A. Bothner went through the agenda for the December Board meeting.

J. Boulet shared her thoughts on the Misson and Vision. She highlighted that they are ambitious but achievable, and align well with the Board's strategic goals for the year.

K. Davidson stated that we as a school have decided to remain remote until January 18th, 2021. We have originally planned to be hybrid right up to the winter break but we chose to remain remote for the month of December. 

K. Davidson said that when coming back to school, weekly covid testing will be administered. At least 20% of staff and scholars will be tested. We will be providing the waivers, M. Alston has been working closely with her team to get this done.

K-8th attendance has been consistently at a 90% mark but CPA attendance has been varying from what we have seen before. Through observation, about 50-70% of scholars have been showing up. We have plans to work on the attendance starting the month of January. We have collected data from surveys that were given to the CPA scholars to understand why they're not attending. K. Davidson informed us that over the break, his big project will be collecting all the data and observations to come up with a comprehension of the attendance. 

K. Davidson has been working with the scholars and the school culture team to get their perspective on the school logo and will be sharing with D. Pasek the ideas. K. Davidson shared that the upcoming months will be an opportunity to see who we will become as a school. He is looking forward to share all the great ideas with the board and our families. 

K. Davidson's action plans for CPA:

• A comprehensive culture review with the CPA staff will be happening during the upcoming months. 
• A review on the quality of the zoom classes.
• Providing new teachers support.
• Working on building a town hall with the counselors and culture team. 

Partnerships and Trainings:

• The Lavinia Group will be working with the CPA for interim support for the new staff members who are teaching.
• K. Davidson has engaged with K. Shabazz and C. Barnes with another a substitute platform for Linkedin. Has been looking into Illuminate Education for data tracking and presentation. 

K. Davidson shared that the snow today provided a little bit of a hiccup. We have provided families with pick up times for winter packets. These packets included new grade level reading books, notebooks, dry erase boards, and updated supplies. It also included fun supplies for House Day tomorrow. Our deans have been working really hard to make this happen. Our families have really tried to come in. 

K. Davidson also updated on a school Christmas show by the drama teacher Ms. Ashlee. M. Alston and K. Davidson have logged in today to see the little ones show their talents. K. Davidson will send links to all the shows for everyone to see. He highlighted Ms. Ashlee, the drama teacher, who has done really good work.

K. Davidson introduced and welcomed Ms. Latoya Hart who is our new Academic Manager of Operations. She will also be taking some minutes, splitting it with Kisha. 

A. Bothner welcomed L. Hart and thanked K. Davidson.

K. Shabazz. asked K. Davidson how he's doing given his recently increased workload. K. Davidson said with all things considered he is doing quite fine. K. Shabazz asked if M. Alston was doing well and Melissa A. responded she's doing well. 

E. Chen said big thank you to K. Davidson and M. Alston. E. Chen stated that there's a lot of recruitment updates and we need to help with additional support. We have encouraged K. Davidson to figure out with what is lacking, and ask the board for assistance

E. Chen stated that she would like to kick up the conversation about the scholar's academic performance. Maybe set up another time with the board so we can talk about this. E. Chen said that A. Bothner and her can meet for a much longer conversation. 

A. Bothner stated that we need to continue to kick off our next phase structure. Told E. Chen that they can meet offline to meet further to plan our first half of 2021 and the charter renewal to make sure we're in a good place. E. Chen said she can block off time for everyone. 

Lastly, E. Chen said everyone please keep checking the data dashboard if you have any question please feel free to reach out. 

 

S. Pressley shared that we have signed the contractor with TriNet on benefits platforms and the 401K service provider. The agenda will reflect this as we shift to these new platforms

• FFSA for our employees we get allocation at the beginning of the year but because we will  be transitioning at the end of the year that is leaving us with a gap.
• The finance committee stated that if the employees uses all the money by Dec 2019, we only owe them $4000 and we will pay back to solve that issue. Our goal is to have it in the budget amendment. 

A. Bothner asked folks can see the budget amendment in January and provide the benefit for employees.

• Syracuse partnership: Satisfying the balance we owe the University for our scholars. This was presented as a free class to our scholars and that was not the case. A. Brown, S. Pressley and M. Alston have been working with Syracuse, to get the invoices and have it satisfied by January 2021. We have decided with 4th Sector Solutions just to pay the scholars balance with their college application. The total for all the students averages at 85K. That will be seen in the budget amendment. 

A. Bothner asked for clarification in order to resolve this issue we wanted to ensure that the school will sort it out and not put the burden on the scholars. By January, we see it on the amendment. 

A. Bothner stated that S. Pressley and M. Alston to onboard 4th Sector to benefits in place, as well as make transition away from Lighthouse. He thanked everyone for the hours that went into this work. Part of this was having Melissa and Susan to update the Whistleblower policy and the Financial Practices and Policies (FPP) to all interact effectively all together. M. Alston is working on the cadence calendar for the Governance Committee. A. Bothner shared that we vote so 4th Sector Solutions and M. Alston can continue the work on the policies. 

S. Pressley shared policy updates highlights:

• On page 15, the paragraph on debit and credits is proposing that we get our own credit card to avoid personal purchases and reimbursements. 
• On page 21, under funds, proposing that finance will be responsible for updates and recommendations to the entire board and discuss purchases and investments that we may hold. 

A. Khatiwada asked if the policy for the funds was different from before and S. Pressley said it wasn't outlined before but now it is. 

J. Boulet asked who would sign the annual acknowledgement statement (included at the end of the updated Policy)? S. Pressley responded that the school operations team signs it and it would be M. Alston, C. Ramos and K. Perez.

A. Bothner stated that The Whistleblower policy is the new change and it shows the new structure until we have an Executive director. 

M. Alston agrees that we are taking all the documents based on the time of year and looking to the future to adjust alignments when we have the Executive director.

• All reports that need to be revised every two months will be inputted into cadence calendar before every deadline.
• Cadence calendar will brought to the board for review by M. Alston
• The FPP and the conflict of interest form needed to be updated. The Whistle Blower policy had extensive edits but will align with January. 

A. Bothner said we will be seeing each of these policies monthly and it will be be part of the annual updates.

J. Boulet asked whether the Whistleblower policy extends beyond financial matters, or how it interacts with other policies such as the Grievance Policy? And what does this mean regarding the circumstances under which the Whistleblower policy applies? M. Alston responded to J. Boulet's question that she wasn't sure of the answer to her question, so she would reach out to the school lawyer, Susan. 

M. Alston also said that she and Susan are working on hand books for scholars and staff. Susan recommended that we have a platform so staff can have more visibility, which our new company TriNet will provide. 

• The grievance policy will have to be updated around the Whistleblower policy.

E. Chen  asked whether we have comprehensive list of all the policies that we need and do we know what they are. A. Bothner said yes, we do. That was a recent topic in the Governance Committee meeting. J. Boulet advised E. Chen that she could consult the list from the Governance Committee agenda for this month, and that the Gov Comm minutes have some additional information on that point. Jessica said that she will work with M. Alston. to organize a schedule all the policies in the cadence calendar for regular review and updates. 

D. Pasek said that when you think about the list when you are changing to an independent  management, the FPP is a giant accomplishment. The family and personnel handbook are the big ones that will done by the spring. We are on track so far for tackling the most important policies. 

S. Pressley explained what the bank account resolution is with the Lighthouse transition. Lighthouse are the authorized signers on the school account so with this resolution we are asking to remove LHA as signers and inputting M. Alston as Operations Director and S. Pressley as Treasurer to be the authorized signers on all of the bank accounts. Lighthouse will still continue to be part of the process until June but the change will be available in January.

A. Khatiwada agreed with the change and asked if there will there be a process in place just in case if M. Alston or S. Pressley change positions? S. Pressley answered yes and in February they will update changes to the bank account resolution to add other positions coming in. 
 

A. Khanyile, chair of the committee, was absent, so no updates were shared this month. 

A. Ames. is filling in for M. Rivera tonight. M. Rivera could not make it.

• There is only one violation pending. Once that is cleared, the CFO will be in full effect.

A.  Khatiwada  asked A. Ames, what kind of violation is it? A. Ames was not familiar with the kind of violation.  E. Chen asked about the cost arrangement with Lighthouse; A. Ames said the cost was covered by Lighthouse. E.Chen asked how long until the violation is removed? A. Ames answered she was not aware of a timeline but it has to do with the DOB. Monica was absent from the meeting but would be able to provide more details on request. 

B. Elliot will be stepping in for M. B. Rousseau for financial report updates.

• We're in good standing with financials. 
• Cash on hand 280 days
• Debit service 3.29 which exceeds 1.0 metrics
• Budgeted enrollment 676 but we reported 686 enrolled. 

There were not public comments.

K. Perez shared that the school is at 486 for lower academy and 202 scholars in CPA. The waitlist holds 1,707 scholars. She also said that we finally filled the last 3rd grade seat. 

K.Perez shared that for January 2021 she will start giving lottery updates. 

K. Perez shared that there were no new updates. 

J. Boulet wanted to flag that the content of the November minutes needed to reflect the advice of counsel regarding 180 West 165th Street LLC and Metropolitan Support Corp. Counsel requested that we "attach" the resolutions that they prepared for us to the minutes. J. Boulet highlighted that the resolutions are currently covered by "attorney client privilege," and that attaching them to the public minutes would waive that privilege. She believed that this would not be a problem, since the content of the minutes was already public, but if anyone had any concerns she offered the opportunity to discuss further.

E. Chen asked J. Boulet for more details into what that meant. A. Bothner and J. Boulet explained that attorneys generally label internal communications with clients "attorney client privilege" as a best practice. J. Boulet added that it is usually done to be on the safe side, but that the Board, as the client, can choose to waive it.  

M. Alston suggested making a public folder in Board on Track to publicize the resolutions, and reference that in the minutes. J. Boulet agreed.

J. Boulet discussed the new plans for the policies and decisions will be finalized in the next meeting board meeting. Agenda for next year:

•  A Board professional development day, similar in format to last year with some updates for new needs.  
• Open meeting law review will also take place during the PD day. The PD will be taking place sometime in February. 
• The Governance Committee has had success in beginning to coordinate the strategic initiative work between committee leaders. She welcomed anyone to drop in for monthly Governance Committee meetings. She will share quarterly updates during board meetings, with the first one in March.

Upcoming Governance Committee work will include reviewing the school leader succession plan, which will need to be approved in the January meeting. The Executive Director will need to be added to the plan once they have joined. 

A. Bothner added that the succession plan was a new requirment last year from the DOE, and also a smart thing to have. Every year it's shared wtih DOE in the month of February. 

The Governance Committee will work with Pasek Consulting in putting together this tool.

 

A. Bothner shared that LHA will extending their service for K. Davidson  and M. Alston for assistance during January and February of 2021. 

S. Pressley shared that J. Ballard and K. McGuire will act as LHA consultants, with 4hrs allotted for each area of consultation. Tapping those resources is at K. Davidson and M. Alston's discretion. E. Chen asked for the roof top stand point, what if the work is not completed by February? A. Bothner said that for the roof it is not on an hourly basis, it will be until completion. A. Bothner also shared that we've had a long timeline to try to get the city and fire department in the school because of Covid. One of M. Alston's team members will be the point person for communication with LHA. 

J. Boulet also asked that whether there had been a document drawn up outlining the arrangement specifically. A. Bothner stated that there is an amendment being drafted currently. It states 4hrs per week and a cost of $20k total for extension of consulting services through the end of February. 

Formally appoint K. Davidson as head of the school or until a principal is hired for CPA.

The vote for today will be for M. Alston to change title to Managing Director of Operations. She will report to the board for now until the executive director is hired. 
J. Boulet asked would this require an official notification to the authorizer. A. Bothner said no, only when you are inserting a layer between the board and a senior leadership role.