SCHOLARS ACADEMY BOARD MEETING 1/23/2023

001okay maybe you might be doing everything foreign this is a recruiting tool hello everybody Welcome to our January board meeting um it is 6 31. and we are here in person at the school Dominique have you had a chance to report into them in the room are there any news yes will you do that Adam would you read us the mission statement please yeah 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 from diverse backgrounds and enables them to form meaningful relationships with their intellectual peers thank you very much a very quick review of our webinar rules meetings will be broadcast to the public via the zoom platform this medium is more secure as it requires attendees to register

002limits interactivity removes the ability to communicate without permission does not permit Anonymous participation comment for annotation registration will acquire the submission of a first and last name and an email so our next item on the agenda is to approve our prior minutes so I would continue Dominique for November 28th meeting I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from November 20 22. second so second thank you AJ and Erica all those in favor any opposed okay the minutes from November 28th board meeting has been approved we also had a special meeting in December on December 14th so I would entertain a motion to approve the special meeting minutes from December 14th thank you Adam sorry thank you Mike all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the minutes from the December 14th meeting

003are also approved next order of business is to adopt tonight's agenda which was circulated yesterday anything to amend on the agenda before we adopt it okay I would entertain a motion to adapt the agenda as presented so thank you Erica thanks AJ all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed okay we will proceed with the agenda as it is this brings us to our first opportunity for Community comments they are subject to the following guidelines public is welcome to speak limited to three minutes per speaker topics should not cover private confidential and 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 hands you can do so by using the zoom functions

004let us know through chat if you have any questions about how to do that cool wait a minute here don't see any interest at this point so we will move on to our first order of business which is the director's report and would you like me to open up okay thanks a deep cover yeah good evening everybody um we have just a few things this evening on the report um technology works is there a way I'm not familiar with the Google Docs version is there a way to make it please like to the next so you can just click on the down either way okay um we do have a hiring update in foreclosed that I've emailed to the board just wanted to give a quick admissions update we have had a record number of

005applicants for the group test almost 300 applicants um through the group test our last last year was bias number we had ever had prior to this year and that was at 200. so um clearly our marketing events are certainly you know drawing in more people and we did host our first group test event this past Saturday um thank you very much to um dasu and AJ and who else don't yes it really good for you okay Dominique and Catherine um for coming to talk to parents um I think that added a nice you know opportunity to give parents someone to talk to because we're all running around crazy trying to do testing and so parents have a million questions for them to be able to have that ability to ask questions um we had we

006tested 137 children on Saturday uh so that's that's a lot of a lot of kids um we are still you know the application period is still open for people who want to submit private psychological testing and that deadline is February 17th so um what happens after that is that we the missions committee will meet to review all of the results and um prepare everything for the lottery which will happen at the end of March so um you know well into the swing of Admissions and you know it seems as though you know we should be on track to have a significant waiting list again for next year any questions about the admissions process or how any of that works ready okay there are two things um I wanted to discuss with you this evening one

007are two um proposals for the 2023-2024 calendar bringing them to you tonight is two options um for you know for discussion and um and there can be um after tonight revisions to either one of these to you know propose a option C if that's something that we you know we talk about tonight or in feedback from the community hoping to put these out to the community as well in this week's newsletter as hey these are the two calendars we are considering um with the idea that we'll vote on you know there will be a vote for you on on the calendar next month um so those are on the next Tuesday live so this both the calendars are very similar uh both so um just to kind of give you some context we are not

008allowed to have any virtual days next year which means that we needed to create a calendar that would include five more days of in-person in-school days than what we've had the last couple years where we've had the five virtual days added to our calendar uh so that means how do we add five more days well there's a few different ways to do it one obviously we start earlier a little longer um other other ways are to um you know add or take away more teacher work days and another way is to add just a little bit more time to the school day and so um you know in collecting information from the staff and and also just understanding the needs of the school um what we are going to do in both of these calendars

009is um to add five minutes to the school day which means that the doors will close at 8.05 instead of at 8 10 so our structure of the day starting at 805. that allows for us to add two days to the calendar automatically just by adding that five minutes to the calendar so that's a one way to you know to help us make up that time so both of these calendars have the same amount of days instructional days 173 and instructional days of school which still allows us to have a day and a half of you know severe weather days built in without having to make up that time um the difference between the two calendars is very minor it is in where we place two days so if you'll see him draft a you'll

010see the Thanksgiving week is that continuation of what we've had the last few years or the whole week is off um that is something that you know we've been able to do with virtual days the last few years so just replacing those that Monday and Tuesday other than being virtual day there would be holidays for both students and staff that would be different than CMS and that CMS is going to the back you know to the traditional Wednesday through Friday break um the winter break mirrors in an option I went to break mirrors CMS exactly so the kids would get out their first day off would be the 20th and they would return to school on January 3rd that's the exact same day configuration sdms the majority of the rest of the calendar looks very

011similar to calendars we've had in the past looking at those yellow days those are early release days continuing with that um which has worked very well for our staff for the opportunity to do professional development of school ending at one o'clock on those days any uh oh in the spring break mirror Sienna CMS as well any um questions about this calendar the other one yeah yeah sure we can put the other one the only difference and the only difference between this calendar calendar B is that those two days at Thanksgiving are now shifted from the 20th 21st of November to the 18th and 19th of December allowing for um two full weeks plus a couple days so a little bit longer winter break um and going back to the traditional three-day Thanksgiving break so uh

012otherwise the calendars are identical however there is you know if there are feedback on things that we would like to shift around or move that's certainly something we can discuss this evening um but obviously we can't take away any more days from the calendar we need to to meet our 1025 instructional hours we have to go to school this many days both in both calendars the first day of the 29th of August CMS is starting on Monday we have started on Tuesday every year for the last probably five years or so uh that is a a well-received um start date for from our staff uh it also is nice for students to not have to start their school year with a five-day week kind of ease into it a little bit and it allows the

013staff that Monday where we don't schedule any we really don't schedule any meetings for that Monday that they just get your classroom ready get ready to go Gear Up For the Kids Day for the teachers on that Monday to get ready to go on Tuesday and this is following the same staggered start for The Kindergartners yeah yeah The Kindergartners always have that first week of school stagger start where they a third of them come Tuesday a third Wednesday a third Thursday and then they all come on Friday actually adding the start time will be one addition to start time of the school as you're suggesting it um the start time yes yeah on the calendar so if people are looking at it I mean um it is not written on this this PDF it is

014but it's in the Excel file that doesn't show when you export it so it's not like a thing so we when we put it out we'll be explaining that in text even though it doesn't show up here I could probably write it where it says draft B I could probably write the instructional hours in there to make that clear that's a good idea we'll drop off get five minutes no no five cm drop-offs is going to stay the same it's just a close the door five minutes earlier on the 805. so we started our instructional day to 805. any idea what the staff at the first um so I asked well I asked I put it out for Teacher leadership team first and these versions are after editing from feedback from the teacher leadership team

015and then I present to both of these to the full staff and ask them to collect data from the staff I would say split um I would say if we're leaning one way or the other more staff would like a long open till late but there's you know both both so you know it's not significantly different uh you know a calendar it's just I I wondered if there would be a strong desire to preserve that full Thanksgiving week after we've gotten used to that and so that's really why I wanted to present that and I didn't feel that the staff or as attached to that as I thought they might be and so now I'd like to know from the community like is a community that attached to what to that or or not um

016and kind of asking you know does the things the five-day Thanksgiving break um you know have a dramatic impact on your ability to see family and and to do the things you want to do all right yes that is unfortunate that we can I mean we're allowed to do it in a place of make a place of weather day so we are allowed to if we close the door we're allowed to go virtual nobody wants to do that because we're not set up for that the kids you don't know it's going to be a snow day until they're already home and the kids don't have what they need the teachers don't have what they need at home to teach virtually it's not a good solution so and unless you can play with the head and

017it doesn't really help us to have original data unless we're like we're going to plan on having a hurricane on Friday okay everybody bring your cell phone then then maybe we do it but for typical emergency fees you're not going to be prepared so um yeah anything any thoughts I like traffic I think we put off to the community and because I mean I'm guessing it's probably going to be pretty much like staff yeah and then it really I mean I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other I just wanted to make sure before we go with Jeffy that we don't find out that you know the majority of the community really wants to preserve that Thanksgiving week and would you know rather because you still they still get two full weeks

018that winter break it's not like you're really sacrificing anything on the other end but I feel like you're gaining something like I prefer a for my personal preference but I mean I think you know it's going to be different different people have different things my reasoning behind saying B and why I think you'll see majority like me is because it's common for a lot of uh parents to have both four weeks off or like you said I think CMS has both four weeks off we would agree DMS has the same it starts off on the 20th okay for this and they have the three for this but it's not common you know CMS has school those first two days of Thanksgiving week and a lot of parents will work those days so when the kids

019are home the parents have to go to school and maybe their other siblings because it it becomes a little bit more challenging to juggle that whereas a lot of people will take the last two weeks of the year off from work so if the kids are not that's fine as well I also think even we have more International Community more likely they don't ever go to India for less than three weeks but the minimum but it does minimize the number of days of instructions so family does have the opportunity to leave you know on the 15th that's you know that can get a almost three weeks yeah you know and only missed a few days so yeah that is certainly an advantage for international travel yeah I've heard some of them the week before Christmas

020and so this gives me a full week of camp yeah that's a good that's a good point too okay well I mean we're just I think we're gonna put it out to the community not provoke but for commentary you know just like how how you know you know which draft or how do how does draft a or Deputy impact your family you know just to get some commentary around it because if we put it up for a vote then they're gonna the community is gonna be like well you know this many people said this and this many people said this but unfortunately not everybody's going to vote so we're not really representing the whole community so I don't want to go by numbers I just want to go based on like what's the commentary like

021that's a very valid point right if I have to put my children in child care having a full week of child care is easier to accommodate than the partial be so things like that that we don't you know are anticipating is what kind of hear so okay that's all I have on the uh so the the second thing is um Human Resources overview um there is a lot of information here and I do not obviously we don't I you don't all want to hear me talk for an hour so I'm gonna do this in a very Consolidated fashion just to give you a highlight of the overall Human Resources functions um so if anyone has questions or would like to know more information or would like to read through all the policies to understand how

022some of this works this is really just to help you understand what it is that you might not know and what you might want to ask more questions about um you know either in committee or you know you know letting me know what your questions are so um just in general how how hiring works is that we um we typically advertise in a different several different platforms um and we're looking to recruit specifically through um some of our networks that we use for Charter Schools as well as through some of the University contexts that we have we do have a hiring committee that's comprised of Staff members we make sure that the hiring committee has representation from all different areas of the school such that when we are when we are interviewing we're trying to

023bring in people with the relevant experience to help us make a good higher based on understanding what the needs are of that specific you know Department of the school once we have gone through that process which includes a home screen first then typically a formal interview in person and then for a teacher there's also a model teaching lesson where they come in and teach our students uh once we go through all of that whole process then we move on to the offer extension um going through all of the you know giving out the contract um you know doing going through um you know payroll benefits PowerSchool and then obviously there's in that whole process is also the bringing it to the board and which is where you know the board has to approve every single

024hire that we that we make um we are getting assistance from all DHR and some of these functions to include helping us with background checks drug screenings making sure that these person's qualifications are verified um and we hope in the future to help have them help us with the onboarding paperwork they have not done that yet um but it is something that they they are willing to do and we do have quite a few banked hours without HR so while we're trying to expand how they're doing some of those things as we go into the hiring season for next year any questions on any of that how do you handle the the model teaching like in the summer it's just like a video like two hours I mean I I you know I remember sitting

025through the Chinese class I was a horrible Chinese student because she tried to teach me and exist to not get it at all but um we still want to we still want to see because you know somebody most adults they're a different person sitting across from the other adult than they are in front of a group of children so we just want to see like what do you look like as a teacher and if we can't accommodate that we have them send this model lesson videos which a lot of times when we're hiring from out of state they will send us a video of them teaching their their students but we need to see that yeah architecture I mean are they able to help with the advertising not advertising but when the resume is not

026like filtering out try that out and it was not the candidates that were brought were not the candidates we were looking for so I just that's something I feel like it's we know better than they do who we're looking for so I would really rather review resumes and say I want to talk to this person I want to talk to this person I want to talk to this person and then send out to my hiring committee to do those phone screenings to take that step step off and then that teachers you know having that opportunity to get involved in a process so um I'd rather they were handled handling the back end of like all right this is our person make sure we get all the paperwork in you know in in compliance and all

027that stuff is this all done on site or this is virtual the interviews oh the alt HR stuff they're doing everything virtually for us they have come on site bundles a month throughout the year to do filing and that kind of stuff but um we haven't we haven't had them on site I think we only had a month like one so far this year um and last year but last year they were hearing more and you mentioned something about Bank hours so is it like totally under projected because what was anticipated in terms of the hiring process is that the estimation that is not being used um we just haven't had a giant need for their services this fall um we used a lot of hours last spring and so we determined what we were

028going to go for they they do six month intervals so we based on how much we'd use the previous six months we said okay let's do that again the six months and then the need the six months wasn't as great so now we we've cut back for the next six months but they roll it so all those banked hours that we didn't use rolled into our next contract so where I'm meeting with her to talk about how can we you know here's some projects that we can work on to use up some of those Bank hours they're very flexible okay just um just so everybody understands um we have different classifications of your mind being resources you might know this but if you are sorry if I'm insulting intelligence but there's um you know different

029classifications of employees for our school purposes the ones that are exempt employees the salaried employees that are not not you know based on being um hourly and being paid for overtime those are our you know teachers administrators any of our staff that's in management functions um and their contracts are written based on how many days per year they are working but not based on ours our non-exempt employees um are like our teaching assistants the office staff receptionists bus drivers those people are also salaried which is different than what you might expect so they do receive a salary so they get a consistent paycheck all year including through the holiday breaks when they're not working like the winter break and over spring break they get that consistent paycheck but it's based on the number of hours

030that they're working over the course of the year and that's how we determine that salary and then when they don't work they are not that that's coming out of their salary if that makes sense um is that any questions about that the two different ways that we were paying people we do have some contracted service providers that do um that don't work for us for example Ms Thompson our nurse she does not work for us she works for a third party and so we contract her out um to get service and we have in the past use other contracted service providers uh that you know for various various functions for this year if she's our only she's our only one and then obviously our other classification are substitutes substitutes don't really fall under any of

031our salaries they are really just at ad hoc as as we use them and employees so substitutes don't don't come to the board for approval the way all the other employees anybody who is an exempt or non-exempt employee that the salaried and given a contract that says hey we're going to pay you this much money for the whole year every single one of those is going to come to the board was not going to come to abort to the board the the people who are temporary or substitutes that we might use twice per year questions about like that over time paid in that month so overtime is paid in that pace yeah so if they work more than 40 hours in a week we have to you know we're paying obviously we're paying overtime and

032that that has been you know important you know a specific employee that has worked overtime every single week for us um to be able to work during the day and then also drive a bus so um you know we're we've got to be very careful making sure that we're following those overtime rules okay um so just to understand the way that step one's higher how are they either staying or leaving so if they are going to be renewed those renewal contracts are given out in May we've adjusted our budget cycle to make sure that we're passing the back the Budget prior to the teachers leaving so we can then say hey we've agreed that we're going to pay you this amount of money for next year so you'll see that from the past we used

033to not pass the budget until June that that Cycle's been moved up to passing the budget in May so that we can then extend contracts before teachers leave for the summer um so those being renewed will be handed their contract those that would be non-renewed this is a non-action this of meaning a contract is extended for a Year everyone no matter who they are that works in this building only has the understanding that they've been given a contractor for a single year nobody has a multi-year contract so at the end of the year that contract expires and it either renews or it doesn't renew so there's no discussion that has to be had as to whether or not um you don't devote you don't have to vote for the non-renals what you are voting for

034is there initials so when I come to you with a slate it's going to be here are all the people we are bringing back I need you to pay for these people so those are that's what you're voting for the board is you're voting for The renewals slate you are not voting for The non-reals because their contracts are just expiring that is different than a termination in which you do have to be involved if we are going to terminate somebody before the end of their contract that is a board that is the board action so if there was somebody who we needed to say you're not going to finish the year because of whatever situation that would be something I would need to call an emergency meeting of the board to say we are terminating

035this contract or to recommend termination of this contract for the reasons for whatever reason it is and that's not going to be something that would happen unless there was an extreme situation it's not somebody's not going to be terminated mid-year just because they like are not a great teacher it's going to be something egregious or illegal or something extreme that's going to cause a termination foreign regardless is in what is because it's a North Carolina employment at will so um we can terminate anybody at any time and they can also quit even though they have your loan contracts that you can quit at any time and we can terminate them at any time and we do not have to have cause but what I'm telling you is that we're not in the you know position

036of terminating people without cause that's not typically if it's a performance issue that's going to be a performance plan that's going to be you know happening throughout the year and then it's still not working then it would typically be a non-reneur does um aldolbos make sense any questions about how those are different things are classified [Music] get a slate of non-renewals as well yeah you'll get a you'll get a slate you'll get a slate that shows here's our current staff here's the proposal notes so um you that has happened in the closed session and um we are certainly going to you're welcome to you know have discussions and ask questions around anyone that's that's not being renewed but it's not a here's the Slate of non-renewals foreign of course then obviously you know when I

037present it I say okay these are the people who are not on here and you know if you have questions about why we can discuss that um I I attached here just from you know if you're looking at a later time I have attached the employment policy uh just so you can understand because all of that that's up there and those bullets is spelled out exactly how it works in the policy I want to look at at a later time clarification for termination I'm thinking that needs to be voted right but normally that's a very extreme circumstances meaning you probably won't be able to wait until we vote right so right so so if if somebody needs to be terminated um we would terminate that person immediately right it's not that we would say oh

038well you're going to keep coming to work until the board can have a meeting but that would be a situation in which okay we're terminating this person as soon as I can get the board to vote it's going to be you know a and lhr and Laser Gordon Stella would be directly involved in making sure that that painful work and and termination is is you know handled properly so do we but we actually vote on terminations um that's the way that the policy the policy is right is that that I what the policy I think the policy language and don't pause you open but I think the positive language says that um uh the executive director will will um recommend a termination to the board all right so um I know that you all are

039you know aware that we operate extensive benefit package for our for our staff um just just understanding um that those first three ones are the ones that we are providing at school costs health insurance life insurance policy and short-term disability insurance this staff has lots of other options that they can choose at their cost to include dental vision you know supplementary insurances um we do have a retirement program that um I believe that we're going to start looking at as a possible um you know how can we do better um using to to support our staff and retirement account but there is a matching um program or for freebie for our staff obviously workman's compensation and employment benefits you know for those those that need it exist as well um just to you know just

040kind of say there is a comprehensive plan to putting some questions about answers so there is retirement account matching even though we don't have pension which is what CMS has right right so in lieu of the state retirement plan we had a 403 b through Tia graph that um or is it not called crap anymore so just Tia um you work for them don't you um that um we they can do contributions and then the board matches um up to three percent total so they put in six percent the board will match at fifty percent up to a total contribution of three percent okay so um you know we obviously we have lots of different other supports that exist um as an administrators we are very intimately involved with all the staff members um they're

041every staff member who works in this building has their own personal you know different situations and um we really try very hard to know our staff just like we try to know our families we try very hard to know our staff and to you know make sure we're making accommodations first Seth that needs it um mental health support has become a a topic that um is something that you know I I would like us to look at how we can broaden our support for for staff we do have mental health support through our health insurance so that is something that is provided for our staff but um we have counselors you know that exist for our students but um that same level of support is not necessarily available for our staff so that's something I

042think you know in the post-covered world um everyone you know recognizes that mental health is an important piece of the work environment and so um that is just something I think we should as a you know as a school continue to look at um and as well as physical health support we have not a lot of companies have those kind of programs we don't have any physical health so like benefits for our staff so it's something you know maybe that we should look at how what kind of you know incentives and and physical health support that we can have um we do have a policy or dispute resolution so again if you want to read policies because I mean Erica loves cereal policies you like to read policies but there is a dispute resolution policy

043that explains what they should be doing to get you know to get their problems solved and that obviously starts with coming to Administration but that's where all dates are lies so if there's something that they are uncomfortable talking about with Administration or for whatever reason involved Administration directly their next line is to go to all the HR and so we did add that extra layer of support which is something I think is really helpful for our you know staff know that they have an Avenue um that they can they can go to if they have some concerns any um kind of questions or thoughts around physically so right now it's through Insurance my physical health I don't know insurance but what you're suggesting here is like we do have mental health support group insurance but

044not necessarily anything outside that yeah physical health is nothing no I mean like a lot of people or you know like incentives if or or you know gym you know gym membership discounts or you know things to to encourage physical health um we don't really have you know anything that kind of speaks to the overall health of our our staff and so that's just something that you know I think as as we you know look to broaden our you know our school and how do we make this an objective place to work thinking about the staff as whole people like these think of our children as old children right um you know think of our staff in that same way I think is something that could be a focus for us as we go for

045a few shots outside so people don't have to vote we've always had a flu shot on sites actually that's something we have done in the past and then um we didn't get it this year um because the person who did it could have done it for us in the past couldn't do it this year but um I tried to get kovich up on site too if I was unable to get that but yes that is a good example of how you know supporting the physical health can only chart helps with that because I mean there's all sorts of employee system programs and I'm guessing they're not very expensive I'm wondering if old HR has some sort of like um Collective for lack of a better world like a collective purchase type of deal because we

046are small that we can get into them yeah I will ask them okay if I hadn't thought about asking in that question this is probably in the policy but this dispute resolution ever get lifted to The Horde level or is that yes yes so for dispute resolution typically the the starting point is to go you know for a staff member is to go to the administration if they cannot get that resolved Administration their next level um should be right now and it's not written into the policy because it was written prior to having all the HR but should then be to go to all DHR but if alt HR gets that they're going to come to the board and so they can go through the same grievance process as a parent can if there's a

047if there's a policy degree or something like that or if there's something that needs reporting whistleblowing any of that kind of thing would get reported directly to the board from all Asia who's that contact do we have a contact like is there a contact between the board and I'm on page are right now so Andrea Brown is our contact from multi-hr She's our she's our person so if there was a thing that came to her then either the board attention she would contact the chair of the board okay yeah and she has beautiful poor chairs content yeah figures much but yeah yes okay I'm trying to go quickly this is the last the last line I believe right okay um so we do have as I said for the contracts they are going to be

048based on a number of work days so every different group of staff members has a different contractual number of days so I have a different number of contracts contractual days than you know say um Mrs gozeki Right is the marketing director and she has a different number of days than Mrs dabella who's working in this Communications um based on what needs to happen in the summer is basically what determines that thing what we are working on right now is the paid time off policy paid time off policy right now is standard across the board no matter how many contractual days you work if you are a full-time employee you are an X number of hours so that's one of the things that we are looking at is how do we you know accommodate or paid

049time off to make sure that difference contractual you know lengths of contracts are adjusted according to um paid time off we are also working on the teleworking policy which we're going to talk about tonight to um to give some flexibility with um you know having staff have the ability to telework continuing after coven and then of course if there are specific surface and circumstances we are talking about what would um the uh FMLA um time off or emergencies or disability time off that that we need to look at so that is something that we are talking about um in the policy committee so you're going you're going to see teleworking tonight but you're also going to be seeing this hopefully before the end of this year um some re-looks at the PTO policy um and

050the extended leave policies or um for staff to see how we can improve those policies is the pay time of has a schedule meaning based on years of service yeah yeah and because because of the way our financials work nothing carries over so every staff member nobody like no if you don't use it we pay out a certain amount at the end of the year unused paid time off but everybody starts over again so if you have an illness or something that ends up putting you out for an extended period of time in that year you run out of PTO you can't reach back into what you you would already think from from the year before so that's you know but that's a limitation of the way our financials were so what we want to

051do is work on the policy such that the person who does have an emergency or a medical situation or something like that there is a fail safe for for those people who end up missing more work than what they you know what they intended to work because of the situation that they they encounter okay that was rapid fire but hopefully kind of just gave you a little bit of an understanding and obviously if anyone has any questions about any of these things you know please feel free to reach out to me um next thing on the agenda is an update from from the governance committee so I'll turn it over to Erica we have a lot of things going on so I'll just briefly touch on um each and I we are working on a

052quarterly uh board newsletter we'd like it to out late January um and Miss um to Bella sent an email out we have we have a draft of a newsletter and we wanted to see what it would look like into the when we send it out so you'll see that I think she said Awards so yeah so you can start taking a look at that just to get an idea I I didn't we just got it late this evening so I didn't get a good look at it but I think I still think it's a little too long so we'll we'll see you know where we can meet at it so um that should be coming out late January we are going to have a community Town Hall in April um I believe April 19th but

053we'll we'll put that out when it's more um concrete and what we plan on that consisting of is in-person and zoom so um for whoever would like to come in person we would encourage that but it's not required um we are going to ask that people well I guess we're going to allow people to submit questions ahead of time we're going to develop a Google form that they'll be they can submit their questions to us through they don't have to use it they can come to us you know at the board you know at the Town Hall and ask them questions just with the understanding of my piece of questions that we don't know the answer to so we'll have to get back to them or or whatnot so we've got that going on um

054the board is expected to be in person yes I'm sorry yes the board is yes please if we would like the board members to be the community or so I think that would allow better discussion um with the community and amongst ourselves so um again we'll coming in the day April 19th okay yeah okay so everyone gonna just know evening it is it is the 19th at 6 30 PM yeah go on your family it's Wednesday yeah so I think you can come in person that would be so great um so uh we're working on the staff survey um that we sent out we are going to send out to you know we had last year um ask various questions regard to the staff regarding the school um and we are also going to be

055working on the executive director evaluation um we have or I'm not sure if we've retained them yet but we have um considered retaining a third party to help us with the evaluation I think that that's the best way to um convey the results of any you know surveys that we do that staff does and to get some outside help with that so um we have asked I'm not sure we're asking the finance committee yet or how that's exactly going to work as far as the budget goes to retain that third party and that third party has worked with us before her name is Katie and she used to be with um so she's familiar with the school she's familiar um with uh Miss diaper so um we think that she would be a good um

056person to do that and provide us that assistance with the Ed evaluation um and last thing was ask the board Forum on the website again we were implementing this with respect to the um the town hall people who submit their questions and um I'm just so they can ask questions and honest anonymously but also with the understanding that you know if you ask it honestly you might not get a public answer so um just trying to trying to facilitate more communication from the community and a way for us to communicate with them without anything else anybody wants to ask bad about the forms I think for that when we got thinking about it because of the Town Hall as a way to get the explicit questions ahead of time and then we realize well we

057could just always have it out there on the website people feel more comfortable submitting a question that way rather than emailing the board um every month before this meeting we'll take a look at them come up with answers and then something that pertains to a wide group will answer them during the creative conference period so we'll test it out and see if it works and we're giving them the opportunity to say who they are so that if it's a question that's not really for the whole community that would be able to answer them directly you know and same rules apply as you know no personal information any operational questions will be directed towards uh to miss Piper and her you know for her staff answering so same role supplies just another attitude you also have

058the next item yeah so um policies we got a whole lot going on there too um you were sent um drafts of the tell staff teleworking policy and um the non-discrimination um religious police policy and with respect to the teleworking policy we do have a current policy in place it was implemented because of cobit so it was very coveted Centric um so we've revised it to apply to hopefully non-copic times and it was presented to y'all for for you got a couple I'm just pulling it out again a couple questions that I just wanted to touch on just okay so um one question was we had we said that the teleworking the concept of Italy working was working from home or another location question was should that be the primary residence only and um as

059a committee you know we believe that most staff will be teleworking from their primary residence but in order to allow the Ed flexibility and to respond to emergency situations we've kind of left that fraud ultimately the Ed has discretion whether to allow the teleworking or not as long as there's no violation of the law you know discrimination you know disability as long as those decisions are being made you know lawfully it's in the 80s discretion so I think for our purposes home or another location um is is the best um there's other question is anyone excluded from this policy you know part-time admin practically speaking yes certain staff would be excluded because if you can't perform your obligation some people can't perform their obligations at home you know a facilities manager would be former obligations

060at home or a bus driver um that said instead of listening specifically excluded positions again we've allowed the Ed with that discretion um so we we've left it open for the Ed to decide um and also just prevents us from having to revise the policy in case titles change or new positions are hired and also we don't want the sense of oh it's not excluded so that means I can do it no it's for the Ed decides based it's more based on the circumstances as opposed to the position um then next question was whether to if we could Define um advanced notice because we said the Ed um you know must approve all teleworking arrangements with advanced notice again I think we intentionally left that open just because a lot of the situations that we

061can imagine teleworking will be for emergency situations because I think we all understand that you know teaching remotely is not ideal um but we also want to remain flexible for our teachers and you know our students so we decide not to put a Time requirement on that advanced notice is required again the Ed discretion so leave that open then the other question was so we had we said in the policy that any Scholars Academy materials take it home shall be kept in the designated work area at home and not made accessible to others the question was should others um does others need family members or other third parties or staff so we are going to um just change that mothers to family members and other third parties just to clarify that they should not be

062sharing it with non-scholars Academy people so does anyone have any questions on the teleworking policy I know you just you just got it recently um but if you do you can invest now or feel free email this is our first policy to share just for like really high level we generally do a first read the policy committee works on it comes up at the draft presented here for us all to look up and then we're not going to vote on it tonight we'll come back get any feedback get back to Erica um and then we'll present it again with the edits at the next meeting and then if everything's good then we'll hope of the next meeting said this is your first chance to see it take some time yeah check it out try to

063get it in advance so you have the chance to read it before the first read and then have a discussion you know to the extent possible um but we can also you know you can email me any questions and then if we have to make Provisions we will make those revisions and then you know if the draft hasn't changed some you know well significantly from the first read then we can still we can still vote for it to be approved as revised that's teleworking policy the next policy that we have up for first read is non-discrimination on the basis of religion and religion in schools um is a non is a excuse me is a Public School Scholars Academy must be not religious in all of its programs admissions policies governance everything um and our

064curriculum must be completely secular at the same time we also recognize that you know we have a diverse population with many different religions and non-religious faiths so um we want to make sure it's clear that we're respecting those and we recognize that so Dei has developed a policy to basically you know recognize that those religions and to respect you know people's beliefs and what they are looking for celebrating or recognizing so that um you know they could do that they could do that without fear of adverse consequences for their children so if you have any questions on that I think Dominique would probably be in the Dei committee would be in the best position to answer that um but I'm happy to address any questions as well I was just curious and I think you

065answered part of the question is that it originated from the dni but was that based on some feedback or some type of facilitation that you don't have a policy or someone brought it up that you know we don't we there's some you know uh Impressions that there is not respecting you know all these different cultures and religion how did that come about now I was on CMS website looking for their published 23-24 calendar and stumbled upon the cms's policy and said wow this is amazing we don't have one of these and I think we should and so I brought it to dni said here's cms's we lived not you know religious policy I think this is something we should look at so just kind of stumbled upon and and it's you know seemed to have

066value for us and thankfully it's not that where the community felt like we were not supported it was more so let us create a policy to demonstrate how supportive the school is and we leveraged the CMS policy we had feedback from Administration the Dei committee we shared it with policy and also with governance so we've had several eyes we've Incorporated some edit but certainly want the rest of the board to review and provide feedback note that we talked about this where there was closed or open but the idea of you know we can't take every single religious holiday off for the entire year um but just being conscientious of what days those land on and just not not um scheduling something big on those days I think that's awesome I think the key is to

067first of all it will be reviewed annually to Define what those holidays are but also that it is reflective and really represents the population so it like you said it's impossible to do every single holiday 173 days but I think we've been thoughtful in who we serve and creating the list of holidays and we're not trying to have no school in those days yeah we're trying to focus on is making it so that if a child chooses family chooses to take that day off that um they're not missing something significant in their educational experience like a you know once a year field trip not being scheduled on that day and the child having to choose between celebrating their religion and missing something important and another point to note is this is not exempt from the

068attendance policy so it's not where you could say well I observed 10 religions and then or attempt to miss 30 days that will not fly so it's still subject to those rules I'm a little confused on that part because so when you say it's subject to the attendance policy do you mean you know quite frankly I'm not even sure how many days are excused and non-excused besides the 10-day rule are you saying that they these would be counted at excused absences because of a document religious absence that is I think that's a local relationship and how many excused absences are you allowed in a year that is not defined now our attendance policy if they were to violate the attendance policy our attendance policy says whether it's excused or unexcused you have 20 days period

069so if there was a situation in which a child decided you know they needed let's say they needed the entire month of Ramadan right because that was what they needed for religion they was violated policy regardless of whether those days are excused or wrong okay I was confused on what that meant for attendance towards the attendance policy goes but that makes sense foreign so there is a calendar that is going to come with the policy policy there will be a calendar that will come we'll definitely from the administration that will be shared you know to to support the policy okay um because you know early on when I joined the board one of the key things that I learned is like don't get into the Tactical part or operational Park and you know he's staying

070on the more the Strategic part so as I was kind of I attempted to first read it it felt more like this is like an operational part of it um and that may be that I need to read a couple more times but it felt like this this is uh operational Park where there's very specific specific guidance on how uh you know the moment of silence and how long do you need to be you know observed at or um you know how to manage those uh days where you know if they're a certain event or something like that so uh you know that that was just my observation there I mean I'm not uh you know providing any critique on that and that that's how it felt like so I don't know others have kind

071of brought forward a lot of that is regulatory So like um you know with and I'm sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth but like that you know where we say you know teachers and I understand why you're saying it's operational this is Teachers may include religion role in appropriate subjects that sounds operational it's actually regulatory okay so it kind of I think the line is is a bit blurred in this situation but because the government has been involved the federal government has been involved so many times Across the Nation and this is such a highly contested issue um there are specific regulatory Guidance with respect to some of this so I think maybe that's why some of it appears to be operational and I'm assuming and I don't know I'm not positive it's

072a one minute moment of silence was that regulation too you know I don't know I'm not sure either they're the whole there's a whole guidance of Prayer in school yeah yeah it's so big about what we can again yeah exactly another example like he's probably you know so the thing about extracurricular activities like all of that is very mandated to us of what we can we can't do it but it's not in any of our documents so we're just kind of spelling out things that already exist and how long has the CMS policy been existence okay um so so what is the I mean it is I mean you know it's a fairly touching topic uh obviously but the title of it is also I mean I can read it it's like you know where

073is the policy here so I mean usually we see it's an employment policy or it's the you know something something policy so what are we calling this policy is it the non the entire thing I mean I know it's kind of minuscule thing here see the first part before the and just kind of policy there non-discrimination on the basis of religion policy okay so um I'm asking that as a question I mean that's just the question um I don't know what to uh if an acronym and part of why it's probably read like that is that that may have been direct from David we probably could meet some modifications that that may have come straight we do address religion in schools so it's not just if a family wants that time to celebrate the holiday

074it's also how it shows up until like talking about the instructions even there's a part about teachers or staff so that's probably why it's been that way but for the purposes of the need it could be shortened your religion in school policy because our policy is the rest of it describes to be non-discriminate yeah religion in schools forward religion and I say yeah I'm just the duty headline ours is actually short because I'm assuming it's called policy ACT transport okay minor thing but yeah any other questions well please get those um again if anything um comes up please you know email ask questions if the community doesn't need to be back you know we'd love to hear that um any policy that we um submit that is always um welcome and appreciated um I think

075that was it for me where um as Ms Piper mentioned we are working on a paid time off policy um and kind of extension of the FMLA the computer policy I mean I mentioned a last meeting too I'm going to do something that we're working on that one's a little bit more complicated so it's kind of getting down on the bottom of the list which I shouldn't say but it's a complicated one that we're working but we will get there um and that is it for policy thank you very good I'm gonna turn to way e for the expansion committee update I'll say it about the same thing as every month um expansion hasn't had the official public meeting but we definitely have now several times we'll have some more um computational information to be

076discussed in the closed session thank you thank you and I will pass it to Dominique for the diversity equity and inclusion committee update thank you so we have worked to develop that policy we just reviewed we're shorting the name now but it's originate schools so thank you for doing that first read we are also continuing to work on building maintaining continuing to develop our relationship in the community to increase the awareness so we continue to kind of share that responsibility of the board but we'll ask the community as well those who are listening and participating to share their organizations that we can partner with get to know they can get to know us please let us know because we're building kind of a database about that and um we talked about the newsletter the board

077newsletter that will be released at the end of January we're looking at what we will highlight in the next one is probably where you'll see more about what the Dei Community is doing any questions okay that adds it to Trader for the Ed Excellence committee education Excellence committee has also met you know in the last couple months we actually tried we were discussing and preparing a survey for our parent Community to talk talk about just the Middle School experience but we pivoted from there um to get a more much more broader feedback from about a school experience from our parent community we have it in our board scheduled to do it every three years two years uh when last time we did was 2018 then Kobe hit and most of the surveys then were covered

078related so we're coming back to normalcy yes service so we're going to use this uh we started preparing the the serving and it has gone from the educational excellence and so now the governance is also looking at it so we'll have a holistic survey feedback we sent out to the community by end of terrible release I think what we're aiming for so please participate I think it will have several elements to provide feedback to the administration and the board about the education experience and the school experience the communication and the whole of the whole child experience so please take time there are very relevant questions we have Community to provide us with feedback that will help provide some strategic goals and objectives for the board next several years we'll pass it to Allison for the

079whole child committee upstairs I really want to hear the foundation hey Jay well take us to the foundations I'll let you go yeah okay uh hopefully it's quick I'll give you back a few minutes here Allison for happiness updates that you'll share um okay so the report is attached for um everyone's overview uh take a look at that I mean it's the screeners one uh what are the punch lines out of that we are on a positive positive overall trajectory uh that's Obviously good news um participation is a new family participation in particular is very good uh the current family participation is um you know somewhat uh below last year's Trend at this point uh nothing to be concerned of but you know something to kind of keep an eye on uh though overall uh

080we are obviously doing well in terms of what has been pledged as well as what has been received uh slightly in a combination of that is overall good higher pledge amounts parent investors are hard at work and calling all of those families that have pledged and have not fulfilled or are in the process of fulfilling it so there seems to be a lot of interactions there and you'll get more updates on that they'll follow up the campaign with the following of those that have not fulfilled on that in the next few days uh we also got a chance uh some of the trustees actually had a chance to call some of those non-pledge non-fulfilling families and will probably come back to the board and share um sort of a summary of what that finding was

081or what are those Trends um speaking of Trends I want to highlight at the bottom of that report here there is the the new family Trend um that we talked about in the last board meeting so this is the cohorts of all new families over the last three plus years on how are they coming it's a small sample size but it kind of shows sort of the engagement level uh and then what they're giving is at this point in time again you know we we have not at least completed a full cycle it's a small sample but it should give some type of an early indication of how things are um and then where the trends are going with that overall okay um and then besides the support I'm not going to go through all

082of the bullet points here but I would definitely encourage uh if there are any questions after reading through these sections here on what the foundation is doing a huge amount of work that um is having us put in in uh putting a lot of the data points together putting some of the packages uh she we're meeting twice a month once on the Strategic side of the business and once a month on the more updates on the program itself or any of the campaigns that are going on so there's a and the communication so there is uh quite a bit still ongoing with that and again I'll be happy to answer any questions that they're specifically on there um one key thing and this is the last point before I pass it on is um the

083there's a strategic finding cycle a three year future planning cycle I want to distinguish it because typically we look at five years I think if I remember but in this case we're looking at from a three-year perspective because the foundation has been in existence so well over a year obviously um and we want to kind of lay out some of the programs and bring it to the board on what that how can we drive or translate some of the Strategic goals that are based on the school needs in terms of the tactics that can be converted and helped specifically by the foundation and in close collaboration with Ed with the admin and obviously with the board's cooperation there so as it kind of flushes out a little bit I'd like to kind of present that

084in an upcoming board meeting where we'll ask our trustees to kind of represent some of that work that has been done and kind of shared with the board here foreign specific questions because you said you're okay is it for the people who are glitched and not paid not fulfilled it yet or is it the ones that not fledged so kids who have not pledged yet not uh so there is uh there's a fairly refined process that has been in place for a number of years where they are uh there is an attempt to reach out to the parent ambassadors have assigned families that they try and reach out at least three times email voicemail combination of those two and then we basically stop at that point if they have not responded if someone has responded

085or have pledged that's the next phase okay when they have not fulfilled this to kind of get them to remind uh pledges of promise you know that is that is how we are projected our um you know plans based on that pledge amount so are we doing that okay thank you thank you uh now listen for the whole chapter yeah so we have I think the last time we had a whole child meeting on Wednesday and AJ and I have been working on um the teacher Retreats um you with staff and during the last whole child meeting we kind of identified we took a list of about 10 or 12 ideas for the teacher Retreats that were thrown out and um kind of narrowed it down to five and so AJ and I have been

086reaching out to those companies to kind of look at the logistics and the pricing and timing and all of that kind of stuff so I'm working on putting together a spreadsheet that has all that information so that we can present it to the meeting or to the committee on Wednesday um and that's about it I have um the holidays allow me to drop the ball on the playground um and so I will be reaching out to the playground people and pick up to set up a meeting um with you and him um to just identify what we can do and what we should do what we have to do we do have some timing constraints and you know also um don't want to spend money on something so that's it for me any questions thank

087you you're welcome uh our last committee is our finance committee so we'll turn it over to Adam thank you uh so the finance committee did meet last week uh [Music] we discussed um some budget amendments which I will propose to the board today we also talked about the preparation of our annual tax filing which is the 990 form um we got we're still uh iterating on drafts of that so I don't have the final version for the report to vote on yet so hopefully next month be on the lookout but I'll send you guys the 990 free review prior to the vote and I'll be able to answer any questions we have about it but just as a reminder we we don't pay any income tax so it's more than just a reporting of our

088already audited financials um and then answering the budget questions um yes um oh yes there we go our beloved financials um if you scroll all the way down there we go up to the right there's a cute little section on Amendment summary okay so um tried to synthesize it just into one little spot that you can focus on so these are the budget amendments that the committee would like to propose um so just where it says Amendment summary look down don't worry about everything up um so the Amendments we have increased Revenue by uh 9 386 dollars um and then I list out the three oh there we go we can read it now do you want a little smaller so you can see the bottom sure no it's okay I'll be scroll when I

089get to expenses I'm sorry um so we have a increase in uh ECF technology grants um expense so there's a there's an offsetting expense that comes with it so it's really budget neutral if we have the revenue we have the expense for technology spend this is grant money we've already been approved last year we rolled it over to this year so we have some incremental eligible expenses to include in there and then one of the staff members got a testing bonus so that shows up on here and then Mooresville schools uh increased their rate per student that they pay out relative to what we had in the budget so we get a little extra money for the I think it's eight students that we have coming from Morrisville now we should go grab some more

090okay [Music] I trusted her number yeah one students um then the expense adjustments are actually reducing expenses by twenty six thousand so as you can see the none of that we would be adding like thirty thousand to the 35 000 monthly to the budget surplus um so there's a huge reduction I know up above I just talked about adding an expensive for the ECF technology Grant but there's also a larger offsetting reduction for expenses that were already incurred last school year it was just rolled over when we rolled the budget over but it needs to be taken out because the money's already spent um then B rate is another Federal technology Grant that [Music] um we're adding a significant expense to it that the revenues already there so this is also kind of confusing we're

091just adding the expense um and this is what I think the folks were here at the building today when we pulled up still installing the networking equipment that was paid for by this grant um and then there's a retirement benefit true up there's the outstanding testing bonus that will pay out and then some additional lunch program expenses so if you scroll over to the left and ETF is a federal government also yep okay let's scroll up a little so we can see this okay so up there yeah so the current budget surplus prior to the Amendments was 280 000 with these amendments the Surplus goes to 316 000. the free approved news so none of the amendments are like asking to spend more money or anything new really it's just trueing up for expenses for

092our grants um and adjusting for things that are already in the budget I know it's a very very small number but what is the lunch like what's that number is that the young cooked for the laundry program or before those lunches we're paying for because that was that cost or was that it's 1500 at an extent um but so we get we get Revenue that doesn't actually cost us anything and then in addition parents can donate lunches and so that's a restricted line um but we do buy emergency lunch so my guess is my guess is this is emergency lunch this is the offsetting expense to the restricted Revenue line for people who make lunch donations yeah okay so it's not really but we do have we do incur costs to purchase some food for

093emergency yeah yeah that's already in the budget this is the new line that we added because people are donating money through lunch programs to pay for other kids lunches and so so that's done 1500 that people have donated no no this is like an anticipation of a full year number it's we've received I can look up what the year-to-date received is but that would be new to remember right so there's money coming in yeah yeah so it's just a line I received 660 here to date okay so we put in for 1500 for the full year as an estimate okay okay what happens if we don't use that money that is donated that's what we're trying to get that moved over to a restricted line okay so that we can carry that over for you

094to catch yeah if you set the funds as restricted for this particular use if it doesn't get used this year it rolls over next year because it can only be used for that if you the funds are unrestricted any line if you don't use it it's like you lose it grab you don't lose the money if you've already collected it it's just um it goes into the general fund yeah is the Surplus be careful of getting to comfortable with the Surplus Spiel no you you give it much better than I do please do okay so I mean that Surplus you'll see the Surplus is significantly higher than Surplus that we typically run we usually run 150 hundreds um Surplus and the reason that Surplus is so high is because we have had a incredible amount

095of Federal grant money that has come to us in the last several years and so there are a lot of things that we are funding with grant money that that Grandma is going away probably all of it next year and so just want to make sure everyone's aware that when we present a budget for next year it's not going to look like that we're we're going to be lean it's going to be very because if we want to continue to put in place the things that we have grown accustomed to having like a school nurse and like a full-time counselor and like um intervention Specialists for additional support for example those are three things I could think of right off the top of my head that are now currently being funded by Federal grant money

096and we want to keep those in place if we're going to incur additional costs so I just when we see that big Surplus um it's not because we're under spending and we should be spending money to you know and we should be increasing programs or doing additional things it's because we have a lot of Federal grant money right now yeah and to add to that something we are changing this effective like two weeks ago is for the bus program bus riders are no longer required to pay to ride the bus I think you guys will notice now it's voluntary and so far the amount of voluntary donations significant rewards than what we were hoping significantly lower and so that is not factored into the budget you know the budget assumes everyone pays and if the

097cost to operate annually is roughly 130 000 so half of that we already received half of that for the first semester but for the second semester we're not probably going to receive that full amount or not even half that is there a way that we can communicate that in the newsletter like concrete numbers like like what we do for foundation like by the way we've got 150 kids and we've got 50 of them donating and you know it's very real time like they just have I just checked the spreadsheet just now and um we're at about 30 participation for bus riders yeah of donating donating yeah I mean you know I think that we need to the communication the bus routers has been very very direct in specific and pleading yeah um so we will

098you know extend that communication to the whole I mean Community but we were today was the first day of the new semester so the focus was on getting the communication out to the bus rider but yeah yeah the intention is yes to put that up to the whole community and explain about what that means for the future of bus program is that if we want to continue to run three bus routes um to serve as many children as possible um that's right here yeah well then I just wonder like if you're like oh I don't know who why would you be on the fence for paying for this but like oh shoot only 30 of people have donated I was going to wait until XYZ but I should maybe get on it and do it

099now I don't know if seeing that percentage would make some people a little bit more you know like oh I'm just gonna fly under the radar are probably the only one who does that like for you know 60 of people are trying to fly under the radar and that's not going to fly um we're numbers people here right well we're also the communications the community is going to expand it that we're not looking at this as just a bus rider program this is a transportation program and that the buses are used for field trips as well in order to have field trips we have to employ bus drivers and if I can't pay for bus drivers then we can't go on field trips yeah so this affects the whole Community not just the children riding

100the bus to and from school is there and I know we cannot pay for things the TMS doesn't also charge for is there a way to add a transportation fee to field trips that can help us that that cost as well no that associate myself and allow that is there a way on field trip permission slips that we can put a line on in for voluntary donations for the transportation there already is a line that says would you like to sponsor okay child but I wonder if it's because it can you sponsor some of the gaps we've we've included gaps in our calculation of how much field trip costs but we don't separate it out gosh because it can't be a separate fee well I mean we're hoping we were hoping to have enough Revenue

101that we could remove that gas fee because we're going to have donations from the community or as of right now we're not looking like we're going to be able to do that yeah yeah I just get some of that pledge um that's supposed to be designated specifically about what I've been mixed in with in general okay thank you instead of giving a thousand dollars something hit a thousand a hundred yeah I think Tony is very particular so when she collects donations I don't think she's gonna allow that to happen yeah because that's uh you know if you think about that that's a very specific for the general uh operational funding of the school day and you're leaving campaign and you know for years and years it's been running roughly about half a million dollars uh

102the need for that uh and this Transportation program is a brand new initiative that came up because of the funding that happened a couple months ago where you cannot cannot be funded so this is going to add on on that half of value if you think about that so if we call that general fund would be 650 in terms of our Gap running on operating the school that's a different discussion but as a part of one of the things that I meant to say what else you were asking is that three years of senior planning cycle that um got kicked off by the foundation these are some of the challenges these are the headwinds that are coming in like uh What uh Aaron already mentioned that the federal grants that came in as a part

103of coven support are running out so there is a definitive Sunset to build that money that is coming in once you remove that then you're going to be certainty in a position where we cannot have all the programs and and that Surplus that is showing up will not look the same way it's going to be some red numbers there um hopefully not but along with that there are other things you know there is the school the infrastructure maintenance costs and all of that will start to add up also about that so there are some uh fairly significant expense that are coming in that should be part of the dialogue that the board and the trustees have to have on the foundation house like what are the real needs transportation is just one current example that

104we have right now and she's she has her own way of gonna you know connecting and specifically communicating at the individual level yeah I would just say like from so I I'm not a bus rider probably will never be and that's fine so I didn't even think to consider donating to the transportation if I had known learning hey this also is going to help pay for field trips all quick link can donate you know 50 bucks and that is the phase two yeah this of this campaign yeah is to get that information out and that was the intention is to get that out to them and I don't know if there's like I know that having a per person number because you're you know like when you're doing teacher gifts you're like um you know

105how much do you donate to teacher gifts right it says oh just donate what you can it would be nice to have a concrete just a heads up you know it costs about plus or minus X number of dollars to field trip each child yeah and that was hard to it's hard to to say because um a kindergarten child taking is taking a whole lot more field trips than a you know seventh graders yeah yeah um it's hard to to it and also you've got to factor in it's not just the cost for them to get to whom from to and from the field trip is the wear and tear on the buses it's the cost for the you know the benefits and the salaries for the bus drivers and you know inspections and you

106know licensing fees and all the other tasks that are associated with owning buses yeah yeah so it's hard to like that it's easier for us to say like this is our total amount of money cost to run the transportation program the transportation program includes the various components yeah um like 10 of the transportation budget is four field trips or what you know again and I know that that's a really hard but it might be yeah and I could argue that I could argue that you know the entire cost of a single driver would be for field trips because if I don't have a driver if Mr Marino retires and we lose that staff member I have no bus drivers if we don't have a transportation program yeah right so if we want to take children

107on field trips we have to employ the bus driver yeah so regardless of whether we take kids to and from school that cost exists yeah well and I I just I appreciate linking it back to the entire because I mean there are a bunch of us who do not use the buses and I don't want field trips to go away interestingly Allison that was one of the questions that several parents asked of the testing site is like uh do you have a bus service or do you have that is like yeah they can see that their bus is parked outside so you know obviously we couldn't dive into the details it's like yeah we have a bus service and it goes to Mooresville or Concord or South Charlotte and that was a part of their

108decision was like you know how long would it take for me to drive or since are people really disappointing because people who are riding the bus had those budget in their costs it's not like they are new times like I think the school should provide transportation these are people who actually have this in their budget right it's just particularly disappointing I don't know if it's even at all possible to see have the posters in front of us before we know the kids like at least it's true right if we don't have the money the program doesn't run you actually lose this form of transformation it's um I mean the email was very clear but I don't know if people read that email but the people who actually sign up for buses they really should have

109right if next year we only get 30 percent I would not be disappointed I mean I won't be that disappointed but this here these are people really considered this already the price it's just uh is there like a communication like you know how we're posting ourselves at the texting station um I do not volunteer for this myself but um people who are dropping their kids off at the bus like like go around like hey did you hear we only have 30 you know like did you read your email yeah I don't know like oh no we're gonna have to be driving all the way to school every day man I wish everyone would donate I said it wouldn't come well for me I wouldn't I do not volunteer for this but only around the first

110two days a week for a couple weeks yeah so yeah the point being there's a lot of expenses uh coming up next year that won't be paid for with grant money and won't always be paid for voluntarily by families to ride the bus so you know the Surplus we've always counted on running around 100 doesn't also allowed us to pay a bonus to staff members at the end of the year as a CMS catch-up payment if we have all these alternative expenses that we have to cover we may not have that Surplus at the end of the year based app bonuses which would really be terrible in my opinion so yeah there's a lot of needs coming up that aren't going to be met so while it looked fantastic right now it's we're gonna need

111to save those funds for the rainy days up ahead and it's you know you kind of highlighted that that this is through the end of December so this is the first half all the rosy picture but then it's going to be very different if you were to kind of forecast and use the figures that you have at 30 projection or a program that runs 125 needs 120 000 to fully be funded uh you can't I mean you know bills are paid before any of these uh yeah so and it's a very Stark reality okay uh if you want to go to the dashboard sorry to yes for you guys well the good news is our current Surplus the bad news is that it won't last sorry yeah I mean this kind of stole the Thunder

112from the finance dashboard to be honest and the dashboard just shows the current year budget um been a much more summarized version where you can just see it on one page but um you know not to kind of pound on the same point here but do you think that if you're a little too early in uh calling in that because it's at 30 that the transportation program uh I think it paid too early yeah so it's also eligible to match so I'm hopeful that some of yes yeah there's been a lot of questions about is it eligible for match I think a lot of people are still trying to map it out and it gets mismatched and and you know so I mean if it is a match then there is also an implication on

113the AGC Daniel giving campaign too because uh you know speaking for some of the employers they have a cap on how much they can match if someone uh contributed a couple thousand their two kids they contributed two thousand their the employer is going to match another 2000 to it and here's the bus program and they expect so now we are going to you know get a match on that it's not going to happen from that employer because they have cap that a matching one so although it's it's a nice thing because it's uh or for a non-profit but uh still it may be just that it's too early I I think that's the only thing uh positive I can take away that you know is day one that's what I was thinking too but if

114we have the same stats at the end of February then I would be more cautious yeah but since it just started like the meetings were last week yeah yeah it's just that the parents been going through the process of here's my registration form let me sign up for the meeting let me go ahead and pay I've done all my steps how many people are going to go back and be like oh yeah I was gonna go pay they're not unless there's a continual conversation of like hey we are not at our goal you know if you would still like to contribute please do so or perfectly communicate it yeah yeah and the key thing is that you know the gas uh or the cost or expense is not paid after the fact is paid you

115know hasn't seen it so they need to be kind of on the boulder okay uh so there's the dashboard uh so this is as of December 31st so just showing our Revenue categories uh as of December there then going to the right it shows how they've changed versus when we've originally filed this year's budget which was last May uh we came up with this budget um so you can see States down a little locals up a little uh that fund balance is our cash is up so we roll that cash at the end of last year into this year's cash position and then the restricted gifts are the Federal grant money the ECF uh technology grant money has added 130 000 and then it just shows versus prior year how different we are um and

116then it there's a year-to-date actual so how much have we actually received out of our full year production and then how that compares to the prior year and I won't get into all of those uh variances unless anyone has specific questions um and then the below is the expense categories again very summarized stuff grouped together by logical groupings [Music] um one thing I'll just point out here is our debt service has gone up versus what we originally filed so that's our mortgage payment the interest rate is floating on this so it's we're paying an additional 36 000 this year in interest um so one of the things the finance committee is looking at is using some of our excess cash to pay down debt instead of putting it parking in CDs is the interest rate

117now on our mortgage is higher than what we could get on a CD but there's a bunch of moving Parts there to figure out um that'll probably be a decision we bring to the board before paying down that prepaying mortgage but that may be coming like in among if we can study in this excess cache that is parked in CDs is beyond the minimum standard that is needed for the yeah we have our check-in account which is our operational account where we have a minimum of a million and right now it's sitting around 1.6 million we wouldn't touch that we have 1.5 million in CDs that we roll when they expire it would come from there okay is there a way to like refinance so that we're not on a flooding interest rate it's probably

118stupid to do it now but it's very expensive it's a municipal Bond that's outstanding um it's like six figures plus two yeah there's less than half a minute right probably right so uh increasing 321 36 000 increase that's that's quite a significant amount right what's up and also that's probably I'm thinking this is this is lagged right so probably next year we're looking at even if the rate stays unchanged we're looking at maybe 70 000. I believe that principal will go down a little bit but probably we'll look at somebody to learn more on the 500 000 payment first very significant I was actually surprised by quite a bit Yeah interest rates of almost tripled um last year yeah I was going to say sensibly started yeah it's more than doubled yeah two and a

119half times um yeah I guess the principal balance that's right that's right so yeah there'll be some strategic decisions on that coming soon um and then over to the right we have uh just that balance sheet snapshot is static so that's from June that's our from our audited financial statement so there's no change there but that shows our cash position uh that three and a half million whatever you're referencing to you there um the capital assets is the tax value of the equity we have in the property and uh and then the long-term debt is the outstanding amount that we owe on the mortgage on this property just 1.9 million it's down lower from that because that's as of June and we make quarterly principal payments of about 50 to 55 000. uh so it's

120probably down to 1.875 as if you're in uh so that's what we would be potentially paying some down um the capital assets is the assessed value of the building yeah I don't know what to say no not assessed there's no like if not looking at market value in Book value right and we depreciate it okay for tax reasons so you see it go down yeah um and then these are just some Financial metrics so our cash on hand uh uh minimum cash which we have set at a million and then that metric next to it is how many days cash how many days that would cover of operations so it takes our total expenses which is around 4.3 million um and divides that over 365 days so if how long would we blow through a

121million dollars that's what that means it's 76 days that's how long it would take us um there's no target minimum there there's no like we haven't set a threshold on it it's just more of an FYI if we talked about or changing our board set that minimum cash of a million dollars is a board set limit we could change it to whatever we want but if we changed it we would want to keep an eye on that metric like we said oh we don't need that much cash so let's reduce it to 750. well depending on how much money we spend each year that would change how many days we have to blow through that cash I like the Precision that you have on that measure yeah I realized that that person I'm like why

122is it like eight decimal places like it literally should just say 76. of 11 16. you're learning something on Mars I can understand that because unrestricted days cash is you know forget the cash minimum it's our total cash how long would it take for us to blow through three and a half million 194 days uh that we did a set of minimum at 30. so um yeah it'd be pretty hard for that to go below 30 when you have your minimum cash of a million um cash flow was just like the Surplus yeah all right I won't bore you guys anymore everything is green any questions just gonna give a really high level update on CPM oh the um the tax credit yeah so we uh you guys may recall when we asked you guys

123to approve 2500 in expense to pay our accountant to go calculate the employment tax credit uh which we believe we qualify for it has been calculated and the amount of credit we think we will receive is like one million six thousand dollars that's spread out over two years of quarters uh that we calculated on and there are quarterly financials like this that we submit that we've already signed and resubmitted to the IRS and so now we just sit back and wait and see how long it takes them to process we were thinking it would take around nine months for them to process but I think you okay it's awesome processing time but the larger ones go to a second review so it still may be six to nine we don't know but it may be

124getting faster than that so how many good return on investment there yeah so I'm I'm cautiously optimistic that will receive those funds this year we're not going to budget for them until we receive them um but that would certainly help with all the challenges we just talked about a few minutes ago about the nurse and counselor intervention specialist and transportation programs and future bonuses right an expansion effort so that is an unrestricted amount that he can apply to anyone okay yeah restricted and they could come back a blast too they might think they will yeah they may calculate something different okay do we get 2500 in fact as long as we make 2500 off of it as long as the IRS gives us backpack any questions and we will have a vote for um do

125you want to go ahead and do this now or do them at the same time as the employment contract afterwards because we've come back I got some follow-up information from the CLI the bus coordinator just about there is a communication plan for this Friday went to be more direct about what we need this money for and they're also planning to include recurring payments which we hadn't offer as an option yet so to do monthly payments that people would like to you know give 100 a month or fifty dollars a month or whatever so that is already in the works yeah because the initial plan was just pay the 450.50 or other yeah yeah let's go into Community comments we have another employment contract afterwards we'll see that if you guys are any other five questions

126okay that takes us to our second opportunity for Community comments subject to the same guidelines as earlier which is public it's welcome to speak limited to three minutes for speaker topics should not cover private confidential and personal information the board will not respond or enter into dialogue on topics discussed and at this time I will look at the participants to see please raise your hand if you are interested in sharing your comments do we know who's on the yeah okay I do not see any hands raised thank you for um listening today um we will move on to uh I will entertain a motion to go into clothes to review employment contracts in a real estate related contract thank you Dustin second thank you Erica all those in favor say aye aye any opposed it's

127been approved we are going to go into closed session we will be back and to be determined at a later time this evening to vote on those last few items and close it together yeah returning from closed session it is 10 20 20 p.m and we have two items to vote on I would like to entertain um motion to approve the employment contract as presented Mr Piper from Luke thank you thank you Mike and AJ and others in favor say aye aye can you opposed thank you the employment contract has been approved but also entertain a motion to approve the budget amendments as proposed to the finance thank you AJ all those in favor say aye aye any opposed so the finance budget Amendments have passed finally I would entertain a relation to close adjourn

128for the evening thank you thank you AJ all those in favor and any positions okay um adjourn thank you all for your time