Academy for Urban School Leadership

“Joey Wise, a member of the AUSL Board of Directors, is also Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Distinctive Schools. In May 2025, AUSL entered into an agreement with Distinctive Schools to recruit and train up to nine residents for the 2025-2026 school year.”

“The final draft of the Form 990 is reviewed by the Executive Director and the Director of Finance. The Finance Committee reviews and provides comments. A final copy is distributed electronically to each member of the Board of Directors.”

“All employees and board members are required to complete a conflict of interest statement which is reviewed for conflicts. Annually, employees and board members are asked to sign a new form to ensure compliance. Any conflicts will be dealt with according to procedure.”

“Executive Director, along with all staff members' compensation levels are reviewed annually. Periodically, compensation is benchmarked relative to equivalent positions in similar non-profit education organizations as well as in urban school districts. A compensation survey is also used. All salary increases are approved by the Executive and Finance Committees during the annual budget and year-end close process.”

“The AUSL governing documents, conflict of interest policy and financial statements are available upon request.”

“Advisory Services - Through its Advisory Services and the LiberatED Way approach, AUSL supports forwardthinking school and systems-level leaders to authentically partner with their school communities in defining, calibrating on, and implementing a student-centered experience that leads to wholechild success. AUSL provided services that include strategic consulting with district leaders alongside a variety of job-embedded professional learning experiences for the district and school-based talent that are coherently aligned to AUSL's purpose and value proposition. Specific project focus areas included, but were not limited to, establishment of foundational school structures for culture and instruction, development of strategies that foster authentic family and community partnerships, and implementation of robust and aligned teacher development systems. During the year ending June 30, 2025, AUSL suspended its Advisory Services, including its LiberatED Way programming. While this programming was not directly funded by the terminated federal grants, the loss of significant federal revenue at the organizational level required AUSL to reallocate resources and prioritize its core mission of training teachers and supporting high-quality educators through the teacher residency program.”

“Net losses from uncollectible pledges -14,087.”

“The Organization has a Board that assumes responsibility for oversight of the audit of the financial statements and the selection of the independent auditors.”