GatewayLabSchool

Operations & Sustainability Committee

DATE:January 7, 2015,6:00pm

LOCATION:Panera Bread, Kirkwood Highway, Wilmington, DE

Minutes

Meeting called to order 6:02pm

Present: Zane Gordy, Pamela Draper, Joyce Henderson and Rachel Anderson

Absent: Nate Schwartz, Catherine Dolan

Updates:

Joyce spoke with Donna Johnson from the Department of Education and she recommended the next steps following the Charter renewal: Discuss Strategic Plan; Goals; Outline plans to measure

performance. Also recommended we talk with Laymont Brown from Eastside Charter School to learn best practices in these areas.

Action Item: Contact Laymont Brown from Eastside Charter Schol

Discussion: Smarter Balance is requiring 30% of students to pass. Concern about holding Gateway accountable to a standard that only expects mainstream schools to pass at only a rate of 30%.

Discussion regarding data collection that demonstrates other student progress than Smarter Balance Exam Scores. DCAS data that was presented for the Charter Renewal was a sampling of the school –showing all students showed growth in English and Math (100% growth in Math and 95% showed some kind of growth in English). Some students in the sampling went from scores of 1’s to 4’s overall.

New Business
Motion to add Celebratory Event; Board Training and Advisory Board to the agenda. Seconded and Approved.

Board Profiles – recommendation to recruit one additional parent to the board to build sustainability.

Board Training – Rachel to conduct a board training, Pam and Joyce will attend to support the training. The board packet will need to be updated prior to the training. Objective would be to schedule the training in February.

Action Item: Rachel will send recommended dates to four new board members.

Celebratory Event–discussion about coordinating an event to celebrate the renewal of the charter. Recommendation was made to coordinate the event with the winter concert. Ideas included having a sundae bar and dessert buffet (cupcakes and cheesecakes).

Action Item: Check with GFF to coordinate together, they are possibly working on ideas for a celebration as well.

Advisory Board – It’s timely to resurrectan Advisory Board for Gateway. Ideas included hosting meeting once a year, involving key political constituents and industry leaders. Possibly holding a meeting prior to the Annual Retreat Meeting Start (for first hour of meeting) and utilizing advisory board members for expertise in areas throughout the year.

Action Item:Rachel will draft an overview for the Advisory Board responsibilities and time line with next steps. Board members will be asked to send recommendations for potential advisory committee members by 1/31/15 (should send e-mail contact, name and company) and letters will go out to those recommended by 2/16.

*Additional discussion took place about the list of supporters that was gathered during the charter renewal process.

Action Item: Recommend to gather into a database format for future use.

Head of School Performance Evaluation

A 360 review on the head of school performance from teachers, board members, and other administrators is scheduled to begin.

Action Item: Zane and Rachel will also review the current performance evaluation format and provide comments for any recommended changes by 1/16.

Timeline

  • Format (for next year) to be reviewed by OPS Committee Members by 1/16
  • 360 sections to be sent to Teachers, Administrators and Head of School by 1/12
  • Returned to the Board 1/23
  • Compiled and Provided to OPS Committee on 2/4
  • Returned to Head of School 2/9 for comments
  • Meeting with Head of School will take place at the 2/18 OPS Meeting

Action Item: Request that Catherine Dolan, Head of School, provide update on timeline completion, and update of administrator and faculty performance evaluations.

*Recommended that OPS meetings remain bi-weekly until we meet with Terry Quinn and put in place data capturing and measurement models systems.

Data Capturing

What the board would like to see dashboard results on a regular basis?

  1. Progress on IEP Goals
  2. Report on growth from previous school to current MAP, Smarter Balance, Etc scores.
  3. Longitudinal data provided annually on alumni and parents
  4. Behavior Report or other Social/Emotional Report
  5. Enrollment/Retention Report

Action Item: Rachel will find out the name of the database that High Schools or Colleges with Pre-college program use to track students who matriculate.

Discussion about researching a proposal for hiring a graduate assistant to serve as a data analyst for the school. Once the modification is approved, and if enrollment goals are met, there may be funding available to hire temporary staff for data entry as well as additional paraprofessionals.

Alternative Review Team (Task Force)

  • Ensure school meeting criteria in alternative framework
  • Report out to the Board on a regular basis providing updates on those criteria
  • Charged with designing the database and reporting structure that would be implemented by the school
  • Timeline of service on task force would be thru January 2016
  • Can use the Data Services Center to create the actual database

Motion made by Joyce Henderson : Create an Alternative Review Team Task Force to design a database and reporting structure to measure metrics for the school. Seconded by Zane Gordy. Approved.

Old Business

Review of the 2015-2019 Strategic Plan for the Operational Sustainability Committee

Discussion Points and recommended edits included:

  • Discussion with Dorcell (financial advisor) about pursuing other revenue generating opportunities (before care, tutoring)
  • 21st Century Learning Center Grant about afterschool opportunities in the future discussed
  • Grants falls under community outreach committee- that item will be moved
  • Recruitment Goals component will move to Community Outreach Committee – OPS will still have oversight ability of the component
  • School Expansion time line will need to be updated (no longer 2015-2016)
  • Add component for researching expanding buildings in the future to accommodate growth, purchasing land or new facility
  • Keep conduct research for expansion to 1-2 grades (invite DASL to this conversation)
  • Move Robust Prof Dev Training Budget to Academic Rigor Committee
  • Develop accountability for action plans for GLS administrators will be moved to Academic Rigor to create plan and OPS will have oversight
  • Discussion about Hiring & Growth components – re-word Cultivate Relationships component to reflect create a student teacher program.
  • Move Prof Dev Annual Needs Assessment and Ongoing IEP Training to Academic Rigor
  • Re-word Policy & Procedures
  • Strike the last line from build and cultivate network.
  • Review of the 2014-2015 Statement of Purpose; Short Term Plan

Meeting Adjourned at 8:23pm

Submitted by Rachel Anderson