MINUTES
Christian Schools of Florida
FallExecutive Meeting
The Christ School (Orlando)
Friday, September 26, 2014
9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
In Attendance: Mike Critch, LuAnne Schendel,Sue Taylor,Dana James, Ken Trotter, Betsy Wilson, Jeff Myers, Beth Travis, Joanna Johannes, Dan Vande Pol,Jenn Thompson, Ken Wackes (via Skype)
Not attending:None
Opened in prayer – Mike Critch
Director of Accreditation – Sue Taylor
Change of Head
Bradenton Christian – Dan Vande Pol
Providence Christian – Eileen Baas
Orangewood Christian – Don Larson
Kendall Christian – Alex Gispert
Spanish River – Cheryl Burdin – She will need to complete her MA plan by 4-20-15.
9-2014-1 – Motion: To approve the change of Head of Schools as reported by Director of Accreditation, Susan Taylor. (James/Wilson) Motion passed. (Report is attached.)
Change of program
Orangewood – They are adding a K4 program.
Cornerstone Academy – They are adding a K4 program.
Kendall Christian – They are adding the Early Start program, which merged the two schools that are on the campus. – A physical inspection of the Level II background check will need to be completed before October 1, 2014. The check will be completed by Jenn Thompson.
Maitland Preschool – They are adding a PT Kindergarten.
Redeemer – They are planning on adding 9th grade next year at the High School level. The visit will occur on 10/3/14 by Dana James.
Lighthouse Private Christian – They are adding 11th and 12th grade High School levels. This visit will occur on 10/14-15/14 by Mike Van Hoven.
9-2014-2 – Motion: To approve the change of programs by Director of Accreditation, Susan Taylor. (Schendel/Thompson) Motion passed. (Report is attached.)
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Peer Review Visit and Teams
Cambridge Christian: Dana James, PRT Leader
Team: Dan Vande Pol (SACS), Sarah Wilson-Hyde, John DeMaster
Lake Worth Christian: Jennifer Thompson, PRT Leader
Team: Mike Critch (MSA), Terry Pond, Tim Euler
Trinitas Christian: Tim Mitchell, PRT Leader
Team: Jerry Pullen, Diana Parfait
Kingdom Christian Academy and Precious Children Preschool: LuAnne Schendel, PRT Leader
Team: Betsy Wilson, Luke Butler
Annual Private School Survey
Susan Taylor handed out a report. She stated that MSA and NCPSA are not currently used in this survey. Ken Wackes said that MSA might be added soon because of so many vested in MSA. LuAnne will contact the DOE, School Choice to see if MSA and NCPSA can be added to the database for the survey.
CSF Annual Report and Two Year Accreditation Report
The committee reviewed annual reporting and two year accreditation reports and how to complete documentation. The documents all need to be completed online. Some committee members had trouble navigating the documents on the CSF website, possibly due to changes in positions. Director of Teacher Certification, Betsy Wilson has concerns on her new webpage. Invoices for Annual Report were sent out this week.
Membership Report
(1) Schools (* Accredited) added since 2004-2005 (40% of current membership)
•Redeemer*
•High Point*
•Cornerstone*
•Lighthouse*
•Trinitas*
•Sunshine*
•All Villages
•IBCK
•Kingdom*
•Maitland*
•No Limits
•Starke
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Christian Schools of Florida
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(2) Original CSF schools (1985):
•Westminster Christian
•Westminster Academy
•Fort Lauderdale Christian
•Spanish River Christian
•Orangewood Christian
•Bradenton Christian
•Seminole Presbyterian (Cambridge)
•Lake Worth Christian
•Bethany Christian
•Wellington Christian
(3) Weak schools closed in June 2014 after one year of operation:
•Naples Christian Classical —has morphed into a Classical Charter School (2004)
•FreshStart (K3-K4) —loss of resources and facility
•CVV (K3-K4) —joined as members but never opened
(4) Schools Closed since 2004:
•Ft Lauderdale Christian (2003)
•Wellington (2004)
(5) Schools retained in membership after head changes since 2004: (every school a member in 2004 has had at least one change of head)
•Orangewood (2)
•Westminster Academy (2)
•Westminster Christian (2)
•Kendall (2)
•Granada (2)
•Bradenton (1)
•Providence (2)
•Summit (2)
•Covenant Palm Bay (3)
•Covenant Panama City (3)
•Seven Rivers (1)
•Redeemer (1)
•Pinewood (3)
•Christ School (1)
•Weekday School (1)
•Bethany (4)
•Spanish River (1)
•Lake Worth (1)
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** One topic is that CSF needs to make sure new Heads understand the benefits of the organization.
*** FCIS is improving their relationship with its current members.
Programs discontinued since 2004:
•Student competitions
•Regional teacher workshops
Enrollment
See attached documents.
MIP Inservice
Reminder that activities are to be submitted to Susan Taylor prior to the activity. Most teachers are looking for the new ESE requirement of 20 hours. Teachers can also bank hours for recertification. ** Betsy Wilson will talk to the ESE teacher at Orangewood. The person will be asked to design an ESE course for CSF administration.
MIP Expansion
The additional ESE components should be added to our current MIP process. Report given.
9-2014-3 – Motion: To approve 2014-2015 Master Inservice plan as presented by Susan Taylor. (Vande Pol/James) Motion passed. (Report attached.)
9-2014-4 – Motion: To receive as information the report given by the Director of Accreditation, Susan Taylor. (Myers/Trotter) Motion passed. (Report is attached.)
Treasurer’s Report–Dana James
The website is improving. In addition, each teacher needs to register individually. If the website will require more improvements, then there will be an additional cost to the website. FCIS has paid $500, but still owes $1500 for last year.
Enrollment has grown even with Wellington leaving. Revenue and Expenses are pretty stable. The main variable that changes our budget is technology. If our Accreditation process changes, there will be an expense in changing the website to update the pages. This will be reflected in the 2015-2016 budget.
Ken suggests that Dana look into increasing the cost per student for our next budget cycle. Dana stated that we need to increase the cost per student or increase our enrollment. He suggested establishing a strategic plan for increasing the membership by advertising our organization.
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9-2014-5 – Motion: To receive as information the report given by the Treasurer, Dana James. (Johannes/Vande Pol) Motion passed. (Report is attached.)
Ken made the suggestion that the Treasurer of CSF become bonded.
Legislative Report
FAANS meeting was on Tuesday. LuAnne’s report will be coming.
Topics:
1. Tax Scholarship increased its funding.
2. Students who were in foster care, they will immediately be eligible for Step Up funds.
3. Funding for VPK increased this year.
Schools are not allowed to pass the charge for convenience fees to families for credit cards when paying tuition for private schools.
New regulation require any school looking for Gold Seal status will need to become licensed. Many schools are leaving the Gold Seal program.
FAANS tried to get the legislator to give back the students in private schools to have access to Florida Virtual School for McKay students.
If a school is involved in School Readiness, mandatory curriculum is being required. Schools need to be aware that this doesn’t transition into the VPK program.
A second organization, Triple A scholarship has been developed as a competitor to Step Up.
All schools have to make sure that teachers have background checks and are run through the discipline database.
There is an exemption form for FHSAA concerning gender equity policy. Schools have to file the form with FHSAA and the form is on their site. FHSAA is going to review the policy that only allows students with visas to be able to compete for one year.
***** Ken recommends that anyone who looks to receive high school credit for a class needs to include a disclaimer in their parent/student handbooks informing them that every student could be required to take any End of Course exams for credit at their public school upon transfer. *****
LuAnne will submit a report at a later date.
9-2014-6 – Motion: To receive as information the report given by the Director of Legislative Affairs, LuAnne Schendel. (Johannes/Vande Pol) Motion passed. (Report will be coming.)
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Early Childhood Report
Covenant Christian of Panama City has a person who has directed another child program before and she has her Master’s degree in Early Learning. They don’t have VPK and are questioning if they need to have a credential. The school can’t be accredited through CSF and have to be accredited through their county. Covenant will either have to take the courses to be credentialed or get accredited through a different organization.
Ken is going to confirm that there is a Florida Statue (F.S. 402.305(2)(f)) requiring the director of an early education program to be credentialed no matter whether they are a licensed or license-exempt school.
9-2014-7 – Motion: To receive as information the report given by the Director of Early Education, Beth Travis. (Wilson/Johannes) Motion passed. (Report is attached.)
Minutes – Jeff Myers
Minutes for the General and Executive meetings from the Spring were presented.
9-2014-8 – Motion: A motion was made and approved to accept the minutes from the Spring 2014 meeting as submitted by the Secretary, Jeff Myers. (Thompson/Vande Pol) Motion passed. (Report is attached.)
MIP Expansion Proposal
Susan Taylor came to the organization with two programs that are available for professional development. Those two programs are through ACSI and Catapult Learning.
As an organization, do we want to look at getting involved one of these two groups? There has been questions on how are teachers can get their ESE points and this is one option.
Susan then presented a proposal from Simple K12. This required 1000 users for approximately $24000. Some of the program is broken into different tools, like bullying intervention, collaboration, and classroom management.
Lastly, CLC was discussed. Their focus is ESE. Cost is $180 per person. It also requires that everyone works through the curriculum at the same time. This doesn’t allow for a person to go at their own pace.
9-2014-9–Motion: To request our member schools to respond to CSF with a list of possible trainers for a clearinghouse, and for them to also compile a list of potential DVD/Videos that are available to distribute for the organization, and lastly, to see how many individuals from the member schools would be interested in joining SimpleK12 type program. Additionally, Susan will work on trying to bring in a person to do an ESE inservice training for administrators during one of our upcoming meetings. (James/Vande Pol) Motion passed.
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Accreditation Standards
There is a concern about the redundancy in standards. Several strands have similar standards. This created the question of whether or not we should reduce.
9-2014-10 – Motion: To create a subcommittee (James/Schendel/Vande Pol/Taylor) that will be able to review the standards in the process to reduce redundancy and re-evaluate the media center/library components and any other components. (Trotter/Johannes) Motion passed.
Strategic Plan for CSF Leadership
Ken has done most of the behind the scenes activities for years. Now, Sue has been taking on more leadership roles. She also has a finite time to lead in that capacity as well. What is our long term vision of the role of the Executive Director? Is it a president or a staff person as well?
9-2014-11 – Motion: To create a subcommittee (James/Schendel/Thompson/Taylor) to develop a 5 year strategic plan or structure for the development of leadership and finances, and return in January with the proposal that can be presented for approval. (Trotter/Thompson) Motion passed.
9-2014-12–Motion: To adjourn meeting. (Wilson/Thompson) Motion passed.
Dana James closed in prayer.