Charter School Review Committee - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the charter school review committee meeting, for Thursday, March 26 at 5PM. And I'll start with the roll call with myself as chair. Bill Christensen? Here. Katrina Harwell Young?

Here.

What else did I miss? Oh, doctor Terry Terry Bookshire? Here. Okay. Tracy Sparrow and Anna Davis, hopefully, will join us later. Okay. Second item on the agenda, review and approval of the minutes from 11/03/2025. Have you had a chance to review the minutes? And if so, I will entertain a motion to accept the minutes from 11/03/2025.

This is Bill. I'll make that motion.

A motion. Is there a second? It's definitely taken by Katrina. Any questions or comments on the minutes? Seeing none, I move for approval. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Alright. Aye.

Okay. The minutes have been accepted. Next item on the agenda is communication related to the administrative matters of the Charter School Review Committee for 02/2027 school year sponsored by the chair. And those items for discussion will include will be limited to the following. A vote may be taken either on either of these items. The first item we're gonna discuss is the Institute for the Transformation of Learning one year contract renewal. Gail?

Okay. Thank you. I'm gonna pass it along to the director of the Institute of the Transformation of Learning, and she's just going to, briefly share with you ITL and the services that we offer and what we've

been doing lately. Thank you.

Thank you, Judith.

Hey, everybody. Judith Ramblis here for those that have had not had the opportunity to meet. Hi. Hello. Enjoying this wonderful Thursday.

Rupesh, I'm enjoying your background with the nice, wonderful beach setting. Just wanted to kinda send my greetings to you guys. But, again, Judith Romulus with the Institute for the Transformation of Learning, and I'm the director. And the institute for the past, I don't know, twenty something plus years have been providing administrative oversight for the CRSC. Pretty much we do a lot of the stuff from administration to serving as a liaison to the financial pieces in terms of managing the budget, and just overall really anything that you can think of that would require for us to be a functioning organization.

So we do all the administrative pieces. One of the things that we try to do every year is we try to almost not almost. We actually try to find a way in which we can complement the work that Rupesh and doctor Baylor is kind of already doing. This year last year, for example, we did something with providing the schools with some stakeholder engagement training where we work with our with with our stew schools to learn how to work with their parents, learn how to

work with local business leaders, engage their alderman aldermanic people. The whole idea is that it takes more than just the people inside your school to make your school successful. You really need the whole community working with you to advance your missions of your school. So we provide a lot

of focused work on that. This year, we did a did more training on working with teachers and how to work with their students and supporting and strengthening school culture. As you know, we serve a lot of students of color and a lot of our staff members don't necessarily come from their communities. This was a training that allowed our staff members to get more foundational sense about the needs of our students and how to best support them. In the next coming month, we're going to be doing something with the board members.

We're asking all the school leaders to have their board members come to a workshop where we talk about how can board members support their schools. It's more than just sitting in round a room and voting on things. There are things outside the school building, inside the school building that the board members can support. We wanna make sure that the board members not only know how to support the school, but understand their role in making the school stronger, not only in terms of, you know, legislation, but also just in terms of building the community. I'm not quite sure what else it is.

I'm pretty sure you received the memo that, Gail has written up as our director of policy. We have also on staff, Cheryl Oak, who was the director of operations, and myself. And we work as a three tier prong where we all work together to support all the things listed on the memo in terms of the work. That's it, I guess. Again, thank you so much for, giving us opportunity to work with the schools. I can honestly say that it's been a very rewarding work. We have learned a lot. We're still learning. We're still growing in terms of understanding how the nuances have changed, especially with the political climate that we're in because we do have some schools. We have larger Latino community students, and so that's an issue that we have to figure out how to support that as well.

But that said, I will turn off the mic unless anyone has any questions about the work that we're gonna we'd like to continue on doing for the next year.

Any questions for Judith or Gail? Any questions for Judith or Gail from any of our brand new committee members who are new to this process?

I like to say this for our new committee members. I love coffee. If you ever wanna meet up for coffee so I can give you a little more deets about the day ins and day outs of our work, I would love that. My treat. So please feel free to reach out to me, and you can get in contact with me via Gail, but would love to have an opportunity to get to know each of you individually.

Okay. With that, I'll entertain a motion to approve the one year contract extension for the city of Milwaukee, with ITL for the school term of 2026, 2027 academic year.

I'll make that motion.

Was that you, Katina?

It is.

Okay. Moved by Katina. There's a second?

I second.

Okay. Thanks, Terry. Back to. On all in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Motion carries to approve the one year contract extension for ITL for the '26 02/2027 school term.

Thank you. Thank you.

K. Next on our agenda is let me just remove this one right quick.

Mister chair?

Yes.

I got my microphone working now. Okay. I know everybody. I'm sorry.

No problem. No problem at all. Second item for discussion is evidence change one year contract renewal, and I will turn it over to doctor Baylor.

Hello. Good afternoon to everyone. So I am doctor Zia Baylor from Evident Change. We are a research organization. We use data to inform decision making in the community, and Evident Change has been doing this work for over twenty years as well.

And just to I know you have the memo, and you read all of the specific things that that are coming up for the new year and how we are already kinda gearing up for, the things to come as you saw with the the second memo that I sent over to you as well. But I just wanted to add for some of the folks who are new to the committee that an additional piece that we won't be doing next year, but we're currently working on, is the culture and climate survey with all schools. So we are right in the middle of surveying the parents, the students, the upper level students, sixth grade and up, all of the staff members at all of the schools, also the the senior leadership and board members. So everyone in the community has an opportunity to give feedback on the feel of the school, how they feel about the, success of the school, and that will be something that you'll see on the, upcoming, annual report come this this August. But, yeah, in terms of all the work that we're doing, we have a pretty, streamlined process, that we follow each school year.

Anytime we see a need for change, there may be some things we're also keeping our heads and our our awareness to things that are happening at DPI. If there are any new, things coming down the pipe, for example, a couple years ago, the early literacy assessment mandate changed, and that's something that myself and my team, we work with to determine how we would like to report that, how the schools need that reported out based on the requirements from the from the state. We're also keeping ourselves abreast to teacher licensure issues with all schools, making sure that all teachers have license licenses. If they do not, we reach out. We work with the the the staff to make sure that they're working with their teachers to make sure they're getting things in with DPI.

And so I'm not gonna read through this list because it's quite lengthy of all the work that we do throughout the school year. But if there are specific questions regarding the way we are engaging school leaders as thought partners, we're supporting them in creating goals at the beginning of each school year, which feed into that annual report that we complete at the end of the year. We do walk throughs of the school, testing and and understanding, engaging the climate, taking a look at teacher and and teaching and learning. Additionally, we do special education audits, making sure that those files are kept up to date and students are getting the services that are required by law. And so the list goes on and on if you take a look at all the things that we are in the middle of doing and also looking forward to continuing doing into next year with this extension.

So if there are questions, I'll take your questions at this time.

Question for doctor Baylor. Okay. Seeing none, did I accept the motion to, for the contract number B18948. Second annual renewal of the city of Milwaukee contract with evidence change for this 02/2007 academic school year.

This is Bill. I'll I'll make that motion. Just like to say keep up the the great work. Thank you.

I'll second it. Same thing. Just wanted to say we appreciate the work you're doing, and it really helps us understand what's happening in our schools.

Okay. Thank you, Bill and Katrina. Bill for the motion and Katrina for seconding. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I keep forgetting to say. Anybody opposed? Any noes? Any objections? Okay. The motion carries for the motion carries for the contract with evidence change for the 02/2027 academic school year. Staying with doctor Baylor, we're going to talk now and move to the recommendation for revising the annual school performance report format.

Okay. So I sent you all a a memo describing what we're currently doing and suggesting a new template. And I also sent you with that memo an example of what that might look like if we were to move to that that process. So, currently, each school has their their specific report. We're reporting the same information based on grade level for all schools.

Sometimes those reports can be upwards around 20 pages long, depending on the appendices or, the surveys. And so we we understand that, you know, people really love these reports because they're really rich in data, and we're not suggesting to remove that. What we are suggesting to remove is a lot of the narrative that is, throughout the report. It, oftentimes, it ends up being redundant, information as you get through the report with with different grade levels having the same, goals or the same assessment that they're taking. And so because of we, because of that, with the and plus, we're we're we're also printing all of those out.

You received your copies of those at the beginning of the school year, and so you see how lengthy those reports can be. And so what we're recommending is a report that would be a unified city of Milwaukee charter school profile report. And so what you see in that, PDF of the the example that I sent to you is that the report starts off by giving some credit to the people who are, putting work in. Also, your names are listed. And if we, go with that, I'll talk to you about how you want your names to be represented in that report, because I think it's important for people to know who the charter school review committee is.

You know, we have these reports, that come out every year, people don't really, know, you know, who are the people in the background. So I thought that was import would be important to share. Additionally, it goes on to describe all of the, importance of the the data that's in the report and why we're asking for the data. And so if you have that report, pulled up or if it's available to you right now, you'll see that there is a piece where it says the CSRC requirements. In there, we describe all of the monitoring practices and policies that are in place, the rules around the assessment reporting, what we require in in regard to data integrity from the schools.

And then it gets into the actual data that we're actually pulling, describing, the attendance enrollment and, retention monitoring that we're doing and what that means. It describes the local primary measures of academic growth and what that looks like in terms of what the expectations are for students with IEPs and overall students who are in schools that are taking these exams and the growth that is expected. It goes on to describe the expectations from DPI around standardized testing requirements, and it also then reflects the requirement from the charter school review committee around multiple year progress reporting. It goes on to talk a little bit then about, the charter school continuous improvement planning and accountability, and then it goes into scorecard requirement. And so you'll see in the report, this year, there are five schools in the portfolio, and they are listed next.

And then you'll see each school having a report where all of that narrative that you would normally see with each school is now at the top, and then you see all visuals of all of those different components in relationship to enrollment. All the different testing requirements are there. Whether or not the schools met their goals are represented there. And then it goes on to demonstrate whether or not schools met their contract compliances, and then also the scorecards are there as well. And then each school has a recommendation piece where we talk about with the school leaders things they wanna improve on, things that came out via the data, and we come up with some recommendations for improvement.

And those are there at the end of each school's profile, and then it moves on to the next school. Exact same thing in those in terms of the charts and the visuals that are there. So I feel like I'm talking really fast, and I want to give way for feedback here, and questions about the, the template that I am suggesting.

Doctor Baylor, is it do you have your hands on a current last year's report? Just I mean, just one that we can kinda pro kinda just show the new committee members what it looked like

Okay.

Compares to what we you wanna move us to?

Yes. I don't have access to share my screen, though.

Yeah. Darri, can you give her access to share screen?

Sure. Give me just a minute.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And while we're waiting for that, did any questions come up for anyone when you took a look at this new template?

I I have one question. When it comes

I'm sorry. Access granted.

Okay. When it comes to the survey data that you're gonna be doing for this, well, how will that be displayed under the new, new format? Or you or or add it. Add it. Put it that way. Okay.

And and as I'm looking for, so if you recall the last the last time we reported the, the survey data, there was a chart there that showed, what all the schools scored, how they scored. So I can show you that as well because we would do that same table.

Alright.

Let's see. So you just wanna take a look at the old one then? You have the new one readily available. Okay. Okay. Can you see my screen?

Yes.

Okay. And so the first thing to notice is that, I believe that the the new report for each school is around 15 pages. And this is one report, and it is 74 pages, and it's the same data that you see in the, the new suggested format. So that is the first part that stands out the most. Is there a specific piece that you wanna look at?

No. I just no. I just wanted you to kinda kinda just scroll through it so they can see where, this information that's gonna be from the combined into one section for all of the schools versus this information that's in in each individual report repeating itself over and over and over again.

Right. So here, you know, there are a lot of things here that, just describing the school. And I I know that these reports were the format were created several years ago before I would say most schools utilize their web pages in the way that they do today. So a lot of this information can be found on the school's web page in terms of their school instruct you know, instructional design and all of those things. For example, in the new report, like, here's the teacher retention and return information.

And in the report, the new format, we're suggesting, this is, you know, a pie chart, I believe. So much smaller, taking up much, less space there. And the biggest piece is all of the all of all of the narrative is pushed up top. Are some places in the report where we will, utilize footnotes to add. For example, if there are issues in regard to teacher, certification, we would use that as a footnote instead of writing out a narrative around that.

So this is, what we did last year, and we've been doing many years. A lot of, you know, a lot of things for example, this is something that you can find on their web page, their discipline policies. All the schools have these things posted. And some of this, like, some of this stuff was taken and made as a graph. For example, the amount of scholarship money is just, you know, a large font font on the new template.

Are there other things you wanted to see from this?

No. That's that's not really. I just wanted to make sure our new committee members had an opportunity to see, like, example of the old. And we can always Gail, let's send the new committee members, the old reports just so they see what it what it was physically if we move over to the new. And, doctor Bailey, you had also mentioned a lot of stuff is on their web page. Is it possible to add, like, links to this new report so if people want to link to so we can refer them to if you want further information on this, you can click on the link, and the link will take you to that specific

information. Absolutely.

Okay. Questions from other committee members for doctor Baylor?

Or any more feedback that

More feedback.

That you think may be missing.

And you can always once you, as a matter of fact too, once you compare the old and you're looking at the new, if you have, comments or feedback, shoot them to Gail, and Gail can shoot them to doctor Baylor. Go ahead,

I was just gonna say no feedback, but I appreciate the, recommended changes. I love the credit card. It also helps me find the process information easier. The graphics and charts does the same thing. Like, having next less narrative allows me to get into the data quicker and kind of do some analysis. So really appreciate the notes on that, and, ultimately, it's condensed. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you too. And I would always say I won't say this too, but even at DPI now, a lot of we're a lot of the forms, word docs are being converted to accessibility docs for people who have to make it more accessible for other readers who may need, who have I can't think of the name. Can't think of it right now, but we're in this process of making sure all of our documents are accessible for other people who have other reading related issues who need to see are reading documents that are visual, but also documents making sure that when the the headings are accessible to a reader who is who needs those other reading components or have assisted, reading, computer related or technology related issues, making them making sure that our documents are accessible for all types of readers who are doing this. So this kind of falls in line with that as well. Any other additional questions or comments?

Yes. I have a question. Go right ahead. And state to me, what's the score's the question

for you?

This is Brookshire, doctor Brookshire. The scorecard, is it possible that the scorecard could go into graphs?

The information that's on the scorecard, that information is already in the report in a graph. It's just kinda put together on the scorecard for the scoring purposes.

Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. I do like the the changes. I do like the the more of the graphs. I'm looking at the draft now. Thank you.

And, mister chair, this is this is Bill. And I apologize. I don't have this in front of me. But, if it's not already in the report, if there could be an appendix that sort of side by side compares the report card for each, school, I I think I would find that beneficial. I apologize if it's in there already, but, I just don't have a copy in front of me. So if it's not there, if that could be added, I think that would be great.

You're suggesting a, visual that shows every school scorecard on one page. Am I following you?

Correct. Yes.

Okay. Thank you for that feedback.

And to add to that, because I had the same thought bill, so I quickly ran it through AI, and that's exactly what I created. A quick chart that allowed me to see across all five schools. So, yeah, if I can add, John.

I'm glad you mentioned it. I did have a a comment and a pull hold on. Let's see if I can find that, see if I got it in here because I think when I open this up let me see if I okay. Yeah. Here it is. It says, how can we use AI assistance to read a summary of a long document? Because when I opened up the document that came up, this appears to be a long document. It's in blue, and it's highlighted under view summary. And it says, for those of us who are not as technology savvy as Katrina just demonstrated how savvy she is, because I'm not as savvy as that, but I had to

question I ain't say I was savvy.

Okay. But I had to quit. But, no, you led me to the the you you reminded me that I had a sticky note in here that says, oh, when it says, this appears to be a long document. Save time by reading a summary using AI assistant. And so I put the question is, how can we use AI assistant to read a summary of a long document that and we may need some, Judith. That's where we probably could use some training at too because it is I I I mean, AI technology everywhere. And so, normally, when I open up Word documents from other people, it's

So you so you talk about when you say training for AI, the for the community for the committee? Or for okay.

I'm I'm just thinking, one of the trainings could be some information on how to use AI because AI is everywhere now. And since and, what's funny is that when I opened up the draft and I and then and right above the draft, it's highlighted in blue. This document appears to be a long document, and you can save time reading the summary using AI for those who, you know, are using summaries. But at the same even though we have the all this information with us, but at the same time, if somebody wanna do a quick summary on how to read it, and I guess if I were to click in view summary, I think on the side, it kinda has a it's processing the document now. It might come up with, like, outlines or something like that to help you read through the document.

But Well, whatever, training that the committee seems that they need to be more efficient in being, the committee, we are more than happy to to really support that. So if there is a training that you would like for us to do, please email me, and we will try to schedule something for the entire committee participating.

Okay. Because I do see when I when I clicked on the summary the box that says summary, it opens up another section so you can kinda, it's kinda like an outline of what's contained in the document. So I see that over on the side as well too. You know? So thank you, Judith, and thank you, Katrina and and Bill for that and you, doctor Baylor.

Any additional questions or comments or suggestions at this particular time as well for doctor Baylor? Okay. Hold on a second here. Get back to my spot. With that said, I will entertain a motion reckon for the recommendations for revising the annual school performance report format.

This is Bill. I'll make the motion.

I can second it.

Okay. Bill, motion second it. All those in favor of the recommendations for revising the annual school performance report format, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any any objections? Any abstentions? Seeing none, the motion carries for the recommendation for revising the annual school performance report format. Thank you very much, doctor Baylor

Thank you.

For these suggestions. It has been a long time since, guess I guess, since nineteen ninety something. We've been using the format, and technology has improved since immensely between 1994 and 2026. So we're rolling right along with the technology changes and the ability to get information in the hands of people quickly so they can read it and digest it. Thank you again.

Next on our agenda is, we did that. Annual financial scorecard report from ML Tharp. And, Rupesh, I will turn it over to you and your team.

Alright. Thank you, mister Interim. This is Rupesh Gupta from ML Tharps and Associates. I'll be presenting the annual charter review committee report. We look at all the audit reports from all the charter schools and prepare this report, generally highlighting all the findings that we have, their financial results, and and and give them a financial scorecard.

So jumping right into the first school, the Downtown Montessori Academy, that completed the twenty seventh year of operation as the city charter. They had a deficit of 38,000 after a slight gain in in the prior year. The school showed approximate revenue of 3,390,000.00 or a $47,000 increase in revenue. The increase in revenue was primarily because of day care revenue went went up by 48,000 and some program fees that went up by 56,000, but the charter revenue went down by about $43,000. The the expenses increased by approximately 101,000 or about 3% primarily due to salaries and benefits increasing by $151,000.

However, the classroom supplies decreased by 27,000, and occupancy expenses decreased by $21,000. The average cost per pupil, for 2025 was about $16,732 compared to last year of $15,487. The enrollment counts for September and January 2025 were two hundred nineteen and two hundred and seventeen compared to twenty twenty four September and January enrollment of 229 students and 226 students. So there's a slight decrease in the enrollment, about nine students. The school did not have any restricted fundraising revenues or expenses in current year or prior year.

The unrestricted fundraising revenues were $524 in current year and 41,000 in prior year. And the fund unrestricted fundraising expenses were 13,500 in current year and about 14,000 in prior year. Since they have a deficit, the deficit is about 1% of the yearly revenue. Looking at their current year financial position at the year end, School has excellent cash position, maintaining approximately an $826,000 in cash. And current ratio is remains excellent at 2.4, although showing a slight decrease from prior year.

And unrestricted net assets increased and are 83% of the yearly revenues. Accounts receivables are down slightly from prior year, and total liabilities and current liabilities are consistent with prior year. According to their review of annual audit, it was completed on time. And for the review of report, there were no significant financial statement, internal control, or compliance findings noted by the auditor, and the auditor expressed no concern over the going concern. The the school has complied with the city of Milwaukee's reporting requirements, which are usually monthly and quarterly reporting requirements, and they have complied with all of those.

So to conclude, based on the review, it appears the school has solid financial management system as and is in excellent financial condition with solid cash flow. And schools appear to be in compliance with the provisions of contract with the city of Milwaukee. They may wanna keep an eye out on their enrollment since it is down a little bit and, you know, keep an eye out on their budget to avoid any further deficits. Looking at their scorecard, their scorecard remains excellent. We had to deduct couple of points due to there were a couple of monthly reports that were not submitted on time, and enrollment is down by approximately 4%.

So so we deducted a point there, but they still have a excellent scorecard. Any questions on Downton Montessori Academy before we move on to the next one?

With, respect to the deficit, is it mainly due to enrollment? And if so, what discussions did, the school you entertain with the school in terms of next year under for 2026.

Right. So so the enrollment is is down a little bit. The overall revenue was actually, you know, up. You know, they had about 47,000 increase in revenue. You know, the expenses, like cost of doing business is just going up for everybody. You know? So salaries and benefits, that was their main increase in cost. So

k. Thank you.

Sure.

Any additional questions for regarding Downtown Montessori? Okay. So

we can move on to Central City Cyber School, which completed its twenty sixth year of operations in 2025. School had a surplus of $223,000 compared to 1,800,000.0 in the prior year. Revenues decreased by approximately 1,560,000.00, primarily due to DPI other revenues decrease of $1,300,000 and charter revenue decrease of $300,000, which was primarily due to enrollment decrease of 39 pupils. School operating expenses remained consistent with the prior year decreasing slightly by $26,000. The cost per pupil in current year was 15,111 compared to $13,006.85 in the prior year.

The membership counts for September and January were three hundred forty six and three hundred and thirty four students compared to prior year of 383 and 300 and 73, respectively, for September and January. Central City did not have any restricted fundraising revenue or expenses in fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2024. The there were no unrestricted fundraising revenue in 2025 or '24, but the unrestricted fundraising expenses were $848 and $1,200 respectively. Surplus is at 4.3% of the yearly revenue. Looking at their current financial position, the school maintained a year end cash balance of approximately $3,600,000.

The ratio of cash and receivable to current liability is 88.3 to one, which is up dramatically from 7.8 to one. Unrestricted net assets increased and are 97 of the yearly revenues. Accounts and grant receivable is down by 1,600,000.0, which is primarily due to receipt of $1,600,000 that was receivable for ESSER grant in prior year. And and you will see this all across the board. You know, there were some COVID related grants that ended in 2024, so there might be huge receivables in prior year.

We noted that this has been happening pretty much every school that there is a decline in accounts receivable because of that. Just wanted to point out. The total liabilities and current liabilities are down by 440,000 and 420,000. The long term liability decreased by 16,000 because of the lease liabilities going down, and the current liabilities are primarily down because of, payroll and related liabilities that went down by about $221,000 and accounts payable decreased by $200,000 from prior year. Mhmm.

The audit of the school was delayed by about eleven days. But per the review of the report, there were no significant financial statement, internal control, or compliance findings noted by the auditor. And auditor expressed no issues over school's ability to continue as a going concern. CCC has complied with the city of Milwaukee's reporting requirements. And based on our review, the school continues to have solid financial management system in place.

The school is an excellent financial condition with good cash flow and is in compliance with provision of its contract with city of Milwaukee. There's one subsequent event to note. The school did not comply with the closeout reporting requirements of charter committee. And as a result, the charter committee revoked the school's charter dated 11/04/2025. Moving on to the financial scorecard.

The score remains near perfect for the school at 96 points. There's there's no additional comments that we have. If you guys have any questions, I'm open to questions for Central City Cyber School.

Any question regarding Central City Cyber School financial report? Thanks.

Mister chair, this is Bill. I guess this this question probably cuts across most, if not all, the schools. But you you alluded to the expiration of Esser funds. And I was wondering if through your analysis, were able to determine the extent to which Esser funds had been used to cover ongoing operating costs. So, you know, things like salaries or utilities, things like that, or, whether they were, primarily used for kinda one time more capital type expenses, you know, because I could see the expiration of ESSER funds that were relied on to fill operating budget gaps as, you know, a potential concern moving forward.

So was that was that part of your analysis? And, if so, was there any any cause for concern as a result of expiration of the the ESSER funds?

Right. Thank you, Bill, for the question. Very interesting question, but I don't think we actually did any analysis per se for this, but our experience working with the charter schools and lots of choice schools that we work with who had received ESSER funding, there were very few schools who actually used it for capital purposes. I think the money was used more for operating. It helped the schools that were struggling quite a bit, but, you know, at the time.

But now since that funding is gone, the schools will have to realize that, and they will have to adjust their budgets accordingly. That is that is the key that they have to follow their budget. But but we did not do any kind of analysis as to how they use the asset funding. We we can go talk to these schools and see if we can figure that out, if there's a way they kept track I'm sure they kept track of the cost, how they spent the money.

Sure. And and I suppose it's, you know, it's all fungible. So whether there was, you know, specifically allocated to to operating or capital is sort of, you know, beside the point. But I I'm just wondering, you know, in your professional assessment, whether there there is potentially cause for concern, as a result of the the ESSER funds. I know it's it's easy to say, just kinda tighten your belts and and reduce your budgets. But Right. As we know, costs are are increasing. And I'm just wondering if you're able to, get into a little more depth on that.

Sure. We can we can definitely talk to some of these schools and attend the board meetings and go through their budgets more closely to see, you know, if they are if they are following their budget. And if not, maybe we need to bring it to your attention maybe on a quarterly or, you know, every six months or something like that before the end of the school year so that we are not hard at the end. Sure.

And I guess in addition to just adherence to to budget, maybe something a little bit more even forward looking than that. Maybe looking at the the structural financial picture

Sure.

You know, moving forward over over the next few years given the, you know, the expiration of what was a a pretty substantial source of revenue.

Right. Okay. Definitely.

And, Rupesh, I do also wanna say thank you for including that breakdown of revenues for each school as as was requested. I I find that valuable,

and I really appreciate you including that. Thank And and if we need to talk about that during this presentation, we can. But I thought it was kind of, you know, if you guys have it access to it, you know, you guys can look at it. And then I don't know if, like, we now we have sufficient data. Like, I don't know if we should be preparing a table for, like, full time you know, we have these costs, FTE costs for four, five years now.

Should we be including that as a table as well? We are just putting for current year and last year or even, like, fundraising revenues and expenses. Would you like would you guys like to see a table going forward? And we can we can do that, if that would be helpful.

What you can do is probably you can put a sample together. We could take a look at it and see if we think that's something we could could include in the report. Because as we were because since I was also thinking given the, I don't know if there's anything in your report that's similar to the school problematic report, in terms of summarizing data that is kinda consistent or if you think there's some revisions you may wanna make to the report, but we can take a look at some additional information to see because they they are seeing other for other schools, for example, some schools were, didn't report their monthly reports on time. And so I was thinking that what might be good if a school has not reported to you, has not did they monthly report to you, if you will let Gail know, and then the question is, then Gail and I can have a good discussion, and I can then determine if should I reach out to the school and say, hey. You missed your monthly report.

Even though we found out on the end of the year, may be nice to know during the beginning of the year, is there something is there a concern that we need to address with them in terms of why the report is late? Or is there is there is that a concern at all with the monthly or quarterly report being late?

Right. And and to that point, just to, you know, if if they are late, let's say the monthly reports are consecutively late for two months, we do let Gail know what it hasn't happened, in last couple of years where school is late consecutively for two months.

Yeah. Because oh, and I'd like to add, there's a report that I, pulled together for DPI. It's a annual report that's due usually around the December, and all of that is part of that report. So if they are late at that point, that really gives us the indication of, like, who are the schools that are more than a month late or two months late. As well, I have a conversation with a financial person at DPI, and then she shares all the the, you know, the red flags or the anything. The it's called a management report. And, typically, as what Pesh said, the schools are pretty good about being on time with their monthly reports.

Right. Any more questions of Central City Cyber School or anyone? Yes. If not, then we can move on to the next one. Daryl Heinz College Preparatory Academy, which was established in 2002 and completed its twenty third year of operations.

The DLH Academy had a deficit of $324,000 in 2025. The revenues decreased by $415,000, substantially due to ESSER funding decreasing by 447,000 and other grants increasing by only 13,000. The pupil count decreased by 14 students from prior year. The expenses decreased approximately by 57,000 due to decrease in purchase services of 83,000 and special education services of 62,000, supplies of 25,000, but the increase in salaries and benefits of 64,000 and technology of 53,000. The average cost, per FTE for 2025 was 16,920 compared to $16,008.00 9 in 2024, and the membership counts for September and January '25 were hundred and eighty and one seventy five compared to prior year of hundred and seventy two and one eighty nine.

The school did not have any unrestricted fundraising revenue or expenses in current or prior year. The unrestricted fundraising revenues were $10,363,100 dollars in 2025 and 2024, and the unrestricted fundraising expenses were 56,000 and $36,000, respectively. The deficit is at about almost at 13% of the yearly revenue. Looking at their financial position, the school continues to have a solid cash position with the year end cash balances totaling about $1,500,000. Current ratio remains excellent at 17.121.

Accounts receivable is down by 52,000 due to ESSER decrease of 44,000 and title one decrease of about 12,000. The current liabilities are consistent with prior year. The decrease in total liabilities of $250,000 is due to decrease of $250,000 in long term operating lease liabilities. But the review of annual audit, it was completed on time, and there were no significant financial statement, internal control, or compliance findings. DLH Academy has complied with all the City Of Milwaukee reporting requirements in timely manner.

And so the school continues to have solid procedures in place to ensure a sufficient financial management system, and the school appears to be in compliance with the provisions of its contract with city of Milwaukee. Looking at their scorecard, it remains excellent. Couple of points lower compared to prior year due to huge deficit in fiscal year. So we deducted a point there, and there was a there's not an internal control finding, but they did. The auditors did make a management letter note that three teachers had licenses that were expired.

So the school needs to keep an eye out or have a system in place where they they need to keep track of whose licenses are expiring and have them renewed on time. Any questions on their lines?

This is Bill. No no questions, but I would just like to note that I do have to drop to go to a previously scheduled engagement. So thank you, Rupesh, and thank you, mister chair.

Thank Bill.

Thanks, Bill. Alright. Then we'll move on to Milwaukee Academy of Science. It was established as a charter school in 2000 under UWM charter. But in 2008, they switched their chartering to city of Milwaukee, and so MAS has completed its twenty fifth year of operations.

In 2025, MAS showed a deficit of approximately $1,900,000 compared to a surplus of $6,500,000 in prior year. Revenues decreased by almost $3,000,000 primarily due to COVID nineteen related educational stabilization funding that decreased by $5,300,000, and the insurance proceeds decreased by $3,400,000. However, they did have a significant increase in enrollment. Their enrollment went up by 289 students. So the charter aid increased by $3,800,000, and other federal grants increased by about $1,500,000.

And there was a contributed nonfinancial asset of about half $1,000,000. The 5,500,000.0 increase in expenses is primarily due to salaries and benefit, which increased by $4.4200000.0 dollars, and the purchase services increased by about $1,000,000. And the computer supplies increased by $450,000. So those increase in expenses are sort of consistent with increase in the enrollment. The average cost per FTE was $18,000 compared to 17,680 in the prior year, and the membership counts were up in 2025.

They were they are 1,710 in September and 1,637 in January 2025 compared to thirteen hundred ninety seven and thirteen forty eight in 2024. The school did not have any restricted fundraising revenues or expenses in 2025 or 2024, And but the unrestricted fundraising revenues were $744,000 and $1,500,000 in 2025 and 2024. And the unrestricted expenses were about 83,000 and 286,000 in 2025 and 2024. The deficit is at 7.1% of the yearly revenue. Currently, the school has unrestricted net assets of $12,940,000, and the current ratio is down slightly to 2.5 compared to 4.3 in prior year.

The unrestricted net assets are 47% of the yearly revenue. The year end operating cash balances totaled approximately $6,300,000 and the receivable of 1,000,000. The decrease in receivable of $2,800,000 is primarily due to 1,200,000.0 in ESSER receivable in prior year and 1,600,000.0 in other grants. Current liabilities other than current debt service totaled $2,980,000, an increase of $543,000 from prior year because of accrued payroll and payroll tax increase of about $600,000. The school has a redevelopment authority of city of Milwaukee bonds that were refinanced in 2023.

The balance of this loan is about $12,000,000. The loan covenant requires school to maintain cash and investments and debt service reserve and repair and replacement fund. Total cash in these restricted accounts totaled 2,960,000.00 at the year end. This balance is in addition to the operating cash of $6,300,000 noted above. For the review of the annual audit, the the audit was completed late.

It was completed on 01/30/2026, but there were no significant financial statement or compliance findings noted. And the auditor expressed no concern over MAS' ability to continue as a going concern. However, there was a material weakness in internal control noted. It was the same finding. It's a repeat finding from prior year due to account reconciliations and closing adjustments not done on a timely manner, and that's, primarily the reason for the delay of the audit as well.

Reconciliations for certain accounts that were completed at year end did not tie to the general ledger account balances. The auditors recommended implementing effective internal controls that ensure that all assets, liability, and net assets accounts are reconciled, reviewed, and the reconciled balance is tied to the general ledger on a timely basis. The management agrees with the findings and has committed to a corrective action plan, and we will be we will be keeping an eye out on it during this year to see if they are working towards that goal. During the year, the MAS did not always comply with the reporting requirements by being late several months for the 2425 school year. So based on our review, it appears that organization has adequate procedures in place to ensure sufficient management system.

It has an excellent financial position with excellent ratio of cash and receivables as well as excellent unrestricted net asset balance. The school appears to be materially in compliance with the provision of its contract with the city of Milwaukee Charter Committee. And looking at their financial scorecards, so their overall, it's decent score, but we low we had to lower two points for a larger deficit, and also a continued finding from the prior year related to the account reconciliation and timely posting to general ledger. Any questions on MAS?

Yeah. I have a question for you. Yes. When you meet with them next, when you their first meeting in a month, I mean, when you meet with them for this coming school year, can you let us know how how, well they're doing towards their corrective action plan?

Okay. I can definitely make that note.

And the second question is, at Milwaukee Academy of Science is one of our is one of the one and only school that's the largest school. They have over, I think, what, 2,000 students, Gail?

About 1,700 students last year. I don't know about this year.

Okay. So with respect to upon the management response, you said the small staff size contribute to the late audit submission. With comparison to our other schools, which are small, what is the relationship to their size I mean, their staff compared to the other schools? Because I consider them to be a large school, and therefore, they should have a larger staff with respect to

Right. Financial

and internal financial procedures.

That is that is correct. That would be a good assumption to have, but, you know, there's it doesn't look like they have sufficient staff or at least good accounting staff to help out with all this. So that that seems to be the problem. Okay. Might be a comment from you guys that could be, you know, that could be made. Okay.

I think that's something Gil and I can have a discussion with them about. Because I just they are our largest schools. So when you when I can I understand the comment in the in this section, and I understand the comment in the scorecard section, you know, where most schools can't get the point that they deserve to have because they are small in size? And they may not be able to afford to, hire CPA or a financial manager, internally. But in the case of Math Academy of Science, I would expect that they should be able to do that given the size of the school and the knowledge.

And they all and they constantly have and they don't recruit students. They don't have to recruit because their their reputation is such that they always have a massive waiting list.

Right.

So that's something I think Gil and I can address with it.

Yeah. Can say this. Every year, doctor Baylor and I make our rounds to, speak to the board members of each of the schools to present any policy updates or to present the annual report. So that is something that, when we meet and usually that happens around October, November, maybe December. That is something that we could bring up to the board, and any Charter School Review Committee members, of course, could come to the meeting. Maybe we can invite Rupesh to, the meeting, and that could be another way to, look at it.

That would be wonderful. Sure. Okay.

And when is that meeting you said, Gail?

Usually, it's, in October, November. It's just whenever the school has their, usually, it's their first or second board meeting of the year, and they usually just put us on the agenda.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. But the the only problem is with the October meeting, that will be after the year end. So we we may wanna do something before the year end to see how they are progressing and, you know, making the changes. So Okay. So I didn't know if there is a way we could reach out to them between now and June 30 and see how they are progressing.

Yes.

Okay. Then if no further questions, we can move on to the next school, the Harvard Fuller Collegiate Academy, which completed its fourteenth year as a City Of Milwaukee charter school. And the school showed a significant gain of $7,600,000 in the year, for the fiscal year, and the school posted revenues of 18,750,000.00, up from 11,670,000.00 in the prior year. The revenue increase was due to increase in donations of $4,400,000 and a charter revenue increase of $43,400,000.0. The increase in charter revenue was primarily due to expanded campus, and the the enrollment went up by about 279 students.

Also, the current year expenses increased by $3,900,000. The expense increase was mostly due to increase in salaries and benefits as expected of about $1,860,000. The depreciation went up by about 748,000 and professional fees of $222,000 and some other expenses that went up by, you know, $200,000 each. The average cost per FTE was $18,007.81 compared to 23,610 in the prior year, so that has come down quite a bit. The membership counts are up substantially.

They're up September and January counts were six hundred eleven and five hundred and seventy three compared to prior year of three hundred and fourteen and two ninety four. The school did not have any, any restricted fundraising revenues or expenses in current year or prior year. The unrestricted fundraising revenues were $5,700,000 and $1,300,000 in 2025 and 2024, and unrestricted fundraising expenses were $362,000 and $164,000 in 2025 and 2024. Surplus as a percentage of revenue is at about 41%. The current ratio of school has improved to 17.5 compared to point two three in prior year due to approximately $10,000,000 decrease in accounts payable caused by the ongoing construction in the prior year.

The year end cash balances increased to $7,260,000 from $44,000 in prior year, and the pledges receivable decreased by a million dollars. The audit was completed on time, and there were no financial statement internal control or compliance finding by the auditors. And the the school did comply with all of the city of Milwaukee reporting requirements in timely manner. So based on our review, it appears that organization has sufficient financial management system and appears to be in compliance with the provisions of its contract with the city of Milwaukee. Subsequent event, as you guys have noted, the school's five year contract with the city of Milwaukee charter committee ended on 06/30/2025, and the school decided not to renew their contract with the city of Milwaukee.

Looking at their financial scorecard, because, they had excellent financial year, and that helped improve their scorecard as well. They have very strong financial condition, and they have a perfect score for sustainability. The internal score score needs to improve, but couple of matter, although not qualified as finding, there were, the the auditors made a comment that, you know, the journal entry should be prepared and then reviewed by a different individual. And the other issue noted was in regards to the donations database reconciliation that was not done on a timely manner. Any questions on Howard Fuller?

Alright. Okay. If not, then we can move on to Milwaukee Math and Science Academy. Okay. MMSA completed their fourteenth year as the City of Milwaukee Charter School.

The school showed a $44,000 deficit from approximately $3,570,000 of revenue and expenses of $3,610,000. Revenues remain consistent while expenses increased by approximately $200,000 due to the increase in salaries and payroll taxes of $150,000. Food costs went up by about $30,000 and depreciation expense of $29,000. The enrollment did increase by about 11 pupils, but enrollment should be watched closely by the school. The average FTE cost per student is 15,923 compared to 2024 cost of 15,363.

The the membership counts for September and January were two hundred forty two and two hundred and thirty one compared to prior year of 243 and 220. The school did not have any unrestricted or restricted fundraising revenues or expenses in current year or prior year, and the deficit is at 1.2% of the total revenue in the current year. The school has accumulated an unrestricted net asset balance of about $750,000 or 21% of the revenue. The current ratio decreased to 3.4, which is still excellent, compared to 5.3 in prior year. Accounts receivable went down by a 178,000 primarily because of SSL receivable of $195,000 in prior year.

Current and total liabilities are consistent with prior year period changes. And the audit was completed timely, and there were no significant financial statement or internal control finding noted by the auditor. And the school has complied with the city of Milwaukee's reporting requirement for the school year. So the school continues to be in solid financial position as a charter school, and they are in compliance with the financial management provisions of its contract with the city of Milwaukee. And looking at their scorecard, the scorecard is consistent with prior year.

No no real changes. Any questions on MMSA? Okay. I take that as a no then, and then we can move to our last school. On the report, Escuela Verde, which completed its thirteenth year of operation as a City Of Milwaukee charter school.

Escuela Verde is an arm of our, larger organization, Transcenter for Youth Inc, which comprises of three other entities, Shalom High School, Nova, and Alcuente High School. Squala Verde once again was able to achieve very good financial results even with a relatively low enrollment level. The school showed a surplus of $64,000 with a revenue of about 2,000,000 and expenses of $1,940,000. Revenue revenue decrease of about $341,000 is primarily due to grant income decrease of $366,000, but the expenses are consistent with the prior year. The average FTE cost per student is 16,099 in current year compared to $16,003.17 in prior year.

The membership counts for September and January 2025 were hundred and twenty one and hundred and twenty compared to prior year of 120 and hundred and twenty one. So so pretty consistent with last year. The school did not have any restricted fundraising revenues or expenses in current or prior year, and they did not have any unrestricted fundraising revenues or expenses either. Surplus is at 3% of the revenues. The school has accumulated unrestricted net assets of $402,000.

As the school is part of the TransCentre4U thing, it is important to look at the financial position of the organization as a whole. The TransCentre4U's year end cash and receivable balance totaled approximately $2,890,000. Current liabilities increased by $213,000 due to accounts payable increase of 220,000. The this resulted in current ratio of 5.5 compared to 8.5 in prior year. The accounts receivable decreased by $660,000, of which $530,000 was due to decrease in ESSER funding receivable, and rest is because of general grants and the timing of the receipts.

The audit was completed on time. And per the report, there were no financial statement, internal control, or compliance findings. And the auditor expressed no issues over school's ability to continue and as a going concern. The school did comply with all the reporting requirements, for the CSRC. So based on our review, the organization does have adequate procedures to ensure sufficient financial management system and school appear school and organization as a whole appear to be in a good financial position.

And the school appears to be in compliance with the provisions of its contract with city of Milwaukee. Their financial scorecard does reflect their excellent financial position. They continue to have an excellent score. The internal controls, we had to deduct a point that it does not have a finding. However, two teachers, the auditor made a comment that two teachers' licenses had expired.

So that's something that they need to keep an eye out on. Right. So, any questions on Esquel Averde or Transcentra for you?

I just have one, Rupesh.

Yes.

And that is, would you mind doing me doing us a favor and, for you you you begin every school with when they were established. You just didn't have when escort Verde were established, and I think they were established in the 2013, 2014 school term.

Okay. I can add that to the report for next year unless we had okay.

And, Gail, let's, since we it that is a pet peeve of mines with the, teachers with no license. So let's just address that with the schools that had this financial audit because it's not only a financial audit that's mentioned, it's also something we mentioned to them at each of the board meetings as well too. I mean, at without meeting. So maybe we might instead of our annual meeting, kinda maybe midterm, check-in with them and see how they're doing because they know that I've I've asked them all to make sure that all their teachers have at least they have a license with stipulations. Now they just have to make sure that no one is sitting around with an expired license.

Even though teachers do get, if they're currently working, DPI sends out a reminder that their license is about to expire, their lifetime license, and their provisional license, or if they own a special education program, a license. They have a system in place where they send out a reminder, letting them know it's time to renew their license. So

Okay. And doctor Baylor is currently, gathering the data for, that would be this school year, so I can check-in with her to see kinda where they are.

Alright. Sounds good.

Also, this is Zana. It's gonna be that came into is it 2012, 2013? So one year before.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I just did a quick subtraction. That's why I said '13. Thank you, Zaina, for that.

That was good memory. Good memory.

Any other questions or comments for Perez? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to accept the AML thought financial report.

Or second that, Zena?

I need a motion first, Zena.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. A motion, Zena.

K. It's a motion by Zena. Can I get a second?

A second.

Who seconded it?

Doctor Davis.

Thank you, doctor Davis. Been, moved and second. All in favor of accepting the annual financial scorecard report from ML ThawPS, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Any nos? Any, abstentions? Motion carries. Thank you, everyone. But before we go, I want to take this opportunity to welcome to the committee, doctor Davis. Doctor Davis, how do I pronounce your first name?

It's Hayani.

Hayani. Okay. Yeah. I would like to welcome doctor Hayani Davis to her first charter school meeting, and we will welcome, hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. At the next at our next meeting when we do our training, we will, also welcome, Tracy Sparrow. And since we're here, doctor Tyannick I mean, doctor Davis, if you would like to comment or have anything to say before we close out our meeting, we'll give you an opportunity to do so.

Now thank you for welcoming me, and I'm excited to work with you all. And it's great. This is a great meeting actually to come into just to hear about a lot of the things that are already going on. So, again, thank you all, and I look forward to working with you.

Well, Dylan and I are very welcome to have you. Caller number one, who was about to say something? The one that's titled caller one? Alright. Okay. With that said, then seeing that there are no further business before us, I'll entertain a motion to dismiss. Let's close that meeting.

Move to dismiss.

We move to dismiss. Got a second?

Second. This is doctor Davis.

Okay. We move in a second. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone, and see you at our next meeting. I think it's gonna be training right there.