Good evening, everybody.

Thank you for joining us tonight.

We're gonna this is the fall.

I could read my own notes.

This is the fall 2025 renewal hearing for tonight only Victory College Prep is on our agenda.

I'm Shana Cavasos, I'm the director of the Office of Education Innovation.

We're just gonna go around and just briefly introduce the members of my team who are here with me.

We'll actually start with three.

I am Brielle Petty, and I am the senior governance performance analyst for OE.

Hi, Holly Morgan, Deputy Director.

Madeline Gabots, senior academic analyst.

Ungoodseek and senior financial performance analyst.

So like I said, tonight we are here for a renewal hearing.

Um and then we will begin immediately with public comment.

Should be able to move through that quickly.

And then at that point, we will just kind of go over a little bit about VCP's renewal application and then bring the team up to share with us.

We'll do some kind of QA about the renewal application and um uh kind of goals for the next term, and then we will we should be able to wrap up.

Um so just a little bit about so we are uh streaming on uh channel 16.

So um I just like to kind of go through a little bit about what this process looks like for our authorizing office.

Um so in the spring of a school's sixth year of operations, we issue a renewal report, and what that does is it combines the prior five years of data across the areas of our framework, academics, finance, governance, and including um two or three depending upon the school's age, um, in this case two, um, on the ground site visit evaluations with an independent evaluator.

Uh, and so that information is put together and reviewed by our team for kind of the different trends that have occurred over the course of the term, um, presented to the school so that they understand kind of where they're at according to the performance framework heading into the renewal conversations.

Uh, and then schools are asked to respond to any area where um an indicator on the framework is either approaching or not meeting standard, um, both to kind of determine what what was behind those trends, what is currently being done or what may be done in the future to address some of those areas, um, and then when is the plan for the um the standard to be met um at what point in the next term um based on whatever the information is that we are evaluating.

Um so schools usually review uh they respond with that renewal application late summer.

Um this team and other members of the OEI team review the application.

Um we do a fairly um in-depth renewal interview with school leadership and board leadership to learn more about the application and um what all the various goals are that are being set and different issues that have kind of come into play over the course of a term.

Um we have a public hearing like this where we talk publicly about a school's performance and open it up for public comment for members of our community.

Uh and then a renewal decision is made um usually shortly following this meeting.

So we uh are not a voting body and renewal decisions are made by the OEI staff, um, myself as director in consultation with the mayor.

Um our intention tonight is to communicate that decision um I'd say within the next couple weeks.

So with that, um, we're gonna open up the floor for a public comment.

Um thank you, Holly.

Uh you can see we have two little white microphones hanging from the ceiling.

If you could make sure you are near standing pretty much underneath one of those before you begin to speak, then I'll make sure that you're recorded.

Um you'll have two minutes to speak.

We're gonna set a timer up here.

I feel confident that we will um have plenty of time, so just listen for that and then please conclude your thoughts once it sounds.

Um what am I missing?

Standing the other microphone said that.

Oh, we did um receive online public comment from folks who maybe couldn't be here with us this evening.

Um, of those com all of those comments were provided to our entire team several hours before the meeting started so that we could review and have that information um available heading into tonight.

So the first person that we will hear from is Marcy Brown Carter.

Does that sound good?

I know you need that you need an X.

Oh, that's a great idea.

I can't hear it, but yeah, you're good.

Okay, thanks everybody.

Uh hi Marcy Brown Carter, long-time board member uh Victory College Prep and the current board chair as of this fall.

Um, as you all know, uh, in 2019, Victory College Prep broke away from a national management company so that we would have the opportunity to uh operate ourselves locally and independently.

Um, that's been a pretty amazing experience as somebody who'd been on the board for a long time and seen both.

Um, as you all know too, uh, Victory College Prep completely and fully committed to the city of Indianapolis, particularly the Southeast Side where we've been located for all these years.

Umce 2019, since the board has really been able to uh to work independently to really own Victory College Prep.

We've worked hard towards some particular goals, um, you know, utilizing our our governance tools.

Um, first of all, the and of course doing it in concert with you know these great leaders.

Um and very importantly, building a very significant uh financial surplus, um, since that, as you know, last year we were able to buy a second school building in cash, in addition to a lot adjacent to our first building that we are going to be able to utilize as a staff parking lot, you know, both really getting at our our long-term expansion goals, um, and obviously, in the meantime, you know, being able to do that in cash and still having cash on hand with plans to build it back up.

Um, you know, something we're extremely proud of having been able to do.

Um, additionally, long-term goal to have been able to grow our student population to a record 1,300 students that we've uh been able to serve this year.

We've also over this time been able to increase teacher pay and benefits, which is extremely important to us, you know, given the the competition within the city now for great teachers.

Uh, and we've certainly just you know broadly feel like we've been able to get to a place where VCP has true long-term sustainability, you know, up into the future.

Um stop.

Thank you.

Um, look, we've we've really done all this by staying true to our mission and and vision to serve an increasing number of students to thrive in college and career, and just want to thank you all for the opportunity to keep doing that and hopefully for an extended term into the future because uh we love the job that we all get to do, and we thank you for the partnership that we have with you to be able to do that.

Um, next will be Amanda Meadows.

Hello.

Uh my name is Amanda Meadows.

I am one of the assistant principals of instruction for Victory College Prep Elementary School.

This is my second year with VCP, and I'm also a parent of a VCPES student.

I am honored and excited to be an academic leader and a proud parent of a student at the VCP Elementary School.

Your approval of our renewal charter charter school, sorry, charter will allow me, my fellow elementary educator, and our network teammates in VCP middle school and VCP high school to serve students better.

Our transition to a standalone elementary has allowed us not only to enroll more kids but also create stronger, more developmentally appropriate programming and participate participating in our efforts to strengthen student literacy by grade three.

The elementary school years are vital to students' long-term success, and we are proud that at our BCP elementary students of color and those living in the in poverty are performing better than their peers throughout Indiana, including in Marion County.

Thank you for your support and helping the sorry and helping make these outcomes possible.

And I'm grateful for your thoughtful consideration of our charter renewal this evening.

Next will be Lisa Wills.

Good evening.

My name is Lisa Wills, and I'm a VCP elementary fourth grade teacher and also the teacher mentor.

I've had the joy of serving as a teacher mentor in the BCP elementary school.

This is my 23rd year teaching, and 12 of those years have been right here at BCP.

In my role, I help coach new teachers, our uh new hires within their first year and beyond, so they can be more successful.

I take much pride in helping our educators integrate into our school network, our culture, and creating a positive learning environment in their classrooms for our wonderful students.

It's with this spirit of service for my fellow teachers that I come before you tonight because your approval of our renewal charter will allow me, my fellow teachers, and our academic leaders at VCP to service students better.

Our move to a standalone elementary school operating in our VCP two campus three-school model is creating more opportunity for development appropriate learning and experiences for our students across all grade levels.

Specifically in the elementary school, this is allowing us to better focus our instruction on our younger students, unique needs so they can meet our goals of moving student proficiency 10% in both reading and my favorite personal subject math.

Your approval of our charter renewal will help make these ambitious gains possible for our students.

Your support also signals our VCP teachers that we are appreciated for all of our tremendous work in serving Indianapolis students and their families.

I love our school.

VCP, the VCP community has allowed me to lay my roots, and it is my second home.

Thank you.

I'm also reading for the next speaker.

So yes, so I will just by way of introduction.

I know that um Aiden Carpenter couldn't be here tonight, and so uh Lisa will be reading comments on his behalf.

Yes.

So, like she said I'm gonna be reading for Aiden.

I'm gonna speak on behalf of Aiden tonight because despite his best efforts, he was unable to secure permission from his um employer to be here this evening, and I do admire his hard work and his dedication.

Um I am humbled to read the remarks prepared that he prepared for tonight.

I was Aiden's fourth grade teacher, and I also taught all of his siblings.

Here's what Aiden has prepared for this evening.

And I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Who is Aiden?

He's a uh 12th grader at VCP.

I am pleased to come before you tonight to encourage your support of the VCP renewal.

I am currently the senior class president of the class of 26, but I have attended VCP since kindergarten.

Both VCP and I have grown a lot in the last 12 years.

The school's network's ability to positively impact a growing number of students like me will change the life trajectory of individual young people, entire families, and our whole Indianapolis community.

My VCP experience has been genuinely life-changing.

I'm on track to graduate with an academic honors diploma, the Indiana College Course Certificate, and 59 transferable college credits.

In the fall, I will be starting as a sophomore at the University of Indianapolis, where I'm gonna major in criminal justice.

I've already started working on my Ivy Tech pathway with VCP this year.

In addition to the college experience, I've also benefited from my internship at Silver Fox Media, which has improved my communication skills, and I know that will be critical to my future successes in criminal justice.

My successes are the direct result of the care, support, rigor, and quality of the passionate VCP teaching teams.

But their work doesn't just impact me.

I will be the first of my siblings to earn a bachelor's degree with 59 college credits.

I'm already almost halfway there, and my success lifts my entire family.

Your charter renewal approval for VCP has the chance to make my story a reality for an increasing number of Indianapolis students and families.

Thank you for your support and expanding a school network with a strong track record of changing lives like mine and my siblings.

Thank you.

Next, we'll hear from Felipe Quatracancy.

That works.

Please say it correctly for the record.

Um good evening, everyone.

My name is Felipe Quateconzi, uh OEI VCP.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Um I am a lifelong resident Hoosier.

I grew up on the west side of Indianapolis.

My background is in education.

I actually taught special education and ELL on the east side of Indianapolis, not too far from here.

Um, today, though, I'm here on behalf of Teach for America Indianapolis, where I currently support fundraising and external affairs.

I'm here on behalf of our entire team as well as our executive director, Dr.

Tanika Holden Flynn.

Um, in each of the last five summers, we've partnered with BCP to host our summer practicum training for the new cohorts of teachers who have chosen to serve here in the Indy community.

With more than a hundred different schools in the Indy Center Township alone, TFA Indy, we have plenty of options to choose from when considering the host organization for our most important annual training series every year.

But VCP, it offers our recruits the best opportunity to scale up quickly by learning from some of the city's best educators, like Lisa Wills, who spoke before me in a school setting that is dynamic and student-centered.

Um, I don't know what better endorsement we can give to VCP than the fact that we trust their part uh we trust them and we partner with their uh with them for our annual training this past year.

We had 40 plus new teachers, um, and this is how it's been the last five years.

Uh your your renewal approval tonight, I think we'll hope VCP continue to expand its reach and serve more students, employ more teachers, and increase economic stability on the southeast side of Indy.

And I can honestly think a few schools that are more deserving um of your support, and just as we at TFA and you choose VCP, I know that your choice to approve their renewal charter, it'll only increase you know the quality of education across our city.

So thank you.

And then um our last signed up speaker um will be Peggy Frame.

Good evening.

My name is Peggy Frame.

I'm the executive director at Southeast Community Services.

We're community center just on the South Side.

Um the previous speakers have made it clear through the remarks that show the VCP is a leader in education and a champion for their teachers and students.

My experience with the school network is that they're also a community leader, providing so much more than just positive classroom experiences and strong academic outcomes.

Southeast Community Services partners with VCP to offer his families career coaching services and financial coaching services.

Most recently, we've partnered through a series of workshops that help prepare families and their students for their post-secondary experience.

Together, we've also worked to stock our food pantry with VCP, literally bringing truckloads of food to the pantry that the students have raised with us, and then we distribute that food to families across the area.

Our partnership grows with each passing year, which is a reflection of the positive impacts of their expansion plans and the value that they put on serving students and families holistically.

Our team at SECS understands that your renewal of the VCP elementary school charter is essential to the network's long-term sustainability and its plans to be a vital resource hub in Southeast Indianapolis through 2040 and beyond.

So, on behalf of the students, the families, and all the service providers in Southeast Indy, I'm grateful for your support of VCP.

Thank you for your time tonight.

Um, is there anyone else who is here tonight who would like to speak that didn't sign up?

Okay.

Um, we appreciate everyone who came out to share with us.

We spend a lot of time working with obviously school leadership and um reviewing a lot of pieces of paper, and so it's really wonderful to get to hear from people who have experiences with the school and and are willing to come down and take time out of there very increasingly during this time of year busy week uh evenings to share with us.

So thank you again.

Um, we appreciate it.

Um so next uh we'll kind of transition to the topic of the hour.

Um, and just something I kind of want to clarify and several uh folks in the public comment kind of alluded to this.

Um for anyone who spends a lot of time perhaps on our website, um, you might notice that uh we you know recently did have a change at the network level.

Um, VCP came to us for two additional charters, um, essentially kind of splitting up their K-12 school into a K4, 58, 912.

Um, and so based on the timing of when that occurred, obviously, much of the prior term was for the school as a K-12 model.

Um, tonight, though, given the um charters that were granted and the amendments that were then given, we are considering renewal for the elementary school charter.

Um, and if you are you know interested in hearing about um a lot of the great work happening at the middle school and high school, which we will touch on tonight as well, because kind of kind of gotta take it together in many ways.

So we're um looking forward to that.

You can also revisit the uh conversation from earlier this year, where um those schools were discussing more detail pertaining to their new charter applications.

Um but we will be kind of speaking about uh much of the school as a whole.

So just a brief overview for folks who might not be familiar.

Um as uh we've heard tonight.

VCP is located on the southeast side of uh yeah, that is center township.

Um they originally opened in 2004, although this uh their last renewal was in 2019.

Um the grade levels we're discussing tonight are K through four, but the entire network of roughly 1300 students serves uh grades K through 12 at the elementary school, about 536 students.

Um, we're joined by the executive director Ryan Gall and other building and network leaders tonight, and then board chair Marcy Brown Carter, who we heard from earlier.

Um, so I spoke to kind of what's uh kind of contained in the renewal um report already a little bit.

Um VCP uh overall responded to seven indicators across the kind of academic and um what I'll say are kind of like academic compliance related aspects of our performance framework.

Um all of those documents are available on our website if you're interested in spending a lot of time with the renewal report or the renewal application, um, but just kind of a brief summary here in the application, which was the school's response to the data that we highlighted over the last five years.

Um strength were found in their operational and fiscal management, um, which Marcy spoke to earlier, um, school and network leadership experience, which I know we will hear more about very shortly, and then just the overall engagement of the board.

Um, you know, we emphasize here in our uh our framework and our evaluation just the importance of a of a strong board to a strong school, and I think that is certainly um on display with the folks at BCP.

Um, areas we know where the elementary school and you know, again, more broadly, um, the network uh will continue to focus going forward uh will be in the areas of attendance, um, which we know has been a challenge for many schools um over the last several years, um, and then also in um English language arts and math proficiency.

So we're about to hear a lot more detail, but I wanted to provide that overview, and with that, um, if the team from BCP would like to come up to the front, um you can if you I have a clicker, which I will give to you, or you can just use the buttons on the laptop.

I think we could probably manage the buttons on the laptop.

I am confident that you can, but you know, I don't intend to like walk around like we'll probably just stay seated.

All right.

Hi everybody.

Um, my name is Tara Muller.

I'm our chief academic officer.

We've met a few times before, um, but I'm responsible for our K8 program.

So I manage our elementary and middle school principal.

Been with BCP for about three years now, and I get the distinct pleasure of introducing the rest of my team.

So sitting to my left is Valerie Miller.

She's our uh elementary principal.

She's been with VCP for 17 years.

She's been 11 of those years as an assistant principal, and she's in her second year as our principal.

Behind me, we have Ryan Gall, also 17 years at Victory College Prep, seven years as our executive director.

Rahu Rahul Jodi, who is my counterpart at the high school.

He's our chief readiness officer.

He's been here 16 years and has spent four in some iteration of his current role.

Um Mike Liphart, uh, he has cumulatively been at VCAP for 16 years, although he had a brief interruption working for uh another organization, but he's spent four of those years as a C level leader most currently, currently as a chief strategy officer.

And then Andrew Henge, who has spent five years at Victory College Prep, all five of them as our chief development officer.

I believe he left him off himself off the slide when he created it.

Um I'll just point out sort of as you alluded to a moment ago.

It's unusual to see leadership at a charter network with such significant tenure.

Frankly, that's part of what drew me to this organization three years ago.

Um, and I think it contributes to some of the successes that we're going to share with you tonight.

So you can see on the slide uh kind of a timeline of how we've evolved over the course of our prior charter term.

As a few folks have alluded to, we became Victory College Prep in 2019 after previously existing as part of a larger national uh charter network.

We knew that we could serve kids better and more efficiently and more effectively if we were a local organization.

I wasn't here at that time, but the folks who came before me made the very bold move to become Victory College Prep, a move that you all supported by becoming our charter authorizer.

Um in 2021, we launched a strategic plan focused on purposeful expansion.

We don't want to grow just for the sake of growing, but we want to grow because we are focused on serving more kids as effectively or more effectively than we have been able to in the past.

And you can see on the screen some of the milestones that we've encountered along the way.

I won't read off the screen for you, but some things that I would I would name is we we met our conditions needed for another round of expansion in 2024.

We set those conditions ourselves and we set a pretty high bar for what had to be true in order for us to feel comfortable and confident moving forward.

OEI supported that transition from a two-school one-site model to a three-school two-site model, which we launched this school year with our high school moving to our Bethel campus.

That's the new property that we um launched this year, and our middle and elementary school remaining at the Sloan campus.

Now we can we plan to continue strategic purposeful growth within these three schools, expanding over our next uh charter ex uh charter renewal years to 1,500 seats by 2028.

Uh we want to build on the successes we've had so far in a way that is once again really strategic and purposeful.

Also, really proud of the results that we've achieved so far.

Um we've seen significant growth in student proficiency, even if we aren't where we want to be yet in terms of proficiency.

We serve marginalized student groups more effectively than many of our peers and more effectively than the state, and we serve students more effectively than the district based on student outcomes.

Now that's good, and we aim to achieve even stronger results in the years to come.

And I want to invite Valerie to share about some of our priorities for the next charter term.

So this this slide is gonna speak to what we've learned over our previous um charter term, and just we acknowledge that there are improvements that we need to make as we go forward.

Um we are committed to being the foundation of this network.

We understand in order for our students to matriculate that we have to set them up with a solid foundation.

Um so we're making sure that we elevate all of our OAI academic indicators to meet standard.

Um we're doing this by first um accelerating K for literacy growth.

Um, all of our teachers were pushed to enroll this year, not waiting to the 2027 deadline to enroll as science of reading.

Um now we have over 50% of our teachers who have completed and are headed to take their practice exam.

We also are partner with Lives Indy for Freedom Readers, that also will be placing two um tutors within our building this semester who also have had science of reading um training as well.

Then we're gonna move to intensify more of our SPED MLL and SEL support services.

Um, this was an area that we went through our mid-year evaluation and we went through a corrective review.

Um, we took this opportunity to learn from our last charter cycle and to restructure um at our organizational level.

Um, we now have four MLO teachers.

We have a K-8 support service um coach that coaches and develops um all of those that work with our special populations.

Um, we did notice that over COVID, after COVID, um our population of multi-language learners began to increase.

Um, and so we started offering Spanish classes to our parents, um, even on the Saturdays that we do we're both in interventions for um our students.

Um, the result has led to over 10% growth in both our sped proficiency and also our multilinguage learners in ELA and math proficiency.

All right.

So we acknowledge the areas that we want to grow in and we're proud of the academic growth that our students have made and will continue to make.

And so that is why we are seeking a 15-year enduring excellence renewal because we know we have the vision and momentum to continue to empower our students to thrive.

Uh, thank you all so much.

And I believe we're ready for questions.

Uh it seems like there are you planning to want to do this in sections.

It looks like there's a little bit more.

Oh, I think there is.

Do we need to do a brief scene change?

Yes.

I'm gonna ask Ryan to take those last two.

Hey everybody.

So, as Tara mentioned, we've had a lot of success.

We moved student proficiency over the last six years by over 10%, and we've started pursuing this growth.

As we think about a 15-year renewal, and we look at the other schools in the portfolio that have received the 15-year renewal previously.

We know that that's gonna allow us to hit some of these other targets that are on the slide you see in front of you.

Get into 1500 students is gonna allow us to be sustainable over time, and it's gonna see very little growth at the elementary level.

We've already maxed out our growth K8, and now we start to pursue finishing the model 912.

That 912 model is going to be supported by these results that we've produced over the last charter cycle and look to produce over the next 15 years.

Um, you also heard from Peggy this evening.

One of our big commitments when we became BCP was not to be a faceless charter school on the Southeast side, but really to be a part of a community.

We started attending um the twin-air community events, the SEND community events and the Southeast Community Service board meetings as well to really embed ourselves in what's happening on this side of town.

And now we can start thinking about how do we move our SAT results in addition to some of the games we've seen in Nylon over the last couple years.

So, as we look to grow over the next 15 years, this is really what we continue to think about in addition to what you saw in the previous slide.

I think also the slide speaks to um our students hitting proficiency above the state average by 2030.

We've not set our goals to our peer institutions, we've not set our goals to IPS.

We've set our goals to state average.

We want our kids to be competitive with anyone, regardless of their zip code.

This kind of caps off with things that have happened in the last six months.

In the last six months, we were recognized as the number six charter school in the state.

And we were recently awarded 11 million dollars from the Willia Foundation to support our school over the next six years.

We're gonna use that money to bring back some of the staffing that helped produce the gains that we got over the last charter cycle through some of the COVID money that we got.

This will allow us to put co-teachers in every single classroom, K through 12.

It'll also allow us to do some building upgrades for the new building that we purchased and our existing building.

We're living at a thousand students at Sloan Avenue right now, but we're living in a very cramped house.

And if Chelsea gets tagged in, she'll tell you about the number of bathrooms we have in that building, even though she's not there anymore.

Um a running joke that even board members and occasional visitors get to hear.

Um, but that money really is going to allow us to produce some of the same gains.

If in the last six years, IPS has moved proficiency, combined proficiency by two percent, and we've moved it by eight.

If we can do that same growth again over the next six years, knowing that the last time we had this money was only for two years, and now we have it for six.

We believe that we can really be a top performing place for kids, not just in the city but across the entire state.

Really excited with a longer renewal period to put those things in place and really start to see the seeds that we've planted grow into really meeting for full results for our students in our community and for our staff.

Um never met a teacher, myself included, that says they don't they have not enough to do.

Um, and many hands makes for lighter work, which means for more intensive outcomes for kids and better knowing our student performance and their data.

And we're excited to sit here again in 15 years and tell you how we've we've done that over this last charter cycle.

Restate what Sarah Tara said before.

We're seeking a 15-year renewal to continue to make good on our mission and our vision, and that's to empower K-12 students to thrive after they leave us in college or career.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you.

There we go.

That's what I was expecting.

Um, thank you so much.

Um, so we're gonna move into some questions, uh, some additional questions about some of the areas we've already discussed.

Um, we'll discuss in greater depth.

Um, I will say I know we're playing a little bit of musical chairs, that's fine.

Um, also um, if someone maybe finds themselves repeatedly coming up, you you also are welcome to kind of take a seat and use one of these microsoft microphones on either end to um if that makes it easier for you.

So we can be flexible in that.

Um, we are going to begin um going back to um some academics.

So I don't know if Tara wants to come back or how to see how well I do.

Okay.

Um to you guys, and I believe Holly's gonna kick us off.

Yep.

So you kind of answered a few of my questions already.

Um, just in regard to student performance and how you kind of plan to do that.

Um, the question that I have left is how is the school ensuring that all students, so especially those who are behind or below grade level, um, receive access to grade level rigorous instruction.

Um, so our model this year looks a little different in kindergarten and first grade.

Um, we have covert the four classrooms.

Well, first grades now down the three and two data specialists.

Um, the data specialists are closing those gaps.

So they're responding to data in the moment.

Um, groups change very fluently, while the classroom teacher continues on teaching lessons and making sure that everyone gets that access to the rigorous grade level work.

Um, when those students come back into class, they they still receive the same thing, but maybe in a small group.

Um, so every small group that is in our school is not just intervention, some of it is those kids coming back and then getting that uh rigorous work right um in that moment coming back in grades um three and four, we have um separate students into cohorts.

So they trade for math and ELA, um, but they're still two data specialists at each grade level.

So instruction continues to move forward, also while we have staff dedicated to footballing gas to say.

Just to add a couple things on to that.

I think that's a it's a layered question that has like a hundred different answers.

So everything Valerie said, plus, I would say we hang our hat on being a transparent culture of data.

Um we have a master data file that I you guys might even have access to that anyone can see anyone's performance at any time across classrooms, across schools, across content, and we can drill down to the student level to make sure that all kids are moving.

You couple that with assistant principals that coach based on content.

So we have assistant principals of math of ELA and of K1 foundational reading that are experts in their content and people development and coaching, and then you lay on top of that a common curriculum that is standards aligned and standards driven.

So we're not using a, even though we're a homegrown charter school, we're not using a homegrown curriculum.

So I think all those things work in partnership along with daily professional development, monthly professional setbacks, and then a suite of formative assessments in K1.

We use iReady, obviously use the checkpoints in three, four.

And then we align all of our supports around making sure people are moving that data and using the adopted curriculum to stay true to state standards.

I don't know if I've heard that term used in that way.

How is a data specialist different than like the third or fourth grade teacher?

So the data specialist is really responding to groups of students.

So when we get our data back from iReady or from our checkpoints, they're really drilling down to those students that need those particular standard, those particular standards, and they are addressing those concerns where the teacher may go on to start to teach checkpoint two or may go forward to teach whatever else is in the curriculum while that teacher's going to make sure that that those students master that content so that they get both.

So they're they're all teachers.

Everybody's a teacher.

It's just kind of like what they're what they're specializing in at that time for those students.

So really trying to make um learning individuals each student.

Understood.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to kind of shift to some high school oriented questions.

I don't know if is any sort of switchery wants to happen.

Okay.

We'll we'll see.

All right.

Stand up and come up if you guys got something to add.

Sure.

All right.

So we know the um shift to SAT-based accountability has posed challenges statewide.

Um, what steps has VCP taken to strengthen SAT readiness and what improvements are you seeing so far?

You got it, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Um you can yeah, you could come sit here perfect.

That's great.

Yes.

Hi, everybody.

Uh I'm Chelsea Easter, principal of the VCP HS entire experience where we have significantly more bathrooms now at the Beth campus.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh SAT.

So we're doing a handful of things in terms of SAT.

You didn't ask about SAT math, but that's specifically what I'm gonna focus on.

So that's where we were falling behind furthest in terms of meeting our data goals and getting as close as possible to state data points.

Um so step zero was transitioning our curriculum to an integrated math system where our students were then allowed to have like a math one, math two, math three, where we're consistently spiraling in some of those skills.

We found previously with algebra one, geometry, and algebra two, our kids were doing really well in geometry, and they're also doing really well in the four geometry questions on the SAT, but then they like that whole year, then they were missing spiraled skills.

So we really um spent time over the summer betting curriculums and making sure we could lock in there, and then putting our students as opt-ins and some mandatory SAT prep math courses.

So this is a course taught by a teacher in small groups.

We have about 12 to 15 students in each one of these classes where they're cycling through based off their quarterly assessments, very targeted SAT bands, and then within those bands, you have like four-tier level of rigor, uh, rigorous questions.

So in the general classes, they're doing level one and level two, and then it builds one three and four.

In the SAT prep, they're doing four and three, just cycled over and over again, because those are the ways that the students will kind of move up to the next tier for scoring bands.

Then from there, quarter three, we're moving into some tutoring work, some Saturday school work.

We wanted to get as much data as possible for our students.

Um, and then tomorrow we're doing our practice, practice PSAT, using the P for PSAT gets confusing with this, but we um invested in some um blue book platform so that our kids could cancel the whole day's schedule.

We're locking in just like real SAT.

After this, I have to go pick up about three pounds of bananas from Walmart so that we can get the kids uh snacked and ready, but we're doing that for the whole day tomorrow, and then using that data to determine scheduling priorities for quarter three.

Thank you.

Um, and then I also wanted to ask about um your dual credit and college core access, which I know you during the public comment, there was that great um statement made on behalf of your one of your students.

But uh, how are you preparing students and families to be successful in these pathways as far as dual credit and college core access is concerned?

Wait, we we have we need some tech of saying so.

I think for us, it all starts in ninth grade.

So we know for students to be able to access dual credit courses, the first thing is they need to be eligible for those courses.

So starting in ninth grade, we give students a program support every single Monday that focuses on their GPA.

Most of the Indiana Universities require a 2.7 or 2.8.

Our goal for our students is they have a 3.0 so they can access any of those courses.

Then we want to make sure the families are involved.

So our director of post-secondary success, along with myself and Miss Easter, host family nights every quarter for every single grade level to talk through what those guidance points are so that they're ready for those classes.

And then lastly, and most importantly, we need the teachers to be ready.

So we have ever I think we have five to six dual credit teachers.

We've added one this year for math.

Those teachers get their normal support from our assistant principal and get support from our director of post secondary success in terms of how to support students in that rigorous coursework.

So our students take one dual credit course in 10th grade, two in 11th grade, and then as you would have heard of Aidan was here, he's taking maybe three dual credit courses and two dual enrollment courses all at the same time.

He's basically taking a college schedule all at the same time.

So I think starting with them being successful in GPAs and then making sure we have the leadership for them, gets them to that point of not only being ready for those courses, but then we can also support them as they're struggling.

We again they still have those grades, we check in with them every week.

Um, and none of our students are taking a college course without a teacher in the room, even if it's not their actual instructor that can support them and give them feedback.

Great.

Thank you.

Actually, I want to follow up on that.

What um I know that the the college core is not it's not brand new, but it's but it's newer, and I'm I'm interested in like how are parents kind of responding to this.

I'm sure it's a bit of a change, but um, it sounds like you're trying to make sure that you're bringing them along.

Could you just talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, so sorry, your question was how parents are responding.

So this is our this will be our third year offering the Indiana College Corps.

Um, with our class of 2024, I would say the majority of the parents were a little confused, or like they're already doing college classes, we're in.

Um, so the only difference is they had to do two additional college courses.

We most they have to do 10.

So a lot of our students were graduating with eight, and they have to do two more.

Um, when that first cohort that earned that Indiana College Court didn't really set in until they graduated from Ivy Tech.

So Ivy Tech's graduation because college ends before high school is actually before our high school graduation.

So then when they got to go to Ivy Tech and they're like, wait, my student graduated.

Do they still need to come to school?

And we're like, yeah, they haven't finished high school, so yes, they need to still come to school.

Um, and then they went off.

So, as part of our model, our students get um our director of post-secondary success gives them alumni coaching.

So when those students went off to college and we met with them, then those families were like, oh wow, at orientation, I had a lot of check marks, and I'm taking classes I didn't know that was possible.

So we have used our network, then those students come back to speak with our juniors and seniors to share their experience.

Um, one of our families comes back, came back, they have multiple siblings because we're K-12 network, and basically share it to other families.

You know, our student was allowed to live in the dorm with their financial aid, which we didn't think was possible at Butler University because they had gone so far ahead with the Indiana College Course.

So we also receive a grant through the College Matters grant through the Fairbanks Foundation.

But basically, we're taking what we're already doing, which was a lot of different dual credits, and just aligning them to here's how you can get the most scholarship dollars and go to any school in Indiana and be done with your first year.

Um, and we have about 65% of our total student population that's signed up and interested on doing that program.

We haven't gotten to 65% actually earning it yet, but 65% are in our College Mount Cash Scholarship Indiana College Core program right now.

Thank you.

All right, we're gonna shift gears just a little bit.

Um talk about some student support, um, safety and culture.

So I have a few questions.

Um, my first one is VCP um has implemented new culture supports, um including regulation spaces in K-4 and revised um suspension practices and secondary grades.

What positive changes are you seeing from these new systems?

So, of course, um our goal and VCP is in here.

So hold on, wait.

Sorry, Valerie, I'm gonna make sure that everyone's gonna be able to hear you.

So this is the microphone that will be picking up your sound.

If you want to just like bend it towards you, and that way we make sure we can hear what you're saying.

And then turn it on.

I'll bounce out.

Or we can do that.

Great, thank you.

Sorry about that.

No, so going into this school year and looking at our culture data from 24-25.

We realized that approximately 20% of our suspensions um came from elementary, and so we began with um two new staff members.

We call them our behavior specialists or behavior coaches, um, that coach, our students, more restorative practice, and meet with them.

Um, we try to upload and do a lot preventatively.

Um, we do not are not big fans of suspension by any means.

Um, but this year we launched what we call our pathway room, and we support our students through a normal day of they still get class.

Their teachers come in, teach them.

Some of the specialists that we mentioned before come in and teach them in a small group setting, but we really set goals for them.

And the goals based on their data trends, we push those boundaries within that room of a smaller group of students, but all our supports are in there.

From behavior coaches, our counselors come in twice a day and provide social emotional learning through second steps and also some early career in college to help as students will matriculate up.

And then our administrators, our assistant principals, and myself have time in the room to just kind of one bond with students, but also to see what it's like in there so that we can also be advocate for that student when we push them back into the classroom.

We track their data and work with families very closely.

We never put a student in that room unless we have had what we call a reverse suspension where we invite families in.

I think you've answered my second question.

Thank you.

Attendance has improved in several areas.

What strategies have been most effective that you guys have seen in keeping students consistently engaged and in school, especially at the elementary level.

They can't get themselves off the school.

So definitely incentivizing them so that they talk about it a lot to where parents basically making the school a place where kids want to be, offering incentives, but also making learning so engaging that they don't want to miss out on the opportunity.

And so that relationship there alone keeps our students coming to school each and every day.

We have students that sometimes don't want to leave, right?

Um school as well.

I think this missile, we can all say it's hard to get our babies on the bus.

Get on the bus, you have to go home.

You have to leave.

We'll see you tomorrow.

Um, but really, I think the incentives and then partnering with families, um, leaning into our mission alignment.

We say we want students to thrive, and so we measure that mission alignment through behavior attendance, our parent collaboration, and grades, and we sit down and have those conversations with our family.

And once we can get our family invested in that mission, we don't have a lot of problems.

Um, and that's what I think we see with our attendance.

Does this one does this one work?

Yeah, it works.

You just need to press the little gray button so it lights up green.

So over the last charter cycle, we made some other pretty significant changes as well.

We used to have just two front office assistants, and we've restructured those positions in the front office to be community engagement coordinators.

So in the front office, we have folks who regularly monitor attendance, make phone calls to families, partnership with our transportation, partner with our transportation coordinator.

There we go, Ryan.

Um, and try to figure out what's not not just why kids are missing, but what's at the root of the issue and what it's going to take to get that kid to school.

On top of that, we have a network pyramid that's up in every single classroom, and the base of that pyramid says 90% of our kids will be mission aligned.

The mission aligned means that they're here 95% of the time, they meet the grade expectations to meet the referral expectations, but it also means that we make a meaningful parent contact once a month to 90% of our families.

So one of the strategies we do have in place is that we have expectations that our teachers are regularly communicating with parents, and one of the things they are communicating about in those regular calls is um is was your child at school, why isn't your child school?

What needs to happen to get your child back at school to make sure that that's something that is improving and is front and center for all of our folks.

Thank you.

Um just one last question.

Um, how does a school engage families um, especially multilingual and special education um families to ensure they have full access to communication services and decision making?

Hello again.

Um, one of the things that we have shifted to this year is hiring a director of student support services.

So this person has an MLL background, is fluent and Spanish, uh, and oversees uh MLL services, special education services, uh, and uh high ability as well as McKinney Fento.

So by putting all of those services under the jurisdiction, I suppose, of one person across our whole network that allows for some consistency and expectations around that we communicate with families, how we communicate with families, how we communicate with them most frequently.

That person also coaches and works really closely with each principal to ensure that families have the information that they need and they act as our public representative in those special education conferences.

So they're pretty embedded into the work with our MLL and our special education teachers.

Those students are contacted by both classroom teachers and by their student support services person, whether that's special education or MLL services, so they get the same mission alignment calls.

But I think our particularly our students with special needs receive much more parent communication than would be typical for other students.

And it's entirely based on what students need.

So if someone comes to Valerie or to me with a challenge with a student with special needs, one of the first questions we're going to ask is like, well, have we talked to the family?

What how are we partnering with the family?

Some of the strategies we might use for that, particularly for students with special needs, are uh the reverse suspension that Valerie mentioned.

That's an opportunity for parents to come in, see how their student behaves at school, see how it's different than how they behave at home, and start to build a bridge for how we can learn from the family, how best to support the student, uh, and what we might be able to offer the family for strategies that they might use to help their student be more prepared for school.

And Valerie mentioned it in the presentation, but I'll just I'll rehit it here.

We quadrupled the number of Spanish speakers on our staff.

Previously, you know, when we just had office assistance versus a community engagement coordinator, we didn't have a multilingual multilingual person in the front office.

Now both of our front offices have someone who speaks two languages sitting up there.

This past year we added a full-time translator to our staff, um, which helps, and then we've you know significantly increased the number of folks with an EL endorsement and the number of MLL teachers on our staff.

I was gonna add on to the Ryan said our full-time translator also translates assignments for teachers to send those home with students along with any communication, whether that's our data from iLearn, iReady, if it's a flyer that the teacher's sending home, they just send it to her and it's communicated.

Thank you.

That is a great leeway into some MLL and special education questions.

Um you mentioned in your presentation intensifying SPED and MLL supports, and um, this charter term also included significant improvements in MLL compliance.

Could you go a little more into detail about how those changes are improving classroom support and student outcomes?

I think I'll start with the elementary school.

So we have two special education teachers and two uh MLL teachers on the elementary staff.

Uh they split by grade level and they do a combination of push in and pull-out support, just like you would see uh, I think anywhere.

I think on the on the one hand, right, the compliance matters a great deal, and we need to make sure that we are keeping our paperwork in order and following all of the rules and laws.

But I think what what matters as much, maybe more to me, is the quality of the services that those people provide.

So, our director of student support services, part of his role is to coach and develop those teachers in a way that is specialized for people who work in small groups, work to differentiate instruction.

His background again is in MLL, and so he comes with a lot of expertise for how to provide like sheltered instruction supports.

We also have retained our prior SPED director in a consulting role, and so they work super closely together so that our new director of student support services can begin to build some of those knowledge bases for himself.

Like, okay, this is how it's the same for MLL, this is how it's different.

Here's how I want to support my teacher to improve.

He observes those teachers in uh small groups and in push-in, he gives them feedback, he does their like quarterly evaluations so that the feedback they're getting is much more specific to the kind of role that they're doing.

Conversely, so that's how we support our special education and our uh multilinguage uh learner teachers.

We also provide supports for our general education teachers to ensure that they're using those folks well.

So one, our uh director of student support services or the teachers themselves regularly lead development for the rest of our staff for our general education teachers to make sure that they know what they need to know to support our students effectively and to give them strategies to support those students in the tier one instruction.

And then finally, there's a lot of stuff that happens sort of on the margins, especially if we're thinking about how we support students with behavior.

I was going to say as much in the middle school as anywhere else, but honestly, in in our elementary school as well.

When we have a meeting with our students with special needs about their behavior, our special education teachers there, our special education consultant often joins those spaces when it's necessary.

I join those spaces when it's necessary.

So we make sure that we are doing right by those students and families so that they are able to meet our educational outcomes in the classroom.

That's really about paving the way, making that pathway smooth.

Um so that there's nothing standing between them and the learning that we want to see from them.

And if you just look from a numbers perspective, in 2021 in ELA, I learned 6% of our kids were proficient in ELA.

Today it's 21%.

So it's a 14% increase-ish.

The state at the same time has increased 1% and is sitting at 13%.

So we're significantly outperforming the state in ELL on in EL on ELA.

That's a tongue twister.

In math, we were at again 6% in 2021.

Now 30% of our kids are proficient.

The state number in that same time has gone up 4%, and it's only at 18%.

And we've we've had the benefit of adding even more really good folks.

So I think everything Tara said, absolutely true, and it's producing outcomes.

I think we can sit up here a lot of times and say we're doing a lot of good stuff, but we're doing good stuff with really good people, and it's it's producing outcomes that are better than the state average.

Thank you.

And just as like a quick follow-up, is that director that you mentioned, you said his name was Juan, correct?

Is he also kind of in charge of ensuring that IEPs, ILPs are being um used and that combinations are being received in all these classrooms?

Yes, and he has particular expertise in ILPs, and then Travis, our special education consultant, is looking at I like they are literally opening IEPs together and making sure that they meet our bar for quality and that's teachers know how to implement them.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Um so you mentioned really good people, which is a good transition because I wanted to ask we know that staffing in schools right now is really hard.

Um so what are you doing to recruit and then retain those high quality educators and how are you supporting them once they're in the building?

Try to figure out who's going to take the question.

Um we uh this has been a little bit of a moving target for us the last couple years as we've significantly changed the number of staff members for scaling up through COVID, then scaling down to get rid of the COVID money, and then scaling back up for enrollment.

So I think we're sitting at about an 80 to 85% retention rate, which looks a lot lower because the number of staff members on our staff changes annually.

So I think even when we did the workbook for renewal, I I went back and had to like double check it three times.

What's really exciting is uh one out of every three staff members in our organization has been with us for five or more years, and one out of every five staff members has been with us for 10 or more years.

Um that's something we're really proud of and really excited about.

However, through growth, we're still bringing a lot of folks in.

So we run a robust set of supplemental benefits from subsidized cell phones to uh health and wellness benefits to um annual and quarterly bonuses for staff.

I think ultimately though, people stay because they feel like they're successful and they feel like they can win and they feel like they're in a place that's not chaotic.

Um, and so you know, one of the best ways to retain staff beyond a monthly joy committee or recognition is to make sure they feel like they're successful in the classroom.

And I think some of the academic results have really been helpful there.

Consistent managers has been really helpful there.

Uh, our our most tenured folks are our elementary assistant principals specifically, um, but then our our building leaders as well.

As you heard, Valerie's been here for 17 years, Chelsea's been here for 12, 10, 12, 12.

And Aviance, even our new middle school principal, has been with us seven years before she was made principal this year.

And I think we can go through when we came out of being lighthouse at our last renewal six years ago.

Our starting teacher pay was 37,000.

And using just good fiscal management and the per pupil alone, our starting teacher salary today is 51.5.

Still not where we want it to be, but I think we've invested back in our staff in a lot of different ways, and even if we can't pay them what we want to, we can make sure that we staff them with co-teachers' supports.

Um we invested in EAP four years ago.

We've invested in outside consulting for HR.

We do twice annual staff surveys, we've uh gone to a third party for our exit interviews so that we can learn more from those coming out of things.

We do intent meetings mid-year, followed up by one-on-one conferences with building leaders.

All three of our principals have 40 plus direct reports that they have meetings for within two weeks of December to make sure everybody gets a face-to-face with their person their um principal.

And I think that's that's just some of the ways that we're trying to stabilize, retain uh and hit recruit.

Um, but we will all of our postings will go up next week.

We've already forecasted all our staffing for next year, maintaining our partnership with TFA has helped secure some of those new folks coming in.

And then in the last two years, we've invested in a partnership with an organization called Rivet that helps all of our folks get BAs.

So anybody that doesn't have a BA is expected to be in a program if they want to take on a lead teaching role.

Um, and then we've started looking into using Rivet to help our folks get their teachers' license.

So we work with all of their folks to not only bring them in, retain them, help them feel supported, but then also find a way to scale them up.

Great.

Um thinking about leadership.

Um, we know that you have a lot of people who've been there for a long time.

Um, how does that leadership pipeline work?

And then what are your priorities for leadership development in the next term?

I can start.

Um, so one program I'm very proud of and excited about at our schools.

We we launched something called the Trail Blizzard Program.

So we know that a gap in our leadership is mid-level leadership.

So not quite uh like maybe around the AP level, but like teacher leaders, folks that lead projects.

Uh, we just didn't see the quality of leadership or folks being ready for those leadership roles.

So three years ago, we launched the Trailblazer program.

Roughly like five to six folks have joined each year.

Um, and it's a two-year fellowship.

They start with a course through Harvard Business School on principles of leadership, and then they meet with me roughly once a quarter to talk about first what they learned in that course and then apply what they've learned to a project that they lead in their school.

If they're already in a mid-level leadership role, so for example, one of our first year Trailblazers is a department head.

His project is actually like just be a great department head.

Um, you can also though take on additional projects or leadership opportunities.

So we won one of the Mind Trust opportunities to lead a Saturday boost program for our math I learn, so to prepare students for math I learn.

One of our Trailblazers is gonna lead that program this year uh with some support from from me.

So that's their their first year.

They also read the book The Advantage, which is a book we use on our leadership team to kind of guide how we think about leadership and growth.

Then in their second year, they've taken all of these, all of them have a coordinator a coordinator level role, or they may be a director on our team, and they continue to apply what they've learned in their first years of Trailblazer to now a more formal leadership role on our team.

Um and we're seeing I would say a lot of success with that.

Of I had the numbers on my the tip of my 10th, so I'm gonna dump this time, but of the folks who moved into leadership roles, I like 70% of them had been trailblazers.

Um, and then of our current Trailblazers or people who've finished the program, all but one have a formal leadership role, uh, unless they've left our a couple have left our organization, but for the most part, the folks who stay stay in a leadership role and take on both formal and informal leadership.

So that's like a program that helps with our leadership pipeline.

We also have to think about how we support and develop our uh assisted principals, our leaders within new leadership roles, and so we've invested somebody else can probably talk at a much greater level, but we've invested in some management training uh in our HR department as we've seen to sort of professionalize uh our HR.

Um, all of our leaders, this is again not my work, but all of our leaders have the opportunity to engage in executive coaching.

Um that's everyone on the executive team and our principals uh over the next quarter and the obviously semester.

Um and then coaching is a pretty significant part of everything we do.

Um I've been doing a couple of interviews this week, and one of the things we always say to the candidates is like everybody gets coached here.

Like if you're a teacher, you get coached by an assistant principal.

This is the principals are coached by principals, principals are coached by me or by Jody, and I get coached regularly by Ryan.

That's sort of intrinsic to who we are as Victor Calars Brev.

Anything you'll add?

That's good.

So I didn't want to ask and not to put you on the spot, Valerie, but but kind of.

Um, it is kind of unusual that you would hear uh, you know, I think people being in that assistant principal role, which is a which is a tough role because you're a leader, but you're you know, also still um there's a lot to learn, it's different than being a building principal.

And I'm curious, kind of as you were in that role for as many years as you were, what what kept you in it?

Because I think it would be there are definitely certainly opportunities throughout our city to take on greater responsibility.

There are buildings in need of good principals.

Um what was it either about the the support you were receiving or the experience you had that kind of kept you at your school and still feeling like you were clearly getting something out of that experience where it can be tough to find people to stick around?

Um I'll be completely honest, it's both, it's the community um that we're in in the support.

Um, like Ryan said, we work with remarkable uh educators.

I don't know how everybody finds BCP, but I'm so grateful.

Um that they come to us, I always say that um we're blessed with the bed.

Um, and it's just the energy that you get um there in the building, but I also am indeed born and raised um a product of IPS.

Um kids look like me.

I can identify with families when I come in.

I feel like I am who I needed when I was growing up.

And so all those different facets are what kept me there at BCP.

Thanks.

Uh now we'll be asking a few questions related to enrollment facilities and financial sustainability.

So not sure if we need to shift around again, but uh they want to just point that one.

Both can leave.

That was a cleared out.

Perfect.

Uh as highlighted during the presentation, the Victory College Prep Network has expanded and reconfigured its enrollment goals uh within just the kind of two campuses now.

I guess how are you ensuring that uh kind of that growth remains sustainable across the network?

You always come with the hardest questions.

Um I think the first thing I said before I'll say again, and that's that our growth right now is not at the elementary level.

So for the last five consecutive years, we've hit our elementary targets, and I think that's that's good news for us.

Even those targets won't go up.

And for the last five years, they've gone up every single year.

Um, so I think again, we could say we got lucky there or we did some smart things, but the nice thing is we've proven that we can do it, and we've proven that we can do it consistently over the past few years.

That's like luck is not a great strategy.

So, what I would say on top of that is we are we've looked at our recruitment role and we've split it now between two staff members, one for our Sloan campus and one for our Bethel campus.

The Sloan campus, in the next 30 days, we will visit 40 different daycares because kindergarten is the biggest threat to hitting our enrollment targets.

Um, and in those 40 different daycare visits, 30 of them will be literature materials and um daycare center director meetings.

In the other 10, they will be full days of tabling where we try to form genuine partnerships with families and inform them to help make them help get them to make the decision to get their kid in enroll Indy prior to the first deadline.

We know that a family that gets in at the first deadline has the most options and the most choices.

We know selfishly that if we fill kindergarten, everything else tends to backfill naturally.

Um, so I think our team has a really really good plan.

They have a database of where all those daycares are, what those partnerships are, and what our timeline for visiting them is, and then they're just scrappy and tenacious in following up with those families.

We've set some internal targets for round one matches, round two matches, round three matches, and then coupled strategies around all of those, and then back to the cornerstone of who we are.

We've built a really intense dashboard that tracks all of those matches, and we look at families three different ways.

You get them to register, you get them to roll, and then you get them to show up.

And so then we've set threshold targets along the way at each grade level to make sure that we fill those seats.

One of the places we missed this past year was in ninth grade.

Our ninth grade has been under enrolled from day one, continues to be in role under enrolled to this day.

And what we looked at historically is that the kids have just always shown up in ninth grade.

So it's a that's a maybe a place where we were not only is the word arrogant, but had less urgency.

Um, and so now, same thing I just told you about daycares, we're doing with outgoing eighth graders, uh, charter and district peers, dropping off welcome bags, planning match days, coordinating shadow tours, all so we can hit our ninth grade targets.

I think with some of the IPS strategy and restructuring, we saw less demand this year in ninth grade than we've seen traditionally, and we're not gonna miss that number again next year, which again is where most of our growth will come from, is in ninth grade, and then a natural scale up in grades 10 through 12.

In addition to all the things Ryan said, I think you mentioned sustainability, and I think we all recognize, we certainly recognize in student enrollment, in teacher recruitment, all those things, sustainability is driven by retention, and so we are very intentional about creating an experience for our kids where, as Ryan said, we're we only have to target a small handful of grade levels where that natural breaking point is because they want to be at VCP.

Um, and the same model holds true.

We've been really fortunate over the last two years to have over 93% retention of our student body.

So I think from a sustainability standpoint, it's continuing to be uh introspective and looking at data about why our students leaving, why aren't students uh why aren't we retaining students and continuing to hone in that data to push that number even higher so that we are not constantly seeking out new kids every single year outside of small handful of uh grade bands.

One more question for me then.

Uh I guess just want to say how does the kind of network's financial approach supports again just continued stability for students and families with kind of some of the recent facility purchase, uh scaling of that new facility and continuous upgrades to just the kind of Sloan campus as well.

I think it's just really uh a lot of a lot of intentionality and a lot of focus on how do we use some of the the gifts we've been given over the last six months, as you saw in the presentation, 11 million dollars from the Lily Endowment.

We've also um been blessed to receive CSP funding for the expansion and growth in our middle school and high school.

And so having conversations about how we take that money, invest back in students and back into the school in a smart way while also recognizing um that we can take those investments and continue to make them sustainable over time um by using uh by recognizing and forecasting over a number of years.

And so um the you mentioned board engagement at the start of the year, and we're really blessed to have um a number of board members who are intent uh really intentional about thinking about those those dollars and how we can make that last over a longer period of time while also continuing to feed back um um with our student body.

And so uh I think uh uh we're just trying to be we try to be thoughtful over the next couple of years about where we are going to uh most purposefully invest that money so that we can hone up and scale up our facilities and um build up our personnel while also continuing to um look at our reserve strategically so that um we continue to have strong cash reserves for the next five to ten years.

Thank you.

Um it almost seemed like we planned it, but we didn't.

Um I do want to talk about a little bit more about um the board.

So Marcy, if you want to come on up as well.

Um welcome.

Thank you.

So as the board, um, you your colleagues look ahead to the next term.

Um what is your highest priority for the the network or for for the elementary school, maybe both?

Where where are you focused the most closely?

Um I mean we're we're certainly focused on um academic, uh, you know, our academic results increasing um all the kinds of things that that our academic leaders have have talked about this evening.

Um we're certainly also focused on um being able to utilize the funding that that we've had, you know, planning very purposefully for upgrading that facility um to meet you know the needs of both the faculty and the students there.

Um and then I would say those those are the top two things that that I would say are the are the biggest focus for you know the next few years.

We've just re redone our um strategic plan.

So it's it's really it you know from putting us over the over the course of the last three years, putting us in a place where we were able to grow um to now having realized that that growth is indeed possible.

So, you know, so the looking ahead is making sure that we with that growth, you know, maintain it and support it and you know make sure that we earned the right to educate all these kids that we're that we're taking care of now.

Um and then we've talked a little bit about you know board engagement has been mentioned, and I think um you know it it is certainly strong.

And uh for people that maybe aren't as familiar with how charter school boards operate, what does that look like?

And how would you characterize the the approach that that BCP's board has has taken to you know to lead to some of the leadership that has gotten us the results that we've discussed tonight?

Uh we've been really lucky to have um you know, since we since we broke off uh from moving away from Lighthouse to BCP, um we had a really strong you know board chair come in at that point who was just well equipped to you know to like take charge and to um has also been really really good about very thoughtfully mining his contacts to build a stronger board and many of the folks that that have come into leadership now have have come along kind of as as we've been able to build this and and thoughtfully think about well which skills do we need to add here um so that no one person feels overburdened, like oh geez, I'm the only person here who can who can be the expert on this, you know, finance or development or what have you.

We had a really strong board chair come in at that point who was just well equipped to you know to like take charge and to um has also been really really good about very thoughtfully mining his contacts to build a stronger board and many of the folks that that have come into leadership now have have come along kind of as as we've been able to build this and and thoughtfully think about well which skills do we need to add here so that no one person feels overburdened, like oh geez, I'm the only person here who can who can be the expert on this, you know, finance or development or what have you.

Um we have we have been able to put into place really active um committee structures and uh feel really lucky to have some very committed committee chairs who um along with you know everybody has a dedicated counterpart on the leadership team, so they really work very strongly in concert to keep um a very strong monthly uh cadence of meetings going where we really look at very particular data at very particular times of year.

It's not just like I don't know what should we talk about this month.

Um, you know, every everyone knows kind of what their what their goals are across across the course of the year.

Um, and we've been really um strategic about who you know, bringing on, we've just brought on two new board members um at our last meeting.

This was their first meeting.

Um so just being really thoughtful again about as people roll off or you know, just scaling up the you know to keep ourselves strong in in every area that we need to cover.

How often does the board meet?

Board meets every other month with the expectation that committees meet every month.

Are your board meetings public?

Of course.

Um so you spoke in your presentation about uh being interested in um the opportunity for a 15-year charter, which um you some of our nomenclature, but which is uh since the state made that available a couple years ago, is um something that OEI reserves for schools that are performing across our framework, um, you know, at the highest level, um, and are also you know operationally sound, are uh you know compliant, all the different things that we measure.

Um but it's a significant responsibility, and while that certainly is as you all know, doesn't change our oversight or the amount of times we will connect with you or the data we look at and all the other ways that we're interacting throughout the course of uh of a year of a year, um it is certainly a responsibility, and I think you know, we always want to make sure that um we're emphasizing that, that we that we understand it's a it's an opportunity that brings with it certain benefits um financially and um that it is uh you know not lost on us what that means.

Um so in seeking a longer renewal term, how would you characterize the commitment that you're making to families and to the broader community about continuing improvement and performance over the next decade plus weirdly enough, this is the third charter renewal I've sat through for this school.

Um, a school that is now 21 years old on the southeast side of Indianapolis.

And all three of these renewals have looked very different for me.

Um I think the first one we weren't sure we'd be here after that renewal.

Um it was a it was a tense and all three of them have been in this room, so I have this room for a lot of baggage for me.

Um not to not like not even to mention the new charter meeting we did in the spring here.

So um, you know, the first one, not sure we'd make it, and but we knew we had something.

And the second one, we had made incremental gains and figured some some thing some things out, and we knew we had good people and a good system, but we knew doing it with a charter management company on our back wasn't gonna be the thing that was really gonna help our families thrive.

And then we came into this last charter cycle, one that has just been wild.

I mean, we had we had two and a half years of COVID, and we were we were a startup school that was 14 years old, which is a crazy thing to say.

Um and and in 2021, we put a stake in the ground, we we wrote our strategic plan and we said this is who we want to be.

Because I think for the first half of our charter cycle, we all we really said was we don't want to be lighthouse anymore.

And in 2012, we said this is what it means to be victory.

And and we built this plan that was supposed to create the foundations for us to grow.

And here we are now with writing a new strategic plan, coming in a new charter cycle with two new charters and another building.

We're just starting this journey, we're not going anywhere.

Um, and on top of that, uh I reference the triangle that's in everyone's room.

We're not happy to just be number six in the state or whatever the heck that even means, or like have an above the city average or beat the district.

Like we want to change kids' lives and our communities' lives on a part of town where frankly the district is pulling away.

And and there are not really any other K-12 options where we're located serving the demographic we're serving and the way we're doing it with like the eye on beating the state average, not the city average, but making our kids and our families competitive with kids who live in suburbs and live in townships and have options and doing it beyond just ELA and math, doing it in a place that is true to our mission and cares about the whole child.

So I I don't really know how to answer your question other than to tell you I plan on seeing you at the next charter renewal in 15 years.

Um and hope hopefully that'll be my last one.

Um I plan to travel, but like I'm not going anywhere, our board's not going anywhere, and regardless, it's not even about me or our board.

We've put systems in place that'll outlast our people.

And we have a mission that that isn't just to help our kids survive or graduate.

That is like the slide that wasn't in this presentation was graduation's not the finish line, it's the starting line.

We show that through our commitment to them after graduation.

We show that through our our our commitment to staff so many counselors and behavior support folks in our school.

It's evident in the people that are sitting behind me, their tenure with the organization, and the folks that are sitting in this room that they're within their first six months of being here.

We've really started to build something special and something sustainable.

Um that they're like, wow, it's like you don't have to worry about it.

I know that's a stupid thing to say in Karen, but like the systems are in place to manage whether the people come or go, and the commitment to this side of town is in place through our community partnerships, whether it's what you heard from Peggy today or one of our 40 plus internship partners.

Like we want to be here and we want to keep doing it here, and we want to keep doing it for more kids, and we want to keep doing it better.

The top of the pyramid says move proficiency 10%.

The state has moved proficiency 3% in the last charter cycle.

We've moved it eight, we want to get to 10, and we're gonna do it.

Well, I appreciate that.

Um, I I certainly agree it has been uh an interesting term.

Um, I I think I got here right either right before or right after the last renewal.

Um and so just seeing how you've kind of stabilized from that old startup model, or that doesn't sound uh what I you know, but into a school that I think really still kind of has everything that you started with, but certainly is also bringing something new to the table that you are in the process of of still building, which I think is kind of the right mindset for being able to move forward in the space where no seven-year period is going to be free of you know some amount of challenge or upheaval.

Um, and certainly that's that's been true for you, that's been true for many of our schools, um, and it'll probably continue to be true.

So I really appreciate just all the uh information that you guys have offered tonight, how um thoughtfully you've answered our questions.

Um does anyone have anything else they would like to raise?

Um I will say I'll just make another note.

Uh we you know, we've talked a lot thematically.

That is really the point of a hearing like this is to really help people understand kind of the the narrative and the people behind a school.

We have lots of data on our website.

So if you are wondering why we didn't mention specific proficiency numbers or growth targets, I promise you they are on our website um or they're on VCPs.

Um and so if you're interested in digging into that data, I would encourage you to do so.

That's what our team has spent the last um, I mean, really the last uh six years, um, but especially the last six months um doing in order to prepare for this evening to um really be able to showcase what what's been going on at the school and and where um we're all hoping to head.

So uh I really appreciate your participation tonight.

Also, members of our community and my team who have joined us and supported us this evening and all year.

Um like I said, we will uh you know be in touch going forward about a kind of formal renewal um recommendation uh as far as term length.

Um but otherwise we look forward to continuing our work with you, and we hope you have a wonderful evening.

So we're we're adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we need to do anything, push anything, touch anything like