Board Update from Chair James Hindes

June 4, 2010

Dear Trillium community,
I’m writing to provide you an update on the school’s financial condition, an update on our plans regarding a successor for Stephanie (our Director) and a request for parents who may be interested in serving on the board in coming years.

Regarding our financial condition, here are the key actions taken or underway:
Enrollment: the board decided in early May to increase enrollment across the school (roughly 20 more students). This will still keep us well below typical PPS class sizes, while helping shore up a substantial portion of our core funding gap.
The Building: a building use subcommittee of the board is exploring a number of building use ideas. The initial objective is to setup a process to rent the multi-purpose room and/or the kitchen. The board also approved a proposal in May to increase the size of the preschool and have it utilize one of the rooms in the building. This latter change also has a favorable impact on our funding gap.
Fundraising: There are several activities underway in this arena. However, our first objective is to setup some system basics, e.g. the ability to track donors and potential donors, and the ability to easily accept recurring donations – whether online (picture a Donate Now! button) or in person.
Unfortunately, the state budget has dealt us another setback for the coming year in the form of a 9% budget cut, which amounts to about $100,000. We’re currently working to balance our budget around the enrollment change, the preschool change, and the state budget cut.

Regarding our plans for a successor for Stephanie, here’s what we can share so far: the Personnel committee of the board has recommended that we divide the administration of the school into two key roles, an Executive Director and an Education/Curriculum Director, and that we begin searching for a new Executive Director as soon as possible. We have a lot of planning to do regarding how the transition will work and what the timing will look like, so stay tuned. The next step is collecting staff input before they leave for the summer.

Regarding board membership, we’ll soon be looking for some new board members from our parent community. We typically have 1-2 openings per year. Serving on the board is a tremendous way to get involved and make a lasting contribution to Trillium. If you’ve been a Trillium parent for at least one year, have an interest in serving on the Board in the 2010 or 2011 school years, and you’ve got prior non-profit board or business leadership experience, please reply to this email and let me know.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me, Stephanie, or any Board member with any questions you may have.
Sincerely,
James Hindes, Chair, Trillium Board of Directors
Parent of Holden (Jenny’s class) and Annie (Beth’s class)
jhindes@trilliumcharterschool.org