[0:02] Okay, we will now begin the Thomas Edison Charter School's governing board meeting. The time is 5.30 p.m. on September 2nd, 5.34 p.m. on September 2nd, 20.26. In attendance are Lindsay Fowers, Court and Carpenter. Michael Schoenbarchi, Jeff Mason.

[0:29] and excused our Esther Ithrossan and Ryan Leaves,

[0:37] and Courtney Walidus in the pledge.

[0:43] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,

[0:51] one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

[1:02] And if you'll bear with me for one moment I'm having an electronic.

[1:08] Okay,

[2:14] we will proceed fourth.

[2:16] We will, unless there are any objections, we will adopt the agenda as presented before

[2:20] us.

[2:23] Are there any members of the public who would like to make a comment?

[2:32] Lindsay?

[2:33] Just from time to time, I like to just take a second to publicly say to all of you, thank you

[2:38] for your service and your health with the school.

[2:41] You guys are fantastic, you're putting in time and effort and energy that you are not

[2:47] being paid for you are not being compensated in any sort of worldly fashion that I know of

[2:56] other than our gratitude and so I would be very remiss to not share that from time to time so

[3:01] thank you very much for your service. Thank you.

[3:06] Thank you. Okay the minutes from the previous

[3:10] meeting were distributed via email. Are there any questions comments or proposed corrections?

[3:16] I move that we approve the minutes as distributed motion by Lindsay

[3:24] seconded by Michael Sean all in favor. I motion passes unanimously. First agenda

[3:33] item will be the Brian Carpenter podcast. We're

[3:44] at Lifelong Learning in 2017 which was

[3:47] nine years after I completed my PhD. I returned to school and earned a graduate

[3:52] a certificate in forensic accounting and fraud examination from West Virginia University.

[3:57] Shortly thereafter, I completed the four-part exam to become a certified fraud examiner

[4:03] or CFE for short.

[4:07] Welcome to Ford Weissan, the end-e-monthly training podcast for charter school boards.

[4:13] And now, he's your author and host, Dr. Brian L. Carpenter.

[4:18] Greetings, Charter School colleagues. This podcast is number five of twelve in a series

[4:23] titled Navigating the Intersection of Governance and Management. The title of this podcast

[4:29] is back-ordered Chinese Lightbulbs. Consider the following excerpt from the actual minutes

[4:35] of a Charter School board whose director of food services was in the process of evaluating

[4:40] cafeteria tables in order to make a purchasing decision, quote, the director of food services

[4:45] stated things are going well, and the like board members to come downstairs and see a possible table option.

[4:52] End quote.

[4:53] Gotta be honest with you, this is mind numbing minutia.

[4:57] Unfortunately in the charter school world board meetings are full of it.

[5:01] Pick up any set of board minutes for a typical school and you're likely to see reports on bratty troop meetings,

[5:06] basketball camps, harmonically imbalanced flag poles, whether teachers should wear blue jeans on Fridays,

[5:12] student stock styles and hot dog dinners. My all-time favorite is still

[5:17] back-order Chinese light bulbs the topic of this month's case at point. Though

[5:21] I do have to say a board member suggesting that quote, the school do

[5:24] something to commend the crossing guard for his continued service of being on

[5:28] duty and present-held parents and students. End quote would take a close

[5:32] second in a contest for the most indiscriminate boardroom discussion. I think

[5:37] there are two reasons why stuff like this gets reported and discussed in

[5:40] board meetings. First, a lot of minutia is feel good stuff. We like to hear about teacher

[5:45] enthusiasm for the new school year, community support for the new playground fundraiser,

[5:50] and parent turn out of the holiday musical because, well, it's just good news. And in

[5:55] a country that has entire television networks apparently devoted to reporting bad news 24

[6:00] hours a day, it makes us feel good to be part of a school where nice things are happening.

[6:05] The second, and more important reason why the meetings of most charter school boards are

[6:09] often filled with minutia is that board meetings reflect of board's priorities.

[6:15] If the board's priorities are to have a say in every bit of minutia and its meetings

[6:19] will largely be a waste of time.

[6:21] In contrast, the meetings of a board whose priority is to end the Black White achievement

[6:26] gap will reflect a regular focus on how well the school is progressing toward that outcome.

[6:32] Such boards know that 90% proficiency rates or higher are doable and that's what they

[6:37] talk about.

[6:38] In fact, they have little interest in anything but performance, inviting their board members

[6:43] to view table options might even get you thrown out of the meeting.

[6:47] So let me ask you, what are your board's priorities?

[6:50] Are its meetings a continual rallying point around student performance, or are they a place

[6:55] where no topic, no matter how inconsequential, is too small to warrant the board's attention?

[7:01] If the latter tends to be true, perhaps your board is never visited in ultra-high-performing

[7:05] school.

[7:06] Doing so can be a good first step to realigning your board's priorities.

[7:11] I heard this month's board self-appraisal questions and recommendations.

[7:14] If an outsider was trying to determine your board's priorities by sitting in meetings or reading its minutes, what would she conclude?

[7:23] Number two, when was the last time your board visited an offer for high performing school?

[7:28] Number three, how many times in the past year has your board had a significant discussion on student performance?

[7:35] Now, for this month's case in point, back-order Chinese light bulbs, the following are actual

[7:41] excerpts with the wording slightly revised to approve grammar and clarity as well as

[7:45] provide anonymity, et cetera, from the minutes of a single board meeting of a real charter

[7:50] school.

[7:51] Here we go.

[7:53] A board member made a motion to retain the facilities manager at the same compensation

[7:57] as in the current contract.

[7:59] The board discussed a revised organizational chart.

[8:04] The school is still waiting the installation of an electronic sign and waiting for the management

[8:09] company that operates the school to send a check for $10,250.

[8:13] The lights for the sign are imported from China and have not been received.

[8:19] Work on a nearby stoplight is in progress and expected to be completed by August.

[8:24] The vendor of the school's sound system was contacted whereupon it was discovered that

[8:30] some settings had been altered after the company had preset them.

[8:33] A board member recommended that they install a lock cabinet with designated key holders.

[8:39] It's clear from these excerpts that the sports priorities are misplaced.

[8:43] Besides the meeting brimming over with mind-numbing minutia, the discussion boards are being downright

[8:47] insulting to the school leader. That is, is he really so obtuse that the solution to

[8:52] unauthorized access to the sound system necessitated the wisdom of the board to solve it?

[8:57] This case also illustrates that when a board is mired in minutia, the time that should have

[9:02] been devoted to discussing true priorities becomes squandered. In other words, when a board

[9:07] wastes its time on trivia, the things that it should be focused on, such as student performance,

[9:12] students get short-changed if discussed at all.

[9:15] In the case of the back-order Chinese lightbulb sport, the school is performing in the

[9:21] bottom 9% of public schools in its state, as measured by the percentage of students

[9:27] meeting our exceeding state standards in both math and English language arts.

[9:30] Boy oh boy, it should be obvious that this school would be much better served by the board

[9:35] if it were to radically realign its meeting priorities.

[9:39] My advice to the board for doing so was the same as I would give to any school with such

[9:43] an under-inspiring performance.

[9:45] First, by a majority vote, if the board determines that it's willing to continue using the

[9:50] management company, the board should direct it to analyze the causes or reasons why the

[9:54] school was floundering in the bottom desis.

[9:57] Next, management should be required to prepare a coherent action plan, one of two pages should

[10:03] do, indicating its goals along with the metrics that it will use to begin regularly tracking

[10:08] the school's progress. If these goals meet with the Board's approval, also determined by a vote,

[10:14] the Board's meeting priority should be to evaluate the school's progress. Nothing will be lost

[10:19] by leaving the light bulbs to arrive when they arrive. This concludes this podcast if you've

[10:25] been listening to it in the Board meeting. Be sure.

[10:29] Any comments?

[10:35] I don't have to say that sometimes

[10:37] I'm bad and do get that feel good stuff and I'm not going to totally stop but I think our meetings

[10:43] are very focused on what they should be focused on. So in our board reports, we've put a lot of

[10:49] the field good stuff, but we don't tell you all the details because if you want to know it,

[10:52] you get the opportunity to read it.

[10:56] I do think there's a balance, a healthy balance with it because

[11:01] I think that it keeps a healthy relationship for the board to know what's happening and some of

[11:11] the feel good things and keeps the realness of relationships with people. So I think that's

[11:20] nice too. But is good to stay focused on letting you do your jobs and us stay in our

[11:31] line and let the light bulbs be the light bulbs. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Then we will move

[11:41] to section 5,000 of the policy and procedures manual any comments or questions regarding

[11:49] that.

[11:59] Then we will move right along to Jim with the text philosophy and financial report.

[12:05] All right.

[12:11] Once again, thank you for setting up my chair.

[12:19] So last board meeting, you'll recall we discussed that the school teaches at an advanced

[12:26] curriculum and advanced level.

[12:29] So what we're going to talk about today goes right along with that.

[12:33] If you open up, if you're looking at your packet or online, you'll see this page here and

[12:39] recognize it as page two of exhibit A of the charter and up we've it's go through the top.

[12:49] It's a circle there in yellow. Why don't we start with me a lot of just each of you take a bowl

[12:54] and we'll just go around the table out there. Classwork and homework. Classwork and homework

[12:58] completion enhance academic success and personal development. Homework is an integral part of the

[13:04] academic program and serves the following purposes.

[13:08] The primary purpose of homework is to be a vehicle for teaching student time management

[13:12] skills and personal responsibility.

[13:15] It is a communication device between school and home provides parents with the opportunity

[13:20] to see what concepts are being discovered, sorry, being covered each day during school.

[13:26] It is used by the teacher as an assessment tool to determine the effectiveness of their instruction.

[13:31] It provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of concepts

[13:36] that have been taught and practiced in the classroom setting without the security structure

[13:41] and assistance of a classroom teacher.

[13:43] Great.

[13:44] Thank you.

[13:44] So, the classwork and homework is one of something that's different with Thomas Edison

[13:51] in charter school relative to other schools, and I know that there are families and students

[13:58] who don't like the workload and some of them leave for that reason, but on the other hand,

[14:04] there are lots of stories I've heard over the years of students who've been through the program.

[14:10] And as I mentioned last time, who've gone into high school and found that out was really easy

[14:17] because of their training here at Thomas Edison. And I believe, you know, the classwork,

[14:23] work and in-class work and homework is a big part of that, builds up there.

[14:31] Doing homework

[14:32] is become the routine for them, you know, doing work in a society where I think it seems

[14:38] like there's less and less willingness to do work. It's nice that the school has that

[14:44] has maintained that work ethic in terms of learning and so forth. Any comments about that

[14:51] from either administrators or board members.

[14:56] I think this is one of the hardest things to get family.

[15:00] It is one of the most important and the one that is the longest lasting that makes the biggest difference for our students. And sets them apart from everybody else.

[15:14] It's worth the battle. We're the we're the poster family for this concept because we didn't start here. And I thought that the no court that we were getting at our previous school was fabulous except I have the child.

[15:29] that thought yes this is fabulous and this should be the rest of my life. How dare you ever

[15:36] give me anything to do after school and I didn't realize what a problem that was going to

[15:43] be and realized I needed the habit formed very early and it actually made our family functioning

[15:53] more difficult, because we didn't start out that way.

[15:57] As a parent myself and my twins, you know, they're at the same grade level.

[16:03] So when they come with their homework, when they were really young, they would like

[16:08] play school with each other with their homework.

[16:11] So like, do their homework and play at the same time.

[16:13] Which I think I benefited our family culture in addition to, because they're engaging with

[16:22] those concepts that they engage with at school but doing it at home and they're bonding

[16:28] while doing it.

[16:30] And I really like that that's actually been a positive thing in our home.

[16:37] Good.

[16:37] So we'll all be shocked if we have future teachers in the making.

[16:42] Yeah, we've already got that.

[16:45] Yeah.

[16:46] So Lindsay, how long ago was it that you started your kids here at the school?

[16:51] We came, well I don't know what year it was, but he was starting fifth grade and he started 10th this year, so I fished years ago.

[17:03] So, did you re-able to come up that learning curve relatively fast or did it take a while to get custom to the...

[17:12] That's a whole other meetings topic.

[17:16] Okay, we'll save that for the next next month.

[17:20] Do you have a positioning and two Thomas Addison?

[17:24] No, I think the transitioning into Thomas Addison, it was beautiful and the teachers made,

[17:32] but the beauty story was the second grade story where my daughter who is a perfectionist

[17:40] was the phonograms, oh my, because she didn't start out with them and so she didn't know them and she panicked because she was not doing well on her test.

[17:50] And I mentioned to her teacher the tears because she didn't do well and her teacher was like,

[17:56] oh, we'll let set her up for it to be a positive experience.

[18:00] Here's the tin that are going to be on the test next week, just have her study those so she can get 100.

[18:05] it. And I was like beautiful. And so it increased her confidence. We knew which ones to study. And it

[18:13] it was wonderful. And so I shared that with a mom this year who was bringing a fourth grader to

[18:20] the school and said don't stress the phonograms if you need to. Like the teachers will work with you to

[18:28] make it a successful experience. It's it's been wonderful, right?

[18:36] Any other

[18:36] comments before we move on?

[18:41] They've started now in Keshe County, you have a

[18:43] it's called a like at Richland, it's a River Hawk class and all freshmen have to

[18:49] take in and teach us them how to like do homework and write in a planner and be

[18:55] nice to other people and stuff like that and I just kind of giggled and I tried to

[19:01] opt my kids out and they wouldn't let me but I was like they've been doing this

[19:05] for years at Thomas Edison and I just thought how ironic that everyone now

[19:11] is just realizing the importance of it when all these kids get to high school

[19:15] and they are disorganized and don't know how to turn things in and you know so I'm

[19:22] I'm hearing stories of kids entering college.

[19:26] They can't even do, hardly do basic math,

[19:30] and they're reading, writing skills or poor and so on.

[19:36] So, I'm sure that's not the case of those students

[19:41] who've been through that Thomas Edison program.

[19:43] Right.

[19:45] It's hard.

[19:47] We'll move on to the next topic.

[19:49] Let's do it.

[19:50] Okay.

[19:51] So you'll see, I believe most of you probably saw

[19:56] that Steve's out. The August record, August 31st, the snapshot of the expenses the schools

[20:04] had to date. I'll start with the South Campus first because that's the easiest one to

[20:10] talk about. You'll see that the first two months, South Campus is spending well below the

[20:17] monthly average. In other words, that red line is 97,000 per month below what the

[20:27] monthly average would be. That includes the cash surplus or contingency amounts

[20:35] that's been forecasted. Anyway, I'm sure that there will be large expenses, you know,

[20:41] was the year goes on but it's nice for this for at least South Campus to start out

[20:48] and stuff to good in the black position. I'm moving on to North you'll look at the

[21:11] So you'll see that there was a huge expense last month and under the August comments you'll

[21:19] see Steve's comment that Ruth repairs was you know over 330,000 I guess that was probably

[21:25] the total bill that came in for the roof.

[21:27] Is that correct? That wasn't just a partial payment.

[21:30] It's done.

[21:31] Okay. Then there was an artificial turf payment there.

[21:35] And I looked at that and I responded to Steve.

[21:39] I'm sure many of you saw that where I suggested that 60% of that amount could come out of the accumulated contingency or cash surplus amount.

[21:50] so that it doesn't look so, you know, there are big expenses will occur. We've had situations

[22:00] where there's been expansions and the same thing has occurred where the cost of the expansions

[22:08] rather than going out and getting another loan, we've gone into the cash surplus amount and just paid for it directly

[22:13] and not had to enter into more debt for the school.

[22:20] And this is one of the reasons why we have this accumulation

[22:24] of cash surplus amounts to pay for things like roof repair

[22:28] or roof replacements, or if there's some big flood

[22:32] that requires tens of thousands of dollars or whatever,

[22:36] that there's that cash surplus pot that's there to pay for that.

[22:41] There's also this special project amount which is in the regular budget, but since this

[22:49] really exceeded it by quite an amount, at least for what is in the current forecast,

[22:55] I thought it would be good to have at least a significant portion of it come out of the

[22:59] accumulator.

[23:00] So next time, Steve replied and said yes, that sounds good with his response.

[23:05] He didn't have any issues with doing it that way.

[23:08] So next month that you'll see that the

[23:11] marks would be so here's my sidebar

[23:14] comment. Looking at the bright side we've

[23:18] been around for over 20 plus years we

[23:21] wouldn't need a new roof if we had been

[23:24] around so long so we're doing good this

[23:26] is good that we need a new roof after 20

[23:28] years. Right? Good. I like it.

[23:33] You know, it's great over time and so forth, roofs are perfect example of that, so it's

[23:42] not, this isn't anything to be ashamed of or whatever, it's one of those things that

[23:47] does happen occasionally.

[23:52] That's right, that's a good way of putting it.

[23:53] If I can all be serious for half a second here at least, it speaks loudly to the people

[24:02] that have come before.

[24:04] We are in a position that something like replacing the entire roof, we do not have to go out

[24:10] and borrow money and pay interest in other things.

[24:14] We are able to save ourselves money because of the good planning and those that have put

[24:21] that work into it.

[24:22] And we're going to spend more money, but yeah, we're in very fortunate place.

[24:28] There are lots of things that are going to need replacing and I'll talk about that later

[24:33] in the evening, but we are in a very good place because of the management and the support

[24:43] by Jim, Steve, and the many principles that have put the effort in to make this possible.

[24:48] we're in a very good place and I honestly feel like I'm reading the benefit of the hard work

[24:55] of many people before me. Yeah. And also to go along with that, North has built up a fairly

[25:03] significant cash surplus amount over the years and so paying for the roof or even a 60 percent of

[25:10] the roof or whatever it's not so hard given the cash surplus that's there.

[25:21] I know you all

[25:21] knew about this. Approved at events. Yeah.

[25:28] Okay, sounds great. Thank you, Jim. We'll move to

[25:32] Angela Williams with student data and followed by the LEA licenses. All right, tonight we're going

[25:38] to look at our district accadience reading scores. And these are our scores for all three periods,

[25:48] beginning middle and end of year for last school year. So if you look at this first report I think

[25:54] is the reading and we've been doing the reading longer than we've been doing the math so we've

[25:58] got more data on the reading and I love how we had some like yellow and like light blue and a few

[26:03] dark blues and then COVID happened and ever since like COVID we have been like on a really nice

[26:08] dark blue trajectory. So that's really exciting to see and we continued with that trajectory again

[26:15] All of the things that are coded with the dark blue were more than 10% above the state average and I put the state average in those little parentheses if you want to see where the state was at.

[26:25] So that's on there for the last four years if you want to kind of track that to be trending.

[26:30] So I just want to look at kindergarten because they've got kind of an unusual pattern there.

[26:34] Their beginning of year score was 67% of them were proficient and the state average was 56.

[26:42] And then in the middle of the year, we had 78% proficient and the state average was 72.

[26:48] So we were above, but it was within 10% or below, so I color coded it like that light blue.

[26:53] And then at the end of the year, we had 76 and the state average was 78.

[26:58] And I was concerned about that, so I looked at last year's end of year score, which was 93.

[27:08] Kindergarten really figured it out. They went from 76 at the end of 24, 25 to 93. And I would have this whole column color coded, but it takes the state up wild to compile all that data and it's not online yet.

[27:22] So 93 is for sure going to be dark blue.

[27:25] because if you look at the state average, it's been $69.74, $78, $78, so it'll probably be $78, or maybe $79, maybe even $80, but we're going to be just fine right there.

[27:40] But that same group of kindergartners from $24.25, and that was a year we did struggle with kindergarten.

[27:46] garden. They became first graders last year in 2526. And look, that's 68 right

[27:52] there. That's down from the year before, which was 72. So the state average

[27:58] there's been 55, 55, 59, 60. It could be 61 or something. That's probably

[28:04] going to be a light blue color is what it's going to be. So I think we've got

[28:08] kind of a tricky cohort of kids right there. But I also think that we're

[28:12] following figuring it out because we went to 83 after that and then we went to 79, which is pretty

[28:20] consistent with what we have been at the end of first grade. And I find it interesting. It kind

[28:25] of appears to me like in kindergarten and the beginning of first grade, it's a little bit of a struggle.

[28:31] And I think spotting kind of can be. It's tricky. It's complex. It's unique. But something happens

[28:38] like at the beginning of first grade and it seems to click and it seems to click well.

[28:44] Like after that we are well above those state averages. So I find this fascinating to look at

[28:49] and kind of theorize about, but I'm thrilled with that 93 last year as the end of year scoring

[28:55] kindergarten. That is half the charts and just phenomenal. And then I wanted to look at third grade

[29:00] end of year. There's some new legislation and what they're proposing is in four years from now

[29:07] when like this year's kindergarteners become third graders, there's a lot of new legislation,

[29:12] but part of this new legislation is that if students aren't proficient, that that retention

[29:17] will be at least considered unless there's like one of these good cause reasons for like not retaining

[29:24] them. So when we look at where our scores used to be clear back in the beginning of 1516, we were like

[29:36] in 2005 at the end of the year, 2026 last year, 89.

[29:43] So if they're on an IEP already,

[29:45] if they've already been retained,

[29:47] like some of those are some of the good faith causes,

[29:49] which could account for a large percentage

[29:51] of that 11% that were not proficient.

[29:54] So I feel like in four more years from now,

[29:57] we're gonna have that number even smaller.

[29:59] And we're,

[30:00] There's so much more ahead of the state, who is normally historically been around 70% to 71. So we're looking at like, okay, we've got 11% of our kids to figure out, have they been on IEP, have they been retained before? Like, what kinds of accommodations have we already had that we might not have to retain them or whatever, but the state's looking at like 29 to 30% that they're dealing with? So I feel pretty good about that. What questions do you have about the reading before we move on to the math? Or we can go back with comments or questions to the end?

[30:30] Okay, let's move to math. We've been doing the math less, less, less, less long, for

[30:36] not as long as the reading. So we just have scores from back to 2021. These have the

[30:41] state scores on them. Everything's almost dark blue except for, and I say more than 10.

[30:48] So I was really tempted to shade it dark blue anyway. But we were 75 and the state was 65.

[30:53] And so we were light blue, and it's that same kindergarten group, which I think might

[30:57] just kind of be an interesting little cohort going through.

[31:01] With us teaching math a year ahead,

[31:03] we generally do really, really well on this.

[31:06] That first year we did this test.

[31:07] Second grade kind of had a little bit of trouble

[31:10] getting going on there, but we're doing amazing.

[31:13] And again, I wanted to look down at third grade.

[31:15] Our end of year third grade has been 87, 91, 95, 92.

[31:21] And last year we were at 97% of our third graders

[31:25] who scored proficient on that test.

[31:27] So I wish we were looking at retaining them if they weren't proficient in math instead of reading, but it is what it is.

[31:34] Anyway, or both. No, I'm just kidding.

[31:36] Anyway, that's where we're at. I'm thrilled with these numbers. I think they look really good.

[31:42] That's 75 in first grade beginning of year. It is 2% lower than it was before.

[31:48] But I think overall we're still looking at a good upward trend. 65, 73, 70, 77, 75.

[31:55] So that's where we're at with our math scores questions on those questions or

[32:02] comments. Awesome. This is a very pretty blue. That's what we like. We like. Well

[32:09] and I like to see that it used to be more yellow and there's less and less of

[32:13] that. Like to me that's exciting seeing the yellow change into the blue. It shows

[32:17] me that we're on a really good trajectory overall so and our yellows it's good to

[32:22] know that we're not far behind, like that yellow in 2324 and first grade, the state average

[32:28] was 59.2 when we were 58. I mean, we're talking like probably two kids, you know, scores.

[32:34] So when we are yellow, know that we're pretty close. And I think that that's important to,

[32:39] we're not 20% off or something like that. So we are yellow, and that's definitely things

[32:44] to be concerned with. Also, I want to say, we used to have these things called the early

[32:48] really early learning plan, and they were always based around like growing this way.

[32:53] And so a lot of our grade levels would wait until the fall to find out what our early

[32:58] learning plan goals were, and then they would set those as goals for their grade level

[33:01] for the year. And a lot of them came to me, and the early learning plan is now dissolved.

[33:06] It's replaced with some of this new reading legislation. And they're like, what's our early

[33:10] learning plan goal? Did we have one for our grade? And I'm like, no, those are gone now, but

[33:14] But you can set your own goal if you want and several of our K-3 set their own goal.

[33:20] Like our goal is to increase from at least 2% from our beginning of year to our end of

[33:25] year.

[33:25] Even though it's not part of it anymore, I was impressed with that.

[33:29] So I love seeing that.

[33:31] It's great.

[33:32] Yeah.

[33:34] Okay.

[33:36] Thank you.

[33:37] If there's no other questions or comments, think I'm next.

[33:40] I will say, I really, I really think you do a really beautiful job explaining all the

[33:46] numbers into the area, your story, like when you talk about the different cohorts of students.

[33:54] I appreciate the visualization. Yeah, it's one thing I like to be able to do is kind of like

[33:58] look and follow kids, kids and groups down those charts. Yeah. Because I think that that's telling.

[34:05] Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. It's nice for somebody to pick it up and say, oh, that's cool. Yeah.

[34:10] It's wonderful to listen to Angela explain how it all works and what it means for us to read.

[34:15] Well, as someone who does literature and reading, it's nice to be able to say I can read numbers, right?

[34:22] You can see the story behind it.

[34:24] Yeah, thank you.

[34:25] It also goes to show you're talking about the value of the homework, right?

[34:29] Because you talk about year-end performance followed to the beginning of the year performance associated with it.

[34:34] And when you're looking at math, you have kindergarten that's at the same score you have.

[34:39] So I mean, you're not talking about drops in year over year, from end of year to beginning

[34:46] a year, which is a historical norm, I think, for most students.

[34:50] So it does speak to the value, again, coming back to the learning concept of how homework

[34:54] matters and why it's so valuable.

[34:56] So thanks.

[34:59] Very, I think we're all really proud of our scores.

[35:02] It's a good point.

[35:04] I'm a cohort from years here and seeing.

[35:07] Alma said it's every year.

[35:08] It's a year and year and year and year and it's.

[35:10] Yeah, it's amazing.

[35:12] The second and third grade and even middle of year first.

[35:14] That's when it really, yeah, it really kind of clicks in.

[35:18] So that's fun to see.

[35:19] Yeah, it's been.

[35:20] Well, especially considering like kindergarten,

[35:23] you have families from all different.

[35:26] Yep.

[35:27] Kids who have been reading, kids who don't read,

[35:30] who don't recognize the letters and then being able to see that visually is where it clicks.

[35:37] It's really exciting. Yeah, we're really fortunate to have the good programs in place that we do.

[35:43] It's really effective the things that were set up from the beginning.

[35:46] Yeah. Okay, do you want me to talk about LEA specific?

[35:50] Yeah. Okay, we have one teacher to propose for an LEA specific license this year.

[35:55] The LEA-specific license is a way that the state has allowed schools to give a teacher a license

[36:02] who might not be able to obtain one otherwise.

[36:06] So it can be really anybody that a school feels is competent to teach a course.

[36:13] But what the LEA-specific says is that we will support them and give them feedback and work with them

[36:21] and develop them professionally and have them come to professional development courses.

[36:24] And so, um, we're going to propose tonight Christina Davis, she's our first great teacher

[36:30] over at North this year.

[36:32] And I feel very good about proposing her name because, um, part of why we were going to

[36:38] ask for an LEA specific was just in case her associate license didn't come through in time.

[36:43] She already has a bachelor's degree.

[36:45] She's looking at possibly becoming licensed through Apple or getting a master's degree in education

[36:51] and she's exploring some of those routes.

[36:52] And she's just not sure which route she's going to take or whether she wants to teach long term or do elementary or secondary

[36:59] She's kind of at an interesting crossroads. So she's agreed to take on our first grade Thomas Edison north and and we feel

[37:05] Good about her with the training she's received so far and the training she'll continue to receive from us to teach that class for this year

[37:13] So one LEA license to propose and that is Christina Davis

[37:19] Okay. I've proposed that or I move that we approve.

[37:26] Sorry.

[37:27] What additional supports does that person have where they're not certified?

[37:33] I mean from you guys specifically.

[37:35] Is there extra that takes place less that takes place helping you?

[37:39] There's definitely extra.

[37:40] So with our first year teachers we go watch them in average of once a week.

[37:43] So we've already been in her classroom twice to observe.

[37:47] and given feedback, which is really nice and yes, we're there to make sure that we can do whatever they can and she's reached out for help in several different areas and we've been staying after school to give her some supports and some of the specific things she needs.

[38:02] So yes, we're well aware that she is in need of more support and we're giving that to her as is needed in an appropriate times.

[38:10] Yes, so we have a schedule that has all our first year teachers on it and they're once a week

[38:15] And then our second year teachers and we fade a little bit more on our third year

[38:18] We fade a little bit more and then even our fourth year teachers. We're seeing at least three times a year

[38:23] So everybody we're getting in their classrooms frequently at least three times a year for our veterans

[38:29] Thank you. Yeah, we're just feeling strongly about like the positivity

[38:33] look and leave them for teaching quality. We want to just train them and get them going in the

[38:37] right direction from the beginning and that's one way that we can ensure that is with those frequent visits.

[38:42] I was going to say I can't overstay the benefit of having the divide that can go in and support

[38:47] and help them but even like that that's basically unheard of but even beyond that there's other

[38:53] supports that we've done to help her because she came in last minute so we took one of our most

[39:01] experienced AIDS that's been here for a while, like when I was teaching here she was an

[39:09] 80 year and but she's fantastic so we gave her a very experienced AIDS that can help support her

[39:16] and then there's always our PLC meetings where she meets with the first grade teachers.

[39:21] I believe today we have arranged so that she could go down and observe first grade teachers

[39:27] of the South Campus as well. She's working with her peer here, the first great teacher here,

[39:33] but also just giving her opportunities to really immerse yourself into the curriculum,

[39:39] who we are as a school, which she's very familiar with, but also seeing

[39:44] different first-grade teachers in our program.

[39:47] Beautiful. Thank you.

[39:49] It's been fun for her to look at life at different routes to licensure and like,

[39:56] Yeah, we feel strongly that she's a really good candidate, so.

[40:00] Okay.

[40:01] I move that we approve Christina Davis for the LEA specific license.

[40:08] Second.

[40:09] Motion by Lindsay.

[40:10] Seconded by Courtney.

[40:11] All in favor?

[40:12] Aye.

[40:13] I motion passes unanimously.

[40:16] Okay.

[40:16] Thank you.

[40:17] And we will move to Sarah and Delaney with the mental health grant.

[40:23] So

[40:28] we were able to receive the grant again, which was super good.

[40:33] We were funded at $54,525, $4,775, which go to indirect costs.

[40:40] We're working with the family place and we just need to get approval tonight to continue

[40:45] with that.

[40:46] And just right now on the surface of our school, she has four clients that she's actively

[40:53] see in and we have four more that I refer today. So she can have as many as eight on a Wednesday.

[41:02] And then the other campus right now has one that they're actively seeing and they don't have

[41:07] to be referrals yet, but I'm sure will happen. So we have one.

[41:14] There is a need. So going forward,

[41:19] we just need to approve that working with the family place and improve using the grant for that.

[41:24] Okay. So, approve how we use the grant. Not. Okay. Could you all read it? Got it.

[41:30] Okay. And we do get the same amount of money each year. So, it's not just one amount. It's for the next few years that amount.

[41:37] Okay. Perfect. So, I move that we continue to work with the family place and approve them for the Mental Health Grant as we have in the past.

[41:52] second. Motion by Lindy, seconded by Courtney. All in favor. Hi. Thanks. Motion passes.

[41:59] You're down to sleep. Thank you. And Melani with school fees. So we just have to quickly

[42:09] ask these of our families. So if you look at the policy it talks about the law saying that we could

[42:16] charge fees for some of the old shoots, but we don't. And the only thing that we ask for,

[42:22] we ask, we have a suggested school supply list, but the students don't purchase those materials.

[42:28] They will be provided for them. Most of our parents do a great job of doing the supply

[42:33] for us, but occasionally we've got some homework full versions of some different things for them.

[42:38] And then we do ask for a parent donation that goes towards school parties, school events,

[42:46] different things but not all of our families pay that either. So again, they are

[42:50] donations. So the bottom line is you just need to vote that we are a school that

[42:55] has no fees. Okay, I move that we approve the school policies fee, the school

[43:03] fees policy as written. Motion by Lindsay, seconded by Jeff, all in favor. Hi, motion

[43:11] shuntastic unanimously. And then our last item of discussion is the Brian Carpenter training

[43:20] that we have the opportunity to have him for, which what we were going to discuss with

[43:27] that is Nicole might know more details possibly about that. Do you want me to talk about her?

[43:35] Well, I think a lot of it is when we purchased new materials from him that are more updated because as you look at the dates

[43:43] 2011

[43:45] He offered a free training to us for the purchase of the materials and I think

[43:50] It'd be a great idea to use that training

[43:53] But the question is when do we do that?

[43:56] So do we add it on to a long meeting at the end of the night when everybody's trashed or

[44:00] We don't have our governing board meeting in December

[44:03] So that was a thought that Lindsey had or we could do like a lunch Google or something

[44:08] I I think that's what the discussion is what would be the best time for governing board members and administration to come in and

[44:15] Do I is it an hour training? I guess an hour, right? I

[44:22] Don't remember but I want to say it's an hour. I thought I read somewhere

[44:25] But she said to reach out when we want to do the training and so I would just thought maybe we should have a few options

[44:33] a couple options in case you say come and say never at this day and he's like no

[44:38] cancer. Yeah so we have a couple of different knots. So I think I mean I don't know how

[44:48] flexible are you at lunch time. I mean that doesn't seem like. If you give me my schedule right now,

[44:57] if you give me three months out.

[45:00] I can make anything work almost anything. Okay. Is it more convenient to schedule during a lunch time or something like that, or to go with our regularly scheduled board meeting time? If you do it that far out, I think the lunch is probably the most

[45:20] accommodatable. Okay. That's the word. Yeah, because we also don't meet in January. So. If we're talking them.

[45:31] same

[45:35] day, which is Wednesdays, those are historically my most available days for

[45:41] December. So I would I'd be able to make a lunch, I'd be able to do in the

[45:46] evening, but specifically January or sorry December January for me. So don't

[45:55] get, don't try and schedule it in like November, October, November. I got to be

[46:03] hard-pressed to make it there. Actually, if you did the third week of November, I have a

[46:10] availability. So maybe that's option one. Do you, Jeff, are you? Sorry, guys. I mean, middle

[46:18] of the day, I'm usually in the car running kids around, like my littles.

[46:30] I'll bend them

[46:31] Make whatever work during the day as well, okay

[46:36] So options we write down the options and then go back to them and see what works best. So what's the first date?

[46:43] Third week of November I

[46:45] would say I mean wasn't that

[46:48] Weekend that I think

[46:52] It kind of sounds more flexible if we say

[46:57] December or January

[46:59] rather than specifically the third week of November or if that doesn't work

[47:07] like to give if we're giving him a window of why don't we say time like do you

[47:13] have lunch or evening opportunities available what do you have available on a

[47:18] Wednesday does it have to be a Wednesday does everybody want to shoot but a

[47:22] Wednesday for you right I'm gonna lose so much we will take a day off for it so we

[47:26] should be good. I just realized, you know, I mean, we'll be fine. Seriously, they do need to

[47:36] take leave or I'm giving it back. Let's put it that way. Oh, oh, oh. Before Christmas, like before

[47:43] the end of the year. Okay, so in December. So in December, if we're looking at a lunch or

[47:51] are there any evening times where we definitely looking at a lunch time? I'm good with either.

[48:10] I don't care if you can, if you want to, agree. I'm happy too.

[48:15] I can't ask him. That's fine.

[48:18] Okay. I asked lunch for first maybe evenings. Got it. Probably much. December. One space.

[48:26] So that's three options for options. Yeah. We're so flexible.

[48:33] And if none of those three work, let's see what options do work for him and then bring him back in a little.

[48:40] Okay.

[48:41] Next meeting, I will have more answers.

[48:44] What?

[48:44] Next meeting, I'll have more answers.

[48:46] Well, we can get it before that.

[48:47] But we can email options because we've already discussed the fact that we're doing it.

[48:53] We just couldn't send out the email, just the cool forum thing, but I think we're okay.

[48:58] Now that we know that's what we're doing.

[49:01] I can send a blind copy, everybody.

[49:03] Yeah, that's a good point.

[49:05] Are we the blind copy, everybody?

[49:07] Well, let's see what he says.

[49:15] Let's move to principal reports and vendor requests and we have 12 minutes for those things.

[49:24] I'll go first. Like a doofus, I sent a wrong report.

[49:28] If you look, this is last year's, I did write them.

[49:31] And I do have the right one but it's not with us.

[49:34] So I will do a little bit of this.

[49:36] I don't even notice that information.

[49:38] and that's on me.

[49:40] So, our strategic outcome number six

[49:43] is the number of students on the wait list.

[49:45] We're actually at 443, it says 453, last year.

[49:51] That puts us at 80% capacity.

[49:53] I am actually kind of happy with that number.

[49:57] I was anticipating worse.

[49:59] We've had a number of students that have left

[50:02] because of the shiny and new schools going up in the valley.

[50:04] and so the that close means that we are filling in some of our other openings

[50:10] and other places so as much as I hate to see it go down I'm actually happy with

[50:16] where we are and hope that it will continue to go up. We had a back to school

[50:21] night I don't remember that percentage or the numbers there but we did have back

[50:25] to school night. Student Council is going to look a little bit different this year. We

[50:30] We have moved that from being a teacher led to one of our secretaries.

[50:37] We are having Callie Larson, who is going to run that.

[50:40] She is also going to run our assemblies and many of those things.

[50:43] Hopefully, that will bring a lot of those different parts on your one roof, one hat, so that it

[50:49] will be smoother, and we look forward to what that's going to look like.

[50:55] Art, LTAG, Robotics, and those sorts of things are getting signed up, many of that has

[51:00] gone out.

[51:02] Something that I wanted to, the thing that I'm most sad about not being on here is that

[51:08] we had a student, oh, what is her first name, any?

[51:18] Exactly. Yes. Yes, Joseph and me went to nationals for national history fair and placed

[51:27] in the top 20.

[51:31] That's why I want that's the thing that I feel bad about not having here.

[51:35] So I will send you next month I will try to get you both and so you can look over that.

[51:41] But I wanted to make sure to give her a shout out that she has done a great job.

[51:45] We have upcoming events, many of the same ones, but the day is probably off.

[51:52] I don't have any vendors and we no longer do the personnel requests.

[51:57] That's really the thing that I was like, wait, I should have deleted that.

[52:00] I did.

[52:01] And just to make you aware of the approvals, we talked about replacing the roof.

[52:09] We've been informed that some of our rooftop units, the air conditioning no longer works

[52:14] and can't be fixed, so we've got to replace some of our rooftop units, so that is a process

[52:21] coming down the pipe and we're starting to get bit, so look for another spike later.

[52:28] here. Should we say that's a issue that's heating up?

[52:34] It's true. Well played.

[52:38] Okay, so we did our numbers, our current student count is 672,

[52:43] which you can see it's gone down every year for the last several years.

[52:46] We lost a lot of students to the new schools as well.

[52:50] We did have 61 new students this year,

[52:55] which there's pros and cons to that.

[52:56] great that we're getting 61 more students but transitioning into the schools

[53:01] as we talked about is always challenging and we don't always know what we're

[53:06] getting so sometimes we take in some really low students that our teachers have

[53:10] to do extra work that takes away from other students so again pros and cons with

[53:14] that we want our numbers high but we want to be filled with students that are

[53:19] coming to our school for the right reasons too. Back to school nights 94% of our

[53:26] middle school, so overall attendance is 92.7, which the whole point of that is it shows

[53:31] that our families are committed and coming and ready to start school.

[53:37] The last thing I have is our positive behaviors program, which is a state law to have this

[53:43] program in your school, and I think you can do it quite minimally, but for the last three

[53:48] years we've done this big thing because we have an amazing parent, Daphne Blase, who has

[53:54] taken like done hours on this. So our school wide positive behavior program

[53:59] this year is spread kindness like confetti that's kind of our fun thing but

[54:03] the overall theme is power of kind. The power of kind is a program that is

[54:08] throughout this state and I think even maybe nation that is all about

[54:14] obviously being kind. So you can read through the cool things that we're doing

[54:17] we'll be sending more information to families, we'll talk about it in our

[54:22] e-up days, but it's just kind of a fun thing that we get to focus on each year with our students

[54:27] and kind of get everybody involved in having some fun while they're learning at a very high level.

[54:33] I have no benders and you can see our upcoming links. Any questions?

[54:45] Having covered all agenda items, this meeting stands adjourned at 6.28 p.m.

Governing Board Meeting 9/2/26

Transcript