November 1, 2017

Time: 4:00 pm
Place: BCS/BCSF Conference Room

Present: Karen Fagg, Chair
Bucky Heringer, Vice Chair
Ken Frazier, Past Chair
Fr. Steve Zabrocki, Parish Representative
Leo O’Brien
Ashley Harada
Ryan Huppert
Bob Cerkovnik
Stella Ziegler
Nate Haney
Shaun Harrington, BCS President
Superintendent Timothy Uhl (Phone Conference)
Jan Haider, Foundation President
Kaitlin Overton, Finance Officer
Shel Hanser, Principal BCCHS

Opening Prayer: Ashley

Approval of Minutes: Ken made a motion to approve the October 18, 2017 School Board minutes. Bob seconded the motion. Motion carried unanimously.

Foundation Update: Mayfair: The Foundation Development Committee met last week and put together a list of recommendations for the Board to improve Mayfair. Three of the six co-chairs came to the Business Committee this week with an update and were very well received. Dan, one of the chairs, met with Foundation staff members and said they would be happy to come and share their vision with both the School Board and the Foundation Board if people are interested. The co-chairs are a young, enthusiastic group who only want what will create the most revenue for the schools. Lia and Jan met with the heads of Home and School to discuss ways of increasing parent buy-in with Mayfair and volunteerism in general. They are another group of enthusiastic people who only want what is best for the schools. The Foundation will be hosting a “room parent” meeting next Tuesday evening at St. Francis.

Annual Fund: The first Annual Fund mailing has been sent and the Foundation is using a multi-level marketing approach. The Annual Fund message will be on Facebook a couple of times a week, with a link to the Foundation website and the donate now page. The Foundation also sent out the appeal via email today. The second phase happens in January with the second round of mailings, Facebook, email, and hopefully a phone-a-thon. The Foundation would like the boards to help with the phone-a-thon.

Capital Campaign Update: The Capital Campaign bills are nearly paid. There are still a couple of unknowns – like the city and the lockers. To date, the Capital Campaign raised just over $15.6 million, which means there is just over $2 million left to raise before the school is fully funded. The Capital Campaign spent $17.5 million in capitalized costs and another $26,000 on the Intermediate and Fratt buildings.

Fratt Building Update: There was another article in the paper today, naming the 11 people that are challenging the BCS complaint. According to the Billings Gazette “The documents request that a judge declare the “interested or potentially interested parties under the terms of the deed at issue.” Jan emailed David Charles and informed him the petitioners have not yet decided if they want to challenge anything and simply wanted something on file while making up their mind.

The attorney’s will try to get a judgment, so the property will be totally in the name of the Diocese. The Diocese will need to give BCS permission to sell the property. There may be an exception to the bankruptcy. Because of the BCS loan, the bankruptcy representatives will probably agree to the sale of the Fratt building. That would enable BCS to pay the Diocese back and the Diocese would be able put the money toward the bankruptcy. The Capital Campaign is currently paying $14,000 a month interest on the St. Francis loan.

Combined Executive Committee: In preparation for Strategic Planning, the Foundation & School Board will have a combined executive committee meeting on Monday, November 6. Hopefully, the executive boards will be able to set a date for the strategic planning session. When finished, the strategic plan will set the guidelines for a combined strategy that both the School Board and the Foundation Board will work toward together. It should also result in the design of the new master plan for Colton property and how to move forward. The Capital Campaign has a donor who understands the importance of planning and has offered to pay for the new Colton site plan.

Business Committee Report: Mayfair: The Mayfair Chairs presented at the meeting. Their theme this year will be “Everyday Moments” and they will integrate it throughout the event. The committee discussed the Special Project suggestions and how they would incorporate into the Mayfair theme.

BCCHS Accreditation: There is a portion of the accreditation process that involves material stewardship which involves the school’s finances. The committee reviewed the strengths and points for growth. For the accreditation report, Kaitlin created a P&L with the cost centers as columns. This report will be reviewed by the Business Committee regularly. The indirect costs were allocated between all 4 schools based on enrollment from last year. The per cent per school broke down to; the high school 38, SFU 22, SFI 20, and SFP 20. This new P&L by cost center will be used by the Revenue Task Force. A capital improvement fund will be added to that breakdown.
Cash Flow Projection: The cash flow projection will be ready for the next meeting.

Revenue Task Force: The first Revenue Task Force meeting was to determine goals and the information needed. For preschool, the task force wants to determine a breakeven point for the number of children in each program. The task force also wanted a cost for the half day program and a possible full day program. Most of the meeting focused on determining the cost of BCS programs such as preschool/daycare, tuition, and technology. Once the costs and breakeven points have been determined, the task force will develop a plan of action moving forward. The task force will study the feasibility of adding a 3rd bus because BCS does not

Marketing Enrollment Report: No report was given.

Catholic Culture Committee: Nate Haney is one of the School Board representatives on the Catholic Culture Committee and will chair the committee after transitioning from Carlos. The focus of the committee is ensuring a strong Catholic identity with the students, families and staff. At St. Francis, they are leading the staff in prayer every day. The committee discussed ways to develop ongoing Catechesis with the staff. One suggested topic was how to make a good confession. The hope is that working with the staff will trickle down to the students.

Members of the committee are reviewing the new Religious Ed materials. The training by the publisher in Butte was very good. This past year the committee has focused on building a foundation of operation within the schools. Anything the Board would want to see the committee accomplish, please let them know. The creation of this committee was part of the last strategic plan.

President’s Report: Board Information: Alex McCready’s mother passed away and the Board’s thoughts and prayers are with Alex and her family.

Early Childhood Center (SFI): We finally have a Permanent Certificate of Occupancy approved by the city and the Fire Marshal. The staff at the ECE have gone above and beyond to make sure things are going well.

Board Committee’s: A rough draft handout of the members of the Board sub-committees was distributed. It is not complete because staff members still need to be included on those committees. Any Board or staff member may attend meetings they are interested in attending. BCS needs the task forces and committees to help with strategic planning and to manage the operation of the Catholic Schools.

WCEA Accreditation Visit December 3–6:
There will be an opening reception on the evening of Sunday, December 3rd at the high school that all board member were invited to attend. There will also be a request that members of the School Board meet with the team sometime during the week. The plans have not been finalized.

Montana Catholic Schools Conference: The conference was great. Butte Central Catholic Schools were very good hosts and the feedback from the staff has been very positive. Dr. Uhl would like to have the conference every other year. The religion teachers attended a full day workshop on Thursday hosted by the Sophia Institute that they felt was very beneficial. The entire conference was very well done.

MSUB Teacher Appreciation Reception: Mary Susan Fishbaugh and the College of Education hosted a reception for Teacher Appreciation that was very nice. Mary Susan had plaques made for the Golden Apple Award, BEA Teacher of the Year and the Montana Teacher of the Year to demonstrate how many of the award winners graduated from MSUB. She would also like to include the Billings Catholic Schools Teacher of the Year. She will do a specific plaque for Catholic schools. Over half of the winners came from MSUB College of Education.

Principal’s Meeting: There was a principal’s meeting on Friday the 27th. The principal’s meetings will be held every other Tuesday.
Agenda items included:
• Preparing for registration for next year
• Creating a different Pre-school & Daycare form for next year so they will be in the computer system as a different school.
• Board Committee responsibilities for administrators & having staff on Board
committee’s
• Progress Reports and Standards Based Grading K – 8—Danielle had reports prepared for the teachers to have on hand for the Parent Teacher conferences.
• MAP Testing was discussed, and the high school will not do the winter testing because testing requires a great deal of instructional time.
• READ 180 and difficulties with SD #2 Special Education Department connection
• WCEA Accreditation Team Visit
• Home & School Organization
• Mayfair Special Project & Classroom Baskets
• Thanksgiving All School Mass – will be held at the high school. There is not enough room to have the mass at SFCS.
• Catholic Schools Conference Evaluation and OPI Renewal Units
• Parent/Teacher Conference Structure
• Student Discipline Issues

New Business: Mayfair Special Projects: There was a discussion about the list of recommendations for Mayfair Special Project.

1. The cost of the elevator for Central is still under investigation by the architects. The reason the elevator is being looked at is because at the present time, injured students and faculty have great difficulty accessing the 2nd floor of Central. St. Francis is now ADA compliant and accessible by everyone. Central is not and if we have physically handicapped students at St. Francis, they could not attend Central for high school. While we are not required to be ADA compliant, it is an access issue for our students and faculty.

2. The reading series under consideration for K-8 is around $90,000.00. Currently, there is no adopted series for reading instruction at Billings Catholic Schools.

3. The new gym floor for the main gym at Central and refinishing of the floor in the Nelles Center would be $100,000.00. There was some discussion about being able to raise money through other means to pay for the gym floor renovations.

4. The bid Jan received for bleachers and expanded recreation area for the older students at St. Francis was also discussed. The bleachers are $11,500.00/section (116 people) X 2 = $23,000.00 (assembly required, installation and possible enlargement of the concrete pad not accounted for in bid), asphalt recreation area (to include excavation, and subsurface) $30,000.00, 2 tennis courts and fence $36,800.00 (would probably need 4 courts). As presented: $89,800.00.

The Board needs the numbers on the special projects soon.

Meetings: With the reactivation of sub-committees, Shaun and Karen expressed concerns about the amount of time board members were having to dedicate to school board duties. The concern is that we are having board meetings because they are scheduled and not because we need to have one. The board was asked if it would be acceptable for the executive committee to discuss the agenda and decide if the meeting is necessary or if agenda items could wait until the next meeting.

It was decided that we would always have one meeting each month so we could approve the financials. It was also suggested that the other scheduled meeting time could be used for sub-committee work.

The scheduled Board meetings will stand as is and the members will be notified of cancelations if there is nothing pressing on the agenda.

Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 5:10 pm. Respectfully Submitted: Shaun Harrington, Billings Catholic Schools President