By Margaret Hopper

The Aldo Leopold Charter School opened its Governing Council meeting at 5:36 p.m. Thursday, February 18, with all six members present: David Peck, Jose Herrera, Mary Gruszka, Shauna McCosh, Dale Lane and Ken Stone, chairman.

Stacy Miller, student council president, reported on a bus trip to a leadership conference at Las Vegas, New Mexico, which featured climate change. Another activity is in Arizona, east of Phoenix, called Winter Count. School Director Eric Ahner explained that people attended either to teach or to learn sustainable skills. About 22 students will attend that on Friday; they will be assigned a class to review.

Miller said one student trip was down by the border; they looked at areas migrants traveled, and water is taken to them. Oak Flats Indigenous Rights Encampment was another trip. There were museum trips, too. Upcoming trips include contacts with indigenous tribes. She would be going on the Puerto Rico trip in early March. The group will be observing environmental things going on there, as well as some snorkeling.

She mentioned other activities, saying she thought a lot of good preparation for college was involved in the plans. The school provided a lot of environmental and social connections, and with teacher, peer and family support, there was inspiration, even though things changed every year. She was thankful for the creative environment.

Harry Browne's business report was a quarterly summary through December 31, 2015. Comment was that there were less contracted services presently, saving finances. Anticipated changes were highlighted in the 2016 portion of the present budget. He and the council went over a lot of figures to get the final results.

Under budget adjustment activity, he explained how the $74,690 state direct grant was received, then split into nine other areas of expenditure, mainly salaries and related expenses, with some contracted services and general supplies and materials. The council thanked Brown for the report.

Short reports were given on committee work: strategic planning, health care, finance and others. The Nominating Committee was said to be helping to look for a director replacement. Comment was that strategic planning now had a volume of information to sort and they would be meeting on that shortly. They hoped to have a rough draft of that by early March, but a longer timeline was likely needed.

Development and Risk Committee had met the day before to review grants received and pending; enrollment strategies were discussed, and ski safety guidelines had been reviewed. The Association of Experiential Education had a much broader curriculum and accrediting process if Aldo was actually to become a member; a lot would be involved. Overseas travel would be considered as a topic, too.

The director's position search needed attention; people were offering assistance on that, Retiring Director Eric Ahner said. Discussion followed about the size of committee needed and steps to get it going. For a start, they would need 2 board members, 2 students, 2 staff, and more could be considered. Publications and helpers were also discussed.

In the director's report, Ahner explained his projections for enrollment, promotions and the lottery system for filling the needed numbers. The architect's drawings for the proposed facility renovations needed to be approved, and a letter to PED with endorsements drawn up to accompany it.

Stone questioned the advisability of the plan; what if the new director had a different plan, saw a different way to set it all up, or perhaps wanted to get out of the proposed plan? Would negotiations change greatly? Could they get out? Should they wait for new conditions to go on?

This opened a whole new train of information; Browne, Ahner and others went back over the plan for expanding enrollments, the 40-, 80-, and 120-day student counts and how this affected finances for the future, and other state requirements that could impact their work. Many projections had been made; the enrollments needed to increase by 33 percent over all to sustain the funding; more staff would have to be hired; there were challenges throughout the process.

But the bottom line was Aldo either did this or dropped out. If they ended the process and didn't submit the papers, the plan couldn't easily be put on hold and picked up later. It all stopped. A future effort might start over. Santa Fe legislation was a huge factor in allowing charter schools to take shape; the directions could change, and much effort had already been made to get them the present opportunities.

Stone said he would like to see some cost/benefit analysis. Ahner said he knew the present facility would eventually lead to slow, continuing deficits for a number of reasons. Space was already limited. Expanded numbers would be affected and expansion at the present facility would not be effective very long. Remodeling costs with Agape had been uncertain and quite expensive. Failing to approve the papers before them now would create the loss of an entire year on the plan to occupy new quarters.

Ahner said if they worked the project correctly, they could take a number of unknowns out of the equation, have a contracted place with a selling price and terms stated, with years of service somewhat known. When the time came, this board would be part of the negotiations. The key was never to go into operations funds for the cost of the facility.

The board considered closed session for contract negotiations and discussion and personnel issues, but decided it was not necessary at this time. Going on to the action items, it approved the BAR Brown had outlined earlier. A policy on bicycle safety was passed, another on breast-feeding (staff), and changes on committee reporting structure and staff travel for a total of four policies.

A vote was also taken on the original statement and the amended request to be sent to the state. Anticipating a new location for part of the school, the amended section gave the new location for the grades six through eight, with the high school to remain at the present location. Notes on the charter pages that would be affected were read in full.

One member said he thought it was too early for the action at this time. Ahner's response was that they couldn't wait. Aldo couldn't enter into a contract unless Public Education Commission gave its permission for the move first. It was scheduled for review in mid-March; he would go there to present it. They could decide to remove the action later, but they had to pass it now to continue the action.

Stone again hesitated, saying a new director would be thrown into changes. Ahner agreed, saying there would be turmoil whether they went forward or regressed. They could put in provisions and conditions to the wording, but they couldn't stay where they were without taking some direction. Another member said getting this information into the hiring interviews would help them select a director who was in favor of the expansion, which seemed to be the desired direction.

Miller's student opinion was that moving forward might be better than waiting. Ahner suggested that the direction might not belong to the new director. Settling that decision before changing directors might be a relief; expanding might require some additional help temporarily, but the tensions of needing the new facility would be reduced. He had stayed on longer than he intended to see this transition work. The new director would have other decisions to make later, without being thrown into all of this expansion work immediately. He had delayed his departure as a help.

Real estate is a big decision, one said. With Eric's rewording of the amendment to show that conditions were included, rather than requesting Gǣa done deal," consensus agreed to go forward comfortably. They passed the motion.

Ahner added that seeing where the negotiations were and the nature of the project might help candidates see the future more clearly and help with a person's decision-making. But model information of what it might look like, and justification of the figures in the presentation might help make sense of the project. The model should be simple, so even a high school student could see the implications, he said.

The meeting adjourned at 7:50. The next meeting is scheduled for March 17, again being delayed a week for spring vacation. It will start at 5:30 as usual, at 1422 Highway 180 East, the school's facility.