BOD Meeting Minutes- June 11, 2019

BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING

ABS 7th Street Building

Winston-Salem, NC

Tuesday June 11, 2019

In Attendance:

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

Also In Attendance: Robin Hollis, Paige Raper, Mary Siebert

AGENDA

Meeting Called to Order – 5:45pm – By Kevin Nunley at 5:53.

Approval of May Minutes – ACTION REQUIRED – Motion to approve the May Minutes by Charlie McCurry and seconded by Chris Gilmore. All are in favor with no one opposed. The minutes are passed.

Review of May Financial Results (Brittany) – ACTION REQUIRED – We are on track for what we expected. We have a net deficit of $15,000 right now. A lot of that is Whitney Jones expenses that were not originally budgeted. Motion to approve the financials made by Suzanne Shuford and seconded by Tomisha Gladman. All in favor. No one opposed. The financials are passed.

School Safety – Charlie McCurry – Charlie was asked to look at the volunteer/student safety policy for WS/FCS a few years ago. Now, Charlie has used that policy to update the ABS policy. He is trying to keep it simple enough that it is easily implemented. It’s important to encourage volunteers at ABS. We want them to be properly trained and under the direction of administrators and teachers. It unfolds in stages of screening that is necessary based on that type of volunteering being done. A parent who is on campus working with no students present would have different requirements than say, an overnight field trip. Charlie has as draft of the different levels of background checking and this will be presented to the board and voted on by the board before any action is taken on a new policy. Mrs. Hollis explains that we don’t currently do any overnight field trips and don’t have any parent drivers. Margaret Taylor asks about a practice where an adult is never alone with a child. This would be difficult in a school setting. There is probably a component of physical space that will come to play with this. Griff asks if we want to roll this out by August for a new school year. Ideally, yes. Its easiest to make a change like this or a new school year. Tomisha Gladman asks if we’re talking about every parent. We ask for every family to volunteer so it will be a lot of work at first. Kevin reminds everyone that what we are doing is working but it’s time to update the policy so that it mirrors the community we are in (WS/FCS). Tomisha also says there may be some parents who do not want background checks run. We would not run a check unless the parent asks to volunteer in that capacity. Julia Toone says this will be a lot at first. Is there a way the board can help? We’ll let you know. Ellen Heck asks if we have budgeted for the cost of background checks next year. No, we haven’t.

Committee Updates – Various – Julia Toone – Development staff continues to work on the capital campaign planning. They also wanted to thank the board for everyone’s help this year. It has been an active and involved year for the board. We are meeting with marketing to talk about design and logo or the capital campaign. Kevin Nunley invites people to talk with Ellen about how donors’ tax strategies could work with campaign donations. Ellen Heck – Marketing – Amber Dalholt did a lot of work with getting some fantastic photos. Kevin Nunley – We have walked around the Thomasville plant space. Griff Morgan reports that Whitney, Ellen, and Leah have been working and really understand the community and who is connected. We are getting positive responses from community members so far. By the end of the summer, we should have a group of community members ready to say they are supporting this endeavor. Kevin says we will shoot for a $2M goal and ask BB&T to do 10% of that. We are not at the time when we are asking everyone but they have invited us to do that. We are just starting due diligence on the Thomasville location. It is good to keep open to other options. You never know if it will fall through. We still have water coming in the three classrooms down the hall (6th grade classrooms). We will probably have to incur some cost to go on the property next door and do some work in order to waterproof. The problem is not just the cost. It’s the disruption when students are here. Robin Hollis – Stephanie LeFever and her staff have done a great job with the afterschool program. We should end the first year with $73,000 profit from the afterschool program. We are launching summer camps and may clear $10,000 from that.

Principal’s Report (Robin) – Robin spent the day in Raleigh and will go back tomorrow. Most school leaders are opening new schools. Robin is there because we’re replicating. One piece of news is that the ACCESS grant for replication was $600,000 and they are increasing that to $1.2M. Student achievement based on MAP testing. It’s great to see how well our students do compared to the national norm. Our middle school students really pull away from the national average. We have preliminary data on the reading EOG. We don’t have math scores yet because the state is going to gather all of the data and re-scale the scores. We are in hiring season. We’re looking to fill elementary art, 2nd grade, and middle school music positions. We’ve already secured a sixth-grade teacher, an EC teacher, and a PE teacher for next year. Read to Achieve summer camp is a state-funded program for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders.

Parent Council Updates – The rain held off for Field Day and everyone had fun.

Other Business – We thank Linda Pass for all of her help. She was instrumental in helping with us keeping the building as dry as we have without being able to get on the neighbor’s property. No July meeting. Next meeting is in August.

Adjournment – 6:45pm – Motion to approve made by Margaret, seconded by Julia. All are in favor with no one opposed. The meeting is adjourned.

Looking Ahead:

IMPORTANT DATES … MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Board Meeting – August 13