001e e e all right we're off mute great good evening everyone um Julie have you had an opportunity to record attendance and guests yes and we can you please confirm the meeting is being recorded it is thank you do we have a quorum we do great I'll call the meeting to order welcome to the metr Lena Regional Scholars Academy board meeting for the month of February 2025 andri please read the mission statement Metrolina Regional Scholars Academy provides a differentiated challenging and Equitable learning environment that supports the distinctive intellectual social and emotional needs of highly gifted children with diverse backgrounds and enables them to form meaningful relationship with their intellectual peers thank you I will now review the zoom webinar etiquette and Rules meeting meetings will be broadcast to the public via the zoom webinar platform
002this 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 enter a motion to approve the minutes of the board meeting on January 27th to both the open and closed meetings so moved session second all those in favor say I I I any opposed the motion has passed I will now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our board meeting on February 3rd 2025 for the open and closed session meeting minutes so moved second all those in favor say I I any opposed the motion has passed at this time I will enter a motion to adopt the agenda so
003move second speak up second thank you Malik all those in favor say I I any opposed thank you the agenda has been adopted for this evening time it's the first opportunity for Community comments subject to guidelines the public is welcome to speak limited to 3 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 C the participants in the lower or upper section of your Zoom chat in the participants window select raise hand sorry no problem and when it's your turn a moderator will identify You by name and then Grant you access to speak are there
004any hands raised at this time no okay then we will move on to the director's report for February 2025 Mr CER was uh Alison sorry give me fixing our [Music] microphone first slide there sorry I need to share the screen one moment well thank you again for allowing me to speak tonight and give you a report on all the outstanding things that going on here at uh Scholars Academy and if I told you everything that was going on we'd be here till nine o'clock so we're going to make it short and I'm just going to tell you a few things uh but uh we're going to talk tonight a little bit about celebrations our SEO program uh just a a quick update on some H HR U is things we want to talk to you
005a little bit about tonight as far as that's concerned and then our academic director search and so the first slide there about celebrations uh we've got several things to celebrate first of all congratulations to our math counts team for a second place finish at the UNCC chapter competition uh and I've gotten some results I have not been able to see my email yet but I hear great things have happened for our MTH camps uh students uh but we are very excited that they're going into the state competition congratulations I don't know if you got the privilege of going out and seeing uh the the wonderful musical dear edua Jr uh but it was fabulous uh on February the 7th and 8th we had so many of our kids involved in that and they did a
006wonderful job um and then a big thank you to our entire executive staff uh for hosting our successful gifted mindes conference uh that was on February the 18th I think that was the only day last week I think we went one other day to start uh but that one day was super special and uh we had a wonderful presentation from Dr Brian Howen and just under 100 uh Educators there had a huge crowd uh it was a packed house and uh we had some really nice comments from the teachers uh from our own teachers of course but then also from teachers that came from all over the region uh to to uh to get this opportunity to listen to Dr how and he had a wonderful message so it was a great day great day
007next slide I want to talk about uh that was actually a good picture that as you can tell it's a packed house there uh and Dr Howen was a great presenter the other thing I want to update you on uh this is the time of the year that we always give an update on oural program and what's all going on with oural program and some of the activities that we've had so far uh we just had uh the drummers assembly which is a character Ed uh program where uh we have someone that comes in uh brings in all these drums uh gets our kids up there to and teach them how to drum the beats and sing the songs about character and topics uh and even got some of the teachers to go up there
008and play drums you can see think picture Mr Bella was up there uh banging on the drums uh it was a lot of fun they they Ed some other uh instruments uh in that in that performance and it was a lot of fun the kids really enjoyed it and uh and the key is Not only did they have fun but they also learned some great uh character traits character Ed traits that we always want to instill on them every day so it was just a really fun event we enjoyed that a lot uh just a report and up date uh as you know I think it was about two months ago we talked about the uh protect our students presentations that the state mandated that we uh present to our students and to our staff
009that has been completed so we are now compliant with that uh we can sign off that we've completed all that with all our students and our staff uh and Miss Cho reported that it was a it was a good thing for our students uh that uh she got to have some good conversations with our students after viewing the materials and uh just a good overall uh presentation for her uh so and then speaking of uh great things if you've not read the anxious generation uh is a great book uh I want to definitely suggest that you do that believe it's Wednesday we're going to have a parent a virtual parent meeting of those parents that have read the book give them the opportunity Mr con is going to leave discussion about that book uh and
010what it teaches and then another person that goes right along with anxious generation is let it uh let grow uh and what this is is basically it is a program that uh allows children uh the opportunity to have free play and to do things uh on their own rather than the parent always being around them and helping them kind of giving them some Freedom uh and we actually use this you might have recognized on our uh on last remote day uh we gave Choice boards for our students well a couple of those choices were things like the child BS a cake by themselves and uh so it gave that that student opportunity to do some things on their own and uh we feel like that that will help in many different areas one it helps
011solve students anxiety uh reduces perfectionist pressure and builds student student agency or student voice uh so we feel like this is something that's uh very helpful for our students and uh it's coming out of a lot of things that we're learning from the book anxious uh generation so uh we are working with our teacher leadership team to incorporate some of that into some of our areas of study and some of the other activities that we're doing outside School uh Mr CH wanted me to report to the board that we do have a service day for students and staff that she is currently working on to plan uh and then she's also planning our Wellness Fair which is a has a mental health Focus uh for our students yes um what is the service Day this
012year when is the service day what what video are they going that that's what she's working on she hasn't exactly got that yet because some of the ones that she was looking at had a cost to it uh so we're trying to do something that doesn't have that cost and trying to get the right location trying to get it more if we can get it here uh and do something with students and so quick question on the drumers assembly yes that whole school that was not I think it was K5 if I remember correctly I don't think the Middle School of 78 was involved that um concern uh I believe that one of the one of the activities that we did at least in the past had some cost to and I think she was
013trying to reduce costs that we were doing I think it was the one where you put some food items together if I remember correctly there was a little bit of cost to it she said but I think I remember her saying that that one was free or low cost but the first time and if you did it again then you had to pay or like they they sort of like introduced it at a lower cost rate yeah if you do it again I think that might be the that was maybe the issue POS yes yeah but again I POS a question like is there a directive that there shouldn't be a cost associated with it or could we like be flexible with it and open up more opportunities for it sure sure I I can
014ask but see yeah and where she's at with that I think she has some other ideas to some really good projects things so but I'll keep you updated on exactly what she finalizes okay uh we still in the process of our search for our academic director I believe we're getting closer um so we're moving forward with that and then also as far as kind of an HR update as far as we have done a survey to our staff to find out hey to just get an idea of who's coming back uh for next school year and currently we only have one retire uh so we're in real good shape and U have have some fillers out there we feel like we'll be able to fill that position uh so we are in really good shape
015going into next school year at this point so you've received all of the um results from that survey yes okay yes and I believe that is it you have any questions just to clarify sorry everyone says they're returning except for the one who says who you know is retiring that is correct at this point yeah that always changes obviously as we get closer things can change uh but right now we just have onear and are we on the interview process for the know candidates we're towards uh I would say we're towards the end of that process I'm feel certain that we should be able to give some some feedback here real soon I think we're g maybe talk about CL in close session y all right thank you so much um we will move on
016to governance committee so um not a lot from the governance committee today just two quick updates um we have just a update on our Charter compliance in terms of reporting to the office of charter schools we all up to date with all of our items there are three pending submissions that are due yet but they're coming up so um we'll have those done shortly and then um we're planning similar to previous years we have a town hall scheduled for April the exact date is still to be decided but April 2025 we're expecting to do a virtual and inperson uh town so that parents um faculty uh can come in ask questions of the board um and you know engage in that kind of open dialogue that's it thank you all right we'll move on to
017the Dei committee for updates sure thanks um on the dni I found we had a chance to meet like it's recent but it may not be as recent um but a relative to community engagement there are two um initiatives that were discussed um and one of them has to do with the guest speaker initiative um I think in Prior meetings this was brought up as a as a u idea that you know was planted um in I think it was November um that we it was launch a a a survey to or invite our our community of parents um to come and speak at classrooms and so you know we discuss about where that's going um we're noticing that they might not be as much participation at least via the link so most of the
018participation of parents coming to classroom is happening more in an organic way meaning we have the teachers um who are um soliciting this type of um volunteerism and participation um so I think we would still want to keep the mechanism of the form um and other ways um either through promoting it through newsletter or social media um but you know one of the interesting things that were Bubble Up in discussion is well is there any way you could think about a tracking me mechanism of success either through the tool I mean sorry the form or otherwise um and consider also career for next year um um as you know also meeting that sort of mission of of of community engagement and bringing you know different perspective and backgrounds of our community to our classroom um
019and um on another item also tying to community engagement was um PTO and staff collaboration something that I think the TNI committee has not actively done as much of so um through through mail um you know we're hoping to to be at the next video meeting in March um and yeah I think that's as far as update on the dni front thank you all right policy have two matters up on the agenda this evening um one a um is the need to root to the 2020 Title 9 uh policy uh the we brought this up at the last um uh board meeting uh that this would need to happen and as a result we um what we're what we are recommending is that we amend the to policy to uh um re uh uh authorize
020the 2020 Title 9 policy version um to do that the changes to go from the 2024 policy which we uh finalized in October of 2024 um and just a few months later then we had to change it back um and but the change is occurring because you the uh total nine rules that were um current in 2024 were struck down in January 2025 so as a result of that being of of that uh judicial ruling we're going to R to the 20120 uh we attached uh both um of the T9 policies uh to the agenda uh they were also uh provided to the board I believe uh the 1 of February 2025 for initial read and then just to further simplify the need for this our council is recommended that we do this uh the
021other aspect is that we not be a St section one two and three we have some Personnel changes um and we need to post the new policy to the website and the uh staff has to undergo uh some training and be provided with a manual the um staff training to my understanding that all staff is to be is to complete their training uh by our next board meeting uh and that they've begun uh providing them with uh the uh training um the uh there's going to be appoint there has been an appointment of a new title 9 coordinator uh that is one of our administrators uh uh Karen Eli will be the new title N9 coordinator that information has been posted to the website um so that's there Upon Our approving the new policy that
022will get posted to the website and uh we'll also need to note the uh training that the teachers are undergoing that has not been uh published yet to the website but we will um uh By the time of their completion for the next board meeting um so uh first would be the vote the 2020 Title 9 uh policy here a second right now yes so there's there's a recommendation to revert uh to the 2020 Title Nine our previously approved uh policy noting the personal changes um website update and training so moved recation to revert 2020 Title 9 previously approved noting policy policy noting personal changes personal CH personel changes Personnel changes um website update and training and staff training and staff training so second I guess call oh do we have a motion to vote
023on the Title Nine policy converting to the sove second all those in favor say I I any opposed the motion has passed the second matter on the agenda for policy would be the responding to law enforcement activities on school grounds on school ground me um as you may recall um on the prior meeting um we discussed uh the need of putting up front uh a policy that would address uh potential ice enforcement those on school grounds um as background really what's driving and why Council has advised us to move in this direction is because the uh traum Administration resigned a some guidelines that designated schools as protective area proted areas um and so in order to avoid um enforcement activities in these locations um and the school we wanted uh that this was council's um
024um yeah advice and as such um the committee got together um work with seren and others to put together um the procedure that was shared to you all um sorry the the policy that was shared to you all um and um for first read and because of the time sensitivity of the matter and the need to that we believe um it is in our best interest to get this policy up um and get our staff trained as soon as possible um we wanted to use this meeting this board meeting to present this for vote um and including a procedure just a supplemental material um we' part of the you may have seen in the document that circul we could look at it now um we wouldn't we decided not to narrow it just to I
025enforcement but to any um enforcement government agency or otherwise um and how we should prepare our staff to address if such incident um happens uh I'm trying to think um Malik any other re relevant the Highlight section read screen what we just know the reference to F is a um so the found educational and pracy act so uh the focus there is that you there's certainly F detected information uh for each student and that um the it protects uh personally identifiable information so uh you know regardless of the administration dat requirement so having law enforcement um which is why the procedur is attached having law enforcement stoed it from a desk um and uh the procedure being that to be able to protect that information uh before there's any communication with any student that the
026um Administration and or parents would need to consent to that communication Andor the release of that information and as such the that's why the was uh was um noted in the policy and then why the procedures are the way that they are uh one other aspect uh in the procedure itself talked about uh being able to have um our Council need to be contacted and for the um Administration to know the difference between a Judicial warrant and a uh ice the ice warrant so that there's an understanding of of uh you know what type of Warrant would be presented to allow our law enforcement to enter the grounds and to be able to communicate with staff excuse me with students or parents what is the difference between a Judicial warant and a i they do
027have a procedure and they show the pictures of the two so know it's a distinction that there like a judges warrant is you know a versus administrative way uh so there's that distinction is made and we ask that the staff see examples to be able to make the distinction and then when I say speci ass said staff said Administration to see the distinction so that if law enforcement comes admin it's on Ed and uh will be able to access Council they can ask for copies be able to share that information um so that a decision can be made so the procedure is that they will see the difference between the two um and uh learn when they need to communicate with Council before allowing entrance um can I ask a question I'm sorry I didn't
028get a chance to read these before today on on the procedure on item number three it kind of implies oh thiss procedure yeah procedure that one yeah so on item number three because you have the Ed the finance compliance or counselor it implies that one of the three could be informed is that what you meant or you me like always the Ed and then one off the others or proced the St training as as opposed to see so I just want to make clarification so that's really a more appropriate question for what are the what is the front Des going to do are they going to reach out to one of those three people who are on the grounds or not and that that's not an answer for for the policy it's really like what
029is the what are the Ops that when they execute yeah so this would be more of a question for Mr well it is and uh we have instructed our folks to contact me first if it's law enforcement uh we have DSS that they they will come several times I mean that's happened before and normally that is uh Miss Cho works with the esss on those types of situations but if I'm not on campus uh then the next person is Miss liner and it would uh you know go to another administrator after that point uh we have very specific directions on exactly how we'll go through the process uh and you know we're talking about the different types of warrants we've seen the different types of warrants but even though we've seen them and we know
030what they look like we're still going to look at them again and then we're going to go to our Council and we're going to ask is this the right type of Warrant what do we need what do we need to do in that situation uh and we we take our time when when this takes place it's not something you just do like that so uh we just go right through the steps ply and Uhl so I mean just uh because I'm new to seeing this so I read it as one of three could be informed not you and or you know if you're not available this person so maybe if you those words could be twiced say if not available then comp right yeah I mean at the end of the day what we're to
031going back to the policy question really what we're approving is school personnel must follow the procedures that's really what we're proving um whether so what yes we Chang the procedure we may not need to come back is the procedure something we're voting on or is that just and the development was in concert so that sure they work together but what we are voting on is the policy so I mean I agree I think that work needs to have you know some um Insight or oversight on the procedure in this and ramifications involved so I I agree kind of like what it will look like but like you need a little bit more meat um to share and I I think part of why we're spending time looking at this and these questions are good feedback
032is good it's while to my knowledge haven't had any specific to ice or more aggressive approaches we want to make sure that prepared for any that may occur so this is a high priority so that we establish a policy and the corresponding procedures to follow I will entertain a motion to vote on the policy to respond to law enforcement activities on school grounds so move second all right all those in favor say I I any any opposed the motion has passed thank you we will now go into the updates from the foundation the foundation had um pretty good month uh compared to last month January um we had an extra ,000 in uh total pledges and donations so right now we're seeing about 80 uh percent of returning families 81% of uh new families and
033an overall participation rate of just over 80% um compared to this time last year very similar numbers across the board um really the only real difference is the amount of money that is um pledged um so this year we have a higher number of outstanding pledges versus this time last year so um a pretty significant number um the only concern we have with this is that um pledges or um while they're promises they're not always kept and there's always some pledges that we have to write off so um we're trying to keep an eye on this number um and you know do the reach out to those parents who've made a pledge um remind them that pledge is a promise so that's the the only thing that's um uh really the big update from from
034the foundation um we're still continuing to look at the um 25 anniversary um and we'll put some information in the newsletter um seeking out um help from parents who are willing to help um with some various committees for that planning process so that'll be in the newsletters brle I've got to admit I'm one of those people that have pledged and have not given the money and it's not intentional I honestly completely forgot about it how will you be finding parents like me yeah so we just finished our official annual giving campaign so um we reached out to all parents on that end we'll start the um following up with pledges a little later in the year email the link would be a yeah so yeah yeah think since we just all that communication with parents
035already we want to give it a little bit of a rest so we're not the boing them but then we'll probably I can't remember exactly when that starts I want to say next month but um it's it's going to be the push that will be the very soon okay thank you and the ambassadors too yeah Will We Begin exactly so the first ambassadors who helped with the annual giving um big things to them and their help and to the trustees um on the foundation as well and and to the staff for the foundation who play a big role in reaching out to everyone so it'll be all hands on deck reaching out for that um to close that gap on the clutches um overall the the numbers like I said compared to last year um
036look about the same and we eventually reached our goal last year um but as you could see even last year this year um what pledges and donations were much closer to 400,000 which is closer to our goal so we're still behind at 3,600 uh 368,000 um so um still some work for us to do also one fun in the newsl it was a reminder to family members about um the M that's right so some um we have a really good match program considering um the the employers of our families um so there are a lot of matches available um and that does play a big part of it there have been a little bit of hookups in getting that money in uh certain provider there's this one provider that a lot of the employers use
037that's caused a little bit of a delay however um that's seems to have corrected itself so there is a bit of a lag but yeah follow up with your employer there's a great tool on our website that helps you look up your employer um most employers are on there um to help you figure out what your policy is um and then you just usually have to fill out the form so it's really not that anything else for the foundation all right thank you we'll move on to the finance committee for update thanks uh the finance committee met this morning for the month of February um we primarily spoke about the two items today that I'll ask the board to vote on the first of which is a new contract for the audit aitor so we've
038had the same auditor now for probably four years now um and it's just good practice to change your auditor every three to five years to get a new set of eyes to come in and examine your your books um and so we we shopped around we asked for input turns out there's not a whole lot of CPAs who do Charter Schools um and so we pretty much have one good choice to choose from um but we think they're a very good choice they came highly regarded By Word of Mouth um they're more expensive than what we're paying today but we knew that was kind of going to happen because um the CPA we're using today is like a sole proprietor versus what we're going to now is like a CPA firm with a whole bunch
039of employees and they do all kinds of other things besides just auditing they do like advisory um so we think it'll be good because we think they may give us some strategic advice and like planning advice not that we pay taxes but you know just on our financials and general um whereas you know we would today we just pay for the service for someone to perform the audit and do our tax filings uh so the difference I so what is the price um today we pay between the school and the foundation 9,500 and the new company is 14,800 so it's like a 50% increase in price the differ sorry to the maap like approximate yeah 9500 to 14,800 or 15,000 July real um they did come down their initial proposal was 16,300 for what it's
040worth and Sabrina Bartered with them and got them to bring it down like she does with everything um when we just a little history back I can't remember now I think it was four years ago might have been fo when we hired the current auditor this other firm who I'm proposing we hire now came up as a potential option um but we picked our current auditor because of price so anyways we've seen them before like we've seen their propos yeah they've been around well I should say been around the newly formed company it was it initially was J sharp and then he merged with someone else and now it's called sharpet Patel that newly formed partnership started in 2020 but uh J sharp was around he been doing charer schools for a while couldn't tell
041you how long but as long as I've been here which is a really long time said there were not many many options so they should look at any other options um yeah I just know she asked around and she sent our you know called up different CPA firms and all of them said they don't do Charter Schools most of there was really only one RFB back no there was one other one and it was like $22,000 it was like significantly more so she wrote the offer that one some sorry there were it came to two actually came back for the price and this is the cheaper of the two we already knew and we already knew about this one we didn't know about the other one but this one came highly regarded by someone named
042Heather RoR who was is a CPA who was on the board she was the treasurer many many years ago and she stuck around we couldn't get rid of her because she did so much and she stuck around doing a lot for the schools I mean like we depended on her she couldn't go now that we wanted to get rid of her she want she her kids had graduated and she still stuck around years after her children had already graduated because the treasurer and we didn't have a finance director for the school so that this was the course OFA position existed so it was just the Ed and the treasurer managing finances and had her RoR just stuck around doing she was she was doing reviewing our tax returns reviewing the audit she was doing all
043kinds of stuff yeah when I first joined as Treasurer she was in the finance committee meetings attending in person I thought she was a treasur CU she did all the talking and the treasur just sat there anyways yeah she was so important and then when my first meeting with her she said look I really want you to take over and I don't want to do this anymore my kids graduated like five years ago I was like okay so that's why you guys don't see other anymore but then I started doing it for a little while this way more than every once knew and I was like I can't do this we need to hire someone so now we have Sabrina we hired some to do what should have been a position 10 years ago position
044but Heather highly recommended J Sharm who is jel who's who yeah which also tells me though that that pricing that we had probably the low Market yeah so finding a new cender we would expect an increase because ay best of best in class because we want to make sure we're partnering with the right vendor but also market rate is just going to be more and based on the other quote that we got in 202000 and that this one started at 16 and we T 163 and talk down 14 I feel like we're getting a good reasonable price so might be getting out of us ourselves but I see um there's two votes on the agenda M the one for the audit contract and one for new accounting services provider is the accounting services provider aadia
045that okay yes all right I I wanted to make sure that I wasn't confusing the two thank you yeah that's important to distinguish our auditor is not the same person that does our bookkeeping and monthly accounting services you want them they must be independent because one is kind of providing oversight over the other that's tell you like an Enron Scandal absolutely do we want to V at this point um sure yeah I would I'll a motion to vote on the um New audit contract as presented by the finance committee second second over all right all those in favor say I I any opposed the motion has passed all right the next contract is for a new accounting services provider so uh that company was known as aadia they merged with another company that called chrisy
046Prestige something I was still call the KF anyways they've been our service provider since long before I was here so six plus years um their quality of work has deteriorated over the past two years and much more so in this current year and we tried we've tried and it's just not working out so we talked about it last year but we were renewing the school's Charter we didn't want to switch accounting service provider in the same in the year that we had to renew our Charter and risk any getting messed up so we kept them another year i' would say a year longer than we wanted to um so we put an RFP out for new accounting service providers so these are folks that do like our bookkeeping payroll uh basically and they do accounts
047payable accounts receivable um we got back three good RGS they actually came and did like onsite interviews and they came and spoke with Sabrina and Lisa um and the recommendation is there's there's three that we considered we're going for the middle of the road the one is priced in the middle I would say it's not the most expensive but it's not the cheapest um so it's $3,500 a month for versus today we're paying $2,900 a month so it's a 20% increase in price there um but the new accounting service provider is like in the 21st century they're able to do like digital uh payments versus today everything is still done paper checks and invoices to to staff uh no to all of our the bills that the school has to pay they still all paper
048no I don't mean paychecks yeah I think they have direct deposit for that but um so that will be a huge time save just for the school for Sabrina at the finance manager and Lisa not having to do paper checks and invoices for everything um they were other um opportunities to Auto meet things versus manual intervention that exists with the current vendor so there will be some improvements with processes some efficiencies um so while there is an increase in cost overall there are other benefits for that 20% increase they much better salesman than I am yes sales approvals work when everything is digital or I'm sorry I didn't hear the first word signature approvals like things about a certain they still have to get approval for payments above a certain threshold everything up till now
049yeah has been a paper check if it's over a certain dollar amount like when we bought the BS and it was $100,000 sign and saying we need a signature for this check or whatever so how would that work now we would have to update our our financial procedures or policy for how the sign off would occur because there would still be appr I mean it's still in the policy that approval is required it's just how's that approval obtained we don't have to physically sign a check and that's not how the approval is obtained it would have to be maybe probably via email I would guess they have some sort of electronic approval or electronic signature I think yeah I mean there's some tools out there that you can follow a workflow right like how we
050on corporations I imagine maybe that's how we wait see what the the process is before we go changing policies you know oh yeah I don't know if the policy would really would change just says approvals required for certain price it doesn't specify like must sign the check not sure say like a second signature and I mean a second signature and digital signature would be fine but I think we'll figure it out I just think we just need to look at that once a good question you're out yeah maybe just it's in writing whatever MH um do we know think the cost impact more or less is it like 10% 20% more sorry I missed that fact sorry the% yeah and you mentioned that Sabrina and Lisa kind of in or had a on-site visit so
051the contenders came here correct okay and I guess two of the came here were you also involved in those presentations do that is that usually the case or well we've never changed accounting service provider so I can't say it's usually all right I just know the concerns that this liner is voed voiced to me so with our current provider yes with our current provider and then I also know just being in other systems that the system that we're currently using there's a lot of I mean I've it's normally a button that I would click and that would approve everything but I have to write emails back to people to approve things and that's just it's just you know it's a different level I know I would hope that this new group that we're looking at
052would be able to yeah from what I from the way Sabrina explained is that everything is is digitized and modernized with this new provider it's part of their contract are they coming here to train our people or what like no okay there it's all virtual it's all virtual they said they could come if if if if requested in periodically I'm trying to remember the words that used in the contract it is uh recommended like periodic onsite visit from them to us you but requires an additional cost [Music] or i' have to get back to you I don't know the answer because if they offer might as well take it if it's not required I mean if it doesn't cost any any additional cost and just because everything is new I think it would be beneficial
053for Finance the two people in finance and Mr corer to get familiarized with so that there's more than one person that we're not resource dependent on this new procedure yeah it said something like it kind of had like a back door it was like all of the support is provided virtually not on site however and it said on-site requ you know would come at a cost however periodic onsite is recommended you know so it's kind of like like we may come every once in a while but if you start telling us hey I need you here every month they're going to say right you got to pay for that it's kind of the way I read it I can get the exact language yeah I guess we would we should clarify that like how much
054is too much on site visits so that we can take advantage of as much as we can without incurring the additional cost the company's based out of Wilmington but the our local account is in Charlotte so there is a local person this company the person who is local also work for Aradia used to work for Aradia so that will help too with the transition because they're familiar schol he said to us he has transitioned many schools from Acadia onto his so he knows this is not his first time like going from thatst my next question that transition look like and are we going to incur additional fees from aadia because of the transition or is it something that they will do that I don't know that willingly but I don't know if it's part of
055enough you know industry standard that they County FS do that you be running them yeah there would be a parallel time period over the summer because we would want to kadia to finish out the school year which goes to June 30th and do the summer acrs for salaries and wages and then provide the financials for the audit which occur like usually the on-site you the auditor comes on site like in July and August is getting reports from the accounting service provider so like we would need a aadia wouldn't be able to just disappear on June 30th we would have to stick around for July and August potentially even a few touch points in September to get the Auditors everything they need and Rebecca bar would still finish our audit this year as well like uh
056no that's not true sorry not true new auditor for this coming year this fall summer to get a because bia's contract ends on the 30th right we've already told them that yeah we already gave them our the contractor required a 60-day notice we already gave it to them and it's extended a couple more months we can extend it well to run in parallel yeah transition 60-day notice is just to meet the requirements the on in the contract so that they know we won't be renewing yeah it doesn't we're canceling in 60 days we just want a 60 days heads up before we cancel so be more generous we'll tell them we need you to see it through be on it through whatever that is August September time frame is this going to require budget amendments
057for this year the new one starts up yeah both of them would start in the new school year so just because the these are mostly the accounting firm but this is such an important transition um wouldn't it be helpful to like see a plan like what's going to happen each month what activities are going to be transition something more I think it's all happening at once it's all happening over the summer okay it's like aadia booking our expenses and revenues through June 30th and then July 1 we book through the new company you received sorry go ahead I'm sorry yeah I mean but there's got to be we were just talking about a period where they both overlap right well overlap as in we're paying for both we're paying the new person since starting July
0581st to be our C service provider and we're paying aadia in July and August to close our books from the prary year and provide all the reports needed to the auditor to perform their end of year audit for the prary school yearing firms gonna talk to each other I mean I would imagine as the new one needs to talk to them to get information so that's what I'm talking about like there should be some sort of transition that says I don't know like we're going to discuss payroll and this is what we've currently done with payroll and this is you know here you go hand it over this is what we do with whatever the next topic is and hand it over like something more I don't know that's you saying the board should ask
059the new accounting firm what their plan is for transition or you saying Sabrina should talk to them and get a plan and let us know in the finance committee yeah I mean I don't know what the role of the board is but I don't think the board has a role and that stuff should be involved in the operations here I'm saying is we need to provide oversight that that is happening so one way to provide oversight is to request that that that such a transition plan exists and that it's executed yeah I think in the finance committee we should talk to Sabrina about her making sure she has a conversation with the accounting provider on what this transition looks like and how they're GNA just what it looks like idea I was going to say
060I apologize because I interrupted you before you were done but um based on the fact that you said that they have done this for transition with the Cadia numerous times I'm sure they have a procedure that they've in place right like that they're used to doing this and I don't um did you I assume there's like references and and yeah they gave a list of that's question list of schools as references and Sabrina spoke to another CH local charter school that uses theic service they didn't use a Kia before they use a different one the expensive one that we're that I didn't bring to you guys they switch from the expensive one to this one and and they had great things to say they love yeah I think if we check refer I mean I
061feel good about it if we've checked references and we know that they've done this transition I agree with you to be clear but like I think that's a conversation we have with Sabrina just to make sure yeah I understand what you're saying I think if there so especially if there's software involved any software engineer I can't think of the name of it but I can see the Matrix in my head that they have like different milestones and whatnot I don't know if that cumbersome or not but I would think that they have some sort of plan that see like this is what's happening when um just so that Sabrina can effectively manage that because um yeah it could be a lot I don't know I don't know how much is hey Sabrina we need you
062to do all this work yeah or is the accounting service provider like we got it don't worry we know what to do it's all done here you go here's your login you know like I have no idea if it's you two extremes but I'm sure it's somewhere in the middle that we're not going with the most expensive we're going to the middle expensive but we done references um proved to be track record I've done it good it's BR spoke to all three like say interviewed all three and she liked this one the best it wasn't based on price it was based on who she liked the best and had good references I think from a you know finance committee can decide how they feel best to over oversee the um transition from a board perspective
063I I think it would be nice to get updates at board meetings like where we are in the transition yeah do that and if she need you know Sabrina and Lisa need more support you know who knows that's going to look like I don't don't know I mean the biggest thing way I want you guys the benefit of going to this is going to save the finance manager so much time that that person will spend a lot less time researching transactions they'll be able to answer stuff on their own instead of having to email someone else and ask them to solve it and then they come back and give you the answer it's wrong and then you got to go back and forth hopefully when things get to the finance director they're correct the first
064time does require the followup to meet Corrections yeah and and the reports are like click in you can drill down and get to a pivot table and you can get down to transactions like through click instead ofing in Excel spreadsheet so and this person in Charlotte they're going to do everything it's not going to be like piece like AIA used to have like this one person doing this this other person doing that I don't know know that yet remember all these good questions for our next finance committee meetings yeah all right tell like we've addressed all the questions um I'll entertain a motion to vote on the new accounting services provider as presented by the finance committee so moved all those in favor say I I any opposed the motion has passed we are now
065at our second opportunity for Community comments subject to guidelines please raise your hand if you are interested in speaking at this time there are no hands up okay thank you I will entertain a motion to enter close session to discuss confidential personal matters so moved SED all those in favor say I hi hi any oppose all right the motion has passed we can go into closed e e e all right thank you we're back in Open session at a44 I will entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting so second all those in favor say I I any opposed all right the meeting is adjourned