BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING

ABS 7th Street Building

Winston-Salem, NC

Tuesday November 12, 2019

 

In Attendance:

 

Kyle Barnes	x
Kelly Emling	x
Brian Cole	x
Amber Dalholt	x
Brittany Emery	x
Chris Gilmore	x
Tomisha Gladman
Chrissy Davis Hardy	x
Ellen Heck	x
Cheryl Hicks	x
Jennifer Holman	x
Michelle Taylor Kennedy	x
Charlie McCurry
Griff Morgan	x
Dani Parker Moore	x
Kevin Nunley	x
Lara Hanes-Pierce
April Ruffin-Adams	x
Bill Scheidt	x
Suzanne Shuford	x
Dara Silver	x
Margaret Taylor
Julia Toone

 

Also in Attendance: Robin Hollis, Paige Raper, Mary Siebert, Becky Dickson

 

AGENDA

 

• Meeting Called to Order – 5:45pm – Meeting called to order by Griff Morgan at 5:48. 

• Approval of October Minutes – ACTION REQUIRED – Motion to approve the October Minutes made by Bill Scheidt and seconded by Ellen Heck. All are in favor with no one opposed. The minutes are approved. 

• Review of October Financial Results (Brittney Emery) ACTION REQUIRED – October revenue of $1.5 Million, and 1.6 Million in expenses. $148,000 deficit. That includes breaking out the capital campaign expenses. That will help separate operating as we move forward. We are still waiting on the state to approve the final budget. We are $45,000 behind last year in contributions and grants. Rent has increased $26,000 and salaries and benefits are $77,000 up from last year. Brian Cole makes a motion to approve the financials, Dara Silver seconds. All are in favor with no one opposed. The financials are approved.  

• Committee Updates (Various) Fundraising – Annual Campaign – 49% participation and $65,812 raised so far. At this point we haven’t asked the board for this. We would love to have participation, but we have already asked for the capital campaign. Diversity and Inclusion – Dara Silver reports that we are planning an event in February for local colleges and universities to tour and engage with them. Also planning something around the retreat in January with a diversity statement. We may ask Mary Siebert to do something with that. Marketing – Ellen Heck – The website is well underway with Edlio and could be ready in January, but we don’t want to make any big changes while the lottery and application process is going on in January and February. Facilities – Kevin Nunley reports that we have continued to look at sites. We have looked at Innovation Quarter. Brunson has a meeting tonight about the Thomasville Furniture Plant site. We recently looked at the Greater Cleveland Church facility. It has a lot of space. There are pluses and minuses to that site. We are looking at one more site with Neal tomorrow. Some of these sites are further out than we originally looked at. We should start thinking about where we want to be and if any of these locations are outside the scope of where we want to be, we should draw the line. Courtyard – This is part of the capital campaign. The fifth-grade classrooms were considered phase 1 of the courtyard expansion. The mirror image for music and multi-purpose space would go on the other side of the courtyard. It is probably about $550,000 which is marked in the existing capital campaign. We could start that construction this summer and it could possibly be added to our existing rent. That is about $52,000 per year. This would be a possible discussion at the next board meeting. Griff says we may need to have some discussions about this in December. Michelle Kennedy asks about purchasing the building. Griff says we have looked at purchasing helping in the long term with rent vs mortgage payments. There is no instant way to do that now. Kevin says if we owned one building, it would help overall. It is a large fixed cost outside of people. Kyle asks if there is a timing issue with construction next summer. Becky Dickson says there may be more capital campaign buy-in for existing parents if the courtyard began construction. Construction in the courtyard would work just like the last time. We would fence off the section under construction. 

• Parent Council Update – Becky Dickson reports that Parent Council has been helping to work on the website update, several surveys are out asking parents and staff about volunteering. There is a hospitality lunch for teachers on the early release day before conferences start.  

 

 

Principal’s Report (Robin) – 

 

Student Achievement

NC School Report card has not been released to the public yet.  The preliminary results show ABS scored a B on the school performance grade and has exceeded the growth standard.  The complete report card should be available for review and distribution in December.

 

Staff Development

We are interested in sending our teaching staff to the Fresh Take Workshop at Community School of Davidson on February 7.  Unfortunately, we have more teachers that want to attend than subs to cover their classes. I would like to propose the Board consider allowing a teacher release day on Feb 7 to allow all teaching staff to attend this day of training. Unfortunately, we don’t know how many bad weather days we will have between now and then. Community School of Davidson is a charter school like us, and they provide PD much like we are considering doing. 

 

High School Information Night

ABS will host counselors, teachers, and administrators from several area high schools for an information session on December 3rd from 6-7pm. This will include a brief introduction from the high school reps and time to ask questions and gather information from a variety of schools. High School Information Night will take place in the 7th Street building and all 7th and 8th grade families are invited to attend.

 

Community Creates-Save the Date: May 2, 2019 – This will be the last Community Creates event. There will be other fundraisers necessary in the future but matching the artists, leaders, having the auction, etc. is a lot of work for the amount of money we raise. 

 

Annual Giving

Total School Participation: 49%

Total Gifts: $65,462

 

Upcoming Events:

8th Performance: “The Lion King”

Thursday, November 21⋅7:00 – 8:00pm

First Presbyterian Worship Center, 200 N Cherry St

 

 

• Other Business –  Bill Scheidt heard from a parent asking if there was a way to focus parent volunteer hours and have it equate to a dollar value. The higher participation we have with volunteer hours, the better we do with grant applications. Some parents asked if they could pay instead of volunteer. It’s important for kids to see parents as important members of the school and we don’t want to have some parents who can pay and others who can’t pay. Suzanne Shuford says Little Green Light has a way to convert that. Help Counter isn’t connected to Little Green Light. Paige Raper reports that we are working on a policy regarding students who are picked up late from school. The majority of parents pick up on time but there are a good number who pick up late 3-4 days a week. We also have some who pick up very late causing staff members to be late to take care of their own children and appointments. We have talked about the problem of parents and students crossing MLK. The police came for a week to monitor and it has worked so far. People might start up again. Our councilwoman noticed. Board retreat on Jan 18th at the International Civil Rights Museum. This will include a tour of the museum. Thank you for the participation and work on committees. 

• Adjournment – 6:45pm – Motion to adjourn made by Kyle Barnes and seconded by Brian Cole. All are in favor. The meeting is adjourned.