J. Boulet provided a brief overview of the agenda.

S. Pressley shared her reflection on one of the Nuasin pillars, self-advocacy. She shared that self-advocacy is underutilized yet necessary given that individuals need to define their priorities and trajectory. The most important thing for her is that you understand that when you have questions, you seek help and ask the questions, which allows for continuous growth and achievement. Self-advocacy has been pivotal for Nuasin, and this is not just an ideal, but this is something we practice and advocate for everyday. 

M. Russell began by sharing an update on succession planning as a part of the broader people strategy. Given the recent transition to Nuasin, the pandemic, and other factors, we are now starting to focus on being more strategic and proactive with our talent strategy. We are working to be more consistent and standardized with our performance management, succession planning, and development. As we move towards being a more proactive organization, we want to have annual org reviews, proactive succession plans, strategic role additions, and structured goal setting / upskilling. We want to continue to evolve our communication strategies to effectively achieve these goals. As part of our path forward, we want to start to define a strategy and conduct an org review in October. Following this, we want to build out a performance management structure in November. To achieve the outcomes for performance, we will begin to outline growth and development plans in December and January. We aim to continuously evolve and adapt, as needed, especially as we grow as an organization to achieve the best outcomes for our scholars and our community. For succession planning specifically, we want to prioritize creating plans for our highest impact roles immediately. Other leadership roles are important to address as we evolve our strategy, so we will build plans based on the highest impact and continue to build the remaining plans on a revolving basis. 

M. Russell provided an update on school goals through an overview of our historical progression in state exams. While state exams are not our bar, they are a metric that we use to hold ourselves accountable. We have seen a steady progression across cohorts year-over-year, especially during this difficult time following the pandemic. In both ELA and Math, we were able to maintain or increase our results. We have seen substantial growth across most of our grades (>10%), and in some grades, it is higher than 30% from 2018-19 to 2021-22. We have been able to sustain and grow in ELA especially in the last few years through our investments. When comparing our results to other high-achieving charter schools in NY, we've managed to grow significantly and even surpass some of those schools following the pandemic. A lot of the team's and leadership's efforts over the past few years have added significant value as demonstrated through these results. For Math, we have been able to maintain results through the pandemic even when we feel we haven't invested as heavily in math. This gives us confidence that we will show significant improvement as we invest more heavily in math this year. We have seen modest improvement across most of our grades from 2018-19 to 2021-22. There are still some areas for growth since our average is still <40% across 3-7, so we want to double down on conceptual math and develop our scholars in this area. Other charter schools have seen a significant drop since the pandemic (>20%) while we have maintained or modestly increase our results. While these results are impressive, we want to continue to focus on continuously improving and achieving the academic goals that we've laid out for ourselves. Achieving the goals we've outlined would push us to the top percentile of schools in New York, and our progress has gained us significant recognition. M. Russell has been asked to speak at multiple forums about how we've demonstrated this success being a relatively new school still. 

M. Russell shared an update on staff and scholar attendance since the start of the school year. We've seen significant growth in high school scholar attendance since the start of the school year, and we're working towards 95% daily attendance throughout the school.

M. Russell shared a brief update on the status of our acquisition target. He will be visiting the campus tomorrow to continue to meet with leaders, and we are on target with our timeline for the acquisition. 

J. Boulet asked how the test results have reflected in the day-to-day at the school. M. Russell responded that this has been the strongest start to the school year that we've had to date. There have been multiple conversations about celebrating student achievement and success even in the first few weeks. There has been a tangible impact of the efforts we've put 

K. Davidson reinforced the three priority areas for SY2022-23. These are being embedded into professional development for staff and the curriculum on a daily level for scholars. He shared briefly about the goals they have been focused on over the past month. From a cultural perspective, we met our goal of at least 80% participation at our Parent Orientation, and we are already engaging our scholars by being proactive about reinforcing our culture.  Significant progress is being made as far as attendance on a daily basis, and we have been hitting 95% the past few days. We've started off the year very strong in terms of scholar and parent engagement this year. Middle and high school have been engaged in advisory consistently every day this year. We have invested time with our scholars this year to enable social-emotional growth. Advisory has been moved earlier in the day so we can implicitly reinforce that it is a core part of their learning experience. 

K. Davidson shared a little about the academic goals and progress towards achieving those even in the first month. These goals have been shared with academic staff to reinforce the goals and make them a priority for every staff member. For K-2, the goal is that every scholar leaves those classes at grade-level readiness at the end of the year. Scholars are reading independently every day and night with a focus on challenging content, and this is a major part of the work this year to enable growth. 

K. Davidson shared some images of scholar engagement this month. First graders are already using manipulatives to develop their math skills. In fifth grade, scholars are already doing live work on the board and presenting to the class, which shows that they have developed confidence and knowledge quickly this year. Compared to last year, we started the year fully staffed which really enabled this success. Third grade has seen really strong growth, and fourth grade has shown modest improvement as well compared to pictures from the second week of school last year. Last year, scholars were not at the board showcasing their work until February. Now, they are moving to more discussion around the thought behind an answer based on feedback from our consultants. The middle schoolers are already focusing on their writing and developing their own ideas on paper as they do close readings on poetry. These priorities continue to be present in daily interactions through planning meetings and curriculum execution. This is allowing for more consistency in our success across grades. Without a strong culture, we can't have strong instruction, so we are focusing cohesively on all aspects of our scholars' development. A weekly data meeting has been kicked off so that the leadership team can review scholars' data from the prior week and continuously evolve. Our response is not to wait a few days to respond to that data or even attendance data. We are focused on daily responsiveness and building accountability across the board. 

S. Pressley asked about how we are tracking progress for independent reading. This plan will be launched in a few weeks, and they are launching events to celebrate reading progress. There are other goals / incentives tied to this, but they want to make reading enjoyable for scholars and get them excited about it. 

S. Pressley asked about how we are supporting grade-level readiness for 6-8 before they go to high school where it can become more rigorous. We are assessing F&P progression for all scholars. The scale ends at Z, and scholars should reach level Z by 7th grade at the latest. This is a benchmark, and we will continue to level it up and push our scholars further each year. We are planning for the future by building these foundations at the youngest grade levels while continuing to push across all grade levels. 

A. Brown began by sharing a few highlights from high school. 100% of seniors attended their initial college planning meetings, and by the end of the month, we will have meetings with all seniors and their parents completed by end of the month. This will ensure that seniors are prepared with the information they need to start their college application process strong. They have been hitting daily and weekly average attendance at 90%, which is a big change from last year when they were only hitting 75% some days. They are focusing on teachers implementing their progressive curriculum consistently in every classroom. 

A. Brown reinforced the priorities for high school. One of the ways they reinforce soft skills in high school is through their advisory meetings. One of the weekly sessions is focused on community building, one day is dedicated to college preparedness, one for socio-emotional needs, and one for academics to review their grades from the week / attend office hours to remediate any issues. They are leveraging data to drive success across all grades by mandating office hours as a remediation action for any scholar below a certain threshold. Through coaching sessions and developmental tool focus areas, they are prioritizing intellectual excellence. Teachers can fall into the habit of teaching how they were taught, so they are focusing on changing the mindsets of teachers to adapt to the standardized development tool they are leveraging. They are having regular grade level and content team meetings to consistently provide support to each other and drive teacher success. 

A. Brown shared some data on iReady reading levels across high schoolers. There have been significant improvements across each grade level due to the investments they have made. Math has seen more of a drop from EOY last year to the beginning of this year, given it requires more regular practice to stay up to date on processes, so we have seen a drop in our scholars' results. Seniors did have an increase though, which is due to the diligent effort to change how we teach math and make sure our scholars are ready for college. 

M. Alston shared a brief summary of our progress towards hitting scholar enrollment numbers. In 11th and 12th grade, we don't backfill our scholars, which allows us to provide our scholars with everything they need, and if they enter that late in HS, it can be difficult for them to succeed. We continue to see high application numbers YoY. For staff hiring needs, there are HS academic roles still open that we are working to fill. Two offers were extended today, so by the next board meeting, we hope to have seen significant progress on the staffing needs reflected here. The manager of talent acquisition is continuing to actively source the best talent in the market. For expansion, the team hopes to be in lease negotiations very soon with the building owners. There are quite a few compliance reports coming up, but recently we have submitted the School Quality Report. In regards to COVID-19, there have been 3 staff members and 1 scholar that have tested positive in the past month. The funding strategy for benefits is one key priority for the next month given the upcoming deadline, with a deeper focus on incentives. It is difficult to onboard after the school year has begun, so there is an increased focus on creating an intentional experience for candidates.  Given the gap in the team currently, the responsibilities are divided up so it is busier on the team until a new hire is brought on. 

A. Bothner shared a reminder for board members that they are required to attend in person to comply with the Open Meeting Law. 

S. Pressley shared that she met with F. Chughtai, M. Russell, and M. Alston about the fundraising strategy. They are continuing to work on the investment strategy as well. 

J. Keeney discussed the July and August financials. During the next meeting, we will be able to see an update on the numbers from enrollment changes which will lead to some increases. Our metrics are tracking very well compared to the city benchmarks. One thing to note is that we have an enrollment hedge in our budget to allow for protection even if there was a loss of scholars. 

J. Keeney shared the actual YTD financial report metrics. Given we are only two months into the fiscal year, we're tracking well across each area. Due to additional funding from the summer boost program, we are seeing an increase in our budget. The balance sheet is in a strong position given the state pays in advance. Liabilities are a little lower this year, so our net assets show a surplus for the first two months. There was a post-audit adjustment to last year's balance given a surplus due to some accruals for year-end expenses that were made. 

J. Keeney shared that they are working with the auditors to finalize a few pending items, and when that is completed, they will present them to the Finance Committee. During the next board meeting, we will be voting on the audit. The auditors are present during the meeting, and they share their findings and the final report. The board will vote on it if there are no major items pending. There are no red flags at this time or any areas of concern. 

E. Chen shared that they look forward to continuing to see progress in the reporting of academic progress. 

A. Khanyile shared that he has not been able to meet with the committee yet about this, but he has solidified community relations for the involvement day he is planning. They are partnering with some organizations that are focused on providing resources to youth and their families to enable success. Another organization is focused on serving Bronx residents with childhood learning, after-school programs, college readiness programming, etc. With regards to community health, there is an organization that is based out of Harlem that services sheltered clients with medical services. They serve uninsured and low-income NY residents with primary care, social services, mental health, teen pregnancy, etc. Given the influx of immigrants recently, there is an organization that focuses on immigration-related services, for any community members that may find these services helpful, they will be made available. There are some costs associated with this event, so he will discuss this further in the next committee meeting. 

A. Bothner shared that J. Scott has accepted the offer to join the board, and now we are just awaiting DOE approval. In the meantime, there are several mandates that will be discussed in governance as they relate to succession planning. There will be some efforts to recruit additional board members this year to fill some of the gaps in priority areas right now. 

J. Boulet shared that they will be sharing these with the board for review shortly. 

M. Dorrie shared some thoughts on his reflection on goal setting as a board member. He spoke with someone that shared that the priorities are finding the right people to run the organization and giving them the space to run the organization. For a board, we used to be very hands-on, but over the past few years, the board has given the team more space recently so there has been significant improvement we've seen through that investment. The board has shifted its focus from managing the day-to-day to being more high-level. 

A. Bothner shared that the succession plan is available to everyone and will be voted on during the next board meeting. A healthy organization should have mostly planned departures so defining the strategy around that is an important goal at this time. He asked that the board be thoughtful as they think through the planned departure plan. By defining board strategic goals, they are creating continuity in the priorities of the board, which is essential for succession planning. There are going to be some changes made to some of the committee sections here so more to come on those updates. This will be added to the cadence calendar to be voted on every year in August. 

A. Bothner confirmed that there are no members of the public present tonight so we will move forward.

A. Bothner confirmed there is no executive session tonight. 

M. Russell shared his appreciation for the team members and looks forward to continuing to push our school further. 

A. Bothner reminded the team again that the team needs to be in-person or in compliance with the OML.