Alpine CC Board Minutes
6:00 pm Wednesday, August 10th, 2021 at ACC
Present: Dorothy Brinckerhoff, Rachelle Payne, Melissa Meyer, John Scott, Joyce Long, Roger Irvin (by phone)
1. Discuss & approve minutes of the previous meeting
Approved.
2. Review board email votes since last meeting
None.
3. Prioritize Agenda
4. Review and Accept Financial Reports
Financial reports for July. Dorothy sent the reports out during the meeting. We will review them and vote to accept them in a couple days, via email.
5. Sublet Negotiations for New Location for the Resale Shop
John reported that he saw that Shirley’s stuff was out on Andi’s side of the building in late July, but there is still much to do.
Melissa displayed the “Coming Soon!” banner she has had printed.
Dorothy reported that she has not had any further discussions with Andi about formalizing our sublease or a schedule for moving in.
6. Hiring Rachelle Payne as Our New Preschool Teacher
Joyce & Melissa reported that the recruiting committee interviewed Rachelle Payne, found that she meets our requirements for our preschool position and was enthusiastically interested in the position. They offered her the job as our new teacher, and she accepted.
The board discussed how Rachelle’s new status as an employee affects her service as a board member. Article IV, sections 8 & 11 of our bylaws address this, and specifically provide for the possibility that directors may serve as compensated staff or contractors of ACC, as long as the disinterested directors approve and all aspects are openly disclosed.
All directors (excluding recused Rachelle) agreed that Rachelle can continue to serve as a director, get paid to attend part of the period of our board meetings as an employee, and can attend the balance of the meeting period without compensation in her role as a board member.
7. Planning for Preschool Reopening
Joyce, Melissa, and Rachelle have spent much time on preparing the classrooms and materials for the new school year. .
Enrollment Status: we have 11 or 12 in the 4 yr olds class, have 9 probable students in the 3 yr olds class, but the roster is still in flux.
Rachelle will be organizing the toy sanitation schedule and procedures.
There is a new requirement from Oregon Early Learning Division for all operators and volunteers to be in their central registry for background checks. We are still confirming the details, but assertions about the requirement differ between PCPO and the Oregon ELD site. Joyce will continue the research to figure out what we need to do for the parents. Rachelle will work on signing up in the registry.
Keeping tuition the same as we charged in 2019-2020, but will probably need to add a fee for the background checks.
We have scheduled the Meet The Teacher meetings for Wednesday, August 18th. In addition to the check-in experience, this will mostly be paperwork for parents, but Rachelle will also ahve an activity for the kids.
Fire Extinguishers are out of certification and need service. Dorothy will send Rachelle and Joyce the contact info for contractors who can do this. The Center’s fire alarm monitoring service is off right now, but the smoke detectors are believed to be active. Monitoring is not a requirement for the level of service/licensing we are intending to operate.
Yellow-jackets are nesting in a couple places around the property. Dorothy recommended an exterminator service.
Melissa, Rachelle, & Joyce believe that we should replace the wire mesh fence around the center’s back yard with a more substantial privacy fence. Dorothy & John are unconvinced and believe this idea would benefit from more discussion and planning. The proposal was tabled.
The new curriculum includes a unit on special costumes. Rachelle, Joyce, and Melissa proposed that we purchase a kids’ play clothes storage unit. John moved we approve an expense not to exceed $100 on a kiddy armoire to hold the clothes for use. Melissa seconded, the board Approved.
8. Updating the Preschool Parents Handbook
Joyce, Melissa, and Rachelle have edited the parents handbook and are nearly finished. They expect to publish the revised handbook in another week or so (prior to the Meet The Teacher open house).
They have structured the COVID guidelines as a short addendum to the handbook. The board reviewed the current draft of that addendum and concurred. Our understanding is that on August 10th a state of Oregon rule was going into effect requiring all students (including our 3- and 4-year-olds) to wear masks at school. We will be using a free app for recording health status of parents and students at checkins. For the Meet The Teacher meetings, Joyce will screen attendees at the door to preview the daily checkin procedures.
9. Budget for FY 2021-2022
John led a discussion about budgeting for the current fiscal year. Our current forecast is that this new year will differ from 2019-2020 in these ways that will affect the budget:
- We will be at full enrollment for the 4 year olds, and about 3/4s full for the 3 year olds;
- We only expect to have one family depending on tuition assistance this year;
- We also will only have one staffer this year, in contrast to most recent years when we have had an assistant teacher on payroll;
- There is also uncertainty about the count of parent co-oping volunteers, and how that affects both coverage need and tuition income;
- We have cancelled the 2021 Alpine Holiday Festival, and the status of other historic annual fundraisers is uncertain.
Joyce, Melissa & Rachelle haven’t put out much messaging so far to the parents about co-oping expectations, other than asserting that the preschool relies on co-oping parents.
John reported that he has not yet compiled the customary base draft of the budget, but will work on that this month.
10. New Business
None.
11. Proposed agenda for September
Launch of the new school year at the preschool
12. Schedule
Meet The Teacher open house 8/18, ACC Board 9/8