001Hold on. Hold on. All right. Good. Good evening, everyone. Um, we're about to start the meeting. Julie, have you recorded attendance? Yes. And our guests? Yes, I have. Thank you. Enrique, please confirm that the meeting is being recorded. It is. Do we have a quorum? Yes, we do. Thank you. Welcome to the Metro Regional Scholar Academy board meeting for March 2025. It is now 6:39. Erica, can you read the mission statement for us, please? Absolutely. Metro Regional Scholars Academy provides a differentiated, challenging, and equitable learning environment that supports the distinctive intellectual, social, and emotional needs of highly digital children from diverse backgrounds and enables them to form meaningful relationships with their intellectual peers. Thank you. At this time, we will go over the Zoom webinar etiquette rules. Meetings will be broadcast to the public via
002the Zoom webinar platform. This meeting this medium is more secure as it requires attendees to register, limits interactivity, removes the ability to communicate without permission and does not permit anonymous participation, comment or annotation. Registration will require the submission of a first and last name and an email. I will now entertain a motion to approve the minutes from our meeting on the 24th of February. Sold. Second. All right. Um, all those in favor say I. I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. The motion's passed unanimously. I will now entertain a motion to adopt the agenda for this evening. Are there any amendments? No. No amendments. Okay. So, we'll entertain a motion. So moved. Second. Thank you. We have now adopted the agenda for this evening. Do we need a vote? Oh, sorry. Thank you. We are
003about to um all those in favor say I. I. I. Any oppos? Thank you Allison. Any opposed? We have now adopted the agenda. Thank you. Enrique. This is the first opportunity for community comments. Subject to guidelines. The public is welcome to speak limited to three minutes per speaker. Topics should not cover private, confidential, or personal information. The board will not respond or enter into a dialogue on topics discussed. At this time, you may indicate your desire to participate in community comments by raising your hand. If you'd like to raise your hand, click participants. In the lower upper section of your Zoom chat in the participants window, select raise hand. And when it's your turn, a moderator will identify you by name and then grant you access to speak. Are there any hands raised? Nope. All
004right. There will be another opportunity if someone else wants to speak. Yes. We will move on to the director's report. Mr. Carver. that up. Yeah, give me vice chair and board. Thank you for letting me be here tonight to present to you uh the director's report. Um in the next slide, we uh we're going to talk about celebrations as always because we have so much to celebrate. Uh give you an update on admissions and then our lottery. Uh and then uh I have just a few comments about our director of academics search and then some important dates to round out. We'll go to the next slide there. Congratulations. We have so many things that happened in the month of March that I I just can't you know I can't touch on all of it. We
005have a bunch of great bashes. fifth and sixth grade had a wonderful bash and our uh our young scholars had a wonderful uh evening under the sea dance and so it's been spectacular and we had a great bingo night uh and our PTO was able to do a beautifification day and our outside of our building looks uh just fantastic and we're looking forward to seeing all those new plants come up with some hopefully some rain coming up very soon. So, we're excited about that. But I want to congratulate our robotics club for winning the state championship individual skills and teamwork competition. They did a wonderful job. And then our sixth grade girls robotics team won the judges award. Uh so we're really proud of them. Our band and course spring concert was a huge success.
006We had so many people. I didn't know where we were going to sit them. Uh matter of fact, next year we'll be ready. Maybe we'll have to have seats coming all the way into the library. But we had a huge crowd uh of of parents and we really appreciate their support. Uh then we had our u our middle school school science bowl clubs uh secured a third place finish in the national science bowl regional tournament. Miss Torres and and some parents are over that particular club and they did a wonderful job. And of course our math counts team continues to do amazing things. They were ninth in the state uh at the competition down at the North Carolina Science and Math School, School for Science and Math. So, we're very proud of them. They continue
007to do just wonderful things uh as they compete and do wonderful things in math. So, we're very very proud of them and all the things that Mr. Chvel has did a wonderful job with our math students. Uh going to admissions testing. Um this was my first experience with the admissions testing testing and uh it was great to see uh our board was present on January 25th and February the 1st. Uh these were on Saturdays. Uh we had group testing. This year we administered 265 group tests uh versus 194 last year. So uh we're up a little bit from last year. Actually quite a bit. Uh notable increase was in rising kindergarten students. We had 101 rising kindergarten students tested this year compared to just 64 in 2024. Uh so that's a great sign of growth
008uh moving forward. So we're very excited about that. Not only did we test on the 25th uh and the 1st of February, but uh we also tested uh throughout the week. We had some test dates where some students could not come in, parents couldn't come in. So, we accommodated that and our front office, Miss Guzi, Miss Devela, did a wonderful job of making that happen uh and being very flexible to help our our parents and students kind of do that. So, oh, I was just going to ask if those are total numbers including those in the week as well. I my understanding is 265 is all the numbers together. And have we ever accommodated extra testing people? I don't know. I don't know. I'd have to check. Yeah. I mean, is that a practice that
009you would want to continue doing? Well, I think it's good if you do it. I mean, you know, because sometimes parents cannot get over there. There were some unforeseen unexpected circumstances with a couple parents and their families. So they were more one-off scenarios to accommodate these very unique situations be sick. Yeah. Whether it was an illness or something more tragic on it. So um really want Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. To the next one. Then our lottery numbers uh you see there that we have 36 open seats. Uh and currently we have 60 qualified applicants for those 36 seats. Uh in first grade we have one open seat, 22 qualified applicants, four open seats in second grade with 21 qualified applicants. Third grade is three with 24. We have no seats in fourth grade but we
010have 31 qualified applicants. We had no seats in fifth grade but we had 29 uh qualified applicants. two seats in sixth grade and 35 applicants uh were qualified in seventh and eighth grade. We do not have any open seats currently. Uh and then seventh grade we have seven and then we have six and eight qualified applicants. The letters to those uh they for each seat went out May the 20th and they have 10 days to accept as those acceptance acceptances uh have slowly started to triple back. Do you mean March 20th? Um, the the letters say May 20th, but do you mean March? Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. That's the type of Thank you. Okay. I'm just dreaming. Thanks. It's been a long day. What's the lower priority numbers mean? The Yeah, I had to look
011that up too. Those lottery priority are those uh I believe there are five that uh that we have that are priorities. For instance, if you are a sibling, a legacy parent, um there's a couple other teachers, teachers, underprivileged, they would have priority, their lottery priority over those other and I believe to I'm afraid to state if it's not true, but I'm almost certain economic disadvantage. If they selfidentify, yes, then they would be a priority. I had to actually looked that up in our policy as well because I wondered what those numbers were. Okay. So that means for example um in the third grade right there's three open seats. So those three seats went to the lottery priority. Well they will go to the three they will go to those three first right. Yes. to those
012three that end if they accept the seat. If they accept the seats, yeah, offered to them and then they will. All right, that's all I've got for that. Uh then uh as far as director of academics, uh we've got to that point where we'll be uh uh offering a recommendation this evening uh in close session that if we if the board agrees on that new candidate, they would start March 31st. Uh then two other dates I wanted to just make sure everyone knew about. March the 27th, we have early dismissal at 1:00 and then March the 28th, we have teacher work day. and we're at the end third quarter. So, we are on the home stretch as we finish the school year. So, we're very excited about that. And believe that's all I got. You
013have any questions for this evening? I know this is kind of tied to what we're going to touch on briefly in governance, but as we prepare for next month, just working on the strategic plan, which will impact the slate for next year and the budget. So, it's all kind of working together. So, this is good. I think the focus for this month is certainly what did testing look like? How did the lottery go? And then we can start looking ahead at staffing budget for the new school year next month. All right, any other questions before we move on to governing? Thank you, Mr. Carper. Thank you. All right. Um, Enrique, sure. So um in the governance committee this month we talked about um the executive committee that Mr. Karper's put together has been working on
014their recommendations for a strategic plan. So the board will be getting together but um with a strong tenative date of next week to meet to um discuss that strategic plan and work through the the ideas they're bringing forth. Um, also we want to announce that as we have in previous years, the board will be hosting a town hall on Tuesday, April 22nd at 6 PM. We welcome the community to join us in person here at the school. However, it there will be a virtual link that will be provided via the Eagles Nest newsletter um shortly. So, ideally it'll be in this week's um letter. Um pitch to have people come in. Last year we had one person come in, but she got a lot of attention and she asked a lot of questions that we
015answered. So, um just to encourage people. Yeah, that's true. Um we have as as discussed some personal matters to discuss and close. uh personnel contact contract matters to discuss and close and then did you want to talk about board recruitment? Oh yes, actually for bo board recruitment whether you're live here or on the replay, we would love to talk more if you have questions on how you might be able to support the school through becoming a part of the board. Please reach out to any one of us to understand the opportunity or perhaps a committee is the first entry into this role. We are always looking for parents and others in the community to be a part of the board, the committee because you can really shape the overall how we execute on the strategy
016for scholars and the community. So just a strong push. We haven't published in the newsletter yet, but as we look at already we're focused on the next school year. We did want to take this opportunity to mention it here at the board meeting in particular. If you have a finance background, we're always looking for folks to join the finance committee. So, wanted to call that out specifically. Thank you, Enrique. All right. Any questions for Enrique or the governance committee? Thank you. So we'll move on to DEI D. Danny. Hi everyone. Um so the DNI committee have an opportunity to meet once before in session. Um apart from continuing to work in some of the items that have been brought um to the board in prior meetings such as how to increase the collaboration um we
017continue to work on that. In fact, thank you Mel um for allowing us to speak in the uh the PTO council meeting recently and um really for this meeting I this one item here to brought to everyone's attention particularly it was one of our board members um who quite you know who inquiry hey you know is this something that we're looking at so we did wanted to have everyone uh know that um as he relates to um the DNI mission and whether any action was necessary in light of this new administration's executive orders on DNI um to make sure that we're protecting the school DNA mission as well as well as federal funding. So we did talk that um in our council meeting um sorry committee meeting and we would continue to monitoring monitor sorry
018any developments um you know including feedback or guidance we get from other school communities um and have you have come aware that it has some of our Charlotte neighboring schools um have already had certain funds come being targeted um in because of certain DNI programs. So we want to make sure that we continue to monitor this and report any you know if any other further evaluation is necessary. Any questions on on this particular topic? All right. Well, thank you Danny. But we're still with you. We'll move on to policy. On to policies. Yeah. So um there has been a lot of work on the policy uh space um for you know we have been publishing backtoback policies every and voting on them every every meeting. So I think for now just it was important to
019get everyone's um FYI that we continue to work on reviewing policies as they come to our attention um that they may need more you know there are a review etc. So some of these include the use of median classrooms internet safety and acceptable use of information. Um so to the extent um for the rest of the policy uh sorry the yes the board committee there are others um that may you come across that may need attention please bring them forward um so we continue to add them to the laundry list of um policies and reviews and in light of this backto back revision um motion that's happening on our in the committee um uh we're also paying some attention on you know best practices and how to efficiently published documents um once they have been
020approved by the board. Um we came across instances where they have been you know we we we approve them they are published in one space maybe not another source. So we want to make sure that we're um doing some hygiene there as it relates to document retention um how we're publishing uh sorry publishing um documents once the board approves them. Any questions on policy? Right. Thank you, Danny. We will move on to the foundation committee. So for the foundation um we've made some progress in terms of an increase in pledges and to nonations. So total pledge and donation amount is up to as of um Friday March 20 20th is up to 3 385,000 and change. Um that represents about a 4.7% increase over last month and um but that is down relative to this
021time last year down 7.1%. So we're a little behind compared to last year's numbers. Um the the biggest driver for that appears to be uh returning families. So far, um, returning families represent a 78% or 79% rounding up, uh, compared to this time last year where it was at 84%. So, there's definitely some room from returning families to make up. We also have, um, this year more of an outstanding pledge amount that's due. So, um, this year we have $137,000 from outstanding pledges, meaning people have pledged to donate that much, um, but haven't done so to date. Um, compared to last year at this time was 115,000. So, um, it is the start of our campaign, our pledge is a promise campaign. So, our, uh, kind parent ambassadors will be reaching out to those who
022made pledges but haven't donated yet. They'll be doing that starting early April. Um, and as a reminder to the community, uh, the pledge fulfillment date is May 15, 2025. That's that's for every the money to count for this fiscal year for the school. So, that's an important date to try to hit. The foundation has also been working on other items. Um, we are trying to start what we're calling a graduation uh, walk for the class of 2021. So that's for um previous uh the the eighth graders that graduated the school will be coming into the school and walking around. Um so it's kind of them coming back and uh right before they go off to college. So we're trying to do a little more of an outreach with them. Part of that is also developing
023a more formal alumni association. we'll be starting off with that class by having them fill out a form that they hopefully will be more involved in. Um, so that's some of the the initiatives we're working on in the foundation. Any questions? Do do I mean I know this is more of a high school thing, but maybe you know for eighth grade, do they ever do reunions the kids amongst themselves or anything like that? Yes. So they do. So that's part of what we're trying to organize. Point to association. That's exactly right. So they do do uh reunions every uh now and then. Um this graduation walk will be part of that. The the form we're asking them to fill out will be who wants to be a community leader in that way. So um it'll
024be a little self-governed with our guidance so to speak so we can keep tabs. We also have like a LinkedIn uh alumni group. So that tends to be more people that entered the workforce at that point. So people after college. So we're trying to get in with our graduates right after high school um to kind of continue that momentum. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. And to answer your question though, Eric, I would say the informal gathering is the full festival. Yeah, it's true. Yes. Yeah. You know what? Now that you mentioned that, yeah, I've seen a bunch of like random people and then I hear them talking, you know, student or teacher. So, yeah. Yeah. Any other questions? Thank you, Enrique. Um, at this point, we'll do an educational excellence update. Oh, that's
025me. Um okay. So for educational excellence um we have the we we discussed in the last meeting about the computer science program and about um the different options there for whether we were required to provide classes that gave you high school credit versus just middle school classes. And uh I think the conclusion was that we're not required to provide um classes that are for credit for high school only u required to provide an offering for middle school and um my understanding is that Miss Carpenter was going to discuss with um his leadership team like what would be the offering whether it was going to be offered as fun elective versus a uh within either art or music um or language. So those were sort of like the two options being discussed at the time. Um
026we also talked about the um social studies and science curriculum that needs to be revamped and um we just waiting for an update on that. I don't know Mr. you have anything. Yes, we have got through the the initial planning and this in the month of April will finalize that. Miss Mu and Miss Torres are going to be Miss Madre will meet with the social studies and Miss Torres with the science and finalize that planning session. So this month you said sorry you said they'll finalize it this in the month of April. And what grade is that for? Uh that's all the way vertical. Yeah, but for social studies in particular, we were looking for the finalized um alignment of classes because it was a change that was made by the state um for those
027particular for middle school. So, they just needed to make sure that they aligned to the state requirements. Um and then we talked about the survey um that we were looking to put together for parents for this year and um I reached out to the fast committee and I believe um child is also yeah there's two other groups that are working on the survey. Um I haven't received anything back yet. Yeah. And that's going to be a focus this week just for us to work on finalizing to get it out to the parent community before spring break. That's the goal. Okay. So that we can have feedback in time hopefully for the town hall and at the very latest our April board meetings. And then for the media policy, um I think we were going to
028reach out to the policy committee and I haven't I don't know Danny if if you have any updates on the media policy for the school. So some of the revisions that the committee has been looking at is more in terms of the acceptable use um of internet safety in general in light of what Mechanburgg is doing. But if we believe that there's anything else am I is that not the media one is that the media and classroom? Yeah. Yeah. the median and classroom. Let me go back to the notes. But we have not. So we did look at that to the extent of making sure that the staff playbook handbook. Handbook. Yes. Um there was that sort of preventing of video material to be shared in classrooms. Um so that was the issue that was
029brought to our attention. result in we need to go and make an update in policy itself because it does address that that this teacher needs. So not going to that like yeah if there's anything else that knowing what is in concern that the the your comm the committee is looking at we can look at that and come back um if there's anything else we need to review on the media policy that is not that issue. Is that the whole issue, Dominic? Because I know you were the one that mentioned that there were like two distinct things. Yeah, there are a few things and maybe what we need to do is reconnect the two committees. Okay. So that we can have the appropriate review and if there are changes, recommend them, bring them forth to the
030board because next month is April. Like we have very few board meetings left in the school year. The goal is to have that wrapped up. So we can definitely take that offline to get that ready if there's anything that needs to be brought forth to the April meeting for the first read. So we'll have time Yeah. to Yeah. Yeah. And the last thing was we talked about the language options and u the idea that's been discussed at the school is the the language lab idea with Rosetta Stone. So, um I I'm not sure if anything on that has light. Well, we we put that in the strategic plan. That's something that we're looking at doing for our uh our younger students uh and giving them an option of possibly saying have a choice of 25
031different languages. Sounds like a good question for the survey too. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's it's certainly we're exploring different options. We'll include some questions, targeted questions in the survey that's going out to the community. And as we are doing our strategic planning, we're also keeping that into consideration as we look at our goals for the next five years. So that's just one of the options that we explored. All right. Thank you. We will shift to the whole child committee. Thank you very much. Um and as Leon mentioned, whole child does have um some questions on the survey um that we would like to share with the community. I I've drafted some questions and circulated them to the whole child committee for their input. I just did it this weekend, so they haven't had much time
032yet to review. Uh so hopefully we can get that back to um educational excellence at some point this week um for including better by annual survey. Um so I guess the most important issue and I I I'm sorry. I apologize. I I have mentioned that whole child did meet this month. um had a really good discussion and um one of the issues that came up and ever since I've been on the board which is four years now this issue comes up every year is the workload and pressure on our upper middle school scholars uh specifically seventh and eighth grade. Um and we want the community staff and scholars, families to know that uh we're taking this issue very seriously. Um and so just wanted to the whole child committee um wants to acknowledge um a
033serious and ongoing concern regarding the experience of our upper middle school scholars. We have heard from families, students, staff about the intense pressure placed on our scholars, the overwhelming workload, and a culture of perfectionism that does not align with our vision for this school. Additionally, we are deeply concerned the overall environment may at times discourage fostering a culture where students feel free to ask questions, take intellectual risks, and know that their thoughts and concerns will be taken seriously. This is not a culture we want for our scholars and it's not acceptable because of the seriousness of the issue. The whole child committee has directed the executive director to conduct a thorough investigation into these concerns. The whole child committee stands firmly behind the executive director in making the necessary adjustments. No matter how significant they
034may be, change is coming and we expect every member of our school community to embrace it. The whole child committee's priority is and always will be the social and emotional well-being and success of our scholars and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that they are learning in an environment that uplifts, challenges and supports them and I know there has been um already some uh efforts on the part of executive director and his team um talking to students and um I I know Miss Chano is actively involved in uh getting feedback from the students and we'll also be getting feedback um from families. So um you know we really need to make some significant and important changes on the SC on how the scholars feel essentially and the pressure that they're they're feeling.
035Um and so there'll there will be more to come on this issue. Um and the whole child's committee is um dedicated to keeping it this issue on the forefront. Thank you Erica and the whole child committee. I know it's we certainly want to challenge our scholars and provide the appropriate level of um learning opportunities but recognize that perception is reality. So whether the intent is immense pressure that may be how it's perceived. So, a great opportunity for us to revisit and make sure that our approach um is in alignment with the experience that our scholars um ex that they experience while in middle school. Absolutely. And I think the the drafting of the strategic plan as we do that we should keep in mind like what do we want and I don't think anybody wants
036our our scholars to feel the pressure and you know we want them to to continue learning and we don't want to destroy a confidence. So um we should really keep that in mind when we're going over the strategic plan. Any any other questions? I know it's kind of a Yeah. Um, you mentioned something about soliciting feedback from families like specifically on this like what's the process for that? How can families get info to you? Yeah. So, we don't I don't know yet. Okay. All I know is that um there's families who have expressed concern and there's others who haven't. So, we want to get you know uh feed we're going to get feedback. I'm just thinking there are some who have not expressed it maybe who still feel it. So yeah absolutely no no we'll
037we'll you know I'll whole child will work with with Mr. Carper and Miss Chico to to effectively get some feedback from families who want to get it. Yeah. Um, and I was just going to say something else. And also ideas on how to make things better because I mean I I my child's in um, you know, in fifth grade which is consider kind of middle school but not really. So I don't see the pressures that the upper middle school has and and maybe in the teachers aren't in the homes. So families are at the first line. they they see what's going on and we all know our kids are uh you know most honest emotionally at least mine are you know with me. Um so I really think that families have might have some valuable
038insights um not only to their their their kids but you know we have lots of cultures here at the school. you know, maybe there's cultural um you know, differences that's that are that we can maybe um you know, address or you know, nurture to help these kids. I just I just know that um we're going to look at their a lot of perspectives. You know, I think we do a really good job of introducing families in the kindergarten and introducing new families, but I think we could probably do something for returning families in these higher grade levels at the beginning of the school year to level set families, right? To so parents and um the students can understand what expected out of them and what they should expect out of the school. So that's just
039I know I'm throwing this to you in this session so I apologize but an an idea of maybe having grade level or upper middle school middle school level parent meetings or or town halls or what have you just so that we could say you know it's not necessary to do these kinds of things or we're expecting kids to have this kind of homework. So, um, avenues for escalation, right? Or if you see your kids struggling, this is how we can help so that we can have that active conversation at the beginning of the school year, uh, not just when it rears its head at the in the middle of the year. Oh, I think that's a great idea. Hopefully, we get more ideas like that from our parents. And um I think too when they're
040younger they're cute and you want to participate in what they're doing and you know go on and then it kind of wains when they get older. So that might be a good opportunity. They don't want you there. Exactly. They don't want you there. So yeah. So I think that'll be a good I think that'll be good to you. I think like too that the kids who join the school in middle school sometimes can bring with them some challenges because of being so far behind in terms of content. Absolutely. I mean that's not really addressed in any in any way. So that can really add to the pressure. Absolutely. Sure. I mean it it's coming from all areas and obviously we're not going to be able to address everything and we all want them to have
041a little bit of pressure, right? prepare them but at the end of the day these are kids and and you need to give them appropriate support if you expect them to make that absolutely yeah we want we want our academics to be rigorous you know want to push them um but we want to do it in a way that encourages learning not discourages it um so again you know whole whole child is you know dedicated to working with Mr. Harper with M and doing whatever it it it takes to, you know, address these issues and figure out what's best for our scholars. Thank you. I just wanted to kind of, you know, just throw another idea out there because I just recently saw this and I wish I it would be something that they can
042do more of for the um upper grades. It's collaboration between the teachers on big projects. Um, so there was a collaboration that happened between Miss Torres and Miss Lipton on English and science and they did an amazing job. I was like beyond happy with the results. It was amazing because it brought in um all the aspects of it like they weren't just um writing random things about science. It was like also um worked in a way that it was like could be used for English and so they learn a lot in those projects and that's a great way to like not bombard them with projects and and things for them to do. It was not busy work but like real work. So absolutely Yeah, it honestly that is one of the biggest um suggestions that
043we hear is kind of collaborating um maybe more less on a curriculum collaboration and more on a text schedule or project collaboration but I think your idea is a little um yeah because it was it was like it could have been just a strictly science project but it wasn't and so that made it even like it it was like beautifully um executed. I wonder well we can talk about that offline because it's a I think that's a great idea and I'll work with the whole child will work with uh Mr. Carper and Mr. Chanel basically like there's lots of great ideas. How are we going to right, you know, to Kim's point, how are we going to get them all? Yeah. Um so we'll work on that and like I said there's there's more to
044come. We're not going to solve that this issue this school year, but we want to start implementing things this year. Yes. To lift the load off of our kids. And whether that's, you know, coordinating test schedules, concrete things that we can do right now. Yeah. To and and to reiterate, it's not this is not indicative of the intent of absolutely the teachers and the staff. However, since we have this feedback, here's an opportunity to see what we can do differently to improve the experience. And whether that's collaboration on the teacher level or in the assignments, we can certainly explore how to um execute, but there's certainly an opportunity. We've done it a certain way for many years and this is a perfect opportunity with the feedback that we have, the experience of our teaching team
045to look at other ways that we can innovate because I I would say that's one area that I would like us to focus on as we look at that strategic plan. It's innovation. How are we different than other schools? Like innovation needs to be a core component from from my perspective. obviously open to everyone's feedback, but we want to bring innovation back into our scope. Just one more quick. Absolutely. Um uh just um about mental load as well. Not not strictly curriculum, but just things that don't ne necessarily need to yes be attended to like every teacher having a different time for assignments to be due, whether it's 6:00 a.m. or 5:59 p.m. And you know, these kinds of things that are really taking so much bandwidth for my students and could be applying that
046to what they actually Yeah. And so there's a bunch of Yeah. and things like that that I think could be an easy fix. Yeah, absolutely. And again, like I didn't I didn't know these things, you know what I mean? So getting the family feedback will be helpful. Um yeah, I mean it's not just about workload, you know, who knows the workload might be fine. It might just be um you know, you know, I'm not sure the student competition the way our kids are, they're they're competitive, you know. So just trying to understand where are the the pain points, what can we do to alleviate that. But yeah, if we can make little changes like that, that that's great. That may have a huge impact. Yeah. Right. Exactly. So that's because some kids now feel like
047they have to check their email 24 hours a day. We don't want to be doing that as adults. You don't want kids to be doing they don't need that condition. No, they don't. Right. And that's the thing that you know, I think everyone agree on that. So, I don't think we're by any means, like Dominique said, we're doing this intentionally. We just need to be more um cognizant of it and especially I think with the gifted population that we probably need to be a little bit more sensitive to us. Yeah. And and one thing I will point out is I am a middle school parent and this could be an area of how do we help the supports that we talk about. This is the first year with percentages. That's a whole new ball of
048wax. Yeah, that requires some adjustment. And perhaps it's even just how we introduce that to the scholars because they are so hyperfocused on that now. And with Infinite Campus, the good news is we're getting real time updates. But the bad news is we're getting real time updates. So think there's just there's so much like what could f maybe maybe we put recommendations out to families like what could you be doing at home to alleviate some of this pressure. So I think there's lots of avenues to help here. Yeah. And it's a holistic view. Yeah. It's a holistic view. We just need to there's been this view and I think this common knowledge that no one's ever like acted on it and I we really need to act on it and that's child is really going
049to be pushing that to make you want to see some concrete changes and um you know we we've spoken to Mr. Carver about it and Miss Chano and they I think you understand the significance and the importance here and that we are expecting some ideas and and changes. So there'll be more to come from whole child and Mr. Harper and his team. Thank you. Lots of good discussion there. Yeah, absolutely. I love hearing the ideas. All right, we're moving on to the fast committee. So Allison Yes. So, we met a few weeks ago and um mainly focused on the safety. Um we applied for a safety grant a few months ago. Um asked for I believe $100,000 and we were granted $25,000 to spend on safety and security for the school. Um which is wonderful.
050Apparently they had a lot more applicants than they were expecting. Um so it took them a little bit longer. Uh, but we received $25,000. Um, we also have, let me get my numbers here. We had some money left with a very little bit of money, like $1,200 left from an old grant that we're going to be spending. And then, um, last year, I believe, we had a an ask to the foundation for some money again for safety and security. um based on everything that we identified that we want in the school. Um door shades and locks uh which will help the classroom security, a PA system which will allow us to alert um everybody throughout the building at once. And then um fencing and gates around the property. We should have plenty of money with
051the new grant, the old grant, and our original foundation ask of last year that we won't need any additional funds. Um fingers crossed. Um we will need to get additional quotes for the fence and get an updated quote. Um but we're working on that right now. Um so that's great news. Um we'll be able to use the grant and foundation money um to enhance the security of the school. Um we also did and I didn't put this on the agenda so my apologies. We did have um a bit of discussion on the strategic plan. Um and obviously we'll work as a board um going through the working meetings. Um but just how like you know based on what our plan is from an educational perspective, our strategy from an educational perspective, how can we um
052enhance the building um from a layout perspective um a construction perspective in order to support the um education changes that or education enhancements that we are going to be working on in the next 5 years. So that's kind of fast committee's um uh play in the strategy. Um how one strategy that we've had and will obviously continue to maintain is the safety and security which I just gave an update to. Um but then also how can the building enhance and support the educational needs for the school and that's it. Thank you. Question for you on the grant. Yes. Um maybe it's a couple of questions. One, remind me. Do we have to front the money and then get reimbured and substantiation or do we get to draw down the money and then provide the substantiation?
053That is above my pay grade. Um, that would be the finance department or Sabrina. Um, I do not. Yep. It's okay. I do not know that answer. Um, I will note that it has to be spent or something like used or applied for or asked for by June. Um, so it is a pretty quick turnaround. Okay. So that was my next question. It was money that was received. So the money is received. Okay. All right. So the money has received um and needs to be spent by the end of the school year. So the end of June. Uh yeah. I don't know if I had an exact date written down, but it's June. Okay. But we have a plan which pulled together anyway when we submitted for the grant. But do you have concerns about
054the timing or we can make it? Um I don't well I don't believe so based on our original conversations with defense people um you know to be determined. We also have like the PA system is the other thing. So, we'll have to work, you know, with um Alex and and operations to figure out, you know, what can be spent and when um to prioritize what can be done quickly. Okay. Thank you. Of course. I I do want to emphasize though that this was a plan that was started last year, right, that Allison and the FAST committee is continuing on. So, it's been a long-term road map. Um, and I want to what I want to emphasize is the grant has is something we thought for, but it doesn't diminish the need for our foundation, right?
055Yes. So, um I don't want people to think, oh, we got this money so the foundation doesn't doesn't need money. It's all this stuff is expensive and it was a part of a strategic plan. Yes, for for this thing. So, just wanted to make sure people understood that the the foundation still needs that support because it was counted on to fulfill this plan. Yeah. And yeah, the the grant was a nice to have. It was something that we didn't know was going to be available. We asked for 100,000 and we got 25 and there were some people who didn't get any. So, it's one of those things that we're going to continue to apply for across the board, across the school as they come up, but they're not guaranteed. Just like co COVID funds, we
056got a lot of COVID funds and then they just stopped. And so, it's something to supplement our foundation, but we can't really rely on it. Yeah. And and it only represents a fraction of the upgrades that Allison spoke to. Yeah. So, it doesn't cover all of it. Just to just to be clear on the grant versus foundation. Yes. And as we are doing these reinforcements, I'll also say we have a list of um priorities but that we have to prioritize all the priorities from that security assessment which occurred last school year. So yes, this is one of the from that and I will say so at this point based on foundation and um the grants we the security upgrades are financed. However, I mentioned our strategic plan which was to enhance the school in nonsecurity
057me um ways in order to give our teachers more teaching space um more office space, more um gathering space for the students. That's something that we don't have any grants on the horizon for and that's something that we want to do in order to make the school work for our population. Um, and that is not funded at all and and would we would rely on the foundation for to be determined. Stay tuned. Thank you. Yes, I'm excited about the grant. So, that's great. Yeah. And could not have come at a better time given the construction is now complete with the apartment. So that fencing really is is a more urgent need that than it was six months ago. We were going to do it anyway. It's just nice that now we get we essentially have,
058you know, 25% off or so. Yeah. All right. Great. Any other questions for the fast committee? All right. We can move on to finance. And I know um Adam's on his way here, so he'll be here for close session. I can give the updates or Liliana, do you want to give the updates? Either can work. Um, I guess I can wait from there. Okay. So, preliminary um Okay. So, the budget in terms of the budget um so we're pending the strategic um I guess the the strategic plan in order to finalize the budget. So, In the meantime, [Music] um Miss Langer is putting together sort of a template based on the um new accounting firm. Like she's basically looking to get the new accounting firms template. So um it can be used um based on
059that since the they're going to be managing the budget going forward. And um so the goal is to have that uh for review and vote for the May meeting and for review I guess next meeting. Um the tax forms um were all completed and uh they just need to have some uh final tweaks and uh corrections and they will be available for next month for approval. And uh this the 990 was filed on time. So, it will be um set to go for the April meeting. Um there we're up for renewal on all of our insurance policies and um we had some discussions around uh what uh on the health insurance side there were some discussions around what would be uh best for the school and recommendations around those. I see those mentioned in here
060in the agenda, but um I think we're going to stay with the the same plan that's currently being used. And for the liability insurance, this is sort of a a logistical item. So just the policies are all going to renew April 1st. So we just need to have those uh renewals. There is some increase. Yeah. So I just calculated that it's a 15% overall. So it's going from about 40,000 annually 40,600 annually to 46 almost 49 sorry 47,000 lots of numbers here. Um Miss Liner is still working on negotiating. Some had modest increases if you look line by line. Some were 20% or more increase. Um, but overall just a total premium, it's a 15% increase. So hopefully we're able to get some improvements, but at the end right now it is slightly over $6,000
061higher for these lines of coverage. And my understanding is that it usually tends to increase about 15% per year. That's probably around the average. Um surprising that it's increasing. That seems like I mean it's not surprising it's increasing, but that seems like a big increase. Well, and I know Sabrina does her best to you. Yeah. So, I'm not questioning that whatsoever. It's just it's a it's a the number sounds high, but the dollars are not significant overall. But I I don't think that's unreasonable even as a starting point. And then perhaps on some of those that have the higher increase like the commercial and the um general liability the property and then the general liability there could be some room there to reduce it. So, it's not going to go to 5% likely, but we
062may be able to close that gap where it's less than that $6,000 increase and the finance manager is already working on that. So, this is worst case scenario um what was proposed as the renewal. So, are we v I'm sorry I may have missed it. Are we voting now? Yes. Yes. Yes. But we don't have a we don't have a policy to renew yet. This is it. Oh, this is it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. This is for the commercial lines. So, I looked at this 6876. Okay. I just closed it. But has a named insured as the foundation. The named insured needs to be the school was incorporation and the foundation. I saw that too and we can ask a clarifying question that may be the additional insured. So the main contract is the school
063and that's listed as also covered that main insured is different than the addition. I don't know much but yeah insured is different than additional insured. So we just want to make sure we get that clarification. And um I didn't see DNO insurance and that might be a different renewal schedule. Okay. Sorry. It might be a different copy. Yeah, just like the health hasn't come up yet. So that's not 41. I thought it was this one, but Okay. So I'll entertain a motion to approve the quoted amount or up to the current um quoted amount. Yeah, it was worded. Would would you be okay if there if we postpone the vote until Adam comes if there's additional questions? Sure. Okay, that's a good idea. Yeah. So, we'll vote after we're closed. Okay, that's a good idea.
064All right. Um the other item for the finance committee is we will discuss and close staff bonuses. The finance committee does have a recommendation. So we will discuss in more detail in close session. Any questions on the topics discussed so far? All right. This is the second opportunity for community comments. Please use the Zoom function to raise your hand and then a moderator will say your name and allow you to speak. Are there any hands raised? Nope. Oh, there is one. Sorry. Uh, Du. Okay, so hold on. You got to start the timer. Yeah, I got to start the timer. Thank you. And we can one moment. All right, Du. Hey everyone, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Awesome. Yeah, thank you uh for giving me the opportunity. Um just just uh just a
065comment on um you know talked about um understanding the workload in the upper middle school. I think that's a phenomenal thing to do again having an eighth grader in the school and going through the three years of upper middle school. Just want to give a shout out to the staff and the administration that does set expectations the beginning of the year on what the workload is and will be for students. And I'm not discounting any of the social emotional uh things that needs to be considered and happy to participate in the feedback and looking forward to it. I would also make a a statement to so please consider um not just the here and now but if there are benefits that are coming in for our students after graduation. So as an as a example
066I know you might feel uh the workload at at the time at the moment but I've also heard from the students who graduated saying it has benefited them in the high school and after. So if as we are seeking feedback, I would uh encourage the board and the administration to seek feedback uh not only from the here and now. You know, we have parents who have students who graduated and if we can seek their feedback or the parents feedback and understanding the long run as well to keep that in perspective. Um just wanted to make that uh comment and thanks and appreciate the efforts of the board and administration always thinking strategically and long-term. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other hands raised? No. All right. Is there no further questions on
067the topic? I will entertain a motion to enter close session to discuss contracts and other confidential personnel matters. So moved. Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. The motion has passed unanimously and we will now enter go into close session. Thank you everyone. We have rejoined from close session. It's now 10:05 p.m. I will entertain a motion to approve the employment contract as discussed and closed. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed passed unanimously. Julie, I know you already wrote those. Do you want to read what you have? I didn't write the other ones, so let me get down to it though. Hang on. That's fine. Um, I'll entertain a motion to approve the staff bonuses as recommended by the finance committee. So moved. Second. Any second?
068Um, is there someone you need to vote? Shannon, she says it's looking for a password. She clicked on the wrong thing. Okay. Um, I'm sorry. Uh, those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. The motion has been approved unanimously. Last vote for the evening. I will enter a motion to approve the liability insurance renewals. Hold [Music] on. Insurance renewals up to the quoted amount. Yeah. as proposed by the finance committee. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The motion has pro um been approved unanimously. I will now entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor say I. I any opposed?