>> Hello. Hello everybody. I'm so sorry I'm not their family. Family happened. Um so uh I'm looking at the superintendent perspective and it's showing that you know the superintendent maintains progress while slower than projected is still meaningful and then gives the bullet points and to me it makes me wonder is that those kind of small details as far as like the gains happening in student subgroups um you know the inconsistency of implementation but uneven across campuses like has that all been presented. How aware is the board of those uh differences? And perhaps it's a situation where in this situation maybe they're not, you know, not asking the right strategic questions, which then leads to like coaching, right? or perhaps you know the the superintendent or the team in this situation are not you know um disagregating the data in a certain way that you can really see the differences and and improvement.
So that's that's what I was thinking. >> Thank you for sharing. >> Yeah, I think that you all as a team were able to see through this a lot clearer probably than in in many other circumstances. maybe in year one uh may not have been as easy to decipher through this. Um Heather, you were going to say I'm sorry you >> I was just saying that sometimes because one of the questions was talking about is it appropriate for board members to recruit or support challenges. >> I was going to ask. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I'm sorry, but like I'm not saying and I'm not saying like anybody on our board specifically. I'm just saying about this case study that if you can't be on board and you if you can't if you can't do this governance work in in an an appropriate way or a way that is working towards change and is more convenient for you then maybe it is time to recruit other people that can or to stop the sabotage and and there like I've felt that way before like like not with these people but other people.
Yeah. Like sometimes it's time to get people off that are the saboturs. >> Okay. >> I did disagree with Sophia about that. >> I said the same thing you did >> and I and I say that because when you when you choose violence or in this case uh political opposition that gives the other person the right to do the same thing to you. So then you become an even more dysfunctional board. And if the goal is to be a functional board, then maybe you have to leave the politics out of it. And I'm not necessarily saying I agree with that thought that I just articulated, but >> don't follow me to it. However, >> I think that even if you are inviting other people to do that, the difference is is are you letting that then interfere the bad >> No, I think that the difference is how are you letting that interfere and show up within you at the meetings and when you're governing versus what you're doing outside the governing board meeting.
And so if that other person is letting, you know, adult behaviors get in the way of things or they're being selfish or they're doing things in meetings that aren't appropriate, that's on them. If you're still, you know, doing what you're supposed to do and then still doing that on the side, I mean, it is what it is at this point. And sounds like if they're that way, they're probably not going to do a great job at getting whoever they're getting to run to be elected. But that's neither here nor there. >> I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that sometimes it does require change. >> You mentioned in your last couple of meetings, you mentioned what is a tool that you could use within the framework to try to remedy this conversation of recruitment of of board members, but also what role can you as a board play in preparing people for what?
>> School board of school. >> There you go. And if you as a team participate in that, you get to you get to relay the message of I loved board member Marquez saying, well, when I ran and what I heard and what I thought and then to watch her lean in the way she has an interest and same with you, right? You didn't hear much. I don't know if you heard much of it, but the way the two of you have leaned in in this process has been pretty inspirational for a lot of folks around the country who who are like, well, what is this thing and why should I adhere to it? >> Oh, I'm gonna have a little tear. >> I mean, it's the truth. Like it >> I'm getting serious. >> Yeah. Right. You've been to conferences. You hear Tristan, I heard you reference that in in a board meeting like what you heard and that I'm lucky.
You said, "I'm lucky that I don't have to to go through what some other board members are going through around the country." >> And I've had people ask me, well, what is it like with the two new members? And I say, I couldn't even tell you that we have two new members. >> Wow. >> Right. >> So, there are there are aspects of things and I heard you also I heard right here this side of the room. One of the things that I heard you you were talking about a board self-evaluation. In what context were you talking about that? Well, we were speaking of the board self eval and the superintendent when it came down to superintendent accountability obviously, but managing board conflict. Um, I put board guard rails and then I put board self eval mindset too because the board self eval is a really good place to check ourselves before we start pointing fingers at anybody else.
Yeah, I think it was a number five. >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. Number five. And then we put coach question mark to to bring up um Miss Gibson McLean's point of if there was no coach, then maybe this is where a coach needs to intervene as well. >> Got it. >> Any other thoughts before I ask you the final question? So, how should the board hold the superintendent accountable for the results moving forward >> and what are appropriate next steps for like progress monitoring? >> I put calling in executive session if there's so much information like that going. Obviously the superintendent eval but at the point that the board and the scenario sounds it doesn't sound like they would agree or they even know what would be in the superintendent eval. So I suggested an executive session that way they can really lay out all the things set expectations moving forward and have a candid conversation.
>> Other thoughts? Yeah, I think any action would have to be independent of what the election outcomes are because that's adult convenience. >> Wow. >> Right. >> Well, I it was kind of a trick question from my end. There is a there are two video clips specifically that if you if you email me, I'll send you two video clips. One from here locally and one from Texas over on the coastal side. >> How many live right now? It's uh there are two video clips. One that happened last June from a board nearby where the data did not come back the way it was anticipated by the board. The board after almost three years was pretty frustrated. What we witnessed, what I witnessed, what I what I'll share with you in the video clip, this board member did not go into common pretending and blame the superintendent.
As much as they wanted to, they wanted to blame the superintendent for for little to no movement. Are you curious to know how that board member responded? The board member said, "I failed this year. I did not submit questions. I did not prepare the way I know I could have. I did not submit strategic questions. I did not ask better questions of the superintendent. Um, and I will own the data that we have in front of us today. It's pretty inspirational to watch an adult from a board seat with political pressures to respond in an I am the genesis mindset to say as much as I want to blame everyone else in the room at the end of the day I'm one of the team members that's responsible for the outcomes and I did not ask enough questions about inputs and outputs nor did I understand what was going on in my board meeting and then there was a shift over the summer for this person And then the other person in Texas, they leaned in extra heavy because they realized that they were just kind of checking some boxes and not really internalizing the depth of the work.
This year has been radically different for the entire team. So I ask you that question really with in hopes and belief not just hopes I believe listening to you you're saying all the things that you've been learning you've been internalizing them you're demonstrating them in yourself evaluating when you when you're here on the dice your minutes have shifted and reflecting my hope and in my preparation for you that whatever comes in June and July that you are in the genesis and be like I am responsible for this outcome I played a significant role in either moving it up, being stagnant, or going down because at the end of the day, you are the outcome. You are the owners of the school system. >> And we vote and approve those. >> And you Oh, come on now. You vote and approve. That's the reason why you have your monitoring reports that you're approving.
>> You're approving saying, and I heard Superintendent Man say this recently as well in a meeting, those serve as a micro assessment of his performance. Mhm. >> What's coming up for you as we put all the pieces together? Questions, thoughts, and my favorite word that I love y'all using too, any wonderers you may have of our time together today. Was that too deep? Um the main thing that's coming up for me is that sometimes when you're so laser focused and you're going into this work, you want quick expectations and quick turnaround, right? Cuz it's hard it's hard to stay patient. It's hard to stay consistent in the same things and not freaking out when one thing's not working and then switching automatically to another. Um, what this is bringing up to me is how much growth we've had as a board, how much alignment we have, and even doing this case study scenario.
This is a real thing that happens almost at every board meeting, right? I've seen it, and we haven't had this yet on our board on our board. So, I think it's it it just attests to how committed we are, even though sometimes we feel we're not. I think we're all doing the greatest job. we're asking questions and we're not I don't believe any of us on the board are doing anything in a spiteful matter. So that that makes me feel really good on how much we we've been able to work together to make sure that our students are being prioritized and I really do feel that that's the sentiment of this district and everything that we do. You know, we're we're thinking of those babies first. So it just makes me feel really really happy and it puts a lot of stuff in refocus mode too if how fragile it is and if we don't continue on these strategic questions and we don't stay on course how easily it can be to get dissuaded and move away from that.
>> You have examples here in the area of when a board loses focus and what it does to the system. I love that you just said the word fragile. One thing I've learned over the course of this journey, this work is extremely fragile. >> So you want to be you want to continue not be because you are you want to continue to be super intentional about your schoolboard school about how you do progress monitoring, >> two-way communication, listening sessions, training students and and educators and community on governance. You put all of those pieces together that's in the research, you have a higher probability of sustaining the work and it being effective. If you look at the eight effective characteristics of school boards, you'll see some boards are mentioned in there that are no longer high performance school boards. Some of those boards that are highlighted in the research, and I'll email me or call me and I'll tell you exactly which ones.
I don't want to name them here. they they were highlighted in a research and they were thriving and they were doing great and then out of nowhere they ended up with DNF rating school systems and some have even been taken over by states. So it's fragile and um could not leave without letting you know and reiterating what President Kario just said. >> That all is definitely resonating with me especially as I see our district that we feed into start to the process of adopting this the the push back that they're starting to get um reminds me of the fra like the fragility and also reminds me not to listen to all of that noise and just continue the course with us even if they sorry my boys are coming in for me today. Um, so like just definitely staying the course and making sure that we're like not letting any of as long as we're doing the community education we need to do and we're educating our community, um, I think we can we can we keep that noise out is what I'm trying to get at.
>> Yeah. And the other thing that Katie said too is that I think it's finding our partners and she nailed it right as our feeder schools and some of our neighboring schools are in this work. I think that's why it's important for all of us to stick together and have those joint links that we have been having because it's going to bring that added on support to them like hey you're going your your staff is going to start feeling it people will feel it but it's going to be okay and we can work together to work through that because it is a very fragile but it's also a beautiful thing there's a movement going on here in the city of Phoenix with different school districts and us all working together so it's really a beautiful I want to encourage you to keep speaking at conferences because you there are folks tuning in to watch how you're conducting business for children.
Um that that cannot be overstated. Um and so a little bit of pressure maybe. >> Ah so we should do something at great city schools and cube >> of course >> all of them. I >> I think my final thoughts is you have modeled what parallel processing really looks like systemically. Um, I know that we're almost at time, so we have time for one word. One word to describe our time together. You know me, when we harvest, what's one word? >> We'll start with Miss Shapiro and then make our way around. >> One word, just one. >> I know. >> To describe our time together. >> It's always just the one word. reinvigorating. >> All right, Miss Hilda, you're not exact. You're part of the team. >> Inspiring. >> Constructive. >> Um, >> reignited, >> committed, >> aligning, focused, >> thoughtful. Mine is still feeling revolutionary with you as a team.
Thank you for your time. >> Um, we have two board members online. >> Oh yes, >> Miss Gibson McClean. >> Auspicious. >> Interesting. >> Miss Marquez. >> Um, uh, I'm tired. Sorry. But I love, you know, thank you, Sinto, for kind of sharing their bits and pieces about, you know, how how you see that we're how we're doing and, you know, that we're we're moving along and doing well and being watched and that's that that is um uh what's the word? I guess kind of in inspiring or almost like, you know, encouraging. Encouraging. There you go. I'll replace tired with encouraging. >> Oh, I love it. Yeah. To the I guess to add a little just a little bit more to that part. Um you allow people to see what they can't begin to imagine. What what you are modeling and demonstrating to see it on video and audio, it accelerates other people's belief that this can be a real thing.
So, uh, I love sharing your board meetings with administrators and board members and superintendents, but by presenting at national conferences, there's plenty of other folks that are starting to tune in. So, >> is it weird that I just find it so f it's not funny, but I'm just like, this is so interesting that people are interested in this. I don't know. Maybe I just feel like we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. So why, you know, why why do people want to pay attention to that? >> We don't have that sense of desperation yet to >> That's true. >> All right. Thank you so much for everybody and taking your time and being with us study session. >> With that, I'm going to go ahead and adjourn our study session. Everybody, we wen have a great night. Thank you guys for joining us online.
Okay. So, we have four board members that are going to be sworn in. First one will be Mrs. Abru. Put your left hand on the Bible. Raise your right hand. Come on and read it at the same time. >> And read it at the same time. >> I need a third handwrit solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey and that I will bear a true faith and allegiance to the same and to the government established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people. So help me God. I, Judith Abru, do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of a member of board of education and that I will faithfully and partially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability.