| Name | Status | Arrival Time | Departure Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karen Womack | present chair | On Time | At Adjournment |
| Altrenesha Ervin | present secretary | On Time | At Adjournment |
| Pardes Sulaiman | not present Treasurer | ||
| Tiffany Russell | present member | On Time | At Adjournment |
The meeting will be called to the order at 6:30 P.M. by Chair Karen Womack
So that there is agreement between board members on the agenda, and the amount of time spent on the meeting, the board shall vote to approve an agenda for the meeting. To the best of its ability, it will follow that agenda, and allow for the chair to move the board through the agenda as specified.
Amend the Agenda to add right after the School Leader report the Reclassification of the 18-19 recoverable grant in the amount of $174,929.98 to Long Term Debt/ due to SLAM Foundation.
By: Tiffany Russell Seconded by: Altrenesha Ervin
There was no notable discussion on the motion.
There were no comments from the Public at this time.
Approval of the Meeting Minutes from the previous Board Meeting
Approve the Board Meeting Minutes from July 16, 2020 and July 23, 2020
By: Tiffany Russell Seconded by: Altrenesha Ervin
There was no notable discussion on the motion.
The team, which includes (Angelia Howell, Kelly Pierce, Danny Diaz, Alex, Lilly Salazar, Ana Martinez, Alina Chester and members from the Accounting Team), have been having bi-monthly meetings. The goal is to bring everyone together to make sure that we are all staying in the loop keeping everyone in the loop on all deliverables.
We want to make sure that the school is a step ahead on the compliance requirements. Millie and Alex reviewed the CLIP and provided Kelly with feedback and also provided feedback and guidelines with the SIP.
FY21 TitleIA $37,867 FY20 Title IA $109,739
FY21 Title IIA $6,566 FY20 Title IIA $6,370
FY21 Title IVA $10,000 FY20 Title IVA $10,000
Highlights
· Total Long Term Liability $421,402.61 - Reflected on the B&S
$245,759.75 - From Building Hope
$174,929.36 - From SLAM Foundation (Reclassified from RC Grant to Loan at year end)
$713.50 – Teacher Retirement Payable
The reclassification of the 18-19 recoverable grant in the amount of $174,929.98 to Long Term Debt/due to the SLAM Foundation
By: Tiffany Russell
There was no notable discussion on the motion.
Approval SLAM Atlanta EIP Polices and Procedures Manual
By: Tiffany Russell Seconded by: Altrenesha Ervin
There was no notable discussion on the motion.
Upcoming school or Board events
We added this to discuss how impact of any potential reductions would impact staffing.
@Kelly has spoken to the staff that could potentially be impacted by this.
@Alex, the goal is to continue enrolling students so that we will not have any cuts.
@Karen Womack now we have 99 families have submitted all of their documents. We need 110 to break even?
The meeting adjourned at approximately 2:17 pm
Motion to adjourn
By: Altrenesha Ervin Seconded by: Tiffany Russell
There was no notable discussion on the motion.
All Curriculum has been ordered. We are working to see what we can move from our Operations Budget that can be paid with with Title I funding. This will help to alleviate some of the stress on the Operations Budget.
We are now selling uniforms in house. Parents will no longer be able to order them directly through the vendor. Classrooms of the future should be set up and ready to go soon. I have ordered all PPE supplies and Governor Kemp bough all Georgia schools additional PPE supplies. The supplies have to be picked up in Macon, GA.
Inventory Management: Academia has been supporting with this. A Inventory Management Company will start next week helping with inventorying all our Federal Funded items.
HR: We are now 100% staffed in all positions.
Enrollment: We are about 30 seats away from being fully enrolled. We have 4 families totaling 6 students who have called to withdraw their students. The reasons, 2 are staying with APS because we are doing remote learning like they are, 3 are going to a school where face to face learning will be going on. Ms. Pierce reached out to all Board Members regarding helping to make phone calls to parents in order to encourage them them bring in missing enrollment documents. Ms. Womack will wait to hear back from Ms. Pierce on the updates to the spreadsheet before starting to call families.
Marketing: I meet with the team at Academica and the SLAM Foundation regarding Marketing. We are scheduled to start running Marketing video clips next week. Ms. Pierce will resume tabling once the 1st day of school is underway.
Ms. Pierce would like to connect with Ken Banter to discuss checks and balances that the State has in place to ensure that the school is not penalized when for example, enrollment numbers are submitted the prior year in anticipation of the new year that do not pan out. There should be some kind of communication from the State to let us know the impact to Federal Budgets.
Staffing/Budget @Karen Womack wants to make sure that we are creative in making sure we maintain our staff. We need to be flexible and adaptable.
Discussion on how SLAM Atlanta will move through each of the phases until we are back to full brick and mortar education
@Karen Womack, right now the cases are still climbing here in Georgia. Just today a 7-year old child died. We cannot take the risk knowing that cases are still climbing and people are being impacted. There are so many open questions still about this virus and we cannot deny all the risks; event the ones that are unknown to us still. If all the other Districts around us are closed, we should not make SLAM a ginny pig and a bright light shining in the spotlight with our OPEN sign on. This will most definitely bring about criticism and speculation as to why we would open up with all the other schools and districts around us being closed. Internationally they shut down 90% of everything until they were able to get the cases under control or at least until they plateaued . Until we can see that happening here virtual is the only way to open right now. The SLAM Board of Directors need to prioritize what is best for our community. Yes there are some other Districts who are changing their minds about opening 100%virtually but in order to move towards face to face instruction the numbers have to significantly decline.
Danny Diaz, I would caution the Board not to box themselves into a specific number of weeks prior to opening. It is best if you leave the date for re-opening open and see how things go week by week, month by month.
@Alex Tamargo; Kelly how long will it take you to test the children? Kelly, if I am able to put them in small groups I could get it done in about 1-week. @Altrenesha Ervin Madison was literally able to be tested on Zoom by her teacher. I am not sure why we can't do the same at SLAM. @Kelly Pierce, because we have already experienced parents doing the assignments for the students right in front of the teachers. We cannot guarantee the fidelity of the test with the students taking them at home. @Karen Womack the Board's expectation is that students will come in groups of no more than 4 at a time for the diagnostic testing to be done. I want to make it clear that beyond the testing all other students should be in virtual instruction only until further notice.
@Kelly Pierce: So you are saying that Special Education students are not allowed to come into the building for instruction? @Karen Womack: will Special Education Students be coming in for services? Because that is different from them coming in everyday for tutoring, coaching, etc. Speech and Language can all be done virtually. I get it that the goal is to bring in all students and staff back into the building but we cannot skip the necessary safety steps in order to do so. Until we have the data that supports and propels us to move to Phase II, we cannot. Have we even asked the teachers if they are even comfortable with coming in or what they are willing to do? @Kelly Pierce; I am on board with the Board. I do not want it to seem as though I made a decision outside of the Boards knowledge. I sent all of the information about small groups, etc to the Board for their review. I asked for feedback and did not receive anything back from the Board. I moved forward with the plan that was proposed. @Karen Womack ; I just need clarification on what small groups look like in a virtual environment and how we move forward. @Tiffany Russell; Karen are you asking the Board to make a decision on what small groups look like? @Altrenesha Ervin I am in support or us doing small groups for diagnostic testing only. I am also in support of saying the Board will evaluate data every month during Board Meetings to see how to progress from one phase to another.
There were no updates from the Foundation
Updates from the Education Service Provider
Danny Diaz - we need to starting thinking about approaching the Church early regarding the lease for next year instead of waiting until December to ask for a few more years in the building. We should ask for 3-more years instead of 1 more year. This does not mean that we are stuck there forever. We can only house 300 students in this location and will need more students than that as we move forward with adding the middle and high school. We just need to secure a space for next year because we have been unsuccessful in finding a facility around the area. Real estate in the area is very expensive. We have been looking at other churches and still haven't been successful in finding a location that will give us the space needed. @Karen Womack I agree that we need to discuss this with the church but we also have to look into securing play ground equipment, gym, etc because these are parts of the SLAM model and also are things that were promised to the community in the very beginning. Danny Diaz; the church agreed to allow us to put a playground out back. @Kelly Pierce, Danny I do not think the church agreed to a playground. The church said no, they would not allow the playground especially is we cannot take it up and move it every week. @Altrenesha Ervin; Dr. White found a great that would allow us to build and play ground but it had to be open 24 hours for the public and the church said no.