Dr. Bobby White:

• I want to start with MLK's  Black History program. If you watched the entire program, it was great. Of course, a lot of it was teacher-directed with the staff, which is excellent. The student's efforts with that song from the late 80s, I thought, was indicative of the talent that our students have. The effort they'll give us if given the space to be successful at something. We know they did not know that song; they're not from that era. Still, I thought they did a masterful job, and they took me back for a minute. It was what I needed at that time, given everything that's going on this year with our organization and the disappointment that I felt with a number of things that's happened this year. 
• Special thanks to Dr. Chism, the students for their hard work, Ms. Perry, and her staff. It reminded me why we do the work and how unique the babies are in our community. It made me want to keep going. So I hope you have had the opportunity to look at the Black History Program. If nothing more, look at the last 15 minutes of that hour to see those babies in the effort they gave us for the Black History Program.
   

Mr. Brett Lawson:

• We decided to make masks optional in the school because the community spread has dropped to such a level, and all the other schools around us were doing the same. So we made that announcement last Monday. It's interesting that the kids don't want to wear a mask when you make it mandatory. When you make it optional, they want to wear it's an interesting study and human behavior. So when you walk into schools, you still see most of the kids are wearing masks. Most of the teachers are wearing masks. I feel out of place because I'm not. I've been so cautious and been like, yeah, we got to wear a mask, and I got to wear a mask, and I'm following the science. The science is saying the CDC recommendations want to as long as the spread is super low. It's okay not to, so I'm going against what I usually do. 
• Enrollment updates: We're still enrolling students. We had kids visit us today, and we had a new student enrolled today. So that continues to go on. We have a few withdrawals. So keeping enrollment about where it is right now, we do not see a considerable trend line in any direction. 
• Academic and curricular updates: So we are in the middle of case assessment three. And for those of you who may not remember, our case assessment is the test that we do that most mirrors the actual TNReady test. And we do that three times a year. The first two are shorter, and this last one is called comprehensive, so it takes in all the standards. It's a pretty long test. We've gotten most of the kids tested, and we're doing makeup tests as well. We're in prep mode, getting ready for the TNReady test that's coming up in about four weeks. So that's going on right now; there's not much time to go back over something you've missed. But this last case assessment will give us some real pinpoints of significant standard areas that maybe kids have missed during the year that are going to count. 
• Also, the third quarter is at the end of the week. So teachers are getting ready to submit all their grades. Third-quarter report cards come out after we come back from spring break. 
• The big news is tomorrow is our capacity interview for the charter application. So Shelby County Schools charter office will be quizzing five of us to see how well we recall the charter application. And Mrs. Cathey will be joining us, representing the board. Dr. White, Dr. Hervey, Mrs. Gibson, and I will round out the five to answer those questions. We've had some practices over the past week and feel like we are ready and able to stand to deliver that interview in only an hour. And as we've been on any board meeting so far, we do have somebody on that team who can talk for an hour if necessary. So it will not be a problem to come to us that hour even with one question. So we will try to give them a broad spectrum of answers from each of us. But we are we're ready for that, looking forward to that to come. 
• Dr. Hervey is not on this call, but she has stepped in, and she's at day two being the interim principal at Westside. We did a check-in with her today. I've resumed some of my duties earlier in my tenure here with FCS. I'm doing the weekly check-ins with the principals instead of that being her agenda and then taking over some of the other things behind the scenes to keep things rolling. But anyway, we gave her the treatment today. Let her do check in with us. It's just an excellent opportunity to think aloud and brainstorm with your colleagues about things you're facing and check in on things required of us from the state or review items that we need to watch. So that goes on every week. I wanted to let you guys know that's some change that's happening behind us. 

Mr. Greg Thompson:

Financial Update:

Cash Balance:

At 1-31-2022: $1.6M ~40 days of cash (trending toward a higher cash deficit for FY22 due to lower enrollment).

Due to the PPP Loan Forgiveness and one-time income recognition of $1.5M, FCS will likely have a positive net income amount for FY22. However, the organization will likely have a deficit on a cash basis of about $1M. The organization will still be in a health cash position at the end of FY22 (over 60 days of cash)

Enrollment:

Projecting lower enrollment- 1,078 vs. 1,155 original budget. FCS being funded at $10,029 per student currently.

BEP funding (Trend same as January 2022 board meeting):

• 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). 
• True-up calculations happen throughout the year (based on actual enrollment) 
• Enrollment is trending lower than numbers in the board approved budget.

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). 

Additional funding may be pulled down this year for these grants, but it will mean additional expenses for FCS (thus, would not have an impact on the net income level for the year).

Mrs. Arlinda Cathey:

• In terms of governance, we have a few things that are taking place at this moment in time regarding recruitment and a few things that are tied to CEO evaluation and Executive Director evaluation. 
• First, I want to walk everyone through some of our recruitment updates. Last month, I introduced the strategy that the Governance Committee has adopted to ensure that there's proper community representation on the board. Last month I went through each of these different positions regarding making sure that we have a seat on the board filled by someone in the faith-based community; the Frayser CDC, Frayser PTSA. We will ask for recommendations from Ms. Williams, in this case, Mr. King, to possibly have a representative from the FCS Parent Advisory Council on the board as well. These specific seats we are looking to fill during this recruitment cycle. 
• But what I wanted to bring to your attention are some candidates that are, I should say, not necessarily candidates, but leads that we are working on right now, in terms of board candidates. I want to first start by thanking Mrs. Dowell for providing us with several recommendations for potential board members. I am scheduled to have a conversation with Miss Sandra Gibson with the Fraser PTSA for our initial one-on-one. Candace Redick was also a recommendation from Mrs. Dowell, who worked with St. Jude's Research Hospital and has specific fundraising expertise. So super excited to connect with her. Harold Robinson is a former colleague of mine from Rhodes and he has transitioned to working with MAA. He has a skill set with data analytics adnd worked at Rhodes for several years, and he's potentially looking to come on board. So, Mr. Lawson, Harold is the only other person I know, who knows how to work Power BI and power all those dashboards. And actually, I will say Carrey Thompson previously attempted to recruit him, so we are making a hard push for him this time around. Andrea Jacobo, some of you may be familiar with her, was on the board several years back and she is back in the Memphis area. She is a visiting instructor at Rhodes. Before the pandemi, we didn't necessarily understand the importance of having a public health professional on the board—given what we know now, she brings a unique skill set. She is working on her doctorate and we are looking to re-engage her and have her support along the way. 
• I have sent out an email to Mr. Williams with the Frayser CDC. So I hope that he will follow up, but I've also let him know that if there's not necessarily time in his schedule to commit to serving on the board, we definitely can engage with someone else from his leadership team. So I'm waiting on a response. 
• I'm leaving the nomination form on the agenda; please send your nominations to us if you think of individuals who potentially desire working with us. I will be providing some additional updates along the way, especially once we get to the place where our vetting process will include board members coming in to participate in group interviews. Then Dr. White will have a one-on-one with those candidates. 
• A special thanks to everyone on the Governance Committee, Joia and Kirby. We had a good call last week in prep for the board meeting. So that brings me to my next point regarding the CEO and Executive Director of valuation. Generally, we're prepared as the Governance Committee to roll out those evaluations around this time of year. We're taking some time to do some research as a committee to see how we want to move forward with those evaluations. We see them still as very important, but they also have been not as easy to glean information from regarding how we're looking for qualitative information from board members and the network level staff. And I know you all don't necessarily know because you're not writing those reports. But sometimes, writing those reports can be extremely difficult when there's not enough information to develop solid recommendations or give robust evaluations and critiques and feedback to Dr. White and Mr. Lawson. 
• So we're doing some research to see what are some possibilities for us to be able to enhance that process. We're trying to come at this from a place where we can increase engagement, and we can improve the quality of the responses that we're receiving to make sure that as we are doing these evaluations, they are genuine to kind of the work that Mr. Lawson and Dr. White do not only daily, but also very much making sure that it's also an exemplary process for you all too.