The Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School received positive news on finances, enrollment, waiting lists and introduced three new board members at its first meeting of 2022.
The board reviewed and approved three nominations for additional members of the board. The new members are Cassandra Williams, Interim Executive Vice President, Chief Program Officer of Hope Enterprise. Williams has also served as an advisor or director for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Memphis CDFI Network and Blues City Cultural Center, according to the Hope website.
Eric Meier has become a business leader in Clarksdale, deeply engaged in the community. He launched Hooker Grocer & Eatery and became an investor in the internationally renowned Ground Zero Blues Club.
Steven Jossell serves as Executive Director of Workforce Development at Coahoma Community College, giving expertise to the board for preparing students for the ever-changing future of business and commerce.
The board entered into executive session to discuss the potential purchase of the old Clarksdale High School building. Under Mississippi law, executive sessions are appropriate to discuss actions relating to, among other things, potential transactions involving real property. “Although we remain interested in a potential transaction involving that property, we have nothing to report,” explained Amanda Johnson, Executive Director of the Charter School.
According to Johnson, the previously-scheduled meeting between representatives f the Charter School and the Clarksdale Municipal School District was postponed. That meeting had been scheduled for Jan. 10, and had been the subject of a specially-set meeting of the Clarksdale Municipal School District earlier that day.
Johnson delivered the Executive Director’s Report, including statistics for the enrollment, waiting lists and test scores of students. As of the end of 2021, the school had 444 scholars enrolled in grades K-5, with the number of enrollees evenly distributed. The high is 76 first-graders and the low is 72 fourth graders. The current waiting list totals 202 applications, with the highest numbers aspiring to the fifth grade (64) and the first grade (50).
The board then heard a report on the school’s finances, including a surplus to help with the typical ebbs and flows of revenue during the coming year.
According to the report presented to the board, the school’s operating results were ahead of plan by $823,064 as of the end of December, 2021.
Johnson also explained that some of the funds have arrived long after accrual and some of the funds have not yet arrived. Other upcoming expenses will be addressed by the funds.
A significant part of the per-student funding from ad valorem taxes is properly listed on the balance sheet but has not been received. Approximately $646,421.27 will be paid to the school directly from the State of Mississippi. Money that has already arrived includes $341,714 that was received by the school from Title 1 and IDEA payments. The school had been entitled to that funding since Fiscal Years 2019 and 2020.
Other reasons for the end-of-year surplus include over $46,000 in unspent salary money because of vacant staff positions, Because of COVID and other reasons, the school spent $21,000 less than it had budgeted on food.
According to Johnson, new expenses will arise in the year ahead, as is usually the case. The construction project will impose extra monthly payments on the debt service, and some pre-pandemic expenses, like field trips for students, will hopefully be restored to the budget soon. Certain times of the year, especially the fall, are typically problematic for the flow of revenue, and the windfall from 2021 will help prepare the school for that as well.
