Notes from Board of Trustees Conference call meeting, 7/24/13

As taken by several parents who listened to the call. Please note that these are unofficial notes, intended to help share the information covered with other parents who were not able to call in. Given the teleconference nature of the call there may have been errors or omissions, which are those of the parents who took notes.
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 Alex [G] was not on the call, but all other board members were present. Elke Miller asked Sean McManus to run the meeting because she is in Germany and there was some concern it couldn't be run by someone not in California.

Material Revision:

1035 projected students by 2017-18 school year. Elke Miller had questions/doubts about the bell schedule.

2013-14-420 students
2014-15-600+ students can't remember exactly, but I think it was +125 and + 70 middle school kids, that would make it about 620 or so?

By 2017-18 we would have 225 middle school students.

Facility costs:

approximately 10x the amount we currently spend. John Mora seemed concerned by this, Katja Jahn, John Mora and Steve Frandsen will have a meeting with Gwenis Laura at ExEd [accounting firm] to walk them through the budget and double check all the formulas to make sure the numbers can be sustained.

Next year's fundraising numbers are conservative, set at $400k (less than $1000/student)

By 2014-15 Fundraising goal will be $641k.

Budget per student for classroom materials is 7% of overall budget, John M was concerned this is low.

Are the staffing numbers good enough for the new sizes the school will be?  Elke thought they seemed low.

Elke concerned with the lack of a language coordinator in the budget.  Feels there will be a need for perhaps 2 of them eventually (with bigger size), but we currently lack someone who has really studied language and knows it.

Elke wants to see us concentrate more on IB and German language components, this is why the school was started in the first place.

The material revision budget was not voted on, too many questions still outstanding.  The hope is that those questions can be addressed and the board will be in a better position to vote on this by the August 19 board meeting.

Facility:

Elke concerned with the lease outline/structure, that it could jeopardize the school's security.  This may have come from a clause that said we are in charge of repairs....but this seemed to get resolved later in the conversation.

Sean working on getting a letter of credit for $3mil (required for lease) from Charter School Capitol. They said they will work with us to get it.

If we do not grow bigger once we are there, or expand to HS, there will be a need to sublease out remaining space at school.

The building is held in a trust for the next 20 years, so it will not go up for sale. Landlords looking for long term tenant.

If the 'change of use' does not get approved we are NOT on the hook for the lease. 

The school year next year could start as late as end of August early September depending on the lease timeline...

Mentioned that a LAB occupied part of this building prior to it being vacant.  No other discussion regarding that. John did ask if we need a disclosure discussion/walk through.

Overall everyone seemed excited by this progress.