Opening
Meeting called to order at 5:06pm. Agenda and minutes were motioned for review and approval and were board approved with the following corrections:
- The policy of the school is that the reserve fund of million dollars, beyond the amount necessary for an emergency school closing is maintained at all times.
Board Decision: Minutes approved
This is the first time that the school has reported 700 student enrollments. There was a long conversation about recruitment of teachers since Walter and some of his staff recently returned from a recruitment fair in Thailand. Walter stated that it would be somewhat of a limitation only looking for Americans, as there is a shortage of teachers in the U.S. and internationally. In addition, there are many other nationalities that have equal or higher skill levels, but due to visa issues the school cannot actively recruit these potential candidates. Additionally, the location of Bangladesh is not as attractive as some other locations. Perhaps this is a strategic issue as there is going to be an ongoing teacher shortage in certain subjects. The school administration and board must consider carefully what will this mean for how we will go about recruitment.
We should re-consider having the high school kids take their exams after coming back from the winter holiday break, as many students and teacher expressed concerns about the stress of taking exams so soon after the holiday…
We need to have board elections organized 6 weeks before the general meeting. There are only 3 returning board members (Sonia, Tracy and Diane). There needs to be a nominating committee. Diane has accepted to chair the committee. Normally we have about 5 people on the nomination committee.
Diane Lindsey, Tracy Koehlmoos, Sonia Kabir, a PTA Representative, Gary Mignano, and perhaps others would form the committee, Ann Walton will ask the Korean ambassador’s wife if she would like to be on the nominating committee as well.
Action items
- Adoption of the vision
- Development of the working strategic plan
Action item- adoption of the vision
We want to do three things tonight; look at the vision statement that Walter drafted. The second item is to look at the draft strategic goal document with regard to program areas. We need to confirm with the school administration that these are the program areas we will address in the strategic plan.
The board will look at the template, as presented by Keith, on what will be filled out and then the school will fill it out and then they will bring it back to the board for approval in either April or May.
There was a discussion on the draft vision statement, which everybody thought it was fine.
Board decision to pass the following vision: Preparing students to become stewards of a just and sustainable world. It was moved by Tracy Kohlmoses and seconded by Sonia Kabir. The motion was approved by consent.
Action item- strategic plan
The Board Strategic Planning Consultant, Keith Cundale led a long discussion on the strategic plan. The board went through a summary of proposed strategic initiatives to meet identified gaps. This will need to be revised and further reviewed. Additionally more detail will need to be given. Keith will provide the minutes on this section of the meeting.
Information items: Meeting ended at 8:10pm |
