Welcome and Call to Order

The meeting will be called to the order, beginning with the pledge of allegiance.

Public Comment

Our Public Comment period is for members of the public to address the board. Each member of the public may sign up to comment at the meeting, and will be allotted two minutes. The board will listen, but may not directly respond to any comments. Our meetings are open to the public and public record. As such, if your comment is about a private matter, please contact the board via email, or speak to the board chair privately.

Approval of the 6/28/18 Meeting Minutes

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.

School Leader Report

Facility Upgrades - Proposals have been submitted for a painter, mover and carpet installer. Mrs. Howell and Dr. White have been meeting with the GC concerning timelines for Phase I of the firewall project. All wooden doors will have to be replaced as they are not fire rated. Door frames and the work above the ceiling tile has all been outlined in the document attached to your board packet.

All school furniture has been ordered for students and facility. Furniture is scheduled to be delivered before the first day of school.

Karen encourage Dr. White to reach out to Hands on Atlanta for assistance and support with some of the facility projects (paint, lawn services). They will pair the school with a corporate partner who will secure the financing of the paint project.

Curriculum Orders - Kelly Pierce has been assisting me and my staff with the ordering of curriculum. She has been sending out a weekly report to us to let us know the status of everything. Please see the latest report attached. Kelly has edited all of the PO's to only include enough product for the number of students that we currently have not and not the number that we were planning for.

After School Program - Dr. White, Dr. Chillis and Mrs. Jackson met with Attorney Nefetara Clark and Ms. Wilson, Shiloh Aftercare Director, concerning the MOU for the aftercare program. The response from Shiloh is attached to your Board Packet, however what they are proposing will not work for our population of students. They are proposing a fee of $80 per student, only to accept 25 of our students and a mandatory religious component to their program. Our families will not be able to afford $80 per week, we cannot have a mandatory religious component for our students and if we only have 25 slots available to our students what do we do with the remaining students whose families need aftercare? Dr. White has written a response back requesting an additional meeting. Dr. White also informed the Board that he has been speaking with the Director of Angels Paradise Early Learning Center and that she is willing offer our parents an option at her facility. Dr. White will have the Director prepare a proposed partnership agreement and discuss with the Board.

School Technology - School technology has been ordered for 150 students. This includes tablets, laptops/carts and interactive whiteboards. The Technology team is working diligently to have everything up and running by August 1. If computers don't arrive prior to August 1, Adam has prepared Dr. White and their is a plan in place. On June 29th Comcast installed the wiring for Internet, Phone and Fax lines.

Student Information Systems (SIS) - Infinite Campus - Kelly contacted Infinite Campus to ask that the license agreement be reduced from 255 students to 150 students. Brock from Infinite Campus reminded Kelly that there is a flat fee for schools up to 550. We will be charged a server fee of .75/student. Professional Development Implementation Dates are: Campus Intro/System Admin/Census/Enrollment (1 day): July 23, 2018.

Course Setup/Scheduling/Grading Set up (1 day) - July 27

Attendance/Behavior/Teacher Training (1 day) - July 30.

Secure P.O. Box for SLAM - Angelia Howell was able to open a PO Box for SLAM Atlanta. This is where all of our mail should be sent to. All package shipments will be sent to physical address at the church. The PO Box address is P.O. Box 92780, Atlanta, GA 30314.

Movement of church items to storage - Angelia Howell has secured a moving company to move church furniture items to storage. The cost for moving using 3 Men and A Truck is over $5,000. The church furniture movement will be coordinated with the new incoming furniture.

Secure Storage Unit - Angelia Howell has secured a storage unit to store the furniture items that the church does not have space to store on sight. SLAM will have to pay the monthly bill for these items for the duration of the lease. The monthly bill is roughly $215.00. The Storage Unit is located very close to the church at Atlanta Storage. 5 Shelton Avenue SW, Atlanta, GA 30310.

Human Resources Update - Dr. White has identified a highly qualified candidate that has accepted the Special Education Coordinator team member, Ms. Sonya Jones. Three teachers offer letters have been rescinded due to low enrollment numbers. 

Enrollment Update - As of July 19, 2017 we have newly recruited paritially enrolled a total of 24 students:

KG - 15

1st - 6

2nd - 7

3rd - 4

Note: Partially enrolled means they are newly recruited and have a staff member assigned to them who will follow up on getting all the necessary paperwork for full enrollment.

We currently have 71 fully fulled enrolled students:

KG - 19

1st - 12

2nd - 15

3rd - 25

We had 37 families who declined or changed their minds. Several of them left the 4th of July week. Parents said that the enrolled in KIPP STRIVE and Kindezi schools. Some parents said that they were moving our of Atlanta or out of the area.

Marketing Update - Today and last night we were at the Villages of Carver. We are recruiting from their Summer Camp program. They have allowed us to come every day if we chose to. Tomorrow, 7/20 we will visit Collegetown Garden. Saturday, 7/21 we will be at the Vine City Wal-Mart. July 23 -25 Community Canvasing with PAL Officers. July 28, West End Mall and July 29 we will host our first Back To School Bash at Mozley Park.

Elisa Falco - Georgia Charter School Association Partnership

VP Of School Services. Working with Charters since 2003. Danny Diaz contacted me regarding the correspondence received from the Commission. I provided a proposal to provide governance support. Once the Commission goes into contract with GCSA they will pick up the cost for my services. The school is in start-up mode now and Governance will look a lot different once the school is officially open. Because the board is small the recommendation is to run as a "committee as a whole" that will oversee each committee. Effective meetings, oversight and creating an effective communication structure.

Next steps. Set up a two hour block of time to asses training needs especially as it pertains to what the focus should be this first quarter.

Approval of Construction Company to bring the facility up to code per the City of Atlanta

School Building Code requirements are not on the first floor of the church specifically in the area where the classrooms are. Because of this we will have to do extensive repairs to bring the building up to code in order to get our COO. Our architect bidded out the work and two different companies were approached. Because of the tight schedules the larger company declined and Level Construction Company became by default the vendor who will perform the work. The projected cost for Phase I is $150,000.00. We have been advised that due to the time constraints that we have before the start of school to do the construction project in two phases. Phase I will be the first floor and Phase II will be the 2nd floor. The proposed finish date for Phase I is August 19. The majority of the work will be finished prior to that. The longest timeframe is the time that we will have to wait for the delivery of the doors. The construction company will keep us updated each week on the schedule. The GC has promised to inform us of any potential problems or unexpected delays.

@Daniel McKayhan asked if we can get the door specs from the GC and start reaching out to the door companies to see if we can get an expedited delivery of at least some of the doors. If successful this would speed up the time for the COO and the move into the classrooms. If it is possible to secure the door specs Daniel said that he would reach out to some of his constituents to see what he can do towards speeding up the door delivery date.

@Pardes Sulaiman asked Alina to draft a 5-year proposed budget on what the $150,000 investment will look like on the books. Alina agreed to put together the numbers and get back with the Board.

Academica Update

• School Insurance - Angelia Howell and Dr. White will work on the applications for insurance and submit for proposed pricing.
• Facilities Plan - The General Contractor has been selected and the work is scheduled to start in the next week.
• Future Board Meeting Dates and Times - It is required that the Board has a calendar for boar meetings. The Board needs to come up with a list of potential dates to be voted on for Board dates for the remainder of the year.
• Discuss whether or not to continue the use of Charter Board Application - The Board is still evaluating whether or not to continue to use CharterBoards. Angelia has complained of functionality issues with the application and not having a contact person to ask questions or receive training makes it even more of a difficult product to use. Elisa Falco knows the creator of the application very well and has agreed to reach out to him to let him know that we need to speak to him about our concerns.

SLAM Foundation Update

There was not an update from the SLAM Foundation at this time.

Fundraising and philanthropy

Karen discussed the possibility of saving the last open seat on the board for a parent instead of filling it with a philanthropic person. This would help to have parent by in, parent support and a parent voice on the board. The board will take this under advisement and consideration for another time.

Parades indicated that he will reach out to Atlanta United Soccer team for partnership opportunities. He will also reach out to Delta Community Engagement to see if they are willing to set up a partnership.

Discuss renegotiation of the current lease agreement

During the meeting that Danny Diaz and Angelia Howell had to bring Pastor Spann up to date on the construction project that they mentioned the need to sit down and have a conversation to renegotiation of the current budget. Due to the large investment that will be made in bringing the building up to code, the Board will need to secure a multi-year lease with the church instead of the current one year lease that is in place. This is important in order for the school to be able to successfully pay off the cost for renovations. Nefatara Clark will be emailed and asked to secure a date for the renegotiation conversations to begin.

The Meeting was Adjourned

The meeting adjourned at approximately 8:18 pm