Dr. Bobby White:

• We had a think tank meeting today at Westside, where we convened MSCS school board members, local county commissioners, and nonprofit leaders. I introduced the idea of a potential alternative school model. For the last ten years, we've said we want to be different and serve kids that no one else wanted to serve. Although we've done our best to do that, we continue to run into the challenge of 3 to 5% of our kids being expelled, committing some crime, being in juvenile detention, or being truant or suspended. And I convened all of these folks to start the conversation about what would an alternative model look like, not necessarily specifically for a charter school but to build the spine of an alternative model that would intentionally think about the kids that, in the title of my presentation, are "The Forgotten," the kids that no one cares about. 
• At the end of the day, most schools want these students out of their schools because they cause so many problems for the teachers and administrators. It keeps them from having a typical school day they would like to have and it keeps the students who are just traditionally wired or wired for the traditional setting from really getting what they need. And so I am embarking on this thought of what it would look like to create a model, whether it be a contract, a charter school, or the actual programming we can push into Shelby County Schools or other schools across the state that would be able to support that group of kids I know we have never been able to help. And I think that that is in line with the vision because when we started this 10, 12 years ago, the idea was that we wanted to serve kids that no one else wanted to serve and provide them with the opportunity to dream and have lives of their families that never thought about before. 
• Even though we're in the beginning stages of talking about this, it was refreshing today to get back to thinking about the work we said we would do. That's where my mind is around, being refreshed about that conversation today and the positive vibes from all those influential people inside our space. 

Mr. Greg Thompson:

Financial Report September 12, 2023

Financial Notes 

• Preliminary Year-End Financials for Fiscal Year 2023: Approximate $391K surplus (but numbers could vary as an audit is completed) 
• Cash Balance: 
  • At 7-31-2023: $730,176.95 (16.9 days of cash); Cash typically lower in summer months when per pupil funding is not being received. 
  • At 9-11-2023: $1,709,216.77 (39.6 days of cash) 
• FCS is currently waiting on grant reimbursements of approximately $1.45M

School                                 MLK                      Westside                              Humes                   Total

Budgeted Enrollment          540                        330                                       195                       1,065

Enrollment on which FCS is

currently being funded      517.8                      334                                        190.3                     1,042

Enrollment as of 8/28/23    524                        293                                        203                       1,020

The average per-pupil funding for FCS is approximately $11,766 per student

Dr. Tonya Hervey:

• Today, I will review last year's academic data and briefly review our attendance. Here is Humes's attendance for the previous 30 days. Humes is doing well, with most students having low absences in the red. At MLK, about 14% of students have high attendance absences, about 12% are considered at risk of seven to nine absences, about 26% have moderate absences, and 49% have low absences. Westside shows that 2.79% of our students have high absences. 80% of our students are at risk of being chronically absent, and 12.29% have moderate absences. And 66.75% of students have low absences, which is good. So, chronic absenteeism is something that we are battling. Here is the student's testing data for ELA and math from the beginning of the year. And you'll see that in the fall, we have many students, like 75% of our kids, who are three or more grade levels below in math and ELA. And so our teachers are working hard to get the students to master perspectives when coming into us, like three or more grade levels below, which brings me to our state assessment. 
• MLK:
  • Algebra I: 1.76% of the students approaching grade level on target. 91% of our students were approaching grade level 
    .58% of the students were mastery, which is one student.
  • Algebra II: 96.8% students were basic. Ninety-five students were tested. Three out of 95 who were not tested for Algebra two.
  • Biology: 5% of the students were not tested. 58.66% of students were basic. 31% of students on grade level. 4.66% of students were mastery.
  • English I: 2.97% of students were mastery level four. Students to reach level three, which would have been on target 0%. 56% of kids were approaching. 32% of students were below Basic 
    8% of kids were not tested for English one.
  • English II: 4.86% of students were not tested. 38.8% of students were below Basic. 45% of students were approaching 
    11% of students were on target. There was no one at level four.
  • Geometry: 3.2% of students were not tested. 90% of the students were basic. 6% of students were approaching. We know we had problems with staffing at the high school, which explains why the scores are how they are for students when you look at our math data. 
  • US History:  4% of students who were not tested. 72% of students who are below Basic. 20% of students were approaching. 3% of students were on target. No students mastered.
     
• Humes Middle: 65% of students were below Basic. 30% of students were approaching. 2.9% of students were on target. 
   
• Westside: 61% of kids were below Basic. 34% of students were approaching. 2% of students were on target. 

Dr. Lawanda Clark:

• I will talk to you about the TVAAS scores. But I want you to understand what TVAAS stands for. It's the Tennessee value-added assessment system. You will hear it often. EBU talks about school TVAAS, and you'll talk about teacher TVAAS. So, I will speak to you today about the school-level TVAAS scores. And so the scores typically are based on how students perform and how much growth they've had in the year related to other students across the state. It's just about their growth and allows the educators to consider growth as work to learn how to improve the students and help increase their achievement level. 
• So how does it work again? It measures the student growth over a year regardless of their proficiency rate on the state assessment. They make the same assessment at the same time. How can teachers serve high-achievement students score on TVAAS? Teachers have to be effective. When teachers are effective, it rolls over into the classrooms, and students can be successful. Today, my MCLs and I learned that the TVAAS calculation formula for teachers differs from schools. So you may see a teacher with a higher TVAAS level; say, a teacher may have a TVAAS level of a three, but the school might have a TVAAS level of a five. And so when I had to explain to them those factors that are taken into account when you are selecting your growth and measure for your TVAAS score, the fact that the school has to take all of the students whereas the teacher on intake, the school that I teach the students that are they're categorized as full-time students, which means they are 150 days or more. And so that was an eye-opening experience for the teachers to realize that my TVAAS could be better. But I still need to be more effective for it to impact the school's TVAAS. So teachers are learning that they have to work hard for the high-achievement students and the low-achieving students. So we're going to dig into Westside. Westside has an overall TVAAS of level three, which means they meet the expected growth expectations. I have the data for the school year 2022 and 2023. Not only do I want to look at the data, but I also want to recognize the trends; this is a conversation I will have with principals. I spoke with Mr. Thomas today, looking over his data. 
• So, if you look at sixth grade in the ELA category, sixth grade is a level four. Seventh grade is a level three, eighth grade is a level two, and Westside has a three across the board. We had a three for ELA in 2022. This year, they ended with a four. And so one thing we did notice was that these students came in on a level four. In sixth grade, there was a regression here when he got to the seventh grade, and they were predicting it would likely be another one in the eighth grade unless we do something now. This means that this year, utilize this data to make better decisions regarding teacher professional development, instructional strategies, RTI support, and after-school support today. These are all things we can do to help teachers and students. Westside sixth grade has a level three this year in math. So that's a progression for last year's score. The seventh and eighth grades are level two, giving Westside an overall TVAAS score of level two in math. We get to science; for 2023, levels one, three, and two, for seventh and eighth grade, you see an improvement in the seventh grade. So Westside has something going on here in seventh grade, and we need to ensure we can keep that up for the eighth grade. And we get to social studies; see here again the trend of level three in sixth grade and 2020. Look what happens in 2023. And we also know that it takes one to three years for them to recoup that growth. And so we need to get on top of what's happening. Is it staffing, resources, or curriculum? What is happening here that's causing such a regression for our sixth-grade students, who eventually end up at the high school level?
• When looking at Humes, Humes has a level TVAAS score of two. They want me to make sure I said they have a high two. So they are very close to a three. But let's look at them for 2022. They came in very strong for ELA levels five for six and seventh-grade level two for eighth grade, which gave them an overall level five for ELA. But in 2023, you see again what's happening. There's no regression level three and all ones, which gave them an overall across grade level one for ELA. So, we still have to dig more into the numbers and what's behind them as it relates to what's happening in the classrooms—specifically teacher development. Like I said, resources curriculum, how are we best supporting our students because what we're seeing is that we're losing them. MLK has a TVAAS score of level one. EOC biology level 3 2022 and level 3 2023. It's just a tiny regret, not something we want to see. EOC English one and two went from level 2 to level 1 and level 3 to level 4. Geometry went from a level 5 to a level 1 EOC history level 1 to 1. 

We have no reports this time.

Dr. Bobby White:

• Over the years, we have been an organization with a board that gives your time, talents, and gifts. Ms. Bearden may not be on this call, but at some point because we are in our 10th year, we will have a 10-year gala sometime around summer. In January, we will start to talk about where the venue will be and its cost so we can feel that place with people. We will do it really big, elegant for our champion. 
• Ms. Warren and Ms. Bearden are identifying the location now. At some point, we will talk to you guys about selling tables and tickets to get people to come and be a part of our 10th-year celebration. I want to be transparent about our development. For all ten years, fundraising has been my job and we've done things to raise money, but it was never because we needed the money. We wanted to bring attention to or celebrate our organization and help people understand what we do. We did it through a telethon, gala, art show, wine sipping, and several events. But it was all geared towards people knowing who we are and what we do as an organization. Not that we're trying to raise all of this money to pay bills or to fund any project. 
• As we move forward, there may be two things. One, it'd be great if we raise some money to pay for the school we're discussing. And secondly, if there is an initiative that the board or the schools are excited about, it costs $100,000. How will we raise $100,000 to pay for this initiative or program? We know that we will offer Shelby County Schools $500,000 for Westside. If they accept that offer, where would we get that $500,000? We talked about the budget earlier. What if we had the money to buy it, but what do we do if we don't? How do we raise that money? That's what I want us to think about: what is our development team thinking about? We are still determining what we are attempting to raise money for. Ms. Reddick has done this for a living. So she can talk more about this than I could. But I want to frame where we've been regarding fundraising. 
• When we talk about development, we only spend a little bit of time on it because it's something we've never really spent much time on. We've been able to fund our schools through the per pupil. The last time I received significant or major funding was the year we got Humes and I want to say that was 2016. So when I'm excited about the budget and how it's working out, I'm like, Y'all don't realize we're a charter organization. That has figured it out financially by operating strong from what we get from the State Department and our BEP. So, I want to ensure I frame development and fundraising for you guys. To help understand where we are with fundraising? Like, why don't we fundraise, but that's where we've been up to this point.