[0:18] All right. Thank you, everybody, for coming tonight to the Treeside Charter School Board meeting. Welcome.

[0:31] For roll call, Kimberly Pritchard is here. Jose Rivera. Megan Johnson for the school board, and then we have Ron Hubbard, Rachel Brunson, Virginia Wright, Clint Basinger, and Brandon Johnson.

[0:50] All right. Next on the agenda is time for public comment.

[0:54] comment? Is there anyone that would like to make public comment?

[1:10] Thank you. All right,

[1:12] next is our consent agenda. All

[1:18] right. My screens keep losing each other here. All

[1:22] right. Do we have a motion for the consent agenda?

[1:30] So, Jose, Megan, you have to say I make

[1:34] a motion to approve and you can say both dates and we can approve it all at once since it's

[1:38] on the consent agenda together.

[1:42] Go for it, Megan.

[1:48] I didn't hear you.

[1:49] What'd you say?

[1:51] I said, go for it, Megan.

[1:59] Is she frozen?

[2:01] Oh, there she is.

[2:05] Sorry, I'm just battling through tabs here.

[2:08] Okay, so, okay, I guess I'm gonna try to save this.

[2:13] Hopefully it's correct.

[2:14] I make a motion that we go over the consent agenda

[2:17] for June 2nd, 2026, and June 24th, 2026.

[2:22] So, the proper motion would be to accept it because we have already looked over it and then we can put it up for discussion if we need if we found something that we needed to fix.

[2:33] All right, so I make a motion that we accept they consent to genders for the 2020, sorry June 2nd, 26 and June 24, 26.

[2:45] Okay.

[2:46] All in favor?

[2:48] actually have to call for a second and it looks like Megan is connecting to audio so I think she's

[2:53] having a problem so we have to wait till she connect because she has to second.

[3:09] I like to actually

[3:10] make a comment if I can while we wait. So I've been looking at a lot of the tree side and we can go

[3:18] over this at a different meeting but the policies and procedures and things like that and there's a lot

[3:24] that needs to be updated and should be updated.

[3:27] And so I've been working on getting all those done.

[3:31] And then I'll present it to you guys once they're ready.

[3:35] So a lot of stuff that just needs to be updated.

[3:40] Yeah, we had a different.

[3:42] Yeah, we had a different focus.

[3:44] So yes, our focus now in this coming year besides getting the school

[3:47] built out is to review and update all our policies.

[3:50] and we'll tackle a few every meeting.

[3:54] I have also contacted Shannon Greer who does the training

[3:57] and she has offered her team to help join on some of our meetings

[4:04] and we'll spend like 15-20 minutes just getting us some general training

[4:08] as a board to help us out as well.

[4:11] And then they also have the training series.

[4:14] I believe it starts September, so make sure you sign up for that.

[4:19] So we can be better prepared for that.

[4:23] So thank you.

[4:24] That's great.

[4:25] Jose.

[4:25] Huh?

[4:29] I believe she emailed you in your J Rivera email.

[4:34] Yeah, your true side email.

[4:36] You should have an invitation there.

[4:39] Because I just talked to her yesterday and asked her to make sure to send that out again.

[4:44] All right.

[4:44] Megan, I don't know if you heard.

[4:46] So let's go ahead and start over.

[4:48] Where do you and I have a motion for the consent agenda?

[4:55] I make a motion that we accept the consent agenda for June 2nd, 2026, and June 24th, 2026.

[5:02] Oliver.

[5:03] Do I have a second?

[5:07] Actually, I got a call that I have to call for the favor.

[5:11] Are you okay?

[5:11] Megan, I need you to second the motion.

[5:21] All right, there's another admit against both seats then.

[5:28] Is it working for you now, Megan?

[5:29] Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I'm on my phone now my computer. Okay, you're on

[5:34] twice as shows, but it just I don't know if you heard. Okay, I don't know if you heard,

[5:40] but Jose put forth a motion to accept the consent agenda for the dates. Do I have a second?

[5:45] Yes. You have to say I second the motion. I second the motion. Awesome. All in favor?

[5:58] You

[6:03] have

[6:14] Did you aye, Jose?

[6:16] Yes, I did.

[6:17] Hi.

[6:17] Okay.

[6:18] Sorry, we have to have it very clear because as Virginia takes the note, she has to write down all of our votes.

[6:25] So, are there any dissents?

[6:32] All right.

[6:34] Any discussion?

[6:37] All right.

[6:37] Thank you. It passes unanimously.

[6:41] All right.

[6:41] Next on our agenda is our financial report.

[6:44] And Ron, I turn the time over to you for that please.

[6:47] Can

[6:57] everybody see my screen

[7:03] now? I can. Yes. Okay. And is it big enough?

[7:09] Thank you. Yes. Okay, so this is as of the end of July. Really, since we're a month in,

[7:18] there's nothing really big to report. Everything's looking good.

[7:27] I don't remember when our fiscal year runs, is it?

[7:33] It goes July 1 to June 30.

[7:36] Okay, thank you.

[7:37] So this is one month in, we're sitting at 8.3% of the way through the year as of the end of July.

[7:47] So, again, everything's looking good, looking at monthly revenue.

[7:53] again, nothing that's worrisome at this point, we got enrollment numbers today. And so all

[8:04] of our budget numbers and everything are based off of enrollment numbers, whether some of

[8:12] them are based off of last year, some of them are based off of October 1st and then a rolling

[8:16] average after and so especially at the beginning of the year we at least want our budget to be close

[8:25] to what we're sitting at so that we are pretty well in line with what we're expecting to see and so

[8:35] with the number we got from Rachel earlier today we're within eight students of that so we're feeling

[8:42] pretty good about the estimates at this point. And again, as things progress and change, it might,

[8:50] we'll make adjustments as needed, but at this point, we're looking pretty good.

[8:56] So, what was that number?

[9:01] So, I think the number we got today was 356 or 8 under what the forecast is.

[9:12] And like I said, we'll make adjustments the biggest thing is October 1st is the most

[9:20] important day.

[9:22] So really these are just good estimates at this point so we can start forecasting.

[9:27] When you say why because I don't know if our newer board members know why October 1st

[9:33] matter? It's just when the state has decided to focus for counting students.

[9:44] So our funding

[9:45] is based off of that number, right? Yeah, and like I said, some of the numbers are based

[9:49] off of October 1st and then a rolling average. After some of them are based off of last

[9:54] year, some are based off of like a rolling five year average. So all the numbers come from

[10:01] different places but the most important one for us right now is gonna be the

[10:06] October 1st number. Thank you.

[10:13] So all

[10:16] the red stuff don't worry about it yet. It just

[10:21] means we probably haven't taken any money in any of these categories yet. Overall we

[10:26] want to make sure that the major categories are green or in the case of

[10:34] federal funding.

[10:39] Yeah, you'll see a lot of red just because a lot of the federal funding is reimbursed state funding is the same way some of the state funding.

[10:47] We get lump sums throughout the year or one twelfth payments every month. So, as long as we're generally trending, we're okay. We're not worried about it.

[10:59] And, like I said, at the very beginning of the year, we're not expecting to see everything to line up perfectly.

[11:07] Looking at salaries, we're looking good.

[11:13] Really spending is looking good across the board. We don't have anywhere that we're really worried,

[11:21] we're not seeing anything that's really problematic that isn't normal this time of year.

[11:27] So across the board, I feel like we're doing good.

[11:33] Enrollment is where there are coffee machine issues.

[11:36] There's a red category on the coffee machine there.

[11:39] And some of that might be when we received bills, things like that.

[11:43] And so I'll dig into it more.

[11:47] But yeah, at this point, it's not something that we're really worried about.

[11:51] He's curled down a little bit.

[11:52] Yep.

[11:54] Where do you want me to go?

[11:55] negative 22%. Let's see.

[12:01] I was a coffee machine. Yes, 22.8. So yeah, we'll dig into it and see

[12:11] more what's going on there. It might be when we receive bills, things like that. And so we can

[12:18] and really the overall category is the most important part. But yeah, we do want to pay attention

[12:25] especially something like coffee machine.

[12:27] So, I think what happened there just to give some input on that is

[12:32] Les Olson did not give their bill for May and June until after July.

[12:42] And so, that was paid in July, even though it was from the May and June times

[12:48] when they serviced our coffee machine, if that makes sense.

[12:52] So, so rolled over into the next year.

[12:56] Yeah, that's something that I can make adjustments for.

[13:01] And all that to audience.

[13:02] And we needed to have, we needed to have them quickly for our, to get our year closed

[13:09] out so that we could give information to for our finances, for the loan.

[13:14] We needed them to quickly put together the year, the July 1st year.

[13:19] And so they just put it on the next year.

[13:27] Any other questions?

[13:35] That's all I have at this point.

[13:40] Thank you, Ron.

[13:41] I believe next on the agenda is the Director's report.

[13:56] That's right.

[14:10] Rachel, you're muted.

[14:17] Thank you.

[14:18] I just want to be able to share that from the beginning.

[14:22] Okay.

[14:22] Okay, and you guys see that?

[14:25] Our directors report.

[14:27] Can you see my screen share?

[14:29] Yes.

[14:30] Okay, it's a little easier than we do Google Meet's before.

[14:43] We're going to talk about current enrollment,

[14:45] current positions, administrative activities,

[14:47] administrative items, academic programs,

[14:49] additional items, our TSSC grant,

[14:52] and our positive behaviors plan.

[14:55] Looking at last year, at this point in time,

[14:57] we're at 358 students this year.

[15:00] We're at 356 students. We were at 362. We did lose a couple students. We're hoping we're going to be back up to 364 by October 1st. So it looks like most of our kindergarten or state, or they knew, I mean, too first grade because there's only a four drop. Is that mostly returning students or is that? No, actually, we got, we had quite a few students leave and we have about 114 new students this year.

[15:32] Yeah, so some of them left, you know, like I said, some people may not like the whole office building atmosphere, but we have a lot of new students that came in last year.

[15:45] We didn't really market because we are so busy putting together the building.

[15:49] And so this year, we did some marketing and we were like, wow, but we have 114 new students.

[15:55] a lot of new faces.

[15:58] So we have, most of those were families that had moved.

[16:02] Most of the people we left were families that had moved.

[16:05] And some of them were like, hey, we'll be back next year when you guys get a new building.

[16:10] The ones that didn't move far away.

[16:12] And the ones that were like, hey, we're going to, you know,

[16:15] and so when they said, hey, you know, we're going to go to our, this year,

[16:20] I said, well, if you're going to come back, fill out our intent to enroll.

[16:23] So, on our intent to enroll, we have about 135 students right now on our intent to enroll for the 27th and 28th school year.

[16:32] That's quick, because we just barely put that up.

[16:34] Yeah, and we have a lot of families that are really excited that our sixth grade is going to become seventh grade.

[16:42] Last year, probably 80% of those 48 students, some kind of wish and we would have done this year earlier, would have been in seventh grade.

[16:52] but now we have it for next year. So we have three teachers in kindergarten, two in first,

[17:00] three in second. Actually, never mind. I didn't change that. We actually have two in second grade.

[17:09] I needed to change that. I didn't change it from the previous year. Two in second, three in third,

[17:14] fourth grade two, fifth grade two, and sixth grade two. I'm going to have to change that. We only have

[17:18] two and second. And six teachers in specialties. I know some people will be like, you know,

[17:25] you have more teachers in specialties than you have in your regular program, but that's a lot

[17:29] of the reason why people come to treaside is for our specialty programs, for Spanish, for yoga,

[17:35] music, PE, and that's kind of what sets us apart from a lot of the other schools that have kind of

[17:40] taken the art set of the schools. We have two teachers one full time, one half time in special Ed,

[17:47] Social Worker, Director, Secretary, Registrar, Office Manager, Administration, Facilities,

[17:53] and a part-time and full-time reading specialist. Administration activities, we've been busy.

[18:00] We had our hybrid program approved by the State Charter Board in June. Utah Charter

[18:05] Finance Authority approved access to tax exempt bond market. Is that correct, Clint?

[18:12] Am I using

[18:16] I didn't see you I didn't see you okay seventh grade expansion approved by the state charter board in

[18:25] Was that July August beginning of August and tent to enroll survey shows 138 new students for 27 to 28 school year

[18:34] Current enrollment includes 112 new students before we got two students yesterday. So now it's at 114

[18:40] We'll weekly construction and finance meetings

[18:43] I'm Kimber spent attending quite a few of those and we just had our yearly before school

[18:51] teacher training and so one nice thing about tree side is everybody kind of likes food

[18:56] and we love our Spanish teachers who always provide us with really good food and we have

[19:01] our breakfast kind of fun because we don't get to go to those.

[19:05] We have lots of food because at Christmas time we used to do the 12 days of Christmas and it

[19:10] started out being something really small like everybody would just bring cookies on their days

[19:16] and now it's become like everybody brings seven course meals on their days and so uh you know

[19:24] we're pretty we're a multicultural faculty and we've got people from Latvia Ukraine, Czech Republic

[19:35] Condoris got a very multicultural faculty at our school or very diverse and so

[19:41] with that comes a lot of food. We had some fun and put out some videos. They went

[19:50] to my husband's studio to record so that we didn't get in trouble copyright. We

[19:56] did parodies. You can always get away with parodies. You can use the background music

[20:00] and make your own videos. I don't know if you've any of you've seen them. We did

[20:04] Spanish video a couple days ago. It's got like 11,000 views on it and and our school

[20:10] ones you know not far behind but so we had some fun doing that in our back-to-school training.

[20:16] Our academic program is balancing Wallworth inspired instruction with state standards,

[20:21] promoting real-life applications and experiential learning, integrating the arts,

[20:25] music, movement, nature, and service, and using Fridays as an opportunity for field trips

[20:30] handwork classes at graduation and community involvement and like I said this is something

[20:35] that kind of sets us apart from other schools that are taking that seem to be worried

[20:45] only about testing scores and so then they'll lose their PE teacher and then they'll lose

[20:49] their music teacher and that's really a big part of who we are.

[20:55] Lots of reading going on.

[20:57] I just looked at these pictures and these are all new students.

[20:59] so they've never been to Treeside before. I didn't plan that, but after looking at that,

[21:05] it has been some fun outside, underneath the trees, some introduction activities for our

[21:10] fifth grade students, and lots of learning circles going on in our music classroom.

[21:17] We are lucky to have a lot of professionals, for example, Mrs. Reaser is a professional music teacher,

[21:24] and then she went into education after that. She went to Carnegie Hall this summer in New York. She was

[21:29] one of the, one of the few teachers chosen by that

[21:32] across the nation.

[21:34] Our art teacher and, you know, we're munking around in first grade.

[21:39] So we tend to work with a lot of students from,

[21:44] with the diversibilities.

[21:48] This is our hybrid learning program that was approved by the State Charter Board in June.

[21:54] We had part-time attendance with school peers with three different options.

[21:58] Part-time attendance, morning attendance.

[22:00] with school peers with additional curriculum at home.

[22:03] Five students chose that.

[22:04] Part of time attendance, three to four days a week

[22:06] with school peers and additional curriculum at home,

[22:08] 23 students and at home curriculum

[22:11] would provide it in school support and a family learning

[22:13] and if that lab available, one to two days per week.

[22:16] Five students.

[22:17] So we have a variety of options for families to choose from.

[22:22] So they can do some of those other world

[22:24] or things like going to nature schools

[22:26] or doing some of them will choose Mondays

[22:28] and they go to a nature school or choose Friday days and they go to a firm school so that

[22:33] they have that opportunity to do more wool or things outside of school.

[22:39] And then they just catch up with the, they go on to our CSO program and they're able

[22:44] to do that, that work at home.

[22:47] So additional items.

[22:48] We've got our TSSA plan, our positive behavior plan, hybrid policy for the hand vote, instructional

[22:55] and our new enrollment policy, including hybrid.

[23:00] So I'm just going to get out of here for a sec.

[23:03] Did everybody have a chance to look those over?

[23:10] Yes.

[23:11] Okay.

[23:12] I could start with a tree side positive behavior plan.

[23:18] Can you guys still see what I'm showing?

[23:21] Yes.

[23:22] Okay.

[23:22] So it shows a positive behavior plan.

[23:24] And so this is something that was created by the state so we have more positive behaviors

[23:30] in school, $3,000 is to be used to provide the positive behavior specials with a stipend

[23:35] and a $1,000 to be used to implement the positive behaviors plan.

[23:39] We used to use the purple ticket program where kids were given purple tickets and then we'd

[23:44] have big assemblies.

[23:45] We don't really have a place for big assemblies right now.

[23:49] So, and this is supposed to reduce tobacco alcohol, electronic cigarette products, just to have positive environments, which will reduce risk factors.

[23:59] And so we really don't have a place for them to have assemblies. So we will be doing a tree buck program where if the students are on green, they'll get five tree bucks and if they're in yellow, they'll get two tree bucks.

[24:13] and so just kind of building skills like combat and peer pressure and address and school climate and culture issues.

[24:23] Implementing evidence-based programs, we are going to have Ms. Ever or a social worker implementing the UNME together to create free curriculum.

[24:33] That's a 6-eleven lesson.

[24:35] Evidence-based curriculum created by the Stanford Reach Lab and teachers and staff will

[24:42] be trained by USBE and user-stortive practices in their classroom, as well as have a mindfulness

[24:47] cornering to their classrooms in order to implement trauma-informed practices.

[24:51] And there's a school called Roots Charter School and they do the 243 We Love You and to use

[24:58] them and do app school district and kind of off of the Mr. Rogers just to allow students

[25:07] to realize that are value. And so funding will be used towards stipends, rewards for

[25:12] treeback store and teacher training.

[25:17] So that's a back overvention thing. I looked into that

[25:19] and it says it's based on the grades. So I don't think it'll be six classes for everybody.

[25:26] Is that the idea or are we going to do it like they're saying yeah?

[25:29] We'll do it. It's not about just six classes. It's a six lesson evidence based based on based on the grade like you said

[25:39] Yeah, okay. Yeah, we'll just follow that and she'll implement it

[25:44] Mrs. Cavio our social worker goes into each class once a month and she does a lesson for them whether it's on kindness whether it's on bullying

[25:53] whether it's, you know, so she and then she works with groups as well. And so this will be part of her lessons that she'll be going into each of the classrooms and like I said, depending on the grade and whether it's six lessons.

[26:06] Okay.

[26:09] This will take us over to our next one.

[26:10] So, our next thing is our Teacher and Student Success Act Plan and what we did is we looked

[26:18] at our, we had program goals based on, you know, again, balancing our Waldorf and Inspired

[26:24] Instruction. We state standards. Our measurement is our School Climate Survey, a Roman in attendance.

[26:31] And the first thing is making sure we integrate the arts, music, movement, yoga, and Spanish,

[26:36] provide in service on universal design for learning.

[26:39] So what universal design for learning is say a student isn't really good at writing but they can tell you that they understand the content and they are given a chance to maybe they have to do a report for social studies.

[26:54] Well, universal design for learning is like they can, we have more options and we'll be

[27:01] training and providing in-service for teachers instead of writing, maybe they can show what

[27:05] they learn by doing a diorama or, you know, just, or doing a slideshow or something like

[27:10] that.

[27:11] And so that's one of our ways that we celebrate diversity and provide in-service on Waldorf

[27:17] methodologies.

[27:18] Our academic goals, those are based on our land trust plan so that we have the same academic goals on our land trust plan as we do for our teacher and student success act plan.

[27:34] And then our community goals are to increase parent engagement, increase family communication with emergency safety procedures, school curriculum and events, and decrease bullying and student conflict.

[27:46] It's our measurements, our school climate survey, enrollment and attendance, and school

[27:50] incident reports.

[27:52] And our school incident reports decrease last year significantly from like 230, 260,

[28:00] which is very interesting because we're in a different kind of building.

[28:04] And then the school-wide incentives for positive behavior, which would be our tree bucks.

[28:10] So we have professional development goals of increasing teacher proficiency, increasing high quality

[28:15] instruction. We've got our mentoring program and teacher surveys, teacher

[28:20] qualifications, and end-of-year evaluations. So we have our mentor program that

[28:25] all teachers with less than three years experience will be provided with a

[28:28] mentor. We actually usually do five and we obtain our master teacher program grant

[28:34] to give stipends to our teachers who have more experience that will support

[28:38] teachers in their academic and enrichment curriculum being able to observe

[28:43] in the classroom. So our budget is 129,766 and 99 cents. And those will go towards 12,000

[28:53] to our mentor stipends, our Spanish teacher stipends of $2,000. They're always buying

[28:59] things for the classroom. They're sending them to restaurants. We're doing a lot of extra

[29:03] stuff in our Spanish teachers to get those stipends. Our yoga and mindfulness specialists,

[29:09] our music specialists, nurse pianists, culture and natural specialists.

[29:14] Sorry I'm talking too much.

[29:21] So

[29:25] what is the mindfulness specialist when

[29:34] you're muted again Rachel?

[29:36] Just trying to drink and get the coughing to stop.

[29:40] I muted on that heat stroke out there today because I was coughing.

[29:46] I did a mud run on Saturday and I'm still feeling the effects because I did this mud run

[29:51] down in Mona and didn't realize when my sister signed me up for it that I was

[29:58] Putting through fields of lab...

[30:06] So, I'm still feeling the effects of that mud run, but I do get through it. It's our yoga teacher. So she does, she teaches them about mindfulness activities, like, you know, being aware of who you are, being aware of where you are, being aware of being kind, stuff like that, along with her yoga. The same, same person. Yeah, same person. Okay. She does both.

[30:31] It's kind of a wall door thing, the mind follows.

[30:36] So that would be Eva.

[30:39] Okay.

[30:42] And I'm going to go on to the next one.

[30:45] These were our policies that we presented to the state charter board when we did our hybrid.

[30:53] Our learner validated attendance policy would mean.

[30:59] I noticed the LEA needs to be changed,

[31:05] so we can approve this policy, so the caveat that

[31:08] that is correct.

[31:09] This is the wrong copy.

[31:10] The one I sent to them had the LEA changed, so the one that was approved by the State

[31:15] Charter Board did have the LEA changed, yeah, I just didn't, I just pulled off this copy,

[31:21] not realizing I did the one where it says gateway again, that's great, but it has been changed

[31:28] the one that was approved.

[31:32] So basically the attendance validated program is, so if we can

[31:38] approve that with the LEA changed. I just pulled up the wrong one right now when I sent it to you guys.

[31:45] It's a tennis validated program means that absences, so if a student is absent that they can make

[31:54] that up through completing the assignments. So if they're a hybrid school and it's not

[32:02] going to be like, oh, you've spent so many hours and we're going to clock your hours

[32:06] that you've spent doing this assignment.

[32:11] Attendance is submitted according to the fact

[32:15] that their assignments are done. We're not going to be checking them in hours. I know there's

[32:20] lot of programs where they're like, you have to document, you spent from noon to 5 p.m.

[32:29] 5 hours this many days a week to get attendance. We're just doing that. They're attendance.

[32:36] They will have it based on the fact that they get the assignment completed. It's basically what it says.

[32:46] Number of assignment submissions, progress towards academic goals, and demonstrating competency.

[32:53] We can also use login data from learning software, virtual conferencing participation, internship,

[33:00] completed service and logs, but we're not going to be documenting that they spent so much

[33:05] time on a certain program.

[33:08] We're not going to be asking for anybody's hours.

[33:10] So I had a question when I was reading this, it seemed very general.

[33:14] So when we start a hybrid program with a student, do they kind of say this is what we expect

[33:19] to, I guess, of you?

[33:21] Is it different for each student?

[33:23] Because obviously I saw that, you know, if I ever do this and if I ever do in that, they

[33:27] still have this as what could be, but we, like, they know what to expect when they start.

[33:34] Yeah.

[33:34] And so we will make that more clear and have meetings with the parents, but they know they

[33:39] have to get their assignments done, that are on CISA. And so we have somebody that specifically

[33:45] will work with each of the students to make sure they're getting those assignments done.

[33:52] I had the privilege of helping you while we're writing that. Yeah, I know that they do have a

[33:57] signed staff at the school to make sure and keep track of them. Yeah.

[34:08] And we also, we had a previous

[34:12] documents and I don't know if there's a policy to go with it, but this policy falls in line

[34:18] that if students go on vacation and they let us know ahead of time and it used to be a paper

[34:23] they filled out we just made a digital application that they can just complete their assignments on

[34:28] vacation and that the attendance won't go against them. They need to notify you before vacation or

[34:37] it doesn't matter. They should, yes, they should notify us before a vacation. So that they've

[34:42] just got to get their, basically, they're just going to get their assigned system. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

[34:49] Any other questions? Oh, sorry.

[34:57] Um, so the draft hybrid policy and procedures for hand,

[35:00] handbook, um, we, we just gave some options for hybrid learning and they'll submit an application

[35:07] of enrollment with the general student population and then after they are accepted into the school,

[35:13] they'll fill out an application for the hybrid program and basically it's attendance for hybrid

[35:20] students will be subjected to the validated learner policy and you know we have the educational

[35:26] specialists who's going to look over those every Friday and they're required to make the same

[35:32] academic advancement is their full time in-person peers and I've already met with most of the parents

[35:40] to create an individual learning plan for success. They do the application and they'll be all

[35:45] assigned a home-room teacher and an educational specialist who will track their assignments and

[35:52] then monitor parents are required to monitor and then students with disabilities are provided with

[36:02] and we have already set up in their learning plan

[36:05] when they will be meeting with our specialists,

[36:10] whether it's via Zoom or in person.

[36:15] So that's for the parents,

[36:16] it's kind of tried to be in clear language.

[36:21] And then we just added the hybrid policy

[36:29] to our enrollment policy.

[36:32] So this is basically just our enrollment policy and in bold is our hybrid policy section.

[36:41] Yeah, the new section that will be added to our policies.

[36:47] What was in the handbook?

[36:49] So it's not really anything new.

[36:51] And so what was different is we used to have a dual enrollment and we tried to kind of fit

[36:59] get our hybrid students into this dual enrollment and then rationale for release time away from

[37:07] tree side charter school would be like our vacations or things like that.

[37:13] So we try to fit a square peg into our ran hole and we were having families doing this.

[37:20] So it's better that we do have the hybrid program where they can do less than the three quarters

[37:27] of the weekly instructional time, they can do that on this one.

[37:33] Okay, that's what I've got.

[37:37] Thank you, Rachel. Any questions for Rachel?

[37:42] I can find while everybody else is talking, I'll find the one that says the correct

[37:48] alie on it so that so I can submit it and you guys can see it.

[37:55] That has the correct one.

[38:01] And you go ahead and stop sharing now.

[38:04] It helps me a lot of that.

[38:06] Thank you.

[38:12] All right.

[38:15] All right.

[38:16] Next, I'm going to turn the time over to Brandon Johnson, our borrower's counsel for our

[38:24] acquisition and all the stuff we're working on for buying our building.

[38:28] So we have some policies that we have to do.

[38:33] So we did go before the Utah Finance Authority,

[38:36] and we got approved to get their taxes into bond rates,

[38:44] which is huge because it saves us money.

[38:47] But now we have to put a bunch of policies in place

[38:50] that we haven't had to have before,

[38:51] because we didn't have financing like this.

[38:54] So I'll let Brandon and Clint both work in tandem here

[38:57] on helping us review all these policies

[39:01] so we feel confident when we vote on them and

[39:09] I'll let Brandon and Clint figure out who goes first.

[39:13] Brandon, this is probably more yours. What would you like me to do? Do you want to go ahead?

[39:18] No, I'm happy to go first. I was just trying to find the mute button.

[39:23] No, yeah, this, yeah, so I talked to Aaron. Yeah, so this is the big, this is the approval that

[39:36] the board will give to Theresa to the school to move forward with the financing.

[39:45] And it's not a requirement or it's not the school isn't forced to move forward with

[39:55] the financing by approving this resolution.

[39:58] It grants permission but it doesn't force the school to move forward.

[40:01] So sometimes when I say that boards will say, well, why would we not want to move forward?

[40:08] And then I think of a crazy reason why, but if for some reason interest rates got crazy or the project just didn't work out for some reason, you're not obligating yourself to move forward with something that doesn't make sense.

[40:21] but this will be the formal permission, if you will, the board gives the school to move forward and to sign the documents and to move forward with the closing on the bond financing if it makes sense.

[40:39] And I will talk to Kimber earlier today and she suggested and I think it's a good idea.

[40:46] I'll give just kind of a as simple as I can kind of a bonds 101 introduction to what's what's

[40:55] happening. And as Kimber mentioned, some of this is related to the fact that these bond the

[41:02] interest on these bonds will be tax exempt. And what that means is that the investors who own these

[41:08] bonds, a bond is basically alone in a different form that the school will get. But the bond

[41:16] Some holders don't have to pay federal income tax on the interest that they earn.

[41:21] So when you pay them interest, they don't have to pay taxes on it.

[41:24] And because of that, they're willing to give you a lower interest rate than they would

[41:29] if they were taxable.

[41:30] They basically share a portion of their tax savings with you.

[41:34] And so as Kimber mentioned, this is a good thing even though it might feel a little painful

[41:40] because you're going to end up with a lower interest rate than you would if these were

[41:44] normal taxable bonds on like a commercial building financing or something.

[41:51] Part of that is that instead of the school issuing the bonds or entering into the loan

[41:56] directly with investors, you'll do it through what we call a conduit issuer, which is the

[42:02] Utah Charter School Finance Authority.

[42:04] And under federal tax law, even though the school is a 501C3 entity, the school itself can't

[42:12] issue tax exempt bonds, but if you do it through another public entity like the Charter

[42:18] School Finance Authority, then you can issue tax exempt bonds.

[42:21] And so as Kimber mentioned, the school already received approval from the Charter School

[42:29] Finance Authority Board to move forward with these bonds.

[42:33] And so now your board is going to approve something similar.

[42:39] There will be a loan agreement between the school and the charter school finance authority.

[42:47] And that loan agreement basically says that the school will pay the principal and interest

[42:52] on the bonds and whatever the debt service payments are on the bonds is what the school

[42:57] is going to pay.

[43:00] And the school will do that through a trustee in this case US bank who will receive the

[43:06] money from the school and then disperses it to the various investors that have bought

[43:11] the bonds.

[43:13] So one of the key documents is the loan agreement.

[43:15] It's the covenant or the promise from the school that you will pay the debt service on

[43:20] the bonds.

[43:21] There's also other covenants to maintain your 501c3 status, to maintain the building in good

[43:30] workable order to maintain enrollment and things like that. All things that

[43:37] investors want to see to make sure that they know 20 years down the road they're

[43:41] going to keep getting paid on the bonds. So one of the main documents that is

[43:47] approved in this resolution is the loan agreement. Another one is a deed of

[43:56] a mortgage. So in order to secure the bonds, just like, you know, you do on your own house,

[44:03] when you buy a house, and get a loan, there will be a mortgage or a deed of trust on the school.

[44:11] Yeah, it's there, no investor, no bond holder wants to foreclose on a school. It's a bad look

[44:19] for them and it really doesn't benefit them very much, so it is there but it's

[44:27] rarely if ever invoked. Another document related to the bonds is what we call a

[44:33] limited offering memorandum. That's the offering document that goes out to

[44:37] investors or potential investors to review the information about the bonds in the

[44:45] school to see if they want to invest. And there will be a part of that limited

[44:51] offering and memorandum that will have information specifically about the

[44:55] school, about the school's finances, enrollment history, wait list, all of...

[45:00] All of the basic information about the school that a potential investor might want to know is they're looking to buy these bonds. And then the other thing that this resolution does, and I understand that each of these are listed as separate items on the agenda, but they're covered and approved in this resolution. So, approving the resolution also approves the policies that we've talked about, or that we will talk about that are related to the bond.

[45:30] The first policy, and it's actually to, they're combined into one policy, is the continuing disclosure and federal tax compliance policies.

[45:46] And so when the bonds are issued, the school is going to covenant to provide annual information to investors.

[45:54] and it's done by posting on a website called Emma which stands for the Electronic Municipal Market Access.

[46:04] I can never remember what it stands for, but that's where all public entities post their annual information.

[46:12] And so an investor, let's say five years down the road, wants to know how the school is doing because they might be interested in buying the bonds in the secondary market, not from the school.

[46:21] They can go and see what the school has posted and give an idea of how the school is doing.

[46:28] The information that you will post is your audit of financials that you already prepare

[46:34] every year, information about enrollment, wait list, and there are a number of items, other

[46:41] items, but it's all information that you either gather or prepare on a regular basis anyway.

[46:47] Okay, so you'll just make that available to the general market.

[46:54] The other part of this is the interrupt for a second.

[46:57] I don't know, Megan and Jose, if you have questions, do you want to address the questions

[47:01] by each policy?

[47:02] Do you want to wait till he's done?

[47:04] I can pull up the policies if you guys have questions about them.

[47:11] I don't really have any questions about them right now, so I'm good.

[47:16] That's a good suggestion.

[47:17] and I'll pause after each one so that they don't get mumbled together if you do have questions.

[47:22] If you want, I can share them up on the screen if that helps you guys.

[47:26] However you guys want to do this.

[47:32] Megan, if you're speaking, I didn't hear you.

[47:34] It looks like you're out.

[47:42] We can't hear you.

[47:46] Okay. We're going to have to fix the audio for voting.

[47:54] All right. So the next policy is the federal tax compliance policy.

[47:59] policy and that is that policy basically says that you will take certain actions and won't

[48:07] take certain actions in order to maintain the tax exempt status of the bonds.

[48:13] And it really doesn't change anything that the school is already doing because they are

[48:17] all things that you are already doing to maintain your status as a 501C3 entity.

[48:23] And so this policy just lets the IRS know that you're aware that, you know, you need to do certain things and not do certain things in order to maintain the tax income status.

[48:35] But from a, from a basic standpoint, really there's no change because it's the same things that you're already doing as a 501C3 entity.

[48:46] I do have a question.

[48:48] Sure.

[48:48] So who's actually doing all of this work?

[48:54] So it's a common.

[48:55] I mean, as far as like preparing the policies and this resolution, we're doing that.

[48:59] Most of the work related to the federal tax exemption and preparing the bond documents is another attorney or group of attorneys called bond council.

[49:10] That is.

[49:10] So I'm specifically referring to the requirements to upload information to a website and things like that.

[49:22] Like, who's doing all that? How did it work? Is that Rachel's job or like, who's doing that?

[49:27] Yeah, so that's a good question that I talked to Kimber about as well.

[49:33] A lot of schools will hire, for example, you could hire, I think, and Clint.

[49:38] We can contract with Red Apple here.

[49:41] You can contract with Red Apple to do that.

[49:44] Yeah, and there's other entities.

[49:47] I mean, not that Red Apple wasn't good.

[49:48] I mean, that probably makes the most sense

[49:50] because they're the most familiar with it.

[49:53] So yeah, it could be someone like Red Apple

[49:56] that will do that for a fee.

[49:58] You know, I think the fee is pretty reasonable.

[50:01] But they can take the bulk of that burden of gathering that information

[50:05] and so that it doesn't land in Rachel's lap

[50:10] along with everything else that she needs.

[50:13] Because it is mostly information

[50:16] that you already have available,

[50:17] but it also does obviously take time to compile it

[50:20] to put it together and then to submit it

[50:22] to the trustee who will then post it on Emma.

[50:26] So yeah, that's another question.

[50:28] And I'll just jump in on that.

[50:29] Sorry, because I think I have a piece

[50:31] of important information.

[50:33] Our contract with the school at Roundtable actually includes this as a post-closing service.

[50:41] So it's kind of built into our current contract with you.

[50:43] The reason we do that is we find, and Red Apple is great, but we find that firms,

[50:49] even including Red Apple, they have so much going on.

[50:52] Sometimes things get missed and you get dinged on posting on time, which we don't want to have.

[50:57] And probably just importantly or more importantly, we take a look at things and say, okay, let's look at these financials and make sure nothing gets posted that it has errors in it so that then it becomes alarming to investors like, whoa, what's going on here?

[51:13] So our contract with the school actually builds in handling that now the board is the ultimate responsible body.

[51:23] But what we do is we partner to make sure that we're doing the heavy lifting and so the board can not have to

[51:31] You know, they can be aware of it. No, it's going on. Get updates

[51:34] But they don't have to make sure it's happening every time when we don't add that to somebody like Rachel's list

[51:39] So so that's how long do you do that for how long do you do that?

[51:45] So I think our contract list specifically for one year, but we really hope to do that for the life of the debt outstanding

[51:51] because again, we, I think we're pretty skilled in making sure that it's on time and making sure that it's accurate.

[51:58] Those are two key things that you want to have.

[52:00] And we especially need it because we chose in our last June meeting to refinance basically down the road in about four years or whatever.

[52:11] So I need to make sure that we're following everything so we can easily redo that.

[52:15] And that is something that when you do issue those bonds in four or five years, you do have

[52:24] to report to the market how well you've done in median, you're continuing to disclose

[52:31] your obligations, whether there were any missed filings or late filings, so you're exactly

[52:37] right.

[52:38] It's really important to stay on top of that.

[52:42] And I apologize, I wasn't aware that your contract provided for that, but that's an even better service, because as Clint said, I mean, not to suit his own horn, but this is all they do. This is their specialty. And so that's no, that's great.

[52:59] So that will one take most of the burden off of Rachel and her team and also make sure that it's done right and done on time. So that's actually that's great news.

[53:12] That was one of Scott's questions to just for you guys know Scott read it over and kind of sent me any questions he had as well to ask.

[53:19] So he is aware and keeping up.

[53:24] good to know because you know we don't want anybody or this thing to come on upon us and then we just let the ball drop, you know, like we need to make sure it's quarterly, right?

[53:34] Yeah.

[53:36] And I will say and I will say this in a hushed voice, but it so it's very important to make sure that you're providing this information on an annual quarterly basis.

[53:50] and to do it on time. On the flip side, if you fail to do it, or if you miss a filing or

[54:00] submittal or it's late, it's not treated as a default on the bonds. It doesn't affect

[54:05] in any way your bonds. And so it is very important, but I also know that, you know, if there is a

[54:11] flip fall, if you are, if you do post something, you know, 10 days late, it really won't have

[54:17] an effect on at least on these bonds. And really in the future, you know, unless it's really

[54:23] agreed, just it probably won't have too much an effect on your future bonds. I don't know

[54:29] that I can remember at charter school that I've worked with that hasn't had at least, you know, two or

[54:36] three late filings or amiss filings. So it's not unusual that there are a few kind of mistakes,

[54:44] and like I said, they don't affect, you know, the bonds are not a default, but at the same time, it is very important to try to get those posted and on time, so.

[55:03] Any other questions related to that?

[55:12] Then the other policies are policies that investors like to see just so they know that

[55:20] the school will be managed in a responsible way which we know that but these policies

[55:27] help the investors know that.

[55:30] One of them is the risk management policy and that policy basically says that you will

[55:35] comply with state laws that relates to risk management, to insurance that you will maintain

[55:44] appropriate and adequate insurance, that you will maintain safeguards on the financials

[55:55] of the school, on other things like that.

[56:01] that. So that's the risk management policy. Someone related to that as a fiscal and

[56:07] debt management policy. And again, that basically says that you will comply with state laws

[56:15] and rules relating to the management of the public funds that you receive. It will be

[56:21] invested and cared for in accordance with the Money Management Act and with the other rules

[56:28] and laws that apply to two public schools managing public funds and the

[56:37] management part of that is that you will comply with the the covenants that

[56:44] you make under the bond the bond documents and in particular the loan

[56:49] agreement as far as not over-issuing debt not issuing debt that exceeds the

[56:56] amount that's or the limits that are authorized under the the loan agreements and following prudent

[57:05] policies and procedures relating to that. And then the final one is the succession policy

[57:13] and investors like to see this because they don't, they would prefer, don't want to see basically

[57:20] a wholesale replacement of all board members so that you lose that institutional knowledge.

[57:26] so that they want to see that the board functions long-term in a way that

[57:34] maintains the credibility of the board. And so the succession policy provides

[57:40] for staggered terms so that they're not all being replaced or the majority being

[57:46] replaced in any one year. If there are vacancies, one, if it's possible that you

[57:53] adequate notice that you will be resigning or moving or whatever it is from the board

[57:59] and that gives the school and the board ample time to find a qualified replacement for the board.

[58:07] So again, it's another policy that investors like to see so that they know that the school and the

[58:17] board will be managed and function in a way that won't cause problems in the future

[58:23] as far as school operations go or payment on the debt service on the bonds.

[58:31] And that is, I believe, the last policy.

[58:36] So this resolution, again, approves or gives permission and approves the financing going forward.

[58:43] It authorizes the board chair or any other board member to sign the bond documents, including the loan agreement, the deed of trust, and any other closing document that's related to that.

[58:59] And then it provides for these policies that are related to the bond financing and help the school comply with the state and federal rules and

[59:13] regulations that will apply to these bonds.

[59:21] All right.

[59:22] Any more questions?

[59:23] I just want to present a question that Scott did.

[59:26] Brandon already answered it, but Scott asked, you know,

[59:29] this resolution doesn't have any terms at the loans or anything like that.

[59:32] And it's because we're granting permission basically for Clint to go out and shop

[59:37] and letting investors know we're serious about it.

[59:40] And we have approved the finding of it.

[59:43] And then we get to come back later and approve or disapprove.

[59:46] what Clint brings back to us.

[59:49] Okay, correct.

[59:50] Yeah, that's great summary, very good.

[59:53] Yeah, it's kind of a chicken and egg situation

[59:56] where investors, well, the underwriter doesn't want to go out.

[1:00:00] Let's start talking to investors seriously unless they know that the school is ready to move forward. And so this approving this resolution, let's the underwriter know, yes, we're serious, we're ready to go out. And so then they have the confidence to go out and start marketing the bonds. And at the same time, the final terms aren't haven't been approved yet, but this now will allow Clint and then the underwriter to and Clint and his team and the underwriter

[1:00:29] to start talking to investors and finalizing those terms of the bonds.

[1:00:39] Do you have anything else you'd like to add to?

[1:00:42] No, I think that was a good summary.

[1:00:43] I mean, we are holding of just adding, I guess,

[1:00:47] that we're now holding weekly calls with the finance team

[1:00:52] and trying to do that in concert with the project team

[1:00:56] so that we can have us in place by the time we go to price,

[1:01:01] You know, to put information to potential bond holders out there in an offering document that Brandon described

[1:01:09] Will

[1:01:10] anticipate having

[1:01:12] Project team have plans drawn enough to have a

[1:01:15] Guaranteed maximum price contract. That's essentially the investors

[1:01:20] tool

[1:01:22] To know that the building can be built on budget and and then we'll hope to have our arms around permitting permitting in Utah

[1:01:29] up through this year is fairly friendly because it comes through the state

[1:01:34] office of education actually. There are some kind of safety items and some

[1:01:39] other pre-permitting work that we do work with the city on or that the project

[1:01:43] team works with them on. So we are marching down those roads I think pretty

[1:01:47] effectively and hope to kind of bring that together. Trying to close by end of October

[1:01:54] right? Yeah, yeah. In the October is the targeted closed date. That's correct. I have to give Rachel

[1:02:03] credit. She, you know, as she talks to these designers, she keeps telling them, we don't need to spend

[1:02:10] a lot of money. We need to keep it on budget. And so she's being very aware of that. So that's Kudos

[1:02:15] to Rachel. And we appreciate that that she keeps reminding them that we don't need the best brightest

[1:02:20] some fanciest. We want a good 30 school that doesn't flood and other things. So it looks nice,

[1:02:27] but and suits our Waldorf school. So thank you Rachel for for tackling that a lot.

[1:02:41] And you guys are welcome to join those as well. If you have time, Joseanne Megan.

[1:02:45] I did have a question. As we finance and we start project, how do we and maybe this is a red

[1:02:55] I don't know. How do we make sure that we're staying within the budget, within contractors

[1:03:01] always? How do we keep track of that? Is that a board responsibility? I feel like it

[1:03:06] kind of is. I know it's also Rachel's responsibility, but could you guys tell us a little more about

[1:03:11] that?

[1:03:12] I can speak to that. I just want to make sure I understand

[1:03:15] your question. Are you talking about when we close the financing and then we take kind of

[1:03:20] that year or almost a year to the project,

[1:03:24] how do you keep it on time on budget?

[1:03:25] Is that your question about what?

[1:03:27] How about that project management basically

[1:03:28] once they reach that?

[1:03:30] So I believe Jeff at Red Apple,

[1:03:32] who happens to be in Brown Brother,

[1:03:33] will be on this part of the project.

[1:03:35] And effectively what happens is there's a monthly cycle here

[1:03:40] where work gets done, a pay app is created

[1:03:44] that captures payment for all that work.

[1:03:47] And during that time, there might be

[1:03:50] what are called change orders or allowances that happen that you know shift the project a little

[1:03:54] bit slightly to make accommodations as you go through. So really that will fall on Red Apple in

[1:03:59] this case to kind of be that project manager and make sure that they're monitoring the kind of

[1:04:06] the existing project fund which is the budget because we're going to get you 100% of what you need

[1:04:10] but you have to stay there and then they will also be kind of monitoring that to stay on time.

[1:04:19] So

[1:04:20] and those on the red apple team that will be handling that and there we'll go ahead.

[1:04:27] Do we cover that every month with our finance meeting?

[1:04:32] So I would imagine after yeah it could be that'll be kind of up to you in red apple but usually

[1:04:37] there's kind of a project team that will meet you know almost weekly and then certainly monthly

[1:04:42] so I would think the board should expect to have monthly updates on where you stand as far as

[1:04:47] You know project and progress and money spent and money left and how you look as far as the overall goal. So

[1:04:54] do that in the board meeting or

[1:04:58] It can't be or through committees. Sometimes schools the boards may want to form like a building committee or a monitoring committee

[1:05:05] And again, that's not within our scope of work on this project

[1:05:09] But I would suspect you want to coordinate that with Jeff and just set up something so you're getting you know at least monthly

[1:05:16] updates and progress reports. It could be tied to the finance committee that would be fine.

[1:05:20] There's no one right way to do it, but I think the goal here is to set up something that's

[1:05:24] repeatable and keeps a committee updated, which can keep the board informed.

[1:05:31] And also one thing, like we have our ceiling but we're trying to keep our projected below that

[1:05:37] just to let you guys know that we're trying to keep the dids and everything that come in below that.

[1:05:43] So if there's some that happens, we're not going above our ceiling like we'll have and

[1:05:51] refer to this the GMP contract. GMP stands for guaranteed maximum price. So you will have

[1:05:59] that ceiling and the bonds will be the bond size the amount of money that you get from the bonds

[1:06:06] will be tied to that maximum amount, so that you know going into it, that you have enough

[1:06:14] to complete the project up to that maximum amount. Obviously, if you go under budget then

[1:06:20] that's even better, but you have the confidence of knowing that right up front you have enough

[1:06:25] money to complete the project. And if there are any needs for change orders or anything like that,

[1:06:33] that ultimately the school has the ability or will approve or not approve those going forward

[1:06:41] at least if they reach a certain threshold.

[1:06:43] So the school and the board really are the ones in control of that process.

[1:06:50] And so it's not you won't be in a situation where you get to the end of the project or halfway

[1:06:55] through the project and realize oh, you know, we're $500,000 over budget because you won't

[1:07:02] You can't get there, you know, basically without your approval and you'll know what's going on.

[1:07:07] So that's the benefit of having that guaranteed maximum price contract as you know going into it.

[1:07:13] Okay, this is the maximum we're going to play for this project and we don't have to pay any more than that.

[1:07:20] I have a question and I just maybe, I don't know, maybe it's for Clint.

[1:07:29] So, right now we're having Washington Federal look at deciding if they would be interested

[1:07:37] and maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow at our meeting in the school and providing that

[1:07:44] funding.

[1:07:44] What is the difference between the interest rate of having like a bank take it on and then

[1:07:49] going into the open market and trying to find someone else?

[1:07:55] Is there a...

[1:07:56] Yeah, that's a great question.

[1:07:57] That's right.

[1:07:58] I can give you an estimate.

[1:08:00] If Washington Federal comes back in and just for the entire board's benefit, there is

[1:08:05] a bank out there at Washington Federal, who has kind of developed a strategic program to

[1:08:12] fund charter schools across the country.

[1:08:16] And they have struggled back in with the unwriting team and said, hey, we'd like to take a really

[1:08:20] good look at this.

[1:08:21] So they're expressing some pretty sincere and strong interest.

[1:08:24] On other projects we've worked with them on, their terms are you typically

[1:08:28] amortized over 25 years, but the best thing the headliner about them is their

[1:08:33] rates of lending to a school have typically been probably between about six and

[1:08:39] three eight and six and a half percent. In this market in these conditions, that's

[1:08:44] excellent. That is a really good rate. If they don't come in and we're not

[1:08:49] planning that they will, we're kind of treating that as like it'll be a bonus.

[1:08:54] Although we're going to pursue it heavily, but if they don't come in and we end up kind

[1:08:59] of doing a general market bond deal, I think we're going to be realistically probably

[1:09:04] around seven and a half percent.

[1:09:06] So it's pretty sick, but we can finance that probably out to 40 years.

[1:09:10] So on an annual debt service payment, you know, it will be higher to go to the bond market,

[1:09:17] and that's the interest rate environment we're in.

[1:09:21] The school really does face some headwinds, right?

[1:09:25] One is, it's a long time ago and it was a very specific event,

[1:09:29] but there is a bankruptcy in the school's past.

[1:09:31] That's going to be a challenge, right, in the markets.

[1:09:36] But I think we have a good explanation of that

[1:09:38] and have kind of just, you know,

[1:09:39] we'll disclose that and give context.

[1:09:42] The other thing is, is the school, you know,

[1:09:44] will we'll we'll share going to show up you know a some growth and that story right now in the

[1:09:49] country is been challenging to accept a lot more charter schools are missing their growth targets

[1:09:54] as far as enrollment there's been some headlines about that so we're kind of facing some headwinds

[1:09:58] in the market realistically but I think we've got again the ingredients of you know a very you know

[1:10:06] so in transaction so a loanable transaction for sure and I kind of describe this as the deal to get

[1:10:13] you to the deal right eventually in the next four or five years when you move into this beautiful

[1:10:18] new building well it'll be a beautiful refurbished building um you're going to tweak your enrollment

[1:10:24] up probably operate somewhere hopefully between 450 kids or you know maybe even towards 500 and you're

[1:10:30] going to grow on strength then I think that will help you hopefully meet the metrics to qualify at

[1:10:35] some point for the state credit enhancement program for charter schools so we're hoping to kind of

[1:10:40] get you in a position in this financing to get towards that and then be able to refinance

[1:10:45] and lock that rate in long-term at a lower rate.

[1:10:49] But I think the school probably realistically needs probably another four or five years

[1:10:54] of good operations and have that growth and then that can be feasible.

[1:10:57] So this financing is going to be contemplated to provide a ramp to that day too.

[1:11:04] And one other question I've asked this before but so last year at the end of the year we've got about 2.4 million in cash reserves.

[1:11:17] Do you think it'd be best to just keep that in cash reserve or to use some of that money towards the cost of the building?

[1:11:25] Yeah, that's a great question.

[1:11:29] Right now, so using your cash is actually difficult for a school to do because you can't

[1:11:36] really budget negatively after you're and just don't, but you know, and dip in your

[1:11:41] cash.

[1:11:42] So using it on a facility is one of the probably best and most efficient ways.

[1:11:46] Charter schools can do that.

[1:11:48] In this case, I think we'll look at putting, I can't remember what our numbers have, but

[1:11:53] probably looking at putting possibly some money in, but I will say investors right now are

[1:11:59] valuing schools with high cash balances. In this uneasy market they want to know that schools

[1:12:04] have a strong balance sheet, and so there seems to be a lean right now in the investment world

[1:12:10] of keep your cash available, you know, and there. So it's a bit tricky for a school, right? Because

[1:12:16] cash is just kind of a shiny, cool thing you put on a shelf, and yet schools have a hard time

[1:12:20] actually getting it off the shelf and using it, but in this case, I think that it will help

[1:12:26] the school find a loan that is, you know, a good fit. So we're going to try to find that balance,

[1:12:32] but I anticipate investors actually being able to willing to lend you kind of all of what you need

[1:12:38] and asking you to keep more cash on your balance sheet. Okay, I just, I don't know if we're on

[1:12:50] tree side. Last year we had to use a lot of money which was very hard to use towards

[1:12:58] paying off our previous landlord and lawyer bills and that kind of felt like a dagger in my heart.

[1:13:07] But now we've brought that cash reserve off again and through penny pinching, I guess.

[1:13:18] is the story. So we were excited to have that up there and it was funny because Roundtable

[1:13:27] said to Steve, no, I want your unrestricted cash on hand and he's like, that's what our

[1:13:35] unrestricted cash on hand is.

[1:13:39] Yeah, so that's great. I mean, I think that's a great

[1:13:41] part of the story, absolutely. And I think that's one of the reasons we

[1:13:45] approved from the Utah Finance Authority. I know not always do the teachers like us penny

[1:13:51] pinching, but it's really going to help us. I feel like.

[1:13:59] Okay, those are my questions.

[1:14:02] Anybody, any other board members have any questions for Brandon or myself?

[1:14:09] I do residential real estate and sometimes like when they're building a house,

[1:14:16] the price of lumber goes up and now the house becomes not affordable. What

[1:14:21] happens in a situation like this?

[1:14:25] Like if they're building and then something

[1:14:26] happens is there's shortage like what happens then? Yeah so that's the reason

[1:14:30] that I think both the school and the investor will want that GMP contract in

[1:14:36] place that's essentially the tool in your tool belt to say hey even if prices of

[1:14:41] wood or metal go up. What they're getting back are essentially firm bits from

[1:14:46] their subcontractors to provide you that. So they tend to hold that pricing for

[1:14:51] a period long enough. And sometimes to mitigate that they will take those long

[1:14:55] the items like oh I don't know switch equipment

[1:15:00] To our HVAC units or elevators, they'll order those way in advance so they can kind of lock in the pricing. This will be a repurposed building. So we do get some protection as far as like the big expensive outside stuff. But I think the answer that I would give you is the GMP contract that essentially protects you against kind of the movement of some of those supply items that have been involved for sure in the last several years.

[1:15:29] Yeah, with the GMP contract, it's the contractor that's taking that risk, the cost of goods or

[1:15:38] yeah, wood or whatever it is is going to go up. So yeah, it pushes that risk on to the contractor.

[1:15:46] And I think we're trying to have the GMP contract in place by September 18th.

[1:15:51] Yeah, I think that's right Rachel, good calendar item by you.

[1:15:57] Well, a little question, can we see the contract when you have it?

[1:16:01] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[1:16:02] Yeah, absolutely.

[1:16:04] I would expect you would want to see it and should.

[1:16:07] And again, that's being handled on the red apple side.

[1:16:09] So our scope of services doesn't contemplate that, but yeah, your building team and ultimately

[1:16:14] your board, you should definitely be briefed on that and know what it includes and know

[1:16:19] what you're getting for it, yeah. And I would also tell you what I would expect is the

[1:16:24] general contractor will have an allowance amount in that, probably two to three percent.

[1:16:29] And then I would also suggest that the school have an allowance of another two to three percent

[1:16:35] on that. And you can speak with Jeff about that, but you'll want an allowance on both sides.

[1:16:39] And that way, not so much of supplies, you know, get changed, but sometimes you're going

[1:16:44] to run into a situation where you're going to be like, oh, we discovered a pipe was here.

[1:16:47] And now we have to move it and we have to drill 40 feet of cement and you know, it's going to cost us $38,000

[1:16:54] So those allowances and so forth allow a little bit of cushion for realistic things that come up like that.

[1:17:01] So there is some cushion, you know, kind of built in usually around kind of five to six percent of the overall project for just unforeseen things that come up.

[1:17:11] And, you know, we're going to start having contractors and stuff come over to the building,

[1:17:16] like we'll have a phase one environmental come over on Thursday, you know, if any of

[1:17:21] the board members want to be there, you know, come, you know, hang out while we're doing

[1:17:27] that kind of stuff, that's great.

[1:17:30] I know that it was really good news because we were worried about the, like the earthquake

[1:17:39] seismic with the building and there's going to be a couple renovations to that but overall they

[1:17:46] said the building isn't very good shape and we won't have to do a lot of renovations that have

[1:17:52] to do with seismic things so they were waiting on that for a while. They just have to go in and add

[1:17:59] some few ties in certain places. And that's all in our weekly meetings and Kimber has been very good

[1:18:05] to attend most of those, both the construction meetings and the finance meetings, but other

[1:18:16] people kind of tend as long as we don't have a quorum.

[1:18:22] Yeah, and Megan, there's nothing more riveting than watching a phase one inspection take place.

[1:18:26] If you really want to ramp up the entertainment value, just over and see that happen.

[1:18:31] Well, I'm just saying, you know, like my co-says probably more interested in that kind of stuff because he's really real insane.

[1:18:41] And Kimber has been at our State Charter Board meetings and everything going on there.

[1:18:46] And it's always good to have a nice presence of board members, you know, seeing who we are and what we're doing.

[1:19:01] questions?

[1:19:05] Okay, thank you all. Thank you. So Brennan is this an

[1:19:09] actionable item? Are they? Yes, we need an action to prove the financing

[1:19:15] resolution. So as a preference, I talked to Shannon about this and she said

[1:19:22] when you go to approve things, policies or resolutions, you can approve them and

[1:19:29] say except for this or if you have something that wanted to be edited, like we said, and

[1:19:34] Rachel already sent that over, that it is corrected. You can do that, but like today we

[1:19:40] need to know if we approve this or not so that they can move forward, so we need to know

[1:19:45] that today. So you can approve it and also make amendments and still have it approved while

[1:19:51] we make those amendments.

[1:19:54] And Kim, right, I would just re-emphasize what Brandon said earlier, because I think it's

[1:19:58] important detail for the board. This is not a final commitment. This is really just a vote

[1:20:04] of sincere interest in the board moving forward and making kind of a public attestation that,

[1:20:11] you know, you're really pursuing this, but it is not like a non-revocable commitment. That

[1:20:17] will come later, but you'll have more information. You don't have all the final members at that time.

[1:20:22] It contracts and everything.

[1:20:23] Yeah.

[1:20:26] Okay.

[1:20:28] Jose and Megan, do you feel ready to vote?

[1:20:32] Yes.

[1:20:33] Okay.

[1:20:34] Yes.

[1:20:34] So, like we did before, we'll have to have, I'll ask for a motion, then I'll ask for a second

[1:20:40] and then we give time for discussion.

[1:20:43] Does the discussion become for the second?

[1:20:46] I think it comes after the second.

[1:20:49] That's what I thought.

[1:20:49] Okay, so and then after the discussed second of the motion, I will ask if we have any discussion if not and then I'll ask for all in favor and all against so then Virginia can record our votes.

[1:21:04] Without me having to say your name unless there are any negative votes, then we'll go through and make sure we know who those are attributed to.

[1:21:14] Any other questions on that procedure?

[1:21:18] Okay, let me shrink this and pull up my agenda so we can move to the action agenda now.

[1:21:27] All right, first on the action agenda, we have our positive behaviors planned.

[1:21:33] Do we have a motion?

[1:21:40] You guys can trade off or you decide how you want to do that.

[1:21:42] But one of you has the motion, one of you has the second.

[1:21:46] Go for it, Megan.

[1:21:50] What do exactly do I need to say for this one?

[1:21:52] I make a motion to approve the positive behaviors plan.

[1:21:56] Okay.

[1:21:57] I make a motion to approve the positive behavior plan.

[1:22:01] Do I have a second?

[1:22:05] It does have to be vocal, Jose.

[1:22:12] You're muted, if you don't know.

[1:22:14] I second the motion.

[1:22:16] Any discussion?

[1:22:19] No.

[1:22:20] All in favor?

[1:22:22] Aye.

[1:22:24] Aye.

[1:22:26] Aye.

[1:22:33] I have a motion for the Teacher and Student Success Act Plan.

[1:22:44] I motion to approve the Student and Teacher Success Plan.

[1:22:51] Do I have a second?

[1:22:53] Second motion.

[1:22:56] Any discussion?

[1:22:59] All right. All in favor?

[1:23:00] I.

[1:23:04] I. Any dissent. All right, passed unanimously. Do I have a motion for the enrollment policy including hybrid.

[1:23:18] I motion to approve the. What was it called again?

[1:23:24] The enrollment policy including hybrid.

[1:23:26] The enrollment policy including hybrid.

[1:23:32] Do I have a second?

[1:23:53] I have a motion for the proposed hybrid policy for the handbook.

[1:24:00] I motion to approve the policy for the handbook, the, sorry, what was it?

[1:24:08] It's okay, it's helpful if you pull up the agenda.

[1:24:11] I know, I'm on my phone now, and so I can't, yeah.

[1:24:15] Proposed hybrid policy for handbooks.

[1:24:19] You're muted.

[1:24:24] I'm having so many technical difficulties.

[1:24:27] Will you say the name one more time?

[1:24:29] So I get it right.

[1:24:30] Okay, Posea has a pulled up.

[1:24:32] Do you want to go ahead and present the motion?

[1:24:34] Jose?

[1:24:35] Thank you.

[1:24:37] I make a motion to approve the proposed hybrid policy for handbook.

[1:24:43] I second that motion.

[1:24:48] Any discussion?

[1:24:53] All in favor?

[1:24:55] Aye.

[1:24:57] Aye.

[1:24:58] Aye.

[1:25:00] All right.

[1:25:00] That passes unanimously.

[1:25:02] Do I have a motion for the instructional learner validated attendance policy?

[1:25:12] I make a motion to approve the instructional learner validated attendance policy.

[1:25:17] I second that motion. Any discussion?

[1:25:24] No. All right. All in favor?

[1:25:29] Aye.

[1:25:30] Aye.

[1:25:32] All right. That passes unanimously.

[1:25:36] So the next one as we discussed is we're going to vote on the resolution, authorizing the financing, and that will include the tax and disclosure compliance procedures, fiscal and debt management policies, the board succession policy and the risk management policy because it is embedded within that resolution.

[1:25:58] So we only have to make a motion for the resolution.

[1:26:01] I

[1:26:05] make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the financing of the acquisition

[1:26:09] and construction of the school facility.

[1:26:13] I second that motion.

[1:26:16] Any discussion?

[1:26:22] All in favor?

[1:26:24] Aye.

[1:26:25] Aye.

[1:26:28] All right. The past is unanimously.

[1:26:31] All right. That is the conclusion of our board meeting. We do not have a

[1:26:37] closed session tonight.

[1:26:41] Thank you everybody for attending.

[1:26:45] Do we make a motion

[1:26:46] to close, right? Actually we at our board you can do whatever you want but we we

[1:26:54] Robert's rules I guess indicate that once your business is done you don't need a

[1:27:04] Thank you all, great to be with you.

[1:27:05] Appreciate your time tonight and all the good work you're doing.

[1:27:09] Thank you.

[1:27:09] Shea, yours, Clint, and also appreciate Brandon.

[1:27:12] He called and talked to me for a while today and not

[1:27:17] miffed about it at all and very helpful.

[1:27:20] And he said that we're welcome to call him

[1:27:22] and ask him with questions.

[1:27:24] But he's happy to help us with that as we go through this process

[1:27:27] that none of us are probably quite familiar with, so.

[1:27:31] Yeah, I'll just thank you.

[1:27:32] I mentioned that to you, but I'll reiterate it that our, well, first of all, I know

[1:27:37] though yours get a bad rap that we rack up billable hours, our fee is a fixed fee.

[1:27:45] So whether you ask zero questions or 100 questions, you will pay the same and it gets paid

[1:27:51] at closing from the bond proceeds.

[1:27:53] So really, we're here along with Clint.

[1:27:56] I know Clint will say the same thing.

[1:27:58] We're here to be a resource.

[1:27:59] we understand, we do this all day every day and it's what we do professionally, but we understand

[1:28:06] that for you this is the first time and maybe hopefully the only time. But there's a lot of words,

[1:28:14] a lot of things that are said or may come up that don't make a lot of sense or just you don't understand

[1:28:20] because you don't live in this world. So we're happy to answer any questions whether they seem really

[1:28:26] a simpler, basic, or whatever.

[1:28:30] And everyone works together.

[1:28:32] It's a very collaborative process,

[1:28:33] but we are the ones that are specifically engaged

[1:28:36] by the school to be your counsel,

[1:28:39] your attorney going through the financing process.

[1:28:43] So yeah, so don't ever hesitate to ask questions

[1:28:46] or to bring up something where we're happy to help

[1:28:50] and answer anything.

[1:28:53] And I also want to give a thanks to Clint.

[1:28:55] he helped us with the Utah Charter Financing Authority, getting all that in and helping us get

[1:29:00] that approved. And then for Rachel, she helped with all the seventh grade, the hybrid, and the

[1:29:06] finance authority. So, and besides all the other stuff she did. I wasn't expecting to speak

[1:29:11] at the Utah Finance Authority. I think we're going to be doing all the speaking. You're great.

[1:29:17] That was awesome. Thank you, team. I couldn't do this. Thank you all. Great to you with you.

[1:29:25] Thank you. Thanks. Have a great night. Bye. Thank you.

Treeside Charter School Board Meeting

Transcript