CCSC BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
7:00 PM, TKP2
CALL TO ORDER
The Board of Directors meeting was called to order at 7:20 PM after an oversight meeting.
Present: Sarah Adler, Lena Boot, Caren Drezner, Daniel Garcia, Teresa Gonsoski, Julia Hartung, Jonathan Herbach, Kelda Jamison (by phone), Ryan Jusko, Bruce Macintosh, Ellen Payne, Dave Poole, Aaron Richardson, Mary Stevens
Absent: Ilana Horwitz
Community members present: None
The minutes from the February meeting were approved.
UNIVERSITY LIAISON’S REPORT (Raju)
Raju has been receiving very positive feedback about the reflective practices program at Stanford child care centers. The WorkLife Office has decided to partner with Program for Infants and Toddlers for all child care centers at Stanford. This program has foundations in RIE and Reggio Emilia, and will help to build the foundation for early childhood programming at Stanford, including building relationships, continuity of care, and primary caregivers. This will not necessarily lead to a change in CCSC’s philosophy and approach. We are not yet sure what form this partnership will take (e.g., in-class training, after-hours training).
DIRECTOR’S REPORT (Caren)
Our grant proposal was approved for $5000 from the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund to make improvements to the infant and toddler outdoor spaces.
A new LKP1 teacher, Tiffany, will begin on April 1st, and will also join for the staff development days.
PlayFest planning is progressing smoothly. Requests for recycled and found materials will go out around April 1st.
Caren has prepared a preliminary budget proposal for next year. Scenario 1 = same as this year: 1.5–3% tuition increase, 4% salary increase; scenario 2 = 2% tuition increase, 5% salary increase (not quite balanced); scenario 3 = 1.5–3% tuition increase, 5% salary increase. Other child care centers generally appear to be raising annual tuition by 3–5%.
TREASURER’S REPORT (Bruce)
This month the center had a small net loss, counterbalancing the surplus over the last several months. We need to determine whether this is a steady-state, given the substantial increase in costs for floater benefits, as opposed to several expenses that should be one-off charges. Finance Committee will convene to discuss the proposed budget.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT (Sarah)
An incomplete proposal was submitted in response to the request for proposals for the new Redwood City Stanford child care center. Judith Presser from WFD suggested hiring a professional grant writer to complete the proposal, which is due in 2.5 weeks (April 8). A WFD consultant can provide input on both thinking through the process of developing the center and completing the necessary paperwork for the proposal. Contacts are being sought for this role, with the potential cost to be ascertained. Realistically, a consultant needs to be identified by the end of this week or beginning of next week (March 28); Sarah will work on this and will seek input from Judith.
A discussion took place about whether CCSC should continue to pursue this application, with the understanding that a substantial amount of start-up financial support would be required from Stanford to develop a new center.
Ellen will recirculate the community email from the Communications Committee.
Stock Farm CCLC child care center opened in October 2014 and is heavily enrolled in the infant and toddler classrooms, but children often go to other child care centers on campus for preschool, which always has openings. A letter that was not approved by the WorkLife Office was distributed prematurely to Stock Farm parents; a meeting between Stock Farm and WorkLife Office is planned next week. Note that CCSC was not mentioned in the letter that went to Stock Farm parents, but we should ensure that they know about CCSC as an option. Keep in mind that families offered a space may have been taken off the wait list.
Six current board members will be graduating and/or terming out (Sarah, Bruce, Kelda, Aaron, Dave, Ellen). Interest in officer positions has not yet been expressed.
Favored designs for the CCSC T-shirt were discussed.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:25 PM.
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