Keystone board holds budget hearing at Kabob Garden

It was the last board meeting of a longtime member of the board of directors of Keystone Academy, so they held the meeting at Kabob Garden restaurant in Belleville.
On May 10, Keystone’s annual meeting and budget hearing was called to order around a dinner table with a white tablecloth on which plates of rice and chicken and beef and hummus and other goodies, vied with the paperwork for the meeting, which was tucked in between the plates.
National Heritage Academies picked up the bill for dinner.
“We wanted to make it special,” said board president Vesta Losen.
It was vice-president Susan Meland’s last meeting since she had sold her house and moved to Wisconsin. She waited until the very end of the meeting to submit her resignation so the board would have a quorum.
Treasurer Carol Manley had already submitted her resignation and she had one more meeting before it took effect. Her son had graduated from eighth grade at Keystone and now was attending school in Flat Rock. Manley wanted to be active with her son’s activities at his new school.
The board interviewed a candidate for a three-year board term to replace Manley as a parent board member.
Charlene Derrick has an eighth-grade son who is graduating this year and heading on to Belleville High School. She also has a second grader at Keystone. Derrick said she is a manager at Bath & Body Works at Laurel Park mall in Livonia.
The board voted unanimously to recommend Derrick to Bay Mills Community College as Keystone’s new board member. Keystone is authorized as a charter school by Bay Mills and there are several steps to follow to approve a board member.
They still have to find someone from the community to fill Meland’s vacancy. Those interested in the volunteer position may contact school Principal Keturah Godfrey.
In other business at the May 10 meeting, the board:
• Tabled the election of officers until a future meeting when the board membership is finalized;
• Held a budget hearing on the 2018-19 proposed $6.9 million budget and then later unanimously approved it. NHA Director of Financial Operations Jeff Ratuszny said the budget was constructed with the following assumptions: 787 students for fall 2018, 28 classrooms utilized, and $7,856 per pupil funding. Treasurer Manley, a CPA, prepared a detailed financial analysis of the general fund budget. Among the many details, it showed average students per classroom for the coming year as 28.1;
• Reappointed Jeff Henders as FOIA Officer, CS3 law as board legal counsel, AHERA (Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act) contact as Director of Construction Joe Sprys and Title VI, title IX and Section 504 contact as Principal Godfrey;
• Tabled adoption of the School Improvement Plan for study. It is due to be adopted by September;
• Authorized the board president to approve the board response to the Reauthorization Feedback Report;
• Discussed the scholarship offered to high school seniors who are Keystone graduates. The scholarship program started this year at Belleville High School and six seniors applied. The scholarship was for $1,000 with $500 from the PTO and $500 from the school board. A parent had suggested that everyone who applied get a $100 award, as well. The board was not interested in expanding the payments; and
• Officially accepted Meland’s resignation, effective May 31.