Today's Admin Team Meeting

Here's a window into today's admin team meeting, which covered three topics.

First, we looked at draft schedules for the faculty work weeks that happen June 18-22 and August 27-31. The June work week includes all-faculty and division wide meetings, an information session with the faculty on our ongoing marketing and branding efforts, time to finish up progress reports, and of course a good-bye/closure party. The following week we'll have a senior admin meeting, and rearrange the office locations of administrators to better support our work. The August work week will include various full staff and division-wide meetings, CPR and First Aid training, Disaster preparedness training, New Faculty Orientation, New Family Orientation, and of course a TGIF!

Second, we had a brief budget review to see where we are against the projections for the year, and to think about ways we can successfully manage the budget through the remainder of the year to provide all of the materials, resources, and items necessary for our program while also hitting our financial targets for improving our cash reserves, as is necessary under the terms of our bond agreement.

Third, we collectively dug into the aforementioned office reassignments, which is necessary because of the shifting positions and roles outlined in the letter Mitch sent to families last week. Mitch used the design thinking method to drive our process, beginning by posing the design challenge: How can we configure the admin and staff offices to best allow the organization to function in ways that demonstrate knowledge, preparation, and responsiveness to the need of children, families, and faculty? From here, he articulated a few constraints, including not making physical changes (i.e. knocking out or putting up walls) to the existing spaces, maximizing the ease of communication and collaboration among various administrative teams, and creating work environments that facilitate and match jobs and responsibilities as much as possible. We left with a map of the office, a list of the people and positions, and the assignment to generate our best idea of who goes where by this Friday.