updates
No discussion at this time.
VII. 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 6:54 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
A. Cathey
Documents used during the meeting
- FCS Financial Update 10-19-2021.pptx
- Budget Details.pdf
- Budget Summary.pdf