Download minutes PDF Minutes Draft

City Garden Montessori School

Minutes

Governance Committee Meeting

Date and Time

Thursday February 15, 2024 at 9:00 AM

In-person 

Room #117 4209 Folsom Ave, St. Louis, MO 63110

Committee Members Present

A. Beasley, J. Dixon, L. Schwartze, S. Haigler

Committee Members Absent

D. Smith, L. Vowell

Guests Present

C. Huck, C. Schell

I. Opening Items

A.

Welcome and Introductions

  • Intros from each member - name, org, CGMS connection, what brings us to this work
  • Consideration of Robert's Rules of Order in future - not required, can feel exclusive. Bookmark for future discussion.
  • Could consider 1-2 additional members for committee, let Jesse know of potential ideas.

B.

Record Attendance

C.

Call the Meeting to Order

J. Dixon called a meeting of the Governance Committee of City Garden Montessori School to order on Thursday Feb 15, 2024 at 9:05 AM.

II. Action Items

A.

Committee priorities for FY24

  • Need to move beyond the "floor"/basics of governance
  • Have the ability to bring additional capacity to project management and accountability for governance projects
  • Note from Christie - last strategic plan ended in 2023, need to develop new strategic plan in the coming year. 
    • FY25 strategic planning process kick-off
    • Late spring debrief/retrospective of prior strategic plan

B.

Vision of Excellence overview

  • Jesse shared context behind VOE, developed by Opportunity Trust in collaboration with community stakeholders
  • Consensus across CGMS leadership that this should inform excellence on board and that governance committee will serve as driver

C.

Board Policies

  • MCPSA released list of updated policies; we have list of updates to be made over the next month
    • Next committee meeting - review of 2 with pending questions, approval of pro-forma updates
  • Additional policy questions to be considered -  
    • Discipline policy area of tension and opportunity, could be a good opportunity to bring in community
    • Events of this week surfaced policy questions - e.g. School Safety, Digital Tech
    • Discernment around school-level policy vs CGMS-level policy (what rises to level of committee/board)

D.

Leadership Evaluation

  • Lauren shared understanding of current state & opportunities for improvement moving forward, noting this year as building year with fully updated process for FY25
  • Committee agreed: 
    • Completion in early April
    • Review of BoT competencies, updates to be made in alignment with CEO job description & FY24 goals
    • Integration of additional input from external partners, with intention around which questions are assigned to which respondents
    • Output of process - updated CEO job description, more robust/routinized skip-level engagement

E.

Community engagement

  • Claire shared insights from board retreat around the opportunity and need for more intentional and proactive two-way community engagement
  • Group outlined CGMS community constituents - students, parents/caregivers, teachers/staff board/committees, surrounding neighbors, sponsors/funders - and discussed specific communication needs & opportunities
  • Next steps - 
    • Claire to review TNTP survey results
    • Claire/Jesse to outline plan for community listening

F.

Recruitment

  • Claire shared update on importance of recruiting ~3-5 new members (currently at 8 board members) for next phase of board work - as well as kicking off a more consistent annual recruitment practice
  • In March meeting, committee members will review proposed process/timeline/artifacts

III. Upcoming Meetings and Events

A.

Determine committee meeting schedule

  • Plan to meet ~3rd week of each month
  • Committee meeting date pending - March 25 or 29 at 9am.

IV. Closing Items

A.

Adjourn Meeting

There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 10:30 AM.

Respectfully Submitted,
J. Dixon