CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW COMMITTEE

200 E. Wells Street City of Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Meeting Minutes CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW COMMITTEE KEVIN INGRAM, CHAIR Joyce Mallory, Vice-Chair Ruben Burgos, Samuel L. Coleman, Desiree Pointer-Mace, Raynetta Hill and Aycha Sawa Staff Assistant: Linda Elmer, (414) 286-2231 Fax: 286-3456, lelmer@milwaukee.gov Gayle Peay, 288-1540 Thursday, February 25, 2021 5:00 PM City Hall, Room 301-B This is a virtual meeting. Those wishing to view the proceedings are able to do so via the City Channel - Channel 25 on Spectrum Cable - or on the Internet at http://city.milwaukee.gov/citychannel. Individuals wishing to participate in this meeting may contact lelmer@milwaukee.gov prior to 3 p.m. the day of the meeting for the link. Meeting convened: 5:00 P.M. Present 3 - Sawa, Ingram and Hill Excused 2 - Pointer Mace and Burgos 1. Roll call. Sam Coleman present - only Ruben and Desiree excused - 5 members present. 2. Review and approval of the minutes of the October 13th, 2020 meeting. Ms. Mallory moved, seconded by Ms. Hill, for approval of the minutes. There were no objections. Mr. Coleman introduced himself. 3. 190981 Communication relating to administrative matters of the Charter School Review Committee for the 2019-2021 school years. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Ms. Janice Ereth said the state had applied for a waiver from standardized testing and the CSRC had made a requirement that all 11th graders take the ACT in the spring. As of Monday, the federal government issued a requirement that all states continue to administer standardized tests. The assumption is 11th graders will be taking the ACT in the spring. 4. 190980 Communication relating to the 2019-21 activities of Milwaukee Math and City of Milwaukee Page 1 CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW Meeting Minutes February 25, 2021 COMMITTEE Science Academy. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Mr. Alper Akyurek said that they have been able to keep their staff and students safe as well as accomplish many of their goals. MAESTRO did purchase a building on Sherman Blvd and tomorrow is the closing and the school will start moving next weekend. They are hoping to re-open on April 12th and all will go as planned. Crystal Bielmeier - administration has observed all of their teachers 7-8 times and may meet with the teachers prior to their planned observation. Observation has been helpful in that they can then offer suggestions to other teachers and can also make sure teachers are focusing in on the most-key targets. The virtual classes are smaller and they also have smaller break-out classes. Some of the kids are also just seeking emotional support, which the school staff provides as it can. The music teacher drives around fixing Chrome books and they also have a hot line for technical issues. The students are trying their best and the school is trying their best to support their students. The kids are tired of technology and they are providing incentives to keep their students motivated. Overall they are pretty satisfied with the 7th and 8th graders' growth; they are nervous about their students taking the Forward exam and there will be a Star exam as well as writing assessments, so a lot of testing in April and May. Chris Austria did some training on Google Classroom and teachers adjusted quickly and made it work for them and their students. Two teachers left - one in March and one this summer and the majority of students returned; a few moved out of state and a few went to in-person schooling. Mr. Alper can provide the exact numbers later. The 4th and 5th grade classes are small and the hopes is that the school on Sherman Blvd. will result in more students. The school stays with the MPS schedule of closings/in-person as it seems when MPS is closed, parents assume MMSA is closed. Some teachers were apprehensive about coming back in person, but now vaccines will be available for teachers starting Monday. Mr. Ingram noted that Fridays' attendances were always poor and if the administration thought of giving Fridays off? Ms. Bielmeier said that Fridays were small-group time, ESL time and special education time as well as Friday being a catch-up time for teachers to work with individual students. Mr. Alper noted that Friday attendance was lower, but it wasn't too low (80% with incentives). Mr. Coleman moved, seconded by Ms. Mallory, for acceptance of the report. There were no objections. 5. 190981 Communication relating to administrative matters of the Charter School Review Committee for the 2019-2021 school years. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Rupesh Gupta - ML Tharps Downtown Montessori Academy - school is in a very good financial position and has improved since last year. Ms. Sawa found two mistakes in the report, which ML Tharps will correct and she found similar mistakes in other reports so the formula may have been messed up when the information was imported. He will double-check all the numbers. It seems like the first year or two are wrong, but the older data is correct. This report will be re-scheduled for approval once the numbers are corrected. Central City Cyberschool - the school continues to be very financially stable and also improved from last year as well. There was one contract compliance violation noted by the auditor as they had an outdated written policy on the procurement process. A line is noted in the score card if a problem is found in the audit and that it has been corrected. Ms. Mallory encouraged Ms. Peay to alert the Board to any audit issues. Darryl L Hines - it had a positive trend for a number of years, but over the past two City of Milwaukee Page 2 CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW Meeting Minutes February 25, 2021 COMMITTEE years it has had a deficit ranging from $90,000 the prior year and $114,000 this past year. There were no issues found in the audit and it has complied with all requirements for this school year and the school appears to have a solid financial system. Milwaukee Academy of Science - school is in a very solid financial position; it did not apply for a PPE loan. There some issues with the audit due to COVID and was not completed by November 30th, but it was finalized in December. There were 5 findings in the audit that were of concern; the findings have not yet been corrected. Mary Goetter, who works with ML Tharp, was in contact with the school relating to these findings a week ago. DPI will be concerned with some of these findings, particularly relating to special education and food-costs. Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy - the school has a surplus close to $200,000 and continues to receive significant outside contributions. It has dramatically improved its financial position in the past few years. The audit had no issues. Milwaukee Math and Science Academy - they had deficits for a couple of years and broke even one year and has an asset balance of $196,000. Their cash balance is a little lower than last year, but their current ratio of assets to debt is higher. The audit was submitted on time and there were no findings. The school has a new management company that started in February 2020, MAESTRO. Ms. Mallory is concerned that enrollment has decreased and revenue is consistently decreasing and the score card should be lower this year than last year, rather than being the same. This is the only school with a management company. Escuela Verde - the school has been doing relatively well with very low enrollment and is able to manage its expenses to maintain a surplus. The school did take a PPE loan of $519,000. There were no concerns with the audit. Adjourned: 6:33 P.M. Linda M. Elmer Staff Assistant This meeting can be viewed in its entirety through the City's Legislative Research Center at http://milwaukee.legistar.com/calendar. City of Milwaukee Page 3