BARNSTABLE COMMUNITY HORACE MANN CHARTER PUBLIC SCHOOL
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Todd Carley(Chair) TBD(Vice-Chair) Beth-Anne Allen (Secretary) Timea Menyhart (Treasurer) Eric R. Steinhilber
John Burnett Patty HorganKen Keenan Travis Cundiff Shelby Powers Steve Thompson Cathy Milne (non-voting)
Sheila Kukstis (Principal)
Mission Statement:The mission of BCHMCPS is to create a nurturing and safe learning community that will engage, educate and challenge a diverse K-3 population to achieve the highest level of academic excellence. We foster the development of respectful and responsible students who are contributing participants in their education, and in their community. We support continuous improvement in the teaching process, and cultivate parent and community partnerships.
Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes
Monday,June 19, 2017 at 5:30PM
Meeting Location:HYCC, Conference Room, 141Bassett Lane, Hyannis
Present: Todd Carley, Beth-Anne Allen, Timea Menyhart, John Burnett, Patty Horgan, Ken Keenan, Sheila Kukstis, Cathy Milne
5:30Principal’s Report – Sheila reported enrollment as 315 students for next year. Two new students were added from most recent registration period. Sheila called Charter office, they said enrollment is set at 475 for our Charter. Beth Anne and Patty said that we have told them several times that enrollment should be reduced for new building. Charter update: site visit will be in November/December. CPR review is the week before February vacation.
Judy Nazarro, special ed assistant, is retiring this year. As of Friday, June 23rd, Terry Corbett and Rose Rogan resigned their daycare positions. Sheila and Michelle Genduso have collected all of the paperwork for the daycare. Sheila would like to look at numbers enrolled, she’d like to make it available to all who need it. We can add more staff to meet the need. She would like to hire one supervisor to oversee the program. Timea reminded the board that she previously suggested that we hire a daycare coordinator. Ken Keenan suggested that we should try to hire bilingual workers. Also, he wanted to make sure that we can offer any incoming student daycare, as it will be a big selling point for the school.
Patty brought up rewording job titles of recess assistants. Sheila believes that it is a district contract with a job description that does not include working with students. Patty said we also need to look at their working hours. We need the money to pay for people that can work with children. If they come in at 9:00 and don’t have any responsibility until recess at 11:00, and can’t work with children, we are wasting that money. Ken brought up the fact that this may cut their healthcare benefits and they may complain about that. Sheila is open to rearranging their 25 hours a week to make their time more effective. Patty thinks the need is great to have more people working in with the children. We lost two first grade literacy assistants, and we will really need that support for the children moving up from kindergarten. Beth Anne suggested getting a copy of the actual contract.
A special education teacher has not yet been hired. The job may need to be posted again.
Curriculum: After the taking stock, we have two curriculum cadres, writing and science.
Timea suggested that we come up with a task list for the July meeting. We will need to figure out the daycare situation solution.
Review of student/parent handbook for 2017/2018 is underway. Let Sheila know by July if anything needs to be updated.
Sheila is taking the first two weeks of July off. She will be in the building T/W/TH through the remainder of July and then will return to 5 day work weeks before school starts in August.
6:00 Call Meeting to Order – meeting called to order at 6:00
Public Comment: None
Review Public Comment Protocol
Please limit comments to three (3) minutes per individual/group. There is no discussion or action on ‘Public Comment’ items. The Board will take items under advisement or the individuals may request topics to be placed on a future agenda. The Chair will also allow public comment at his/her discretion during meetings.
6:05Approval of Minutes for: May 22, 2017 Minutes approved and will be posted by Beth Anne.
6:06Subcommittee/School Group Reports:
Enrollment Committee –updates in Principal’s report.
Finance Committee- no meeting was held in May for June closing. FY17 audit has begun. Timea confirmed with Sheila that we are still looking at divider quote and math curriculum. For the 5 year contract for math, we will split cost between two fiscal years.
Timea reviewed Executive Summary, which is attached. Salaries over the summer are always a mystery; if we hit $2.5M for salaries, we will have $40K to look at for other expenses. Dividers should be priority, and the math curriculum. Timea would like to include a cushion in case we have a salary expense overage – approx. $10K. Half of the math curriculum should be doable. John questioned whether we have enough to cover the curriculum that is being requested. Timea said that we do. Timea said that the financials are difficult to decipher with salaries because some are covered by money allocated by the district and some are charter initiated and need to be covered by other sources. Friends used to pay part of the enrichment teacher’s salary, but now it all comes from the Board’s budget; friends does not contribute to it any longer. Beth Anne said that the enrichment teacher was always a board initiative but Friends took off and was able to pay for some of it. Timea stated that first grade assistants, bookkeeper, and enrichment teacher are all Board funded. Questions arose about new hire of third grade position. MOU covers only a certain portion of a salary for that person. It may not cover all salary expense of an experienced teacher. Todd said he put a note on the MOU to make sure that it is covered in full.
Timea would like to decide if we are signing a 3 year or a 5 year contract for the math curriculum.
Shiela brought up the district request for us to align our new math curriculum to the district’s curriculum map. This will need to be done by August 2nd. Michelle Fravel will work on this with Sheila. Sheila would also like a teacher representative to work with the district on their curriculum mapping initiative.
Fundraising Committee – Todd reported that they met with the new fundraising company. Rose requested we skip a payment because they have not made the progress they hoped to. RoseMary Resnick is getting all the ducks in row and will kick off a campaign soon. She is building the school profile. They will be going after grants, rather than soliciting private donors. Patty wanted to know if anyone had heard of the Wallace Foundation; Todd said no. Todd will ask the fundraisers if they know of it.
Personnel Committee– no updates
CADRES – Beth Ann handed out Taking Stock notes. Our priorities became our cadres; writing curriculum, science curriculum, and professional development cadres. We also have an MTSS group with grade level representation. Timea asked if Beth Ann would be interested in staying on as the internal ASP coach for next year.
Todd asked what the budgeting questions were from the staff that came up during the taking stock. Beth Ann said that teachers used to get reimbursed for supplies. Timea said that the district has been cutting us short on kindergarten assistant funding since the grant ran out so we have been trying to catch up from that. She discouraged putting a dollar amount out there for teacher spending, stating that everything should go through a PO. Beth Ann said that it all does. Cathy gave examples of the things that teachers may want to bring in that are not on a typical supply list. She said it means a lot to the teachers. Timea said it’s not really a question for the Board, that it’s the principal’s call.
Beth Ann also recommended that we put out a staff survey at the end of the year. Traditionally, the Board put it out, but Todd thought it should come from the Principal. One will be created for next year.
Ken referred back to the cadre report. It set up a professional development cadre but the budget does not have a line item for professional development. Timea said that the previous principal had cut it from the budget. Ken mentioned a conference that was ASP related, Confratute. It may be beneficial to have some staff attend this conference.
PTO – no update
Friends of BCHMCPS – no update
Charter Renewal Committee– no update
6:30Board of Trustees Update/Discussion
District MOU– Todd reported that MOU needs to be updated to develop budget for FY2018. He said that we are waiting for information from the district before we can proceed.
According to the MOU, we were supposed to give Sheila a formative evaluation in the winter, that wasn’t done but a summative is being prepared by Eric.
The district leadership council would like a representative from our school to join them. They meet 3 times a year. Todd asked if anyone was interested. Nov 15, Feb 7, April 4th. They update curriculum across the district. Beth Anne will go in Nov, Cathy will go in Feb and April.
2017-2018 BOT Meeting Schedule
Beth Ann requested a date for a Board workshop. It was agreed that the online DESE requirements would be the workshop for this summer.
Tuesday, July 18th at 5:30 @ HYCC (Todd will check on availability of HYCC)
Todd recommended meeting in committees every month but then as a whole board every other month. Beth Ann was not comfortable with this. Ken noted that 2 out of 3 meetings when he has been present have had public comment; if we have fewer meetings these issues may not be addressed in a timely manner.
Monday, August 21st
Monday, September 25th
The rest of the calendar will be set up at July meeting.
7:18 Regular meeting adjourned; Executive Session began to discuss retaining an attorney for helping to determine if two staff members should be dismissed for unethical behavior. Executive session adjourned at 7:45.
Please note: It is possible, if it so votes, the Board may go into Executive Session. The Board may act on items in a different order than they appear on this agenda.