The Governing Council convened its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, Feb 24 at 6:00 p.m.  It was a full agenda, here are a few highlights.

The School Accountability Committee (SAC) presented the  UIP (Unified Improvement Plan) narrative for discussion and approval so it can be submitted to our authorizers on time.  The narrative document summarized the academic performance for MPCS 3-8th graders on PARCC assessments that were done last year.  It also summarizes results of the fall NWEA assessments, which is the preferred assessment tool by the school.  Because the school has used NWEA since the beginning of its charter, it gives the Council a better picture of the progress made over the years as well as continued weaknesses.  The UIP identifies areas of strength and weakness for the school, reviews possible causes, and states the school plan for improvement.  It can be reviewed on the school website.

This month the Finance Committee presented a first draft budget for next year and a final budget will be presented in March.  They also presented revisions to the school’s salary scale after an analysis was done to review our competitiveness in the marketplace.  The salary scale revisions that were presented were competitive to other charter schools in the area.

The Director of Education presented a first draft calendar for the next school year.  There was a request to do a thorough evaluation to gather input from all stakeholders.  It was acknowledged that next year there will be more time to do a thorough review but for this year, the DE will be going to a Parent Council meeting to gather input from parents.  Next year, more work will be done to improve this process.

The Council will be starting the evaluation process of the school Directors in March and will be using a new system for evaluation, one that is based on their job descriptions versus Carver Policies.

Several policies were reviewed:

• GC Conflict of Interest was adopted
• Authorized Signature and Purchasing Policy was pushed to next meeting
• Revisions to the Enrollment Policy were adopted
• GC Committee Policy was reviewed
• Student Retention and Acceleration Policy was reviewed

Lastly, the Council formed an Ad-Hoc Committee to explore an ECE sliding scale tuition program.  The Diversity Committee made the request for the formation of this Ad-Hoc committee as a need to make the program more affordable for all families.

The Governing Council rescheduled its Special Meeting, that was called in February but cancelled, for Tuesday, March 15 at 6:00 p.m.  Everyone is encouraged to come to at least one Council meeting per year to understand more about the leadership of the school.