K. Davidson discussed COVID, data, and strategic plan

• He outlined that the school experienced it's first case and continues to stay more conservative than directed
• The school is open again as normal this week after abiding by the 14 day quarantine required
• The strategic plan outlines the expansion of the partnership with the Lavinia Group, which results in a closer look at different data sources, to include exit tickets and other pieces of work due to the question of validity of at-home assessments
• 8th graders are all taking HS courses this year and the hope is that these students will be ready to go as sophomores starting next year
• The data dashboard is updated, sheets 1 and 5 are where we should focus -- this includes attendance data (which is low compared to other years, but great compared to other schools in the area). Some students are approaching chronic absenteeism. However, the school is able to account for all families all of the time. K. Perez has been working on connecting with families and understanding their need.
• Tab 1 shows I-Ready data, which replaced NWEA data this year. There is a varying level of reliability, but bare in mind that these assessments are being taken at home and there's only so much that the school can control. The data overall is not desirable, but over 50% of 8th graders are starting the year off either at or above where they need to be in Math in comparison to the rest of the nation
• J. Boulet asked if there is any insight on what would cause the performance variability between cohorts.
• K. Davidson shared that they don't currently have insights on this quite yet, and the school has not identified any trends as of right now, so they are operating at the micro level until those trends are identified
• K. Brisseau asked if Tier 1, 2, and 3 can be explained
• K. Davidson explained that Tier 1 is all students, Tier 2 are students who need additional support, and Tier 3 are students who need significant support

T. Williams reviewed strategic plan goals

• Regents goals (number of students achieving a 75%+)
• I-Ready achievement

In terms of I-Ready data, the HS brought all students into the school and didn't have students test at home. However, 9th and 10th graders scored much higher than upperclassmen. It is assumed that upperclassmen didn't take the assessment as seriously and the younger students. However, the data was still analyzed seriously.

• Credit accumulation goal of at least 11 credits per year

27 students are scheduled to come in tomorrow (Friday) who have been having trouble with credit accumulation, even though they're technically all supposed to be remote on Fridays.

• Graduate goal
• College acceptance rate (100% of students being accepted to at least a 2-year school)

Although T. Williams was going to present college data this month, it's still a bit early in the year to present any hard data.

50% of students attended FAFSA day. It was a great turnout. The school also held SAT day, which had a bit of a low turnout. But that was the day after the school announced a positive COVID case.


 

E. Chen shared that next year, the school is going into a renewal year next year and given the current situation, data is very ambiguous. The ed committee implores the board and Dan Pasek to work on gathering information for the following questions:

• How will the renewal process change?
• How will the authorizer be assessing data?
• How are other charter schools who are going through renewal this year or next seeing academic data?

E. Chen encourages the board to continue to become familiar with the academic dashboard.

S. Pressley is asking for three votes

• Finalizing the audit
• Approval on financial services
• Authorizing the finance committee to choose an HR benefits platform

Overall, the audit came back with no findings.

• The auditors did recommend that an adjustment be made to the books, but the finance team decided not to adjust

J. Boulet asked if we were satisfied with their service this year

• S. Pressley said she's satisfied with the services and would recommend using them again

M. Rousseau shared that MMB has been an absolute pleasure and also recommends continuing to stay with them.

M. Alston shared that the school received 5 RFP responses and interviewed all companies who submitted. The school used a finance RFP tracker to assess all companies.

• CSBM interviewed well, but their cost was comparably high
• MMJ did not have many other charter clients
• BoostEd was well recommended, but was outshined by another company based on team and capacity
• Rios and McGarrigle was too small to respond to our need
• 4th Sector Solutions is the company we'd like to propose to the board -- they were the only company that requested a meeting prior to submitting the RFP. They included all constituents on the call. They seemed very invested in the success of the school and it showed.

​​​A. Bothner co-signed a thorough and thoughtful analysis of this process

J. Boulet commented on the thorough presentation of options

K. Brisseau shared that 4th Sector is also very diverse and it will be a good representation of who are as a school

M. Alston reiterated that Little Bird was bought out by TriNet. It's taken a while to get all of this up and running and they've sent a number of documents for the finance committee review just last Tuesday. So the finance committee would like to request that the board grant the finance committee more time to come to a final decision before bringing it to the board for a full vote.

A gap analysis was conducted, but M. Alston will be working with the leadership team and the school to have a more thorough understanding of next steps.

S. Pressley shared that giving them additional time will allow for the new finance company to review all of these items as well and make recommendations as needed.

A. Bothner shared that the board is still working to engage this committee and looks forward for things to come in the coming months

A. Khanyile shared that the committee has been able to come up with a mission and vision for the committee over the past month.

No major updates

No major updates

No members of the public

M. Rousseau reviewed September financials and described the balance sheet as "very strong". No concerns noted.

M. Rivera shared that all necessary inspections have officially passed. The school is awaiting fire department approval of the evacuation plans and a test of emergency lighting around the building. Other than that, there is nothing outstanding.

There are two pending punch list items that are pending. There is no timeline for FDNY inspection.

No major updates

J. Boulet outlined changes the committee is proposing in the red-lined bylaws. Most changes are minimal, outside of committee changes:

• Recreating executive committee and separating it from the governance committee again due to an increased number of trustees. The executive committee will take on interim voting responsibilities and the governance committee will take more of a lead on operationalizing strategic goals 
• There are a couple of additions to the Finance Committee that should be reviewed
• The external relations committee goals have been refined and should be reviewed

J. Boulet implores the board to take a look, let her know if there are any questions, comments, or proposed additions, and then there will be a final Governance Committee workshop to finalize and propose to the edited bylaws to the board.

A. Bothner shared that Met Support Corp the entity that owns the building itself. The board needs to nominate a set of directors to work with M. Alston and Met Support Corp to finalize some documents to vote on for the November meeting. The directors are typically comprised of operations folks and board members. It it proposed that

• M. Alston and K. Perez serve as school operations directions
• A. Bothner, M. Dorrie, and S. Pressley work as directors on the committee