Welcome and Call to Order

The meeting will be called to the order at 6:33 PM by Chair Karen Womack

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.

Public Comment

No Public Comment on tonight's call.

November Meeting Minutes Approval

Approval of the previous months Board Meeting Minutes

Monthly Financial Reports

Highlights

• Total Revenue is $419,203.30 - Reflected on the P&L
• Total Deficit $3,376.06 - Reflected on the P&L
• Total Cash is $277,613.56 - Reflected on the BS ( Operating Cash) 
• Total Long Term Liability $527,409.13 - Reflected on the B&S

$213,329.86 - From Building Hope  

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

                            $2,397.91 – Teacher Retirement Payable 

                            $15,552 – Pension

                            $121,200 – PPP Loan

Superintendent's Update

Today was a very Big day for SLAM. As you know we are undergoing National Accreditation for all SLAM schools across the country. Today we had a successful readiness visit. There is still a lot of work to do and I will be reaching out to Kelly and the rest of the team in January. My visit in November was success. It was great being back in Atlanta. Kelly and her team are doing a great job. The behavior between last time and now is like night and day. In January I am looking forward to our Data Chats so we can figure out any disconnects. I will be completing evaluations on all Principals. Stay tuned for that report to be sent to you guys. Millie will be in Atlanta for two days visiting on Monday, December 14, 2020. You will start to see more presence in Atlanta after the holidays.

School Leader Report

COVID-19 UPDATE We continue to be diligent with our preventative measures in place. After speaking with Pardes and Alex, I made the call to open virtually for the first two days after Thanksgiving Break. We may want to consider doing the same coming back after the Holiday break.

@Karen Womack I suggest that we re-open after the holidays on January 6, 2021 and offer the Teacher Planning meeting virtually. This will allow for additional social quarantining prior to coming back in person.

STATE CHARTER SCHOOL COMMISSION ACCOUNTIBILITY FY21 Monitoring Visit Recap of visit: Overall positive meeting. Sarah acknowledged that she sees a positive change and is excited for us. She actually received one of are mailers at her home. She was unable to open various documents that were submitted during the summer due to a technical issue on their end. She mentioned that our enrollment packet does not state that providing social security card for enrollment is optional. While we do allow enrollees to opt out of this in practice, it needs to be explicitly stated. I anticipate this will be a finding but will be easily corrected.

@Altrenesha Ervin I definitely agree that we should reassess our original goals submitted and make sure that we can accomplish what we put in the contract 3-years ago. If not, we need to update them and resubmit them to the Commission for approval.

STATE TESTING We will participate in Georgia Milestones this year. They are adding a COVID non-participation option for those students that do not take the assessment.

PARENT ENGAGEMENT Parent engagement is our greatest area in need of growth. Mr. Ragland, the President of our MVP Club, stood outside during arrival to introduce himself to parents in efforts to start building relationships with parents and encourage them to get more involved. Ms. Turner personally reached out to each individual family regarding the Title I meeting and only 3 attended. I’ve asked Ms. Turner to focus on building relationship with our kindergarten parents so they understand our expectations and lay the foundation moving forward. I recommend that this is also a point of discussion at our strategic planning meeting as we plan for the 21- 22 school year. I’d like to formalize a parent workshop that is required of all parents to attend prior to the start of the 21-22 school year. This would include training on Love & Logic, minimum expectations of parents, opportunities to get involved, etc.

@Karen Womack I will follow up with Ashley on securing a Black/Brown Santa for the the Holiday event on the 17th. I know the original person has a conflict with the date but perhaps we can secure another one through her Santa Like Me organization.

SCHOOL CULTURE

Thanksgiving Luncheon – Ms. Howell, Gourmet Services, Ms. Walker, Ms. Torrence, and Ms. Turner planned a beautiful thanksgiving lunch for our scholars.

Thankful Tree – Ms. Dames made a beautiful tree in our hall and cut leaves for our scholars to write what they are thankful for over the course of the month.

Holiday Angel Drive – Launched after Thanksgiving. All scholars have an angel.

Staff Holiday Gift Exchange --Staff lead initiative

Early Intervention Program: Students continue to receive daily intervention. Beginning in January, we will be pulling our lowest performing students for 15 minute small group sessions. Based on next week’s growth monitoring assessments, we will meet to determine what students are not responding to Tier II interventions and considered for Tier II interventions. 3 Special Education: The eligibility team determined two students to be eligible under IDEA; therefore, we are now serving 9 students with IEPs.

 Ms. Flowers and I had data chats with teachers. The teachers were charged with creating their own path to proficiency given the templates we provided that align to the ATLAS protocol. We modeled this during a Friday afternoon PD using school wide data. We will be administering our monthly iReady growth monitoring assessment December 14 – December 17. Those results will be reported at the January board meeting. Ms. Flowers and I have rearranged our schedules to provide more support in math class for grades 3 – 5. I am teaching grade 5. Ms. Flowers is supporting grades 3 and 4.

ATTENDANCE I have been on parents about attendance. I’ve called police to do a wellness check on one family. Department of Children and Families is involved with two families. We were able to get a safety plan put in place for one. We are not a school with attendance issues historically and we will not be an attendance issue school. There are parents that are taking advantage of COVID to pick and choose when the scholar attends school. I feel like an official member of the attendance police but I will continue to be relentless. If scholars are not in school, they are not learning. As we grow in a major way next year, it is this core group that will set the tone.

@Tiffany Russell Kelly are the families just not coming to school at all or are they staying home virtually but have opted to come in person. @Kelly it is a little bit of both. They show up for in person when they want and then stay home and may or may not show up for virtual.

Federal Grants: Everything has been submitted and approved except for the IDEA and Pre-K Grants. We have some new forms that have to be submitted that we have never had to do before. Lilly and Alina are working with us to help get these submitted so we will receive final approval.

Academica Update

Facilities Update, the Facility that we are currently investigating is an amazing property. The property is 20,000 sq. ft. of office space and 75,000 sq. ft. of warehouse space. This is more than we need initially but offers a great opportunity for growth. The owners have owned the property for a very long time and they are willing to work with us on carving out the space that we need in the immediate future.

A big positive for this location is that it is already zoned for school use, therefore we do not have to go through the NPU process. This will be an administrative process only. Mr. John Mapp of Level Construction Company and Paul Mussman, the Architects that we worked with on the current property will be on site at the facility tomorrow from 11:00 am -1:00 pm doing a through walkthrough and checking off some boxes on the checklist.

What we need is for the Board to approve someone who can sign a letter of intent so that we can move forward in the process when that comes. If any of the Board members who have not seen the property yet want to go by tomorrow while they are onsite it would be a great time to go. They will be on site from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm.

Facilities Discussion

There are many moving parts to the facility process and there needs to be a Board representative who can move the process along without having to convene a Board meeting. Giving Pardes the ability to do so will keep the process moving.

SLAM Board Retreat

The Board has selected to host the Board Retreat on Saturday, January 23, 2021. @Altrenesha Ervin I suggest that we look at changing our January Board Meeting from January 7 to January 14 so that we have enough time to create an Agenda and get everything together for the Board meeting so that we are in compliance with posting, etc. since the meeting is so close to coming back from the Holiday break. The Board decided to move the January Board Meeting from Thursday, January 7th to Thursday, January 14, 2021.

Announcements

School Holiday Celebration, Thursday, December 17, 2020 from 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

The Meeting was Adjourned

The meeting adjourned at approximately 7:20 pm