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Board Meeting Minutes Archive » BOD Meeting Minutes-December 10, 2019

BOD Meeting Minutes-December 10, 2019

BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
ABS 7th Street Building
Winston-Salem, NC
Tuesday December 10, 2019

In Attendance:

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

 

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 5:50.

  • Approval of November Minutes – ACTION REQUIRED – Motion to approve made by Ellen Heck and Michelle Kennedy seconds, all in favor with no one opposed. The minutes are approved.

  • Review of November Financial Results (Brittney Emery) – ACTION REQUIRED – Net surplus of $36,800. 58% remaining of the year. Revenue remaining is 50%. Finance committee met. We couldn’t work on an amended budget since the state has not approved a budget. We are going to rework the budget based on last year’s actuals until we know. Capital campaign has net revenue of $133,000 at this point. Griff clarifies that if we never get the increase from the state, we will be at a deficit. The Motion to approve by committee and seconded by Chris Gilmore. All in favor with no one opposed. The financial report is passed.

  • Review of 2018 Audit Results – ACTION REQUIRED – Audit report is back and it’s a clean audit. Motion to approve the results of the audit made by Brittany Emery, seconded by Julia Toone. All in favor with no one opposed. The audit results are approved.

  • Committee Updates (Various) –
    • Development and Fundraising – Julia Toone reports that the committee just met and got updates on annual campaign ($68,069 and 52% of parents participating). Ellen Coble says we will revisit a board ask in February since they were asked for the capital campaign. Potential to launch the capital campaign to parents in the first quarter of the new year. Last Community Creates this school year. Amber Dalholt volunteers to help with 100 for $100. Committee also discussed ideas for how to raise $20,000 for a music tech program. This would be computers with large screens and keyboards for composing music. This would have students more career-ready in music. Ideally, we would have a place to publish our music online. When we played with this last year, the students were engaged in group work during this project. Several people ask about the upkeep on that new technology. Like all technology, it would need to be updated and would change eventually. Ellen Heck reminds that we have had discussions during strategic planning about a technology staff member to help with that.
    • Facilities – Robin Hollis reports for Kevin Nunley – The church out on Lansing looked like it had potential. The investor is not interested/able to do that. The church was in good enough condition to potentially open in August. Since it is not an option now, we’re thinking we won’t open in August. Our current landlord found a building in a business park that is in good shape. It’s not set up as a school. It doesn’t allow us to open in August. We looked at Diggs. They are using part of it now but not all of it. There are more upgrades slotted there for this summer. The negotiation with the school system is the question. Are they selling it eventually? The system is using a consultant who may propose closing some more schools. We don’t know the timeline on that. It’s currently also being used as storage for a lot of equipment for the school system. Diggs borders 52 and is in the old Happy Hills neighborhood. It’s not big enough for the entire K-8 school but it would be plenty to get us started for a few years. Ellen Heck asks if Diggs is in the Opportunity Zone for grants. It is. Glenn Fulk drew some beautiful plans on the Innovation Quarter site. It’s a great design but very expensive at about $18M. Glenn has been a great asset. This site is just the land. Everything else is an existing building already.
    • Courtyard expansion – The other side of the courtyard has already been drawn and permitted. Ideally, we would like to start that this summer. The challenge is financial and the uncertainty with state budget and negotiating with current landlord. Kevin has been working with our landlord on that. 
    • Ellen Heck – We’re moving forward on some technical things with regard to the website. We’re not launching in January because we don’t want to have any concerns with the lottery and applications.
    • Griff and Nominating Committee – Information about board applications is on our website. The nominating committee will review applications and make a suggestion to the board.

  • Parent Council Update – Becky Dickson – We’ve had 107 responses to the survey about volunteering. There are some themes coming out about people having trouble volunteering for an hour a week per child. Parent Council members are trying to gather the information in a digestible way. There was a question about whether or not we should change the policy. That might be something that comes to School Leadership Team for the first discussion.

  • Principal’s Report (Robin) – Draft of the school calendar – not to be voted on tonight. We will review this at the PC meeting on Friday. There are some things we don’t control. We always start a few days before the WSFCS system. We are built on a trimester system for teachers to have parent conferences. Five snow days are built into the calendar.

  • Late Pick Up Policy – ACTION REQUIRED – This was discussed at the last meeting and shared with the board. Motion to approve the policy made by April Ruffin-Adams and seconded by Michelle Kennedy. All are in favor and the policy is approved.

  • Teacher Release Day – ACTION REQUIRED – When we considered the calendar last year, we didn’t know about a great Professional Development opportunity at a charter school similar to ours. We have more teachers who want to go than we have substitute teachers. We’re asking for consideration for that to be a release day. Classroom teachers would go, and other staff would have a workday. After school program would run for those already registered in the program. Motion to approve made by Margaret Taylor and seconded by April. All are in favor with no one opposed. The motion passes.

  • Other Business – BTSP plan update – Paige Raper reports that the board discussed this in August. There is a new person overseeing this at the state level and they have asked us to add some things (how late hires would be trained). Julia Toone makes the motion, Amber seconds. All are in favor and the update is approved.

  • Adjournment – 6:45pm – Kyle motions to adjourn and Michelle seconds. All are in favor and the meeting is adjourned.
 

Looking Ahead:

  • IMPORTANT DATES … MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
    • ABS Holiday Social – Dec 11 at Earl’s 4-6pm
    • Board Retreat and Meeting- Jan 18 at 9am