K. Shabazz reviewed the agenda briefly.

J. Boulet reflected on Community and shared the importance of community in her life and her journey thus far. Community is three things:

- Giving

- Receiving

- Being

J. Boulet provided a reflection on Community and the meaning of this pillar in her life. 

M. Russell reiterated the priority areas for this school year with the goal being that we are constantly thinking about and going back to these areas. Intellectual excellence is something we keep in mind daily with teachers, and we are leveraging data to drive this effort. We have made significant changes to invest in the whole child. 

M. Russell provided an update on progress across the school toward their goals. Operations continues to prioritize remaining on brand, developing the team, and focusing on process improvement and sustainability. K-8 is focusing on the creation of exemplars, regular meetings, rooting decisions in data, and executing their vision for advisory. 9-12 is focusing on purposeful instruction through coaching sessions, academic counseling, and restructuring advisory. 

M. Russell shared an update on succession planning. He reiterated his goals for the people strategy and the role of succession planning in that strategy. There has been progress made to date toward this. A process for teacher evaluation has been rolled out, and there are ongoing discussions to establish an evaluation structure for leader and operations evaluations. 

M. Russell provided an update on attendance. We are continuing to work on improving staff attendance. Lower and middle school has been doing well with attendance, and we are working on improving high school scholar attendance. We are navigating how to be thoughtful in an environment where everyone is more health conscientious while balancing academic needs.

M. Russell provided an update on expansion efforts. We are trending in a positive direction with progress toward the space on Jerome. The acquisition continues to progress as we refine the memo of understanding and support their renewal effort. 

M. Russell shared some additional data received on state exam results. We are continuing to see our success following the pandemic compared to other charter schools, across the city, and throughout the state. This year with our investments, we hope to see even more growth. We're continuing to invest to see growth across the school in various ways to achieve our goals. 

K. Shabazz asked about how these results would be maintained when we scale the school given comparable charter schools test 10,000+ students. M. Russell reiterated that our goal is much further beyond the passing rate, so we want to aim higher and grow thoughtfully to have true intellectual excellence at the school. 

K. Davidson reiterated the priority areas for this year. He shared some highlights from the culture side. We continue to get positive feedback from families when they drop scholars off in the morning. We had a social-emotional learning day led by a member of the culture team to address some of the gaps that had arisen during the remote learning era. The goal is to be more proactive in the culture team rather than reactive through early intervention. The progress is being seen through a decreased number of behavior interventions, suspensions, and higher attendance. This month, the key priority is the culture of data area and what that means. We're approaching this very intentionally by creating a culture of data. Data is not just a snapshot for us, it is what we use to operate daily. There has been more data tracking consistently even at the start of the year. This tracking is being driven through staff development by giving teachers the opportunity to model out difficult scenarios and prepare for their day-to-day interactions with scholars. Teachers are planning 1:1 with leaders right now, which is a strategic choice to allow us to focus on what the co-planned lesson is. K. Davidson walked through some example scholar work to demonstrate the success of their efforts. M. Russell emphasized that the reason why we have them show multiple ways of solving a problem is to demonstrate their deep understanding of the problem at hand. 

K. Davidson gave a problem that was one of the more difficult items for scholars for the board to complete to understand the rigor of the work. 

A. Brown shared that they are providing afterschool support for scholars that did not pass iReady last year. They're focusing on providing support to improve their reading comprehension skills. They have launched their math essay, and it is a challenge for scholars and teachers because of the change in mindset for how to view and explain math. Learning math is a rough draft, and ultimately, you will arrive at your destination. In November, they are launching their literacy and reading program which will include a revamped advisory schedule with one day dedicated to reading. They are exploring how to incentivize the pillars by introducing a dean's list and other activities to celebrate success. E. Chen asked whether there was outside support coming in, and A. Brown shared that they are especially using external support for social-emotional learning sessions. 

A. Brown shared that IAs are coming up next week, so during the next board meeting, there will be results and work samples for the board to review. The goal is to reach understanding so it isn't procedural memorization. Some of our teachers teach the way they were taught so we are trying to challenge that and use multiple methods of teaching to reach scholars. They are leveraging data to identify areas of opportunity and using a targeted approach to address those gaps. A. Brown reviewed a math essay to demonstrate the reasoning behind using a conceptual approach to math. 

M. Alston shared that we are overenrolled in the lower school and a bit under-enrolled in the high school, which has been a trend throughout the school year. We don't enroll scholars in 11th or 12th grade, which is what feeds this trend and so we over-enroll in lower school to make up for that. We continue to recruit for this school year and the next one. Applications are a little lower as of today because we continue to collect applications throughout the school year. There are 7 teacher positions open with the majority being in the high school given it requires a more specialized skillset. There are 3 new hires this month. Compliance reporting is ongoing for this semester. 4 COVID cases in the staff and none for scholars this month. 

J. Keeney provided an overview of September financials. There has been an increase in total assets and a small increase in liabilities. The current ratio is very strong. Debit to asset is very low. The days of cash on hand are well above the requirement. The debit to service ratio is very strong. Our enrollment is very strong, which is great since many other charter schools have seen a decrease. The P&L is very strong at this time. 

K. VanBramer shared an overview of the audit report. There is a clean, unmodified opinion on pages 3 and 4, and the report is a little longer due to requirements. We are working to address a few missing items right now, and they should be resolved by next week. K. VanBramer shared some details about the financial state of the school and walked through the notes in the report. 

K. VanBramer discussed the single audit report, and there was a clean, unmodified report relating to that. She walked through the significant risks identified. The risks identified are risks that are present in the vast majority of audits, and the difference this year is that we are required to report these. These risks have not been found, but it is a requirement to report as a standard. 

J. Keeney walked through the quarterly investment report. Decreases are due to the market at this time and nothing of concern. 

E. Chen shared that the presentations from the principals should give an idea of the enhancements being made. We look forward to seeing more information from testing soon. 

A. Khanyile shared that he participated in an alumni event at his alma mater about fundraising strategies. One of the ideas that stuck out was around the website and how to generate traffic to the website. 

E. Chen shared the new fundraising platform and page for her wedding donation collection. 

A. Bothner shared that we will table this discussion for the time being. 

S. Huda provided her reflection on some recent experiences she had to continue diving into the educational space and the challenges faced in the charter school space. 

A. Bothner shared the trustee pledge and attendance guidelines for the board's review, and they will vote on it during next month's board meeting. The goal is to standardize expectations across the board. 

A. Bothner confirmed that no members of the public were present.

A. Bothner confirmed there is no executive session tonight.