Mar 28, 2026 | J-KOA National Board Meeting

Attendees: Koya, Toni, Oscar, Andrea, Eric

Excused: Danielle

Notes

• Icebreaker: What do you think is the difference between direction and vision when structuring plans and strategies?

  • Andrea: Vision is motivation and end goal, direction is the processes

  • Eric: Vision is scope, direction is execution

  • Oscar: echos vision is scope, direction is execution

  • Toni: Vision is big picture, direction is more step by step, benchmarks to get there

  • Koya: Vision is the end product, direction is the instruction manual

• National Board Member updates:

  • National President--TEKS restructuring

    • Inventory list made and sent out to all who need

    • Met with Koya, Oscar and Alex to discuss restructuring the Mentorship Program!

      • Koya met with APS regarding the mentorship program

      • Dispersing responsibilities to help with administrative load of the science fair mentorship program

      • Newer Team Set Up

        • TEKS Director will focus on Mentors and structure

        • Teachers/Community Guides and Lead Mentors will lead classroom! Teachers will manage the administrative tasks since they have more access to students and parents on a regular basis.  Lead Mentors will manage the classrooms in the three schools

        • Mentor role doesn’t change, but maybe instead of a mentor assigned to a single project upfront they’ll work with all project groups across a school site

      • Main feedback from mentor meeting: please set up a system that maintains students’ commitment to the fair, and admin help!

      • Proposal: getting parents involved from the jump!

    • Outreach - Ana’s working on prompts to help increase literacy and cultural competence paired with science demos! Goal to bring them in front of kids in maybe May

      • Oscar asking for support on the logistics side ahead of outreach events to execute them to the best of his ability

      • Aurora KOA want: bringing back general body meetings and social aspects of J-KOA for Aurora’s KOA, especially after the fair

      • We might want some form of liability form for take-home kits

  • National Historian

    • Will start collaborating with Historian team and Presidents to develop SOP guidelines

    • Lagging on website updates (sorry!) due to test window and external prep

    • Digital Media Release Forms

    • Blog Posts: Toni to reach out to Andrea and Oscar about writing deadlines + prompt ideas

  • National Treasurer--Koya to present meeting notes from Danielle about financial organization

    • Danielle to send minutes from her and Koya’s Meeting!

    • Working on automating spreadsheets

    • Branches need to be really good about tracking expenditures! Preventative measure first and foremost

  • Branch Presidents

    • Oscar

      • Ask: Danielle in contact with Kayla? Trying to confirm what’s left in the Science Fair account.  Will backtrack and confirm with Kayla that the numbers line up.

      • Aurora KOA want: bringing back general body meetings and social aspects of J-KOA for Aurora’s KOA, especially after the fair

    • Andrea

      • Bay KOA is hosting their first event!! April 22nd at a library near Sac; all-day event.  

        • Library hosting Día de los Niños and bringing Bay Area KOA in to teach science demos (LAVA LAMPS!!)

        • Kids will take home lava lamps + a kit to do at home

      • Library really interested in hosting Bay Area KOA for future outreach opportunities

      • The Physics Show interested in bringing on Bay Area KOA for future show

      • Toni to be in Sac/Davis April 15-19; scheduling demo recording/content building day April 16

      • Question: What will be your metric of success to be?

        • Engage the kids in science

        • Connect with local schools to align demos and projects with school curriculum

        • Get that invitation back from the library! Don’t forget to ask to what the library needs (:

  • National Director--City of Aurora nonprofit/City Council meetings and APS partnership

    • Oscar and Koya have been attending a bunch of meetings about the E Colfax revitalization project

      • Things at a standstill because stuff needing to get voted on are not getting voted on, citing the need of specific voices to be heard

      • Housing is still the biggest concern

      • Want to put our scientific expertise to build more effective questioning to collect data–expertise only, not drafting questions themselves or collecting the data itself (consulting firm paid to do this after all)

      • Opinion: The current ask is just fine, and can be feasible for us.  Don’t want to get too deeply involved

      • Discord movie night to watch the documentary from one of the case studies sent over on a similar project’s “success story”

    • Recruitment of mentors: Koya came across a local teaching residency program, cohorts could be recruited to help mentor with the TEKS mentorship restructuring

    • Reached out by another future teacher org (more details to follow)

• 501(c)3 discussion

  • Potential separation from ACC? Was a discussion in the original agreement to separate in a year

    • Preference to stay with ACC for the next year if it’s an option

  • $10K donation made! $1K to ACC for their support

• Call to commence branch elections

  • Election PROCESS not the elections itself

  • Historians from each branch to kick off nomination process!

  • Elections held in May!

• Proposal to expand J-KOA to Denver and/or Hawai'i

  • Koya likely moving to Hawai’i for post-doc, consider expanding J-KOA’s reach to Oahu and starting a branch there

  • Push back for a Denver site: very close to Aurora, but maybe consider Denver for recruiting into Aurora

  • Suggestion: maybe wait a year in post-doc to get your bearings in hawaii, BUT there’s already mentor buy in so it could work out immediately!