BAY MILLS - The Bay Mills Ojibwe Charter School Board of Directors met on Monday, May 8 for a regularly scheduled board meeting. Board member Cheryl Baragwanath was absent from the meeting. A large contingent of OCS teachers and staff were on hand to listen to the board discuss the school's management contract with Mosaica Education Inc.
Mark Dobias, an attorney at law from Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., said he was contacted by some members of the board to review their management agreement with Mosaica Education and added he was also presented with the board's April 24th meeting minutes. After reading through the contract and reviewing the meeting minutes, Dobias advised the board that if they intend to modify, amend or terminate their contract with Mosaica in any way then they must have an agreement in writing.
While he said he was pretty sure where both parties are in their agreement, he noted that he had concerns about the lack of any written offer as to what the parameters of the actual agreement would be. He indicated to the board that unless they have a written agreement, signed by a representative from Mosaica, they should not proceed with amending or terminating their management contract with MEI. Dobias pointed out the fact that since the agreement was not in writing someone from either side could say they accept the offer, but no one would know exactly what they were accepting. That is why it is extremely important to know exactly what the parameters and agreement would be, he added.
Dobias suggested the board appoint a fellow board member to fill him in on all the details of the management contract and to assist him in contacting a representative from Mosaica to reach a proposed agreement. While he said he hates to be too cautious, Dobias said with any contract it can be a long drawn out process if both sides don't agree on it.
Mosaica Regional Vice President Bill Ignatowski agreed with Dobias and said he would make sure that he gets MEI Chief Operating Officer Gene Eidelman's number, as well as the numbers of their attorneys, to him. Board member Terry Carrick asked Dobias if he would make sure it was known that MEI were the ones that wanted out of their contract, and not OCS. A motion to appoint Mark Dobias and board member Aaron Tadgerson to contact MEI and review the status of the contract was passed unanimously.
In other news, OCS Chief Administrative Officer Ralph Crosslin said the school was awarded 20 slots for the Michigan Virtual High School summer program. Throughout the next couple of weeks, Crosslin said that the school would be in the process of identifying students, through teacher referrals, MEAP scores, and report card grades, to indicate those who are in most need of this particular program. Additionally, any student that wishes to participate must sign a contract, along with their parents, he said. Although he said he believes this program to be a wonderful deal, Crosslin said it is only half of what OCS has to offer. Another summer school program is slated to run towards the end of summer, under the Title 1 program.
In his financial report to the board, Ignatowski said that the school started with a fund deficit of over $100,000 in the fall. Because of improvements to the food service program and the increased revenue from the Impact Aid grants, Ignatowski said that the school would actually end up with a fund equity of over $337,000. He said that this was good news, and was certainly enough money for the school to self-manage. He advised the board to approve a revised budget at their next meeting in June.
