Thurgood Marshall Academy

“From time to time a trustee agrees and the board approves service as a non-voting member to preserve an odd number of voting trustees.”

“Thurgood marshall academy revised and restated its bylaws to incorporate reference to and requirements of the dc open meetings act. The changes to the bylaws included changes to the duties of the organization's officers, in that the revised and restated bylaws require that the "secretary shall keep regular minutes and/or recordings of all board meetings, and such records shall be made available to the public as provided in the open meetings act" whereas the prior bylaws required only that the secretary keep regular minutes.”

“Thurgood marshall academy used the following process to review the prepared form 990 before it was filed with the irs: (1) the chief operating officer (management) actively participated in the preparation of the form 990, providing information to and seeking feedback from the school's accountants and tax prepares for several weeks prior to filing; then, roughly one week prior to filing, (2) management (the coo and the executive director) reviewed the prepared form 990 prior to filing; and (3) the board of trustees was provided the prepared form 990 via electronic mail prior to filing.”

“Thurgood marshall academy monitors and enforces compliance with conflict of interest policies at both the board and staff levels. Members of the board comply with conflict of interest policies by annually responding to a survey that includes the policy, an affirmation that members will abide by it, and an opportunity to report any possible conflicts. The chief operating officer reviews the surveys and alerts the board chair of any issues in order to develop a resolution to any potential conflicts. The policy states that board members are to report potential conflicts on an ongoing basis. Employees of the school received (and sign acknowledgement of) a personnel policy manual that includes an explicit prohibition of conflicts of interest and a requirement that any potential conflict be reported to the employee's supervisor. Supervisors resolve possible conflicts of interest or report the issue to their supervisors. The chief operating officer and executive director further monitor and enforce conflict of interest policies by actively supervising the school's contracts and financial transactions.”

“Thurgood marshall academy's determination of compensation for the executive director as well as for other employees included review and approval by independent persons, comparability data, and contemporaneous substantiation of the deliberation and decision. The compensation of the executive director (who is an employee and not a member of the board) was determined by the board of trustees, all of whom are independent of and have no family or business relation with the executive director. In reviewing and approving the executive director compensation, the board reviewed comparability data regarding pay of similar executives at comparable institutions and of general trends in the local employment market. They documented the deliberation and decision by retaining correspondence and research and through forms authorizing executive pay. The compensation of other staff was conducted by the executive director, who is independent of and has no family or business relationships with any employees. The executive director considered comparability data regarding pay scales for similar workers and the general local employment market, and documented deliberation and decisions in the work-papers of the annual budget approved by the board.”

“Thurgood marshall academy provides governing and financial documents to its authorizing body, the dc public charter school board, which provides public access to the documents as governed by district of columbia and federal law.”

“The executive committee of the thurgood marshall academy board of trustees is composed of the board chair (who presides), the vice-chair, the secretary, and the treasurer. The executive committee has the option to add an at-large member of the board to the committee. All members of the executive committee are also members of the board of trustees (the governing body). The executive committee is responsible for working in support of the full board. The work of the committee, to the extent permitted by district of columbia law, revolves around five major areas: (1) performing policy work as directed by the board, or when it affects the work of the executive committee.; (2) acting as liaison to the chief executive; (3) helping develop a strategic plan; (4) conducting executive searches; and (5) addressing urgent issues to resolve an emergency or organizational crisis.”

“Thurgood marshall academy supports students' academic and personal development through programs including tutoring and specialized extracurricular programs. These programs draw upon volunteers from dc's professional community; the total number of volunteers is estimated at 300. For instance, one tutoring program alone sends roughly 70 students/week to several area law firms (estimate solely for this program is 5 firms/year x 20 volunteers/firm).”

“In response to the covid-19 pandemic, in school-year 2020-21 thrugood marshall academy (along with almost all dc schools) shifted its curricular and extracurricular activities to distance learning. All activities in pursuit of the school's exempt mission continued in this new environment.”