The HSA would like to provide some important updates following Monday’s Board meeting. As always, full meeting minutes will be available on our website.
General Meeting Reminder
Our final General Meeting: May 27, 2020, at 6:30 pm. We will circulate and post a dial in number/Teams invite on the school calendar next week.
Delaying Elections
We are following the LSAT’s lead and delaying our Board elections, tentatively to August. We hope that by then, our potential candidates will have a better sense of next year’s school year for planning purposes. We are still seeking interested candidates! In addition to a slide presentation on the HSA roles and election process, a more detailed look at the roles and responsibilities can be found here. If you have any questions, contact the Nominating Committee at , or contact any HSA Board member.
Budget
We will be voting virtually on next year’s budget. We will email a Google Form for you to cast your vote next week. Voting will be open Monday through Thursday. You can review the draft budget, previously approved by the HSA Board and presented to the community at the HSA General Meeting on March 2, online. Click here for an overview, here for a more detailed version is also available. We understand our budget may need to be adjusted in the fall, but it is critical we authorize our spending plan to meet obligations paid over the summer for the upcoming year. We will communicate any anticipated changes as they arise.
Reserve Spend Proposal
As we reported at our March 2, 2019, meeting, we currently have a robust reserve fund. We presented a reserve spend down plan of over $50,000 for the upcoming school year, focusing on Professional Development, Diversity and Inclusion Events, and installation of adjustable basketball hoops. While we remain committed to these focus areas and hope to revisit them in the future, as a Board, we believe we need to be flexible and respond to the economic uncertainty facing our community. And, critically, we acknowledge that these are extraordinary circumstances that require us to reevaluate how we best serve our mission of supporting Lafayette students.
In that spirit, we propose delaying the spend down plan presented on March 2, and instead propose a new plan: a $10,000 reserve spend to establish an Emergency COVID-19 Relief Fund. We will maintain this fund to support the school’s efforts to provide needs-based direct assistance to students and staff disproportionately at economic risk. We will use these funds to supplement, as needed, the school’s efforts to ensure all of our students and staff have adequate access to food and educational materials. In consultation with the school’s social emotional learning team and administration, who have already been working to identify recipient students (via data held by the school, e.g. free lunch recipients, as well as through recent outreach) and gather donated resources, the HSA will provide funds to support these efforts. If we determine a need exists outside of the immediate focus on groceries and educational materials, we will communicate those plans. We ask you all to vote on this proposal along with the budget vote, via Google Form, next week.
We hope you all remain well and safe!
The Lafayette HSA