Mr.McCullough introduced himself as the new AP at the middle school.  He explained about the forum that was held for teachers on Racial Bias and Social Justice.

The reopening plan included 3 options for students. 
1.Hybrid - 2 days in school 3 days at home online
2.Hybrid - 4 days in school for student with special need or ELL
3.Online only

 

The elementary school has 152 coming 2 days, 18 coming 4 days, and 100 online only.
The middle school has 81 coming 2 days, 6 coming 4 days, and 118 online only
The high school has 133 coming 2 days, 14 coming 4 days, and 118 online only

The attendance average has been 82% for HS, 76% for MS, and 67% for ES.
We are trying to connect with parents and students. Schoology is new this year.  There is a learning curve.  Elementary students have to rely on parents to log in.  For the elementary school, the lessons are pre-recorded. TAs are available all day long.  Teachers were given an extra planning period. If students access Schoology then they are counted for attendance.  
 

The elementary school had a Summer Enrichment Program.  51 students participated.  The daily average attendance was around 85%.  

Professional development days and parent-teacher conferences days were moved to Wednesday because there are no students in the building on Wednesdays. This change adds learning days for students. 

No meeting this month.

Zehra presented a PowerPoint presentation sharing photos from the beginning days of school.

731 students as of this week.  We are still loosing a few but we have a waitlist for most grades. K & 6 were in high demand this year.

D.Ozcan shared Summary Income Statement, Balance Sheet/Cash Flow, and Expenses(estimated for 2020-2021 year) reports.

After receiving feedback from the teachers they needed better quality laptops to improve the quality of instruction.  We decided to use the grant money to purchase Surface computers for the teachers.  The finance committee recommends to the board the purchase of Surface computers for teachers that can be used as tablets or laptops and can be projected to screens.  We got 3 quotes and decide to go it with Microsoft. They gave us a 10% discount and it comes with windows 10.  

At last month's board meeting the board approved the purchase of new Chromebooks. Due to the high demand that all schools are looking to purchase them, the ones that were recommended are no longer available.  We found another model to replace it.  They are on backorder and expeccted to ship at the end of September.

Educational Services is better known as I Ready provides us with diagnostics that allow us to assess students in math and ELA. It also provides curriculum resources for teaching English, reading, and math.  I Ready is already the diagnostic tool in the elementary school for math. When the pandemic hit, There was no state testing to provide data.  We need to have a nationally recognized assessment that the Charter School office will accept, recognize, and know well to prove that our students are growing.  The Charter School office recognizes it in absence of state data.  

Mr.Demirtas shared that the town of Gates approved our application for Use Permit so we can go ahead with the purchase of St.Helen's building for our elementary school.  They added some conditions to our permit.
- Grades K- 5 only
- Max of 400 students only
-  NO On-street parking, except for Teacher/Parent Conference Days (possible stagger into 2 days, twice a year.)

This is a one year permit. If we need to increase the number of students we can present it at a future board meeting next September.  This was one of our contingencies.  Mr. Demirtas started communicating with the NYS Department of Education, Susan Gibbons, to start the application package to get approval by the state.  Once we recieve approval we can move to closing.

The committee is recommending updating our enrollment policy.  
1. The names of applicants are selected through the common application program named as Goodschoolsroc. 
-This is a common app used by all Charter schools in the city of Rochester.  It allows us to run the lottery.
2. Preference is given to students residing in the Rochester City School District.  
- This was common practice it just was never written, so we added it.
3. Children of the school's teachers, staff, and board members are automatically enrolled if there is an available spot and are exempted from the lottery.
- This is a recommended addition.  

Mr.Middleton started a discussion about forming a DEI committee. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Although we have started working with Deb Hanmer and engaged in Restorative Justice practices we need more. The admin team has started working on this. Every building will have its own team. The board needs to be involved.   

All Pluses and no Deltas.  We went through the agenda and asked all the right questions. We took care of all the business we needed to take care of.