Approval of Agenda

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.

Board Meeting Minutes Approval

Approval of the September Board Meetings:

9/10/24 Regular Board Meeting

9/17/20 FY21 Budget Hearing Meeting

9/17/20 Special Called Board Meeting to vote on the re-opening school in a Hybrid Model

9/24/20 FY21 Budget Hearing Meeting

9/24/20 Special Called Board Meeting to approve the FY21 Budget

Meeting Adjourn

Welcome and Call to Order

The meeting will be called to the order at 6:32 pm by Karen Womack, Chair of the Board

Public Comment

Mr. Rob Lee - I would like to give my input and concerns regarding the discussion on moving to 100% of students being back in the building. Initially I had a high level of anxiety but I decided to give it a try. My anxiety has increased because we are not following our own CDC guidelines. My temperature has not been taken since the first day of pre-planning. I pretty much stay in my office a lot because I do not want to come in contact with the students. We serve a population that have multi levels of generations who live in the same house. We need to take all of this into consideration as we go into the cold and flu season. We need to be deliberate in taking every safety measure possible to protect both the students that we serve in the building as well as the family members that they will come in contact with them once they leave the building. Please I employ you to take a wholistic view on al the things that are important and impactful to everyone.

Ms. Ebony Dames - I have anxiety as well regarding the number of students that could potentially increase inside the school. I had a student to come to class today not wearing a mask. We are closer than 6 feet now, but if we increase the number of students we will not be able to social distance. Also the staff that interacts with all the students are potentially at risk and could spread the virus from person to person. I just wanted to make my position known to the Board as you take into consideration of bring all the students back to the building. I have had anxiety from the beginning but now it is heightened even more.

Mr. Joseph - Ditto to what everyone else is saying. This has become more real to me this week than ever after talking to some of our parents. Some of our students are asymptomatic. I attended a relative funeral who passed away due to COVID-19. This really opened my eyes and made the circumstances around this disease very real to me. I wanted to express my concerns about bringing in more students and the potential impact that it could have on everyone. This is very serious and could be a matter of life and death.

Monthly Financial Reports

Highlights

• Total Revenue is $238,018.80- Reflected on the P&L
• Total Surplus $40,027.03- Reflected on the P&L
• Total Cash is $298,567.47 - Reflected on the BS ( Operating Cash) 

Total Long Term Liability $406,503.74 - Reflected on the B&S

$229,865.23 - From Building Hope  

$174,929.36 - From SLAM Foundation (Reclassified from RC Grant to Loan at year end) 

$1,709.15 – Teacher Retirement Payable

@Pardes Sulaiman is requesting that the financials be presented on a month to month basis

Recruitment Strategy

Discussion around the recruitment strategy to address the current enrollment challenges.

We have 93 students. We lost one because mom moved to South Carolina until we open back up 100% in person learning. We lost another student to Centennial Academy. I asked the parent why and was told that they had been trying to get into the school for years. Mom also said that Centennial was more diverse than SLAM. We created more flyers. I distributed some to on of our parents who is a hair stylist and Mrs. Howell took some to the Barber Shop of one of our parents who is a barber. I have been to 2 football games over the last 2-weeks. I folded up flyers and put them on the windshield of each car on the lot. We had a meeting two weeks ago with the local police officer and I was told that she has been writing up her reports in our parking lot for years but never knew that there was a school in the building. We have a parent who is going to mail out flyers for us. I ran a FB ad, communicated with parents about the free uniform give away for any referrals who are accepted in the school.

@Pardes Sulaiman have you heard about Local Green Atlanta? Kelly, yes they are on my radar to contact. @Pardes Sulaiman I mentioned to you about throwing a possible Block Party which I am willing to fund. Just let me know what day and that you think will work.

Kelly, I think places like Kroger are the best places to recruit because of the the face to face contact. Who is willing to participate in the face to face contact for recruiting events?

FY21 Updated School Calendar

Add November 2nd, which is Election Day, as a day off. This is something that all schools do so that the staff and families can go and exercise their right to vote. Most schools are used as voting polling places.

Superintendent's Update

The Superintendent provide's updates on the status of the School District

We have been working on all the Title Budgets. Angelia has been working hard on creating a shared calendar where she will record all items that need to be submitted and the dates that they are due so that we can keep track of everything that is due to he State, Commission, etc.

APS had a meeting on re-opening pre K-5th grade to attend face to face learning M-F with classes ending at 2:30 pm. They will also still offer RLI and also offer their teachers to opt to remotely teach from home. We must have temperature checks. I know that Kelly is doing this for the students. We need to determine how we ensure that the staff is receiving temperature checks as well. The District is also sending out another survey to their parents and staff. Perhaps we can send out another survey as well. The goal is to ensure that we are following CDC guidelines and keeping every one as safe as possible.

School Re-opening - I suggest that we table this discussion until we hear back from our parents and staff after the survey is sent out and data tabulated. We have to be intentional and almost militant about ensuring that we keep reminding the students to wear their masks properly. It is a non negotiable and necessary for safety purposes. We need to send out a survey to the parents about the possibility of re-opening and to the staff so that we can get the necessary feedback that will help us to make decisions.

Kelly Pierce: I am disappointed to hear of the issues that were raised here by the staff on tonight. This is my first time hearing anything about any of these concerns. I did not know that Staff temperatures were not being taken. No one has said anything to me about that. I am in the back checking student temperatures as they are getting out of their cars. I will make sure that I fix this immediately as early as tomorrow. We have every safety measure that I could implement in place. Sanitizing stations in each classroom as well as in the Fellowship Hall, Face Shields for every student and desk shields for each student, social distancing signs on the floors and air filtration systems in each classroom. Students are not allowed to use the water fountains and they eat at their desks in their perspective classrooms.

School Leader Report

The school leader reports on the status of the school.

COVID-19 UPDATE

We have been diligent with following our protocols in place to ensure the safety of our students and staff. There have been no valid cases reported to date.

STATE CHARTER SCHOOL COMMISSION ACCOUNTIBILITY FY21 Monitoring Visit Scheduled for November 17, 2020 at 1:00 p.m.

PERSONNEL

Due to budgetary constraints, the Administrative Assistant position has been eliminated. One employee is on an extended leave; Due back part time week of October 26.

STUDENT SUPPORT

Early Intervention Program: Students have been identified for early intervention based on iReady diagnostics. Parents received letters the week of 9/21.

Special Education:

IEP – 7 students

504 – 4 students; One student that we initiated testing for has been completed, awaiting reports for eligibility determination; One new student has been identified for testing (specifically speech and language).

Student support teacher is meeting with all students.

Counseling Program Counselor has put together a strong counseling activities calendar.

Small groups will start the week of 10/5. Counselor should be able to see each student every 1.5 – 2 weeks with the small group rotation. ACADEMIC

ACHIEVEMENT

Progress reports were released Thursday, 10/1

First Growth Monitoring assessment was admitted virtually on 10/2. We will continue to do these every two weeks.

Data chats took place for reading in grades 3 – 5 the week of 10/5.

Director of Teacher and Learning has been coaching weekly one-on-one. In addition, teachers are receiving lesson plan feedback and expected to revise accordingly.

ENROLLMENT Update:

Kinder – 18

1 st – 15

2 nd – 14

3 rd – 19

4 th – 14

5 th – 13

Total: 93

COMMUNITY OUTREACH/PARTNERSHIPS

The following partnerships have been established:

Clark Atlanta University’s School of Education – Students will be assigned to SLAM to complete their student teaching requirements.

CURS Inc. – They will be providing a Care Close which will include school supplies to support students throughout the school year. In addition, they will host a sports clinic (one per semester). The first one will take place at the end of October.

Lastly, we will implement a ‘Feed and Read’ initiative to bridge the summer months.  Bonners Scholars at Spelman –They will be running an after school club calls Reading FUNdamentals. This will launch the week of October 26.

The board’s support to continue building relationships in the community would be greatly appreciated.

Facilities Update

Discussion on the letter received from Shiloh MB Church regarding the lease.

@Pardes Sulaiman ,We received a letter from the Church that they would not renew our lease for the next year. I did talk to Danny and Tiffany about reaching out to the church to see if they will disclose the reason and why. This would also give us an opportunity to speak to them about our plans of completion of the 2nd floor, etc for the upcoming school year. We have also shifted from looking to purchase property to securing a lease on space. I have a meeting with Ali tomorrow at 3:30 pm. @Tiffany Russell I reached out to the church regarding their letter. They responded and said put in writing what we wanted to see.

Kelly, we need to be clear about what we want to see because tonight I received a email from Deacon Chambler about a outdoors meeting by Ms. Cleta Winslow regarding a meeting that she has planned for Thursday that will require us to allow usage of the back parking lot where the students have P.E. and also requires the use of our bathrooms.

@Pardes Sulaiman I recommend that we gave the Church the hook about what we are going to offer them in the next few years because no one is going to offer them guaranteed revenue, capital improvements, parking lot improvements, play ground, etc.. If we find a better opportunity than it is a great opportunity.

Danny, I spoke to Ali and explained that we need something that will house about 300 students. We will continue the conversation with the realtor and reach out to the Church about meeting with them.

FY21 Board Retreat and Strategic Planning Meeting

@Pardes Sulaiman I suppose this year we will have to do the Strategic Planning Meeting Virtual but it may be difficult to have a virtual meeting and accomplish what we need to. We will need to look at our Bylaws. Kelly offered the use of SLAM's Fellowship Hall. There are 15 tables in the room. We have plenty of space to social distance. Everyone can actually have their own tables. Angelia will send out a Doodle for everyone so they can select the date that works best for them.

Academica Update

Updates from the Education Service Provider

Sometime ago, the Board asked me to contact the Georgia Charter Schools Association to request support from them on helping us look at our Operations, Board processes and to define the roles between the Superintendent and the Principal since SLAM is now operating with the Roles separated as apposed to them being a combined position. I reached out to Elisa Falco to ask her for a meeting so that we could discuss. It took us several months to get back with me as their department was going through some downsizing. We finally met on Monday (Danny, Kelly, Alex, Alisa and I), to discuss exactly what we envisioned the Association would do for us. Elisha asked questions and promised to respond with a proposal. I must admit that I was a but surprised by the cost of the proposal but her disclaimer was that it would not take the number of hours that she included in the proposal. I am suggesting that since the services will be so costly that the Board looks at the information presented and pick and choose a few area's of assistance in order to be frugal withe the expenses.

FY21 SCSC Mandatory Governance Training Dates:

• November 10th- REGISTER HERE
• February 2nd- REGISTER HERE
• April 13th- REGISTER HERE

Board Members will need to select one of the three meetings, register and attend the mandatory Governance Training virtually in order to comply with the mandatory training law for Board Members.

Announcements

November 18, 2020 is the FY21 SCSC Monitoring visit

The Meeting was Adjourned

The meeting adjourned at approximately 2:50 am

Approval of Roles and Responsibilities between Superintendent and Principal