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North Valley Military Institute–Board of Trustee Meeting
Friday, December 8, 20179:00 a.m. in room 54
12105 Allegheny Street, Sun Valley, California 91352
MINUTES
- Call to Orderat 9:04 .a.m.
- Adoption of the Agenda- unanimous
- Public Comment – no public comment
- ACTION – Approval of the October, 2017 Board minutes - unanimous
- DISCUSSION - The board discussed the status of the appeal to the County, which was submitted Monday, December 4, 2017.
- INFORMATION, DISCUSSION AND ACTION – The board discussed the participation agreement in the El Dorado County Special Education Local Plan Agency (SELPA) and Assurances required as part of our application for membership in the EDCOE SELPA, which is a necessary step since we have been denied by LAUSD and need a new SELPA to which to belong. The board voted unanimously to accept the terms of the participation agreement and assurances.
- INFORMATION, DISCUSSION AND ACTION – The board discussed plans for a fund raising gala in second semester. The board voted unanimously to ask members Nordahl and Pruitt to collaborate on someone to headline a spring fundraising gala and then work with board member Deitch and Superintendent Ryan to find a place to hold the event. Then all board members will collaborate to invite various members of the community to that event.
- INFORMATION, DISCUSSION AND ACTION – The board reviewed and unanimously approved the First Interim Financial Report required as part of our fiscal reporting obligations to the district, county, and state. There was an extensive discussion about how we ensure we stay on track to meet those budget projections.
- INFORMATION, DISCUSSION AND ACTION – The board reviewed and approved the October financial statements submitted to LAUSD as part our obligations under the Notice of Concern issued by LAUSD regarding NVMI finances.
- ACTION – The board reviewed and unanimously approved bank statements as part of its fiduciary responsibility to closely monitor NVMI financial operations.
- INFORMATION, DISCUSSION AND ACTION – The board had an extensive discussion about private facilities options and unanimously approved a contract with Charter School Property Development.
- INFORMATION, DISCUSSION AND ACTION AS NOTED– The board discussed andasked questions it had of staff regarding these reports:
- OPERATIONS (Kellie Jackson):
- NVMI continues to participate in and be compliant with all drills on the SVHS campus including but not limited to a shelter in place drill held on 12/1/17. There are ongoing instances of false fire alarms which is considered very disruptive to classes. It may be a necessary evil as there appear to be plant based issues with alarms which go off in some areas but not others.
- NVMI has been successful in functioning on the copy paper and office supply donations provided by families but can certainly use more.
- NVMI continues to meet periodically with SVHS staff regarding shared use of the athletic facility; we have an ongoing issue over saturation of the field due to twice daily watering. SVHS's Athletic Director has shared her concern about the safety of the students however to date the plant manager has not made a change.
- DEAN (Gina Wilson): Citizenship Data
- 572 students enrolled.
- 151 have 0 permanent demerits
- 166 have 1-5 permanent demerits
- 156 have 6-19 permanent demerits
- 99 have 20 +
To deal with the students who have excessive demerits, we will be implementing the following plan: Those with between 20 and 39 will attend “boot camp” during finals week after the noon release. There will be a combination of PT, classroom and campus cleanup and reflection writing. Those students who have 40 or more will attend a “Refocus Camp” that will be run simultaneously with the Winter Entrance Camp. These students will re-learn the camp information and will also have daily written reflections. Students who “demerit out” of boot camp will be given the opportunity to participate in the Refocus Camp. Students who “demerit out” of Refocus Camp will forfeit their place at NVMI for the spring semester.
- ACADEMICS: (Laura Stribling and Trish Doering)
- Grades 7 and 8 have changed their groupings so that we can address the desire of some students and families to have an honors course. In doing this, we have established 4 main goals that will be the focus of this middle school group through the course of the school year:Increase attendance, Improve behavior, Increase test scores, Improve grades. All teachers involved are committed to working in these new groups and have already established a new set up for who is doing what part of the work load. In the Spring semester, the courses in each grade will be using the same lesson plans, modified for the rigor necessary for each group. There are three groups organized around achievement levels for each grade level.
- NVMI Students took the Read Literary Text Interim Assessment. This test is one of the many tools NVMI is using to help prepare students for the Smarter Balanced Assessments given at the end of the year. The students’ tests were graded collectively and teachers reviewed results. We are using these scores, as well as other tools, to gage student learning and to help create directed instructional plans. These tests are cumulative, and as it is the beginning of the year, we do expect students to test below where they will be at the end of the year. Use of the interim assessments could be integral to improving NVMI’s test scores over the long term. Currently, while this gfrt6has been helpful, we are limited in its implementation because of the lack of computer resources. Here is a breakdown of student scores: Literary Texts Interim Assessment – Testing #1
Grade / Below Standard / Near Standard / Above Standard
6 / 43% / 53% / 4%
7 / 62% / 35% / 3%
8 / 53% / 45% / 3%
High School / 39% / 53% / 9%
In order to improve test scores, NVMI has made the following plans. Starting at the beginning of the second semester, teachers will focus instruction on a series of SBAC skills including: Short Answer Writing/ Using the RACER strategy, Using Sample questions for Bell work, Creating grade teams to ensure lesson implementation, Creating a student recognition program to chart excellence and improvement and Creating specific lesson plans that target SBAC skills.
- ATHLETICS: We had an amazing Fall season --- girls volleyball made it to playoffs for the first time in school history. Football also made it to the first round of playoffs for their first season; unfortunately we had to play against the defending champions. Middle school flag football came in second in place they played an amazing game just falling short in the end. We currently started Winter sports on 11/27. The season will run into the beginning of February. Boys basketball took fourth place in the North Valley Tournament this past weekend. Girls basketball are 0-1; we have a couple returners with experience on this year’s team. Boys soccer are 1-2 majority of the team are made of 9th and 10th graders so the future looks bright. Girls soccer team is 3-0-1 they already matched their win totals from last year. We have 9 seniors on the girls soccer team. They are looking the strongest right now of all winter sports teams. Wrestling team had a couple tournaments and students Manny Favela and Christian Meza are dominating their weight class. Manny is 5-1 and Christian is 4-1. Middle school basketball starts in January; we will have one team for boys and one for girls; they will have a total of 8 games that will last until March
- SUPERINTENDENT (Dr. Mark Ryan):
- Prop 39 –
- NVMI received a bill from LAUSD for Summer Occupancy for almost $4000 which had no “backup” explaining how the fees were calculated. I have refused to pay the bill until such time as we receive backup justifying the calculations.
- NVMI received a revised Facilities Use Agreement outlining fees for the prorate share. There were several things in the calculations I believe to be inaccurate, including what I believe to be is double counting of staff an student restrooms, fees for student restrooms we are not using, and fees for a classroom that is far less than full size but being charged at nearly 1000 SF. I have refused to sign this amendment until these are corrected or justified by LAUSD.
- The fires prompted school closure early Tuesday and all day Wednesday, Thursday, and today. The board unanimously approved submission of the necessary paperwork to the state to recover lost ADA from the emergency.
- The chocolate sale is not resulting in anywhere near the level of sales we had in previous years. I am unsure as to why. The prices went up from $1 to $2 per bar, but instead of cases having 60 bars, they now have 30 and the size of the chocolate basically doubled. We will be far short of budget projections for chocolate fund raising as a result.
- The Parent Advisory Council (PAC) continues to plan and implement a variety of wonderful ongoing fund raising activities for families.
- The Annual Campaign has about $30,000 in commitments from families, but many families have not fulfilled commitments to date, and many families have not yet participated. The PAC is trying to get some parents to come into the main office to help call families who have not yet committed to participating.
- Two military staff members (Sgt Lara and Sgt 1st Class Martin) have resigned effective December 31. Sgt Lara will be pursuing his college education full time and Sgt Martin will be a stay-at-home dad for his new baby. For budget reasons, we will not replace these two losses.
- A change in the master schedule for second semester has been proposed by the military staff and academic counselor. Much discussion, debate, and “back and forth” about concerns and obstacles to the proposed change has occurred, and we will be implementing a final version of the change effective January 8, 2018. The change involves putting military science (LOC) classes back into the regular school day and pulling some military staff out of special education push in services.
- NVMI is preparing for our Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) three year-accreditation visit next school year. We are reviewing the action plan we developed three years ago and making notes of progress on that plan along with suggesting modifications to the plan for the remaining three years of our six year term of accreditation.
- SPECIAL EDUCATION (Karla Uribe): • 112 SPED students enrolled at NVMI (19% school population)
• 10 students with section 504 plans
• 4 current assessments for IEP services, 1 section 504 plan assessments
• 96.5% of IEPs are within the IEP timeline
• Eligibility numbers:
o 2 ED = 1.7%
o 1 HOH = .9%
o 8 AUT= 7%
o 2 SLI = 1.7%
o 38 OHI = 33.9%
o 62 SLD = 55%
- Adjourn to Closed Session:
- Public Employee Evaluation: Superintendent
- Conference with Legal Counsel: Potential Litigation (Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(4)) 1 case
- Return to Open Session
- Announcement of Action Taken in Closed Session – There are no action taken in closed session.
- ADJOURNMENT at 12:24.
FUTURE MEETING DATES (4PM in room 54 at 12105 Allegheny Street, Sun Valley, CA 91352):
January 25, 2018 |February 22, 2018 | March 22, 2018 | April 26, 2018 | May 24. 2018