001Good evening and welcome to the January 27th business meeting of the Rock Hill School Board. News media outlets are notified in writing of the agenda for this meeting on Saturday, January 24th. If you will please join me for the pledge of allegiance, followed by a silence. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Please be seated. First up is the approval of the agenda. Um, as posted, do I have a motion to approve? >> So move. Uh, thank you, Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Daniel. Any discussion? Var. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. 70. First up, we do have an executive session
002for the purpose of personnel matter hiring. At this point, I will entertain a motion to adjourn the open session and enter an executive session with that matter. >> So, move. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? >> Second. Thank you, Mr. Nosal. Any discussion? Var. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. 70 at 6 p.m. Thank you so much. Good evening and welcome back. We have been meeting in executive session for the purpose of personnel matter hirings. At this point, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the executive session and reconvene the open session. >> So move. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Harris. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries 70. Are there any motions coming
003out of executive session? >> Madam Chair, I move to approve the superintendent recommendation for the position of the executive director of business services. >> Thank you, Mr. Barnes. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Uh, thank you. I believe Dr. Beltum. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries 61 with Hinson. Are there any further motions coming out of second? >> Madam Chair, >> I move to approve the superintendent's recommendation for the position of chief financial officer. >> No, we just did that. >> No, we you're correct. >> Do I have a second on that, sir? >> Second. >> Thank you, Dr. Belton. Any discussion on that one? Hearing none. All those in favor? All opposed. Motion carries. 61 against that concludes that. Um and we are going to move
004now to citizen participation. Do we have any tonight? >> No. [snorts] Then we're going to move now to consent action agenda. We have a few items. We have the January 8th uh special call meeting and the January 13th school board business meeting minutes as well as personnel recommendations that the board received in their packet. Do I have a motion to approve the consent action agenda as presented? >> Thank you, Miss Harris. Uh second from Miss Daniel. Any discussion? Var. All those in favor? All the motion carries 70. We do not have an action agenda tonight. Uh nor do we have any communications. >> We just approve that. Um we do however have a presentation. Um as promised at the last board meeting. Uh we're going to get our quarterly finance report. So I'm going to
005welcome up [clears throat] Mr. Bobby Barnes to give the quarterly finance report for the Rockill School District. I'll come up [snorts] >> before he presents. Um, I got an issue. I don't know how to resolve it. I wasn't listening and my uncle is actually on the consent agenda that I just voted for. So, I I want to Robert Barber is my is my uncle. >> Right. So, thank you for bringing that to our attention. Dr. Bton, I will say that you are probably not needing to recuse regardless because all you are approving is that you have received the information. You're not approving the actual action of it. >> Thank you. >> So, but thank you for the transparency and for letting the public know. >> Thank you. >> But you're it's basically just acknowledgement that
006the board has received the information. You did not take action on the actual item. >> Thank you. Now, Mr. Barnes. >> Good evening, board chair Miller, Vice Chair Hutchinson, members of the board of trustees, and superintendent Dr. Elder. Tonight, I'm here to present the second quarter general fund financial report for the fiscal year 2025 2026. This slide outlines how the second quarter financial statements are presented. All figures reflect spending through December, the end of the second quarter. As we move through the general fund schedules, you'll see comparisons to the prior year over the same time frame, which helps provide context for the trends we're seeing. This slide compares the second quarter of the current fiscal year to the same point last year. So, so July through December in both years. I'll walk through revenues first
007and then expenditures highlighting the key variances. Starting with property taxes, we are slightly ahead of last year. At this point, we have received about 29.7 million this year compared to 27.2 million last year, which reflects higher collections year-over-year. Countywide property taxes are also coming in ahead of last year, both in dollars and as a percentage of budget, which is a positive trend at the midpoint of the year. Bees in L of taxes are tracking consistently with last year and are right in line with expectations at about 23% of budget. Interest earnings are slightly lower than last year, which is expected as interest rates have begun to come down. We're still at 89% of budget at midyear, but we anticipate this continuing to taper as rates normalize. Other local sources are a bit lower than last
008year, but these revenues are smaller and tend to fluctuate throughout the year. Moving to revenues from state sources, state aid to classrooms is higher than last year. However, it is currently coming in below budget. The state has indicated this will be adjusted downward and we expect to see that reflected in the upcoming monthly payments. Bus driver salary reimbursements and workers compensation are slightly higher than last year and are tracking appropriately for this point of the year. Retirey insurance and the PIA credit are also higher than last year, consistent with rising benefit related costs. State property tax reimbursements are very consistent with last year both in dollars received and percentage of budget. Other state sources are lower than last year, but these are timing related and not unexpected. We have not had to use our one-time
009use of funds through December in either year. Overall, total revenues are coming in higher than last year at this point, about 44% of budget compared to 41% last year, which reflects stronger local collections. On the expenditure side, salaries are slightly lower than last year and are right on pace at 42% of budget. As a reminder, and I'll mention this each quarter, we acrew salaries back to the month of June. That essentially results in two months of salary expenses posting in June. So being below 50% at this point in the year is both expected and necessary to ensure we have sufficient budget for that approval. Benefits are higher than last year, primarily driven by rising health insurance costs and are slightly ahead of salaries as a percentage of budget. Purchase services are slightly lower than last
010year in actual spending. However, it's important to note that the overall budget in this category is also lower this year. Supplies and equipment spending is consistent with last year and tracking right where we should expect at mid year. All their fees and transfers are comparable to last year and remain well within budget. Total expenditures are essentially flat year-over-year and at 44% of budget, which is appropriate for the second quarter. As a result, our net position at midyear shows a smaller deficit compared to last year at the same point, reflecting improved revenue performance and stable expenditure control. This slide shows our general fund balance trends comparing last fiscal year on the left to the current fiscal year on the right. The blue line represents our monthly general fund balance and the orange line reflects the minimum
011fund balance required by board policy at year end. As a reminder, board policy DFAC requires the district to maintain an unassigned general fund balance between 17 and 25% of the subsequent year's total budget expenditures. Looking first at fiscal year 2024 to 25, you can see the typical seasonal pattern we experience each year. The fund balance declines during the fall months as expenditures outpace revenues then rebounds significantly significantly after January when major revenues are received. On the right is the current fiscal year. While we are still early in the year and only have activity through December, we are seeing a similar seasonal pattern to last year with a decline in the fall months. At the end of December, our general fund balance represents an increase of approximately 5.5 million compared to the same point last year.
012As we move into the second half of the fiscal year and additional revenues are received, we expect the fund balance to follow similar trajectory to prior years. In closing, as of the end of the second quarter, the district has received 102.9 million in revenue for fiscal year 2025 2026, which is up from 97.7 million at the same point last year. Expenditures remain steady totaling 104 million this year compared to 104.3 million in fiscal year 202425. These results indicate that revenues are tracking as expected while expenditures continue to be managed consistently. We'll continue to closely monitor state funding adjustments and expenditure trends as we move into the second half of the fiscal year. That concludes my second quarter financial report and I'm happy to answer any questions. I don't believe we have any questions, but uh
013um thank you to you and to your team and to our superintendent for the transparency and we look forward to uh another report in about three months or so um for for the next quarter. So, thank you unless anybody has anything. No, thank you. Um that brings us to the report of the superintendent. Thank you, Madam Chair. U members of the board. Um I'd like to start by thanking you, our board of trustees, for your service to our students, staff, and community. As a small token of the appreciation of me and my staff, um you will find in front of you a mug, a Rockville schools mug and a bag of our special Rockill School special blend coffees from Knowledge Park. So, I hope that you enjoy that um very much and think of us
014when as you do as I transition from an entry plan to an action plan aligned to the board goals in academics, operations, um engaging stakeholders, and elevating Rock Hill Schools to the proud first choice for students, families, and employees. We have already begun the process to align the district office and schools to a crossf functional team model aligned to our goals with a shared laser focus on student outcomes and stakeholder service. I can't wait to continue to update you on that. Our learn where you live initiative is going strong with a few delays due to weather the last few days. Um, families are coming in and taking a look at their zoned schools as well as their program options so that they can make the best choice for their students futures with firsthand information. I've
015had the opportunity to visit several of the open houses and tours and have been greeted by enthusiastic school leaders, student leaders who guide the tours and talk about the wonderful things happening at their school, and educators who are excited to share their academic programs. I do want to note for the community, tomorrow's open houses due to our delay day, if they were scheduled before 11:00 a.m., they will continue to take place just two hours later. So, if you were planning on going a tour on a tour tomorrow at 9, that would be at 11. If you were planning on going at a tour at 10:00, that would be at noon. So, those are delayed for two hours. any events tomorrow that were scheduled before the two-hour delay time um will be cancelled and not occur.
016Additionally, um due to weather, our job fair has been moved to this coming Saturday, January 31st, from 9 to noon at South Point High School. We want the best of the best and can't wait to welcome them into our doors. I'd like to express appreciation for everyone's flexibility during the last few days of inclement weather. Everyone has had to make lastm minute adjustments in schedules based on changing conditions daybyday. And so, thank you everyone for keeping safety at the forefront and supporting our students with e-learning. Please watch for a link to provide feedback that will help us improve our e-learning systems next time. We know that we have a ways to go. Um, and we hope that next time won't be for quite a while, but we want to not wait to start improving our
017systems. Finally, our next board meeting will be Tuesday, February 10th, with the business meeting beginning at 6 PM, both in person and live streamed. Thank you [clears throat] so much. >> Thank you, Madam Superintendent. Um, next up is other and future business. Um the only reminder I have to board is uh for our professional development through SCSBA. If you have not communicated your attendance, if you're planning on going, uh please reach out to Miss Gamma that's going to do so for convenience. If there's nothing else, um I will at this point entertain a motion to adjourn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Thank you, Dr. Beldone. Do I have a second? >> Second. uh believe Miss Harris any discussion just so the viewing audience knows is that this is going to conclude our business meeting tonight.
018We do however have a scheduled work session for professional development for the board that is going to take place starting in about 10 minutes or so. We just need to do some rearranging of this space to be conducive to that. So with uh there no further discussion all those in favor of adjournment all opposed motion carries 7 0 Good evening and uh again uh this time we are here for the work uh session of the Rockville school board. Uh local news media was notified in writing of this agenda on Saturday, January 24th. At this point I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda. >> So move. Thank you, Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Harris. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor. All post. Motion carries. 70. Um,
019so we have one item on this agenda, uh, which is our work session. Uh, we have, uh, Dr. Pete Gorman here tonight to help us, uh, with two items. uh preparing for effective abundant governance followed by uh the initial discussions of board vision and mission. So I will with further ado turn it over to you Dr. Gorman. >> Very good. Thank you. And would you like me to stay here? Can I move around? I'll do whatever >> you are free to do whatever you want to do. The only thing I will say is um because we're live streaming u for South Carolina law uh you have to be audible. So if you move around, bring your little friend with you. >> Okay. Very good. But >> actually I believe that you may actually be sufficient
020with our system in in the in the ceiling. >> Is that sufficient and working? Because if not, I will go back behind there. You all tell me. >> Oh, seems to be sufficient. All right. Well, good evening. It's a pleasure to be here with you all again. As a followup of a previous work session we did, I was just sharing with several board members. This is the second of four board retreats I'm doing this week. I did Richland one in Colombia last night and I'll be in Frederick, Virginia later this week and then Bloomington, Indiana later this week as um it is the time of year for the midyear board retreats and it's a good time of year because it's time to check in and see how things are progressing and things like that. It's
021particularly a powerful time to do it too when you have a new superintendent. she can give her some feedback and she can get a better idea from you all how you believe things are going and she can make midcourse uh changes midcourse transition whatever might need to be done. So let's start off by taking a look. We're going to talk a little bit about governance team roles and responsibilities and you may remember this chart that I shared with you last time we were together. There's certain things that need to go on and certain things that they need to happen in people fulfilling different roles to create the most efficient operation as possible and to have that role clarity and along with providing efficient role clarity. In doing that, it also provides accountability. So your superintendent
022knows what they are accountable for. The superintendent does what we call below the line and the board does what we call above the line. So while you work on the what of the district, those the policies, vision, mission, goals and importantly with targets related to those goals and you determine what those targets are for the superintendent to lead the staff to achieve. You do that through your one direct report, the superintendent and through policy. Now, the superintendent has many direct reports. The staff of the district, they're responsible for operationalizing those things. They do things like an initial entry plan, then leading into a strategic plan that operationalizes the vision, mission, and policies. And they do that through regulations or directions to staff. The most effective districts do that exceptionally well. There are times though when
023you have to be careful about crossing that line. And when I say crossing that line, what exactly do I mean? Well, I like a metaphor that I read in an article that came out several years ago and it referred to it as steering a car. If you think of it this way, the board decides where the car should be going. So you set the direction, then the superintendent does the actual steering and implements that direction and it becomes a problem if there's a lot of hands on the wheel. Then you don't know where you're going. It becomes dangerous even sometimes. When I say becomes dangerous, what exactly do I mean? Well, full-time staff are better suited to do some of that steering work because they're involved in the day-to-day actions. And as they're involved in
024all of the day-to-day actions, they have the more detailed knowledge. As an example, you had a gentleman that just presented a budget report. He knows deep down what is going on within those various areas. He can answer questions about the accounts. For example, he talked about some revenues and the pacing and cadence of revenues coming in. And you could ask a question, is it normal for revenues to be off by this amount or up by this amount? He can give you a reasonable response of here's why and share that information. However, that doesn't preclude you all from asking why is it different? Is that normal? Those things you ask those questions, they do that responding and answer those types of things. And in doing that as well, they can respond quickly to changes because if
025everything that needs to go on, if you don't have clear boundaries for the person that is doing the steering to operate within those boundaries, everything that needs to be done, you need to go back and let me double check, let me ask, let me do those things leads to an incredibly inefficient operation. And through the policym, you also get to keep the community in overall control. It is not the Dr. elder school district. It is the citizens of Rock Hills school district. You then get to lead according to the community's will by you putting in place those policies to do those things. Now with that though, you've got to thread the needle because you've got to thread the needle between micromanaging potentially and rubber stamp because you don't want to become a rubber stamp board
026that you just accept everything that comes forward. You got to ask questions. What is going on? But at the same point in time, you can't get involved in every single decision that has been made. You have to delegate that to the superintendent to do those things. So you set the boundaries for that. And in doing that, that's most effectively done through clear expectations and appropriate oversight. What does that look like? Well, appropriate oversight looks like every quarter having someone come to you and give you a financial update. While you're getting a quarterly financial update, a superintendent is getting financial updates regularly at cabinet meetings, things like that. There's different levels of that. That's the threading of the needle between micromanagement and rubber stamping, things that get done. Take that a step further. The clearer you
027are in crafting your policy, the more likely that is to happen. And when in doubt, if you do not have a policy, you are not giving guidance. [snorts] And when you don't give guidance, you create an open field then for superintendent to make decisions to the best of their ability because your policies say that when there is no policy, it is delegated to the superintendent. So if you want clarity, put a specific policy in place so it is clear. It is clear so people understand what it is that you expect with that. Now along with that the superintendent should make recommendations about policy because it is not your job. You are not full-time employees doing this all the time. They should make recommend she should make recommendations to you about what is good policy. But
028then also what the practical implication of that would be. What does it mean to put that policy in place? It sounds good every week for the board to get a budget update, but what does that really look like? And let me give you an example of a phrase in a school district that I worked in recently that was shared. We spend all of our time as a staff preparing for or recovering from a board meeting. They were so tightly required to give reports and things like that. They said, "We don't actually do work. We just prepare reports about the work." Well, you all have managed to thread the needle that you've determined what's the right amount of oversight and what is the right amount of having staff have time to operate and do those things.
029You've got to determine just what is that right amount. And in doing that, doing that you allow a situation, a situation where you're able to be on the scene where the action occurs to make operational decisions by delegating to the superintendent what she is to do, what she needs to come back to you on, and how she needs to do those things. Now, there is a new field of study that has started in recent years. In that new field of study that started in recent years, there's now a growing body of research of what can happen if the superintendent doesn't give you good information to make decisions. If the superintendent doesn't give you good information to make decisions, it leads to a poorly led district. At the same point in time, the same thing happens
030if the board doesn't take that work that they do and do the policy work and stay with that. It's a two-way street. If the superintendent doesn't give you good information, it turns out that it actually comes back and hurts kids. Because if boards can't be effective in putting policy in place and determine the success of achieving those things, the results actually come back and hurt kids. At the same point in time, if the student s if the board doesn't put in place good policy, monitor the policy and do those things, if the board gets involved in operations, that also has a negative impact on students. There's a fine balancing act that has to occur. You've got to decide what you need to make great decisions and you've got to hold the superintendent accountable for it
031and superintendent's got to be able to do that work. Now, within that work on the research findings, they found that it impacted student test scores and it also impacted behaviors and that the boards that do the best job with this and the districts had the most positive increases in student achievement, the boards reinforced the positive behavior of individual board members and the board members as a whole. So the boards work together as a team and reinforce those positive things. And the board also has some self-regulating on behaviors that don't necessarily follow that because the reality of it is if the board doesn't do that, who does it? Well, the citizens do it every voting time, but that's a long time in between. And it's not the superintendent's job to manage up to do that. It's
032the board's job to manage sideways with each other. Reinforce those positive things. do the corrections, the slight corrections that need to be done in the areas that aren't focused on uh and moving in the positive direction. So, it turns out board behavior impacts student achievement both positively and negatively. And there's another field of study that is also looking at whether board members just enjoy being on the board. Like your level of satisfaction, do you enjoy coming to a board meeting? Do you dread coming to a board meeting? And it also carries forward as well to staff. High functioning boards are a win all the way around is what the research shows. So in doing that, let's take a look at your role right now as you prepare to create a budget. So would just first
033like to throw it open to you. What what what is your role in creating a budget? What's the first thing you would think about or look at as you look at your role in creating the budget? A little kind of crib note or cheat sheet here. What do we say the board does that guides their work? You create >> policy. >> So what will guide this? >> Policy and state law. Okay. Which takes precedence? >> State law. >> Always. Always. So think of it like a circle. Top of the circle is state law. Second is policy. What should be next? Research back best practices. What should be after that? Strong business practices. What should be after that? Well, maybe before it students best interest. Then what happens after that? Individual choice. What if individual choice
034or individual desire goes against what is a best practice? What is a researchbacked best practice? What is a policy and what is law? It comes after which means you are in a very difficult situation because what if someone comes to you about a budget decision and they've asked you about something and you have to think to yourself and say wait a minute research doesn't show that that works. That's not a best practice. Policy doesn't support that. Law doesn't say to do that. Where does that fall within that? So, you're in a really tough place because you're elected by individual citizens who have desires and things like that. So, it puts you in a tough decision sometimes because you've got a limited number of funds and an unlimited number of needs in your school district. So,
035budget is a difficult time. Budget's a time where you have to ask yourself this question. What results do we want for which students at what costs? Now, why do I say that? Because I have a plan for next year to dramatically increase the number of third graders reading on grade level. I don't think I shared this example with you the first time we were together. Maybe I did. Here's how we're going to do it. We're going to take all of our students in K 1 and two this year and see if they are on pathway to be reading on grade level at third grade and if they are we're going to continue with what we're doing and just same thing we've been doing class sizes supports those things. Anyone who is not on pathway to
036be on grade level we're going to do a dramatic shift. We're going to go with three students for every adult. We are going to have our adults specifically trained in literacy. That is all they are going to focus on. And we are going to teach literacy skills all day long to those students. Now, because you told me all you want is third grade students reading on grade level in fourth grade and up to make sure we can afford that three students per teacher, we move to 50 to one for four, five. Middle school, junior high, we moved to 75 to one. High school, we moved to 100. So, you come to me and say, "That's nuts. That won't work." Well, which results for which students at what costs? You've got to make a choice. We
037can do anything you want. We can't do everything you want. And you are the individuals in the tough decision are going to have to make those choices. And your policy is your first part of the guide for that. You begin with your policy BBA and BBAA which talks about that the provision of financial resources that you adopt the budget that will provide resources in terms of facilities, personnel, materials, equipment and programs to enable the school to carry out its mission. So you lay it out. That's your responsibility to make the final decision. Okay? You adopt it. You go from there then to policy DA which says to achieve the vision uh for the management of fiscal resources administration will do. So you've given direction to your superintendent what you expect her and the team to
038do and as part of that you expect her to do thorough planning in order to develop budgets and guide expenditures. So you direct her to do the planning work to bring to you the recommendations. That's her job with her team. You've laid that out by policy. You've also asked her, frankly, to look for any sources, all the different sources she can, and then establish levels of funding which will provide highquality education for the district. She's got to tell you what it's going to take. What it's going to take. Now, it can't be what it's going to take for the Gucci version of you. you can't afford all that. So, you're going to have to make some tough decisions. But, she's got to recommend this is what we've got to have, what we think we need
039for those things. And in doing that, she's got to have a budget team that's going to do the best processes. They're going to run a sound fiscal operation. You've laid it out there. You expect a CFO. You've expect what is your executive director? Executive director. but then carrying that out to each individual departments in those areas. You want it run like a professional organization using the best techniques and processes available for budget development management. You've charged her to come up with systems to do that. And then you want timely appropriate information for you uh and all staff with fiscal management responsibilities. You want those reports. An example of that is what happened earlier today. So you get those things and you want efficient procedures based on best practices, accounting, reporting, investing, purchasing, delivery, payroll, vendors,
040contractors, and areas of fiscal management. Um, that's forecasting, that's expenditure tracking, it's audit, it's every function of that. You want the superintendent to run the financial side of the district like a business. Your annual operating budget is how much? >> About 250. So, you want a quarter of a billion dollar corporation. You want it to be run like that. It's not like my wife and I balancing our checkbook. It is a professional business operation. You've laid it out in policy that you expect her to lead that work. Then you go on with the annual budget to say that your budget's July 1 to June 30 and that you will have priorities based on the needs identified by the administration during the budget planning process determined by the following. So, it talks about district needs, state
041and federal requirements, regulations, maintenance of unassigned general funds. But while it says all those pieces, don't forget you pick priorities. So, she's got to do all those things in alignment with the priorities you pick. And if you as a board don't lay out priorities, which I believe you recently went through a process of some >> we have goals >> goals, that's what she should bring to you. A budget aligned with that. You have laid that out and then this work gets done with that as an overarching framework. That's what is to be done and superintendent has overall responsibility for budget prep and to submit an annual budget. It's not an individual board member. Oh well, I tell you what we're going to do. You take these three elementary schools and you go meet with a
042group of teachers from those three elementary schools. You take this high school and that middle school and you take these schools. you take these departments and we'll all come back and we'll meet individually and do that. That just doesn't work. It puts in a situation where you don't have a structured process. It also backs you all into a terrible corner. Can you tell me why you didn't uh fight for us? Why we were your three schools to go with? Why did we not get the piece that we wanted from that? It backs you into a corner as well. So, you have formal structures. Why didn't you get us this? Why didn't you get us that? You've each got a super you've all got a superintendent together that you charge with doing that. Then if you
043follow your policy further, it says that you're authorized by the state to levy school taxes. So you have the ability to make some decisions, some decisions within the legal ramifications, timing, what you can do, things you may have to go to the voters for. So there are restrictions for it. You don't have unlimited car wash, but the staff doesn't get that responsibility. Staff can make recommendations to you, but the voters elected you to make those decisions. Then going a step further then during the year the superintendent's going to have to make some transfers and they can move money between functions and object codes and things like that as long as it doesn't exceed the excuse me as long as it doesn't exceed the approved budget. So they get to make decisions. They can move things
044within categories and things but it's got to be within that approved budget. And then there are times though that if you're going to add to a particular budget or things like that, it does need to come back to you and be brought to you for those decisions. So you've got a framework for what can be done, but it's not cart blanch. It's not cart blanch within that. And then the board though allows principles and department heads discretion for transfers at the uh school or department level. You don't want to have to get in and sit down with every school, every department. So, the big things got to come back to you. The other things, they have some discretion. Yes. >> Just for clarification, I thought we had to approve the budget transfers even if they
045are within the budget amount. If you look at the in keeping with the need for blah blah blah blah blah. On the second set sentence there, it says consider requests for budget transfers if they are recommended by the superintendent. >> Yes. So that is a little bit in conflict with the first paragraph. You'll have to decide what that means to you. >> Right. So we probably take a maybe not. >> I take a little look at that. >> DB DBJ needs to be looked at because it seems like we're contradicting ourselves with >> two separate parts. Yep. >> But anyway, I'll send it out to the board. And it says that you've got the ability within the same functions and subfunctions to do some things too, >> right? >> So does that mean only if
046it goes to a different function or subfunction? What is that? So um the first place I would go to to look at that is I would speak to your auditor and say what do you interpret that to mean? When are we in compliance with it? When would we not be in compliance? Real quick, >> is the board okay if I take this forward it to the superintendent to get input from uh business services and the auditor on this policy? >> Yes, and I will do so. >> And that's just good practice to check in on these things. Can we clarify? Remember, the clearer you are, the better direction she has, the more clear her compass is for guiding you. Okay. All right. And then fiscal compliance. Oh, lordy. I'm not even going to go deep
047into this, but the federal stuff, you got a whole slew of federal things and I can't for the life of you tell you where I think that's going right now because we're seeing so many federal changes and we're seeing things. Are you going to get all your title two funds next year, your title three funds next year, title four funds? I don't have a clue. It's all kind of up in the air. So what I'm saying is this could be different and there could be more dollars given to states as bulk that typically come directly to dis who knows. So you may end up having to do some things related to your federal funds. Okay. All right. Uh that's continuing the federal. Um by the way, have you noticed that your longest policy you have
048in budget is compliance with federal funding? That actually is your longest one. And we talk about how bureaucratic things can be there. There may be a signal there. Goodness. All right. And then federal fiscal compliance. To ensure compliance, local laws, chief financial officer will put in place administrative procedures that district staff should follow in administering federal grant awards. I am not saying this goes on here. I am telling you that nationwide there is this somewhat overarching belief that in school districts the people that allocate and monitor federal funds are the department of no you can't do that. No you can't. That's just kind of the vibe that comes with it that [laughter] it's really restricted and people manage those tighter than any other funds because of the compliance function. >> Dr. Gorman, you see us
049all laughing. >> He doesn't know why. >> You know, >> I don't know why, but maybe you've experienced that. >> No. No. Dr. Belta, would you like to know, have you experienced the Department of No. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> My wife is the director of federal programs for the district. Is there more laws there than anywhere else? >> She's like that personally and [laughter] I'm sure like that district as well. >> I'm not dragging you into that. >> Yeah, it it's hard. It's hard. It's got more restrictions. It has more audits. The longest audit I ever had in the district was a state title funds audit where they came in. I said, "Wait a minute. Your title funds are x% of our budget. Why is it longer to audit that than it is an
050entire budget? So, they got more hoops they got to jump through than anyone with that. You even got online funding campaigns and crowdfunding. So, you've got things like that. You've got policies around all that. You've got policies for with your taxing authority how much you can borrow and within what limits. I don't know if you all use for example TANS. Do you use temporary anticipation notes? >> We have not had to do that for at least 20 years or more. >> Greg, >> do we have the ability? Yes. Have we ever were in the recent decades had a reason to know because our finances are in a good place. >> Beautiful. My time as a superintendent in California, one of the ways they balanced the budget one time was that they never made the June
051aortionment. They did the June aortionment at July. So they cut one 12th of our budget. And then since they did the June aortionment at July, they took two months till the next aortionment. We weren't going to be able to make payroll. We had to borrow temporary anticipation notes. We had to borrow money to do things. Um school districts can run into cash flow problems, too. Which is why your policy that I believe it requires between is it 17? >> 17 and 25. That's why you got to do these kinds of things because you have an uneven period of cash flow sometimes that comes in. So you've got policy that covers those things. Oops. And that was the last little carryover that funding proposals, grants, and special projects. So how do you look at those things?
052Funding proposals, grants, and special projects. Do you track who is funded by grant? Do you track it all the way back to HR? So, for example, that's something to think about. So, if we get a grant and we hire someone, are they hired into the district or they are they hired into that grantfunded position? It depends what your state laws are, what the rules say. Some places you're hired into that position and the grant funding ends, your employment ends. other places when the grant funding ends, you go back into the pot with other folks. There's all different things. By the way, when financial times are great, that doesn't matter. But when financial times are tough, those things matter. So, just understand those are all things related to your budget and you have decisions that you
053make with those things. >> Dr. Gorman, I believe you have a question. >> I do. Just out of curiosity, now that a lot of the federal grant stuff has run out and excluding the title people who are out of title money, that's technically a grant. Do we have a lot of grant funded positions like or do you do you you may not >> we do we do have grant funded positions but the you know the vast majority of them were u er funded and that has been cleared since ESR funds have been >> so so are those people now being paid out of the district or are they still on some other grant? >> It would be a combination. It would be a combination and you can braid combinate braid funding between state, local and
054federal sources. So, >> and in addition to that, I believe some of that was also addressed in the reorganization last year and I know that in anticipation of the ESR funding ending uh some of those have been absorbed through attrition over the past two or three years. So, not getting rid of people, but getting rid of positions as um moving people around. Basically, >> I just say that because now going back to your federal grants, your title one, your title two, your title four, etc. as that is in such a flux. That's just something we need to be very what much cognizant of as we're in this process right now. >> Amen. And I think all title funds are not going to be created equal going forward. I I think there is going to be
055much more reticence to cut title one >> I think there's going to be much less this is the vibe I'm getting much less on title two so you got to you got to look at your different title areas they could all be >> title two is staff development right >> professional development yeah now with that too you mentioned braided funding positions it is not uncommon to have someone who is paid out of two, three, four different areas. >> So if you cut a particular area, you think, okay, we got cut this and if you do what most people do in a decision, okay, what is an average employee cost in the district? What's the number? We got to cut this. This equals X number of people. But it may not exactly be x number of
056people because the number of people touched by that funding may be braided in whole different numbers and amounts for that. So all sorts of different things go on and frankly a good CFO is braiding and doing all sorts of stuff because if you handle some title one stuff and you're entitled to be entitled let me use a different one. If you handle title one funds and you're allowed to use title one funds to pay you for a portion of it and x% of your day you do title one work come out of title one funds. So this is going to be an interesting time and it has taken school districts tens of years to build this braided system. If it goes away, you've got to unwind that braid and you may do it a lot
057faster than it took you to braid it. Someone like in your wife's that there's some complexity potentially coming her way. Yeah. But they they know that and they know what they're dealing with right now. Okay. Oh, there's your general fund balance, your 17 to 25%. Okay. And then fiscal accounting audits, how you will handle your transactions. You've got a finance uh handbook put forward by the state and you have audits that occur regularly with that different types of audits. By the way, you have pure financial audits and you have some other audits that are resource audits that they may come from and look at HR and lensure and how those things, but that all trickles back to impact your financial pieces. By the way, all this you're managing, you're all managing it through policy, but
058you don't want to do that on a day-to-day ba. You assign your superintendent to handle that. You'll have a certified public accounting audited firm. You got to decide how frequent who do you want to do the audits? How how long do you want to stay with them? Do you want to change ever? What do you want to do? There there's a whole school of thought on that. Do you have an individual audit committee or is it a committee of the whole? >> Committee of the whole. Okay. So, you all work on that then. Okay. You've laid out your criteria for picking the auditor. Okay. And it's a lot of stuff. This falls into the category of I believe the general public just generally doesn't know all the things school boards are responsible for and what
059the job of a school board is that all those financial pieces fall in your area. So according to your policies, what is the board's role with the budget >> in terms of development or in terms of in general >> everything with it? This is my shot at it. This may be wrong. Encourage the community, student, staff, community, students and staff to participate in formal district budget process and timeline. I think that's one of the thing you expect that it's going to be done in a way that people have a voice and they're a part and they get to see what's done and that you do it in a way that's visible and transparent. This is where we're spending the money. This is what we're doing. We're not going to have um you know, I've seen
060places that you know do single topic meetings to adopt the budget and we're going to do it Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. and you're coming out Tuesday at why isn't it at a regular board meeting and it's you just see all sorts of shenanigans over time that the board sets district priorities through board goals and you would expect her to align it with that. If not, you've got blurriness. So, she says, "So, wait a minute. Which do you really mean? Do you want a budget recommended to you that's in alignment with the board goals or is it something else? And then, by the way, are you going to adopt me on leading the team to achieve the board goals, but we put our resources towards other stuff? I'm confused. What's important to me?" So, it should
061be board goals. And then the board approves the budget brought by the superintendent in alignment with district priorities, but it doesn't say there's rubber stamps the budget. You approve it, but you have a process where you have discussion and you've got the feedback in a visible and public way. You've got all those areas that once the board approves it that you support the board's decision. That's not my budget. Aren't you a board member? It's a district board. Oh, it is. But it's not my budget. That's the board's budget. Wait a minute. It's the board's budget. And you receive budget monitoring reports. I had no clue I would be walking in tonight with him doing that. That kind of helps when you get that little touch of the dramatic for that. And then you'll share feedback
062with the superintendent about the entire budget process through the whole thing. And as a matter of fact, you should even ask the superintendent to give feedback to you on what she's thought of from the budget. So I used to after the budget process with the team, we used to do an afteraction review. What do we expect to happen? What actually happened? What went well? What didn't get well? What didn't go well? What are we going to do about it? And I would report back to the board. We went through the budget and this is what we learned. Well, never gonna do that again that way. We're not going to do this on this thing. We're not going to do this on that thing. So you should expect her to constantly be learning and she should
063come back to you and bring you thoughts and ideas and you should probably do the same too. At some point in time you should just talk about what do we wish we do make sure we always do that we really nailed it this budget. Let's keep doing that and what do we maybe want to do a little bit different. Anything you want to add to that is that in target with what you think your boards I just kind of stole that from your policies. to say it's all policy. >> Yeah. All right. So, here's the harder part, though. According to your policies, what's not the board's role? I'll tell you the easiest way. I thought anything that's not aligned with this stuff. But what does that mean? What does that actually look like? So, I
064would like for now to take this as a moment to turn it back to you. What is in your mind? What is not in alignment with that? What do you got to be cautious of? What do you got to be careful of? And I'll give you the classic one that I witnessed in my very first school district. Okay, here's our plan. Um, ban boosters from Third Avenue High School. Um, you boosters are going to contact board member Belton and you boosters are going to contact board member Burns and you're going to get board and we're going to divide and conquer and we're going to pitch our thing to everyone and then the board's caught in this thing. I want to be responsive to the public, but how are we going to do this? That we're
065going to meet with individual groups. And then what are our expectations for what we can do with individual groups? You're not going to leave here today, board member Daniel, without you giving us a commitment that you are going to fight for our needs. Are you telling us you don't think what we shared with you is important? Like what are you supposed to do? No, I don't think it's a No, we have a process. This what it is. So, I want to turn it. What is it that you shouldn't do to keep yourself in a strong position to follow your policies? What is it you got to be cautious of? This is the audience participation. >> It sounds like you said to to make commitments to to different >> That is be careful with that. >>
066Yeah. Without without full discussion of the board. >> Yeah. Yep. Let me ask you a question though. >> Sure. >> If we are spending the taxpayers money, um, how would Third Avenue high school get that information to to whomever they want? We have budget forums. We have opportunities to get that to us. We do some budget community sessions where we listen and people can share. But be careful when they button hole you because they will do that. They will do that. you'll get an offer to come to lunch with the I'm making you know the folks that do AP science at your STEM school that they would love to have lunch with you all about why and great have have it a have a function have a forum have some way people could share concerns
067with you so I haven't seen the timeline so I assume you're planning some of these communities >> next meeting this is this is the level set timeline comes Who's next? >> Yeah. She's got to give you enough time though that people can transparently and visibly come to you and share things. >> And I think in addition to that, I think it's important for the community and and I say community mean meaning anything from staff to parents to taxpayers to whomever. >> That's a plural when you say community, >> right? To have a venue to reach out to the budget process people which is not the board which is you. you know, however that looks like. But that goes back to the how, not the, >> you know, >> Yep. But [snorts] the how should be
068transparent so people know how to do it, how to how to do those kinds of things. Even to the point of do you put in a >> a format for how do you share what your needs and concerns are, link it back to the plan, those kinds of things like that. >> But I have a question to that. So we should not be a part of hearing what the community needs. >> Oh, yes, you should. because you need to structure. What did you say? I'm sorry. >> I said I I would like to see the superintendent have a process to to where folks can reach out to her and team as well. He addressed how to reach out to board members. But what I'm saying is as she is developing the budget, there needs to
069be a way for the community and stakeholders to communicate their needs to the superintendent. Now, state law says that we have to have a public budget hearing. That takes place literally 10 minutes before we approve the budget, which means that a public hearing per law is a little late in the game. >> So, we should we should move our public hearing up. >> I don't think we can >> we can check state law. we the the the there is a very strict rule regulation as far as how it gets notified and that has to be sort of the final as to what we're voting on. What I'm saying is we need to have some kind of Q&A sessions that are leading up to that, not the public hearing itself. >> I think that's what she
070said. You were going to have some >> listening sessions. Listening sessions can be recorded and shared with boards. You can do some check with the board. Can the board come out and we'll do two times or we'll do board events where you can whatever works for you. But you you got to offer people structured opportunities to share so they know how to share because if they don't know how to share, you back people into a corner of I got to find some other way. So if you don't have a best case example, then expect things that you don't want to happen. >> One of the other things that that can't happen, and you got seven very strong, intelligent individuals on here, is pet projects. >> Yep. >> Individual pet projects. What Lacy thinks is important,
071I may not think is important. What Pete thinks is important, I may not think is important. What I think is important, none of the other six may think is important. That's to me is the greatest challenge. >> That's very congressional, the ear marks and and and that is largely it has grown that way a great deal. I'm going to send you to Washington and you're going to come back to me with a report card for how many dollars you brought back to our state. It's not what's in the best interest of America. It is what can you bring back to our state. Do you'all remember the bridge to nowhere in Alaska? Do you all remember that? >> No, but that's fine. >> They built this bridge to nowhere, but it was this chunk of money
072like no one's going to drive this bridge or whatever. But this big chunk of money came back to Ala and someone campaigned on I brought this much transportation money back to Alaska because yeah, you're in the individual position where where you've got to you're in the position where you got to think globally for the whole board. what is in the good of everyone and what's in alignment with this goals. So you got to decide what results for which children at what costs. What can we fund because you literally can't fund everything. So you got to make some tough calls. Yeah. So clearly you are backed into a corner if the superintendent doesn't recommend to you a process that is structured where you can get information from everyone and you understand it in a clear way.
073She's got to do that for you to give you that. And you've got to also make yourself available to listen to or read or whatever is your thing so you can hear everything because you could also box each other into a corner. You know, I I don't know why, but you know, board member Miller is able to come to 52 different events and you know, board member no salt doesn't come. Wait a minute. These are the events we're going to do. This is how we're going. You got to come up with something so you can all hear and see those things. Any other thoughts about things you don't want? You know, a big piece of this is home finance. You know, I'm not going to ask I'm not going to get it from mom. I'm
074gonna ask dad. Wait a minute. >> 100%. >> Don't box. Don't put yourself into that position. Any other thoughts about the budget? So then what are some initial thoughts? You want the superintendent to bring to you a structure that you can look at and get feedback from you >> and a timeline. And you want it to include you want it to be transparent. You want her to share what the district goals are and tell people this is what the board has said is important to us. Know that like do you all follow them like it you should share those things because if you don't share those things then you don't know why you didn't get funded when you say but that's not in alignment with our goals what they are. So you want a timeline
075with community opportunities to engage. You want it visible and transparent. You want to share what your priorities are, what they are, and the superintendent then to consider all that when they bring you. I heard you want the superintendent, not just feedback to the board. You want the superintendent and staff to have opportunities to hear and listen from folks as well. And those should be kind of parallel, but they should kind of come to some apex point that they're not run in parallel forever, but eventually they come together. Like she reports out to you, here's what I heard. Okay. You want to make sure then that the priorities are brought to you with a recommendation for a budget that the board have the chance to discuss it and debate it. The board vote on it and
076the board adopt its budget. Now with that then that the budget monitoring reports. I would hope that the board that the superintendent would bring to the board in this proposal some way that she also shares with the public. Are you aware we monitor your funds in your budget? Here's what we do. like you should report the practices that you use within that and then through the end of this she should give feedback on what she learned from the budget process and she should bring to you some format where you can give her and the staff feedback on the budget process is that it's just what your policy says. So all I've done is just cribnote it down into anything else about the budget process. So, you have a lot of work to do between now
077and the next board meeting. >> Yeah. Anything else you want to cover with that? >> Um, just generally Oh, can can I also >> Yeah. >> No, you do your thing and then I want to go to this too because by the way, you do lay out that you shouldn't be some non-budget policies could impact you in the budget process. These are the crossover policies. remember your CCB line and staff relations. It says you won't do those things because you got a way to do that. >> I believe our communications policy addresses some of it as well. >> Oh, I didn't I didn't even think of looking there. >> Yeah. But in in addition, I think for the public and for the board, I think that until we finish the budget process, it may be
078a good idea, depending on what you all think, to sort of have a standing agenda item that's budget process update or something to that effect, Word Smith and whatever. Just so that everybody hears adnauseium, we're in the pro process. We are thoughts even if it's just as quickly as saying we are doing this right now. The next step is why thoughts? >> Make your thinking visible. That's exactly it. >> That's again I'm not hearing protests. So >> I'm just reading. Sorry. I I'm It says how Okay. The relationship to the teacher >> to the board is indirect. The teacher is directly responsible to the principal through the principal to the superintendent and then to the board. However, this does not mean that a teacher does not have access to the superintendent or to the board.
079Conditions may arise when a teacher may obtain direct access through channels established for grievances. Okay. I'm just >> so >> reading that >> I I want to use the example I used of the science people at the STEM school should be working with their principal to make the recommendation for the funding for the STEM program for the teachers. The principal should be bringing that and you should have a mechanism that you could hear from that school and get that that that should exist. And and just to clarify, that's sort of where I was going with that conversation of there has to be a mechanism for folks to reach out to her because what we can get into otherwise which is also not conducive to the process is that people will circumvent dad and go to
080mom because mom is easier than dad. Right? So in other words, people will start picking on three or four board members to get them on board rather than actually go through the proper channels to dab the superintendent to go through the budget process. And if she doesn't hear the feedback and her budget team doesn't hear the feedback, she has no freaking clue that she now has four or five board members going, "Well, the community wants X." >> Yeah. >> That's also not good for the process. That's what I was trying to say with that. I don't know that I made myself >> spot on. I I I I have had individuals tell me, "We've already got three votes for this at this school." And how do you have three votes? The board's not publicly talked
081about this. How could this exist? Can't be. See, keep yourself out of that. So, and I'll look at the I I just didn't even think of looking at the communication policy, but that's another good one. But yeah, this is just one I found right away. this lines up with that. So that's the budget stuff. >> Make sense? >> You got good policy. You got plenty of stuff there. Um, from talking with the superintendent, we thought we'd do just kind of a real quick check-in from the last time we were together. How are things going? So, I've got a structured format for that. Let's see how this goes. So just want to check in as a governance team and your governance work. One's struggling, two needs work, three adequate, four good, five excellent. Let's look at
082the first section up here. Your governance work as a governance team with your superintendent board. How's that stuff going? How you doing on that one? This is chance for you to talk amongst yourself. How are you doing on that? Are you oneish in those areas? Are you threeish? Are you fiveish? Are you I find very few boards are five on it. It's just it's just so hard. But how are you feeling on your governance work? Clear shared priorities, high quality, well-informed decisions, spend time on strategic issues, hold ourselves accountable for results, speak with one voice publicly. How you doing on those? I think there are some areas where we've done well, but we are into a new superintendent. We just got the re-entry plan of the entry plan the last board meeting. So, for me,
083it's just too early. I don't think we've tackled any of the big issues up there that I don't think we've tackled any big issues. The real big issue that's going to be before this bud um this board is the budget. >> Others I I think we're twos and threes, but that's just because we've not we're still kind of in >> forming as a group or >> No, I don't know if it's forming as a group. I just >> I I mean I think we we probably need more time to work together. Like Dr. Belton said, we the big issue hasn't come quite yet. Um, so say >> you got four new board members that came on four or five months before a new superintendent. I mean, [clears throat] >> so I think at least for
084me, I feel like I am just getting my footing 14 months into my tenure and I assume the superintendent based on our entry plan is just now getting her footing. And even she said to us earlier today that there are some things that she's going to be rolling out over the next several months. Um so that's just too early to tell. >> I don't know if it's too early but maybe the test will be um when we get through this budget when you come back again. Are you coming back again? >> If asked. [laughter] Sure. >> We can we can go through this when you come back after. >> Happy to. [laughter] >> Anyone else in that first section? I think we've laid some groundwork with at least establishing common goals that that we're going
085to get through. Uh that set the priorities. I think that's a good starting point. >> Yeah. I wouldn't want to be going into the budget process without those goals done. Make it a lot harder. Anything else on that one? that section. How about team dynamic? Trust each other. Listen and respect the different perspectives. Engage in honest, constructive. Handle disagreements productively. Board superintendent relationship is healthy. More districts I work in struggle with this than a lot of other areas. It's just hard. This is the one I struggle with the most. And I don't want to I'll let other people talk. Um I mean, but this is the one I struggle with the most. I wish we had more opportunity to do deep dive into issues to understand the dynamics of of issues. I I feel like
086sometimes it's just about, you know, we just got to move on. Can we get four votes and move on? It doesn't matter if you're in the minority view on this. Can we get four votes and move on? And so I wish that we collectively and not that I'm asking for more meetings or anything like that, but I wish we spent more time together maybe, you know, having deep conversations about things and and that and so um I that one is a struggle for me and I can disagree and it not be personal. It seems like sometimes that if we disagree it becomes personal. Um, and so I wish that there was more opportunity to say, you know, Montreal, tell me why you think this and tell me how we can all get to a yes.
087Um, but sometimes that's missing. And I'm not accustomed to I work in a world where compromise has to happen. If compromise doesn't happen, then you just clog up the system. And so compromise has to happen and everybody is respected. And you know, there are times when you just got to go. Our version of it is just trial. when you just can't agree. But that's so rare. I mean, they're so rare. Um, how many% of our cases settle? And they settle because people come together around a table. We have forced mediation in South Carolina. You cannot go to civil trial in South Carolina without mediating the case, without everybody sitting down at the table and everybody being heard. And so sometimes, you know, we're all very intelligent, strong-minded people, but we all have ideas and we
088all have value and our voices have value. And so I wish that we would step back in that direction there because now it just becomes sometimes I feel like we're just eating ourselves is because I disagree with you. You become my enemy. And I just am not accustomed to functioning in that world. Defense attorneys in the civil world and some of the prosecutors in the criminal world are some of my best friends and we never agree on issues. Defense attorneys never agree with me on how much money to pay and prosecutors never agree with me on how much time someone should spend in prison but they are my best friends so it's never personal. >> Others >> I second that. I think again we get to a point where it's just oh we have the
089votes let's just go and there's not enough honest constructive dialogue. I'm just reading the screen up there where we can actually come together and have these conversations and say, "Well, this is why I think it's this is good and this is why I don't think it's good." Um, and so that does lend to some difficulties. And to Dr. Belton's point of it seems like we're enemies. I think we all want the best for the children of Rock Hill, but we don't uh engage in a way that we show that same level of courtesy to each other >> to allow it to come off to the public that way. I realize this is streaming live, but but that is how it it does feel. >> Okay. Others >> for me, this is um this is very
090I'm I'm a relational leader, so this is very important to me. Um and I to your point, Dr. Felton, we may not always come to a yes and that's okay. But I think what's important is that we honor when we not when we may not always agree and have that level of respect for one another and not become enemies because I think that that leads to more divisiveness in our own community. We talk about representing our community as a whole with Rockill and we set the tone. The leader set the tone. So if we can't engage constructively and respectfully with one another or disagree and people see it. I mean I think my face says it all. You know what my mouth doesn't say my face will. So um I think that we just need
091to be mindful when we are engaging with each other. And it's okay to disagree but let's do it respectfully because our kids are watching us. others. Can >> Can I invoke race into this for a second? Um, and I'm going to I mean, there two of us on here that are African-American and we have a Native American on here. You use the word relational and it's so true. As an African-American, and I don't mean to speak for the entire African-American community. So, but I am going to make a very general statement that African-Americans um by and large tend to be more communal people and tend to be more relational people and that our how we interact with each other is more relational. That's why you have multi-generations living in homes etc etc etc and so
092and that is who I am. I'm a 53 year old relational person and I can disagree with you and you not become my enemy. And so, but unfortunately now in our politics at the national state and unfortunately it's permanent at the local level now either you're 100% with me or you're 100% against me. There is no in between and it's just hard for people like me to function in that environment because I just don't operate that way. Um I I I just don't I mean we can disagree on an issue and we can have a beer 10 minutes later and the fact that I don't expect people to be monolithic and fault with me. Um I consider myself intelligent. I consider most people I interact with intelligent and so disagreement doesn't mean enemy to me.
093But unfortunately that's where it seems our politics is at the national level, state level and permeating to the local level. And that just bothers me. It just concerns me tremendously and I think if we're not careful as a board then we will we will become a microcosm of our national politics and our state politics. >> I heard someone talking about it recently. They said you know for this issue I I think we should dive into this. You need to let me know. Do you agree with me or are you wrong? >> I thought well that's the dichotomy. You agree with me or are you wrong? Where's the was a little between there. Other individuals want to talk about that? Anything? Um, I'll just say it's in my nature to listen to hear all sides at
094every point in time. Um, and while I may have an opinion, I think sometimes I can work myself into a circle with hearing all the sides and trying to take all those into account. Um, and I can say that sometimes when I sit here and speak, I don't always feel that that same effort is put forth by the rest of the board to hear the other side of things or my side of things. um I may be listened to, but I'm not sure I'm always heard, if that makes sense. Um especially if I differ an opinion. Um and so I guess in that point where it's important to me to hear all sides and take those into consideration before I make a decision because I'm making a decision in the best interest of the students
095in our community and not just for myself. It's important to me to hear all aspects and actually consider those and I would ask that the same be given to me as a board member. >> I think the unfortunate thing for me is that it doesn't feel any differently than when we met you the first time and then even prior to that. Okay. >> For me, >> anything more in this before we go to the next section? Let's look at our functioning. Clear about governance management rules. Follow communications protocols. Communication protocol one. We're actually going to go through your communications document coming up. [snorts] Talk a little bit about it. Our meetings are productive and wellrun. We support the superintendent success. We're improving as a governance team. It only works when the same rules apply to
096everyone equally. >> Yes. >> What does that mean? >> That if everyone follows the same rules. It only works if everyone follows the same rules. And that's not an imple that's not implying that some people don't follow the rules. I'm just making a statement that that only works when everyone follows the the So I don't have an example of someone not following the rules. If that's what you're asking, I'll show you where it's going to be pretty blatant. It's going to be blatant if you don't do this. It'll all come to a head if if you don't do the budget that way. If you follow different sets of rules on the budget, that'll make your lives much harder. >> Oops. Anyone else? >> And I think we are think we're moving the ball forward every
097meeting. um some are easier than others, but I do think that's our job is to keep going in the direction that you know approving discussing what the superintendent wants. We're not just st we're not stagnant. We we are going somewhere. We've passed goals. Um we're going to have action plans coming through that we can approve or not approve. We're going to have we're going to work through the budget process. We are doing something. We're not just coming here and leaving here in the same spot that we got here. And and I don't I don't dis is this is this conversation because I you know because again we don't have this opportunity and I know state law prevents us from having this opportunity because when the seven of us get here it has to go out
098all over the world and sometimes I think that limits conversation because we know the entire world is looking and the entire world is listening. >> 30 people plus >> yeah well you know however many people are looking at the topic. So, um, but so we don't have this opportunity and I don't know how to create this opportunity and comply with state law um once four of us are together. But I hear what you're saying and that may be that may be your position um when you agree with how the ball is moving forward. When you disagree with how the ball is moving forward, then you can feel very differently about it when you're saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." um you know, like some recent discussions we had, I don't disagree with what we're trying to do.
099Just give me more information on how we're going to do it. And it just seems like there was um well, I don't have to give you more information on how we're going to do it. This is just what we're going to do. And so, I just wish we would slow down. I said, "Wait a minute. That's a very valid point you've raised, Mickey Mouse. Let me explain this to you because I don't want to make it about Montreal. So, I'm making it about someone else, you know." And so, you know, when when you are when you're winning, of course you feel that way. When you feel like that you're not listened to or your position is not respected or your intellect is not respected, then you don't feel like you're moving the ball forward. You
100feel like you're being bulldozed over. And so then you become, how do I become a disruptor? Because I don't want to just feel like I'm sitting here. Not that I disagree, but I want an explanation because, you know, let's be honest, we've made some decisions that's absolutely antithetical to everything we've said. We've boxed ourselves in already financially on some issues. We've done exactly the opposite. We've done the exact opposite what we're saying here. And that's all I was trying to say is let's not do this what we've done. And [snorts] that's why we need healthy dialogue. >> That's why we need dialogue. >> That's why we need to have these conversations and not just there's a we got >> respectful dialogue. >> Of course, but we can't have respectful dialogue if we don't know what's
101going on. >> Sure. >> You have to be respectful during the dialogue. >> Can you offer the dialogue? >> As long as it's respectful, >> of course. But you have to offer it. >> Yeah. >> It'll be respectful if it's offered, but that's the problem. It's not offered. Well, I I know that I attempt to be respectful. I know that I'm open to conversation. My phone is open to conversation. My office is open to conversation. I'm open to lunch. I'm open to drinks. I'm open to anything. But I do think that sometimes we when when legitimate again and man, and this is not a slam on you. I mean, we we're bringing in a a a consultant to help us with this, but we as a board have done the exact opposite. we are already
102boxed in on some things. And so I hear what you're saying is don't have pet projects. I mean, but then that means that that I have to sit and things that are important to me now I need to be silent on. Um and so that's I I just and again it's not that anything we've done is bad for the district. Nothing we have done and I think that's what sometimes gets translated that you are opposed to something. No, I'm not opposed to something. I'm just for the process. Let's just follow the process. And so if you're expecting me to follow the process, everybody needs the whole board needs to follow the process or it becomes a gang of thrones. You get in where you fit in and you start voling and we shouldn't operate that
103way. Others any feedback? How about on individual effectiveness? I come to meetings prepared. Materials read in advance. Ask questions that help us make better decisions. Contribute meeting discussions. I focus on governance, not day-to-day operations. How are you all doing? Where are you with that? I think the five >> three I think we all actually do a really good job. >> I think the fourth one we have by circumstances in and out of our control specifically a year ago or so uh kind of been forced to all seven of us to be on the wrong side of the fence. But now, you know, we're in a situation where we have goals and we have a superintendent and it's time for us to get back on our side of the fence. So, I think number four is
104something that we need to get ourselves out of some bad habits that we got into not because of choice necessarily, but because we had to. And I think it applies to the whole board collectively. you you know as far as as you know some of the things that happened last year but one to three I actually think every board member does a pretty good job >> others in that section >> can I make your job hard hard for a second and I I mean this sincerely I and I I want an answer I really do back up to the other one where we are and we've already made some decisions in the budget process. Can you advise us on how do we need to navigate that so we don't deteriorate the relationship of the board
105as we go through this? >> Well, it's hard because I I have no idea what the prior decisions were, what the context was. I just I just don't know. >> Just any budgetary decision. I guess what the decision is is kind of irrelevant. just any decisions that have been made that we don't further deteriorate the relationship between members of the board. How do we, you know, is there an opportunity maybe that we can come back together as a board where we do a deep dive into that where we can have a more open conversation? Maybe tonight is not the night to do it, but I'm I'm willing to give up a day to come back together as a board to have those conversations on how do we navigate some things that are already there. Um,
106but everybody feels like they can be heard and there's a voice in the room. >> That that's tough because I I just don't know I don't know what those things were. I just don't know any of the context. I don't know. Did did you did you follow a process where people could speak on the issues? Could I I just don't know. >> All right. >> I'll maybe to uh clarify your point, I'll give an example of myself. So I think one of the last meetings um I looked over to some of my colleagues and said that I would love to be more supportive of the arts within our district. So, should I have not said that because then I may open up the gateway to different arts um teachers or whatnot to come. >> I
107I think saying arts are very important to me and what I believe is part of a balanced education. There's nothing wrong with that. >> I think you're perfectly fine saying your mind. >> Yeah. I believe that soccer is the largest growing sport in this country and girls, guys, every other ethnicity plays it. Yet, we put no emphasis on it. But let me finish. But whenever I said that, I said my commitment is to looking at the budget to put more monies towards that. So, should I have not? >> I think I'd be careful about saying what your commitment is for that. >> So, I want to make sure I'm now going to try to back you in a corner. >> Don't back me in a corner. >> Not. So, so instead of spending money on
108early literacy, you're you'd rather spend it on the arts. >> See, I don't want to back you into a Yeah. >> Yeah. You got to look at the totality of the big >> moving forward. I have no to say that. >> That's where that's where this the superintendent and this and the chief financial officer's job is to okay, let's look at the budget and let's see let's give options that what we where we can move money around. That's right. And until we know what those options are, which we haven't had those options, >> tell the truth, I I've been on this board for 5 years and those options never presented. It's just every year come they want another military increase. >> So now hopefully that uh you have a good CFO coming on board and
109and you're here now, we can have options for once. And if you look at this this governance team, so you notice people already started say, "Yeah, we we do pretty good." I do well in these these I you notice the switch from the Wii to the I gets a lot easier when we get to the eyes than it is when we're in the Wis. You following? >> Yes. Can I play devil's advocate with my good friend here, Mr. Burns? >> What if one of those options is a millage increase? What if the superintendent comes and say all these things are important to me? That's an option. >> That's an option we got to look at. >> Okay. >> But that's what that's the only option that's been given to this board for at least I
110can say for 5 years is oh well here we're need more need more money. >> And it's never well can we not move shift things around and consolidate or do something different. It's never that. See, this is the hardest part. When you move from the eyes to the wise, that's where it's hard. You all come prepared, but let's ask this. I actively I listen actively and understand others perspectives. My guess is very few people think I don't do that. You think you do, but do others interpret that? See the connection between this bullet and taking it back to this bullet. What if someone says no to this about people who said yes to this? That's where the challenge comes. I think I'm listening. I think I'm listening. I think I'm doing those things. Yeah. So,
111you know, tell me more what your thoughts are. And I went completely closed while you're talking to me. And I sent you the message of I don't give a darn about what And you say you were closed from the start. Wait a minute. I I listened. I leaned in. I did that. But you took This is the challenge. The challenge is in doing these at the bottom in a way that others at Whoops. Others in the top section feel that we listen with respect to different perspectives. That's the biggest challenge groups face in this work. You're elected as an individual and you have virtually no authority individually. >> You only have authority when three others vote with you on something. >> Correct? >> The structure is not designed to be the easiest piece for it.
112So the question is, how do you listen in ways that people understand? You're openly listening and you're respectfully listening. You're considering what the options are. And then at the end, you make the decision having considered everything that you think is in the best interest of the district. And a lot of that has to do with the it has to do not with just what's said, but the process for how it's said, how it's listened to, and those things. Because I can give those I I could go closed. I could go I I could use phrases instead of tell me about a time why did you why did you immediately put you on your heels because I've made a accusatory stem to start it off versus a hey fill me in so I can understand all
113those pieces add up with this and it's only going to be as strong as you are with your individual Whoops you with your individual practices that people know that you've been doing the team pieces in your individual parts. That's where it's at. And I've heard that there are individuals on this board that don't feel that's always happening. My guess is there may be individuals here too who say I don't feel like I'm doing that, too. So something's going to have to be worked on. You're not all the way there. Um, I always thought with with every board I was superintendent of, we were in progress. We were never there. We're always in progress. We were or um to use the old sports analogy, I don't sports, you ever heard someone's listed as dayto-day? We're all
114day today. We're just all day today. Anything else we want to do with going through these? We know that this is an area then that some of you want to reflect on others. I'm not saying the others don't. Some of you have shared you want to reflect more on this and that there are times when some individuals feel that they may not have been listened to or had an opportunity to share. That's what I think I've heard. Anyone else have anything to say on this part before we go on? >> I guess I'm just asking my colleagues, is there an expectation this is the process? Is this just pure recommendations or this is something you're asking us a philosophy we're being asked to adopt? >> You've got to decide on your own. I cannot impose
115this upon you. >> So I think that's the conversation we got to have as a board then you [laughter] looking at me. >> Just listen. >> Yeah. I'm I'm just you know I >> I'll listen to anybody's perspective. I I'll >> It's the process and I >> I'll use I'll listen to the process. I do the process any way you want to do it. >> What process do you want to adopt, Montrea? >> Yeah. >> No, I'm asking. >> That's I'm just a little bit confused. Yeah. That's what I I didn't understand your question. >> Can you go back three slides or four slides? >> You mean the budget ones? >> Yes. You're right. Go back. Go back. Right here. Right there. >> That that's a process. Correct. >> So, what the question is one,
116two, three, four, five, six. That's a sevenstep process. Is that the process that we are agreeing to follow as a school board as seven individually elected now having to work collectively? Is that the budget process? >> I I agree with that. >> All right. So, can I come with a recommendation suggestion though? >> Certainly. If I can get a copy on that slide of that slide sent to my inbox, >> I could format that into a board policy and put it on the agenda for discussion at the following board meeting for first and then second and because honestly we can talk about processes all dang day long. If it's not in policy, it's not there. So is is me sort of drafting a policy based on that and putting it on for discussion a bad
117idea or I I don't think it's necessary personally. I think we just need to agree to respect the process as a collective and agree that we will have healthy dialogue as we go through this. I I don't know if it's necessary to because we have policy that supports the budget as outlined by Mr. Gorman. So, do we need to buddy it with a budget or do we just need to agree as adults and say this is what we'll do as we set a budget? >> When do we vote on the budget? >> So, it depends on when the state coughs up the money, but in theory, we would have it at the first board meeting in June. >> Okay. So, it's the second meeting in January and we're going to work through this process between
118now and and June. It's not just going to be show up in June and vote. >> Right. >> We're doc Dr. Elder said we're going to have events for people in the district to come out to and and talk to us and we can listen. And so, I mean, yeah, let's let's work this process. Do we instead say that we keep this process as a template and when we do our board meeting update as to where we're at in the budget process, we tie that back to this process. In other words, okay, this week I have [clears throat] been doing blah blah blah with the community or we have been doing this that goes back to process number three. >> And and maybe it's not as a policy. Maybe we just do it as an
119action item while we're in this for the budget. We as a board agree and vote affirmatively that this process that we're going to follow and it doesn't become a permanent policy, but it becomes an action item during budget season and that we're not >> going to have side quests going on. >> Right? So then I draft it out as an action item and we stick it on the agenda for next board meeting and then we move forward. >> Thoughts? Be sure. Let me be and I'm sorry I'm trying to I don't want to be on on your side of the fence here, but I want to be sure that I'm clear. So, it sounds like we're looking at something at a at an action item next meeting that's different from the budget process. >> No,
120no, >> no. What we're saying >> I bring you the budget process and that's an action item that you vote on demonstrating agreement that we're going to follow that process. >> Basically, yeah. What we're saying is that what is on the screen that is all supported by state law and policy that collectively the seven of us is going to take a vote to say we agree that this is the process we are going to do. In other words, we agreed to behave. I I mean I I don't mean to sound silly but like we agreed to behave right and we write it down. when we formalize it because therefore if throughout this system people sway from this there's accountability between the seven of us to say hey Melissa remember the arts we voted on that
121you know I'm picking on you but you you know what I'm saying that's all I'm I'm getting at and I'll put it in some kind of fancy format for an action item I'll send it out to all of you over the weekend to have a peek at it but if I can get that slide so I can basically copy and paste and put it in a prettier format Because Dr. Elder, here's the thing. I think we all agreed on dual enrollment. I mean, that was the last big issue that we discussed. We all agreed on dual enrollment. We all want dual enrollment. I have two children who've graduated from well, one who's graduated from dual enrollment, second one who's about to graduate. But we understood from our last meeting with Dr. Gorman that that was
122going to be the process we were going to do it. We approved dual enrollment and I voted for it. We approved dual enrollment outside of this process. So we're now boxed in with dual enrollment. So now if Montreal Belton is going to come to you and say, "Wait, hey, we approved dual enrollment. I now want X, I shouldn't be able to come to you outside of this process and lobby for a particular thing." And then moving forward, nobody should be able to. Everything comes through this process. That's all I'm asking. That's all I was asking during dual enrollment because he Dr. Gorman, sorry I didn't mean to say he. Dr. Gorman presented this to us at the last time we got together and I thought that those were the rules of engagement moving forward. Well,
123apparently it wasn't. So, I want to be clear on what the rules of engagement are. If those are the rules, then those are the rules. >> So, if I if I may, again, I'm trying to stay on my side of the fence. I think that there are some habits um that have become we developed some weed before I was here. We developed some habits um in last year's budget process that um through our communication plan I first of all I want to shout out to all of you because I think through the communication plan work that we did back in August we are pulling back some of those habits and creating better habits instead. Um, and I and I hope that you all see that because I certainly do. Old habits die hard, right? So,
124this is a time with this budget process that this this is a defining moment, right? For us as a board and superintendent leadership team um for us to be able to craft a path forward that keeps me in my lane and you all in your lane so that what we come up with is the best outcome for our district and our students. And that's where I think we need to get. I And I know every single one of you individually wants to get there. And it's going to take every single one of us individually to hold up our part to make to make these things happen. >> Somewhere along the way, you're going to have to drop some of the tools you've used previously. We just not do those things. That goes for everyone. You're
125going to have to drop and at some point in time, too, you're not going to be able to say, "But previously, someone else used that tool." It's going to have to be all that stuff. Just got to drop that tool. Gotta remember, windshield's buried in the rearview mirror. Move forward. But remember, there's a reason for a rearview mirror. Don't forget where you've been. Don't forget where you been. >> Move forward. >> What's that? >> So Elena, I do appreciate you bringing up that if it's not in a policy, we can say what we want, but that doesn't mean the process is necessarily going to happen. I don't want to create a policy just to create a policy. educator in me wants to take each of these bullet points and go refer back to the policies
126that we currently have and see if any of these steps are tied into any policies that we currently have. We may not need to create a whole new policy. But if we have any steps in this process that are not tied into a policy somewhere, I would appreciate us not putting boards or future boards in a position of well this is how it's done and someone being able to refer back and say it's not in the policy. So I realize what you were trying to do with that. Do I think this needs to be its own? No. Not if we can. So I don't I don't know who wants to t take that task on. I will gladly if you want go back and look or you like >> can we tag team that one
127>> Dr. Gorman, did you pull you said you pulled these? >> I've looked at different parts of your budget. >> There's all different parts of of your budget where you say that you'll involve the public. >> So, this comes from >> Yeah. It's picked from all different parts of your budget. >> And I never am advocating for a policy. I'm just saying this can just be an action plan. It doesn't have to be a permanent policy >> for this is the action plan or the rules of engagement for budget season. spring 2026. >> But if Lacy and I can work together on finding the specific resources as to where and with what context some of this is taken, draft a rules of engagement type document for us to take action on and basically say on
128scouts honor, yes, we we I board member, you board member, you board member and so forth are adhering to this during the budget season. I still think it's important for us to say sentence number one that is represented in policy X Y and whatever. Right. >> That's all we're saying. >> Yeah. Because it's it's from all over like you've got a process for how you bring agenda items as a policy, >> right? >> Your agenda items say you will list it, you will. So therefore, you're going to do things in a visible and trans that's taking it. It's it's replete from different places I took it. Yeah. I largely lifted it from stuff from the policies from the first time I was with you all and I did a remember I did a longer policy
129review. That's where I stole most of it from. >> But give us about a week and we'll >> Okay. I'll send you the latest version of this. Yep. >> Yeah. >> And and to Lacy >> and your gentleman in back, Mr. Rice has it on his device, too. >> Oh, perfect. >> So, he's got >> slide the presentation. >> Can you send that to me? >> Can you forward the presentation to them? We probably have it before before you leave the room tonight. >> Thank you. Um because our communication plan says that if one board member gets something, they all get it. Can you send it to all of them, please, Mr. Ray? >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Just trying to keep us >> Yep. >> All right. Anything else on that? Are we
130ready to go on? >> Let's go on. >> Let's look at your communication best practices. Well, what I'd like to look at this is use the traffic light self assessment. We'll go through it. Is it green? Working well? No changes. Yellow somewhat needs refinement. Red not working. Okay. So, think of it. So, you know, yellow and red sections, you know, what's happening? Why are we there? How and green stuff, we don't need to spend a ton of time on that. But if there's anything that's not working, and this is designed to look at your communication plan. So, take a look and look at your communication plan. Superintendent to board communication. How's this working? How's it working with Dr. Elder sharing stuff with you? Weekly updates, hotline, emergency notifications, individual connections, press release. Let's see. Yep,
131this is s Whoops. I'm sorry. Sensitive here. This is superintendent to the board. That section. How's that going for y'all? Is that working? Is it on target? Is that meeting your needs? >> Yeah. Say green light. >> That's green light. Anyone else? >> Very transparent. >> Okay. [laughter] >> Okay. >> I'll say I'm glad this came back up. I for some reason thought that the Friday phone call was going to be if we had not seen each other in a week. I'm not complaining about it. I'm just cognizant of your schedule, everybody's schedule on the fact of I wasn't expecting it weekly. I realize that is >> she may have received coaching that encouraged her. Calm every week even if you met with them. >> That is what it says. That is what we It's
132fine. I just Okay, I'm not >> just make it a practice. Do it all the time. Constantly reach out. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. >> Okay. She is communicating. Don't worry. >> Okay. How about we switch it? Darn it. I'm sorry. Board to superintendent. How are you all doing with this? Board members directly contact the superintendent by phone. So, you know, after 8:30, we're kind of letting that and and do it on weekdays. She's available on Saturdays for matters of urgent. Uh serve as the broker of information. Refer a board member to a cabinet member. Super refers board member to cabinet member. Cabinet member will inform the superintendent of the outcome. Board members, keep the superintendent advising constituent services to the constituent services process. Green, yellow, red. How's that going? >> I think we need to contact
133her much less because she is communicating so much back to us. Um, but Green, >> I think she should read us on this one because I don't >> Yeah, that's true. >> I save everything for the Friday phone call. >> Yeah. >> And nothing wrong with that, too. That that's kind of what I was getting at like what Lacy's saying. >> It is cold. It's cold. >> Wrong. Montrea, >> wrong. >> Are you hot? >> Well, I I think my staff would say that we are definitely verging on the green here. They are getting much less individual reach out. Um and so so shout out to all of you who are abiding by that. Um every once in a while there's a there's a degree there's relationships, right? And there's familiarity. And so every once
134in a while there will be a oh and then the the staff member will call and say okay this person called me. It just you know happened this time and and so I think we've been able to work through most of that. Um, yeah, and I think that that has freed staff up to do their work, which they appreciate very much, so that they're not in response mode all the time or drop everything because I'm getting a phone call from a board member, um, which was many of them expressed that that was pretty much last spring. So, I think they're able to >> move it in the right direction. >> Definitely. Definitely. and and that is very appreciated um on my part on their behalf. So just so you all know that >> board members
135anything to add >> ready to go on board information requests 15minute rule board chair for consideration for a whole board meeting if you got anything. asked the superintendent how you doing with that. >> I think again given the fact that we are getting communicated with through weekly updates, Friday phone calls and having small group meetings with you know more in-depth information on some things. I think that has decreased it's just a feeling I have decreased the overall information requests just because we're getting it on a structured pattern rather than having to fight for information the same way it may have been in the past. I it feels a lot more transparent which I I don't feel like I need to personally I don't feel like I need to ask for information the way I may
136have had to in the past because it's being provided in a structural way. >> Anyone else any comments? >> I have to say so this is confession. I have not always held to that 15inute rule. I have occasionally had requests for information that have taken significantly longer than that. Um, so I will do better about making sure that my response is like we talked about that's going to take more than 15 minutes. Therefore, we probably need to get this on a board agenda to make it the direction of the board as a whole. So, and and I own that. I just kind of do it. So, I can be better at that. >> Okay. >> Or district employee relations. >> Might want to talk to this one. [laughter] >> Yeah. Wait a minute. I hear
137you're talking after eight with a district team member. Um, district employees, one employee, the superintendent. Refrain from directing or assigning work. Refrain from encouraging employees to operate outside organizational structure. Uh receive employment related concerns. Any district personnel, refer them to the superintendent. Just want to make sure it doesn't carry over the next one. Yep, it does. Brings an issue or concern to a board member. If personnel brings it to you, you're going to send them back because remember that policy we showed you. Got to send them back. Act in your role as parent or guardian are always free to contract staff. Make visits schools under board authority authorization with full knowledge of staff. How you doing on this one? I know for for me, you're right. We're in a small community and those of us
138who been around here 30 years and working with people, you just have so many relationships. And I know when I personally get a call, I say, "Are you calling Montreal or you calling the board member because you want something done? If you want something done, I'm taking it to the superintendent and I'm going to tell the names. And that's how I've always gun to you. If it's just I'm just telling you something as a constituent who voted for you, then I foul it away um and may or may not use it, may or may not entertain it, that's just a friend having a conversation with a friend. But if it comes to me as a board member because I want something done and I send it to the superintendent >> every time y'all should do
139that. others. Anything on that one? >> I'm sorry. My daughter's asking me to answer a question as she gets ready to go away and I'm trying to do it quickly and discreetly. [laughter] >> I stepped out and did so I can't. >> Anything else on that one? >> I think it's like got a yellow. I think there's still there's or gray. There's still some gray in that. and how we as a whole operate with that. So I think there should there needs to be some improvement on that as a whole. >> Madam superintendent, are you hearing from any staff? >> A little bit, but I do think overall our board has done a very good job of you get an issue, you turn it over. Um, when I get a specific person to get back
140to, I get back to the person, right? Or I delegate the right person to do so. Um, when it's when it's specific and actionable, I'm able to specifically take action. >> Okay. This next one's the constituent services process. Parents, caregivers, or constituents give you something. Is the process working? You give it to the superintendent or her design. She tracks them, looks at them, processes them, gets back to the individual, lets you know what's happening with that. See if this car Yep. carries over G or notify super mean community employee group. Give her a summary of it so she can include it in the update. How's that one going? >> How you all doing on that one? >> Is that working? Think so. I will tell you that is a change in Rockill and I guess
141this um specifically and I think you and I had a you and I I'm sorry Dr. Elder and I had a conversation about that um um that I think people have been so accustomed to having a direct conversation and not coming up the chain. So, I think the first couple of times um some people got a reply email, you know, please go to this website and do that. And I assume there are some processes in play. I mean, I get it. Everybody who calls not going to talk to superintendent. I think what you're trying to do is direct people to talk to where the the source of the concern is. Have you talked to the teacher, the assistant principal, the principal and brought it up the chain? Cuz there's no way if you were, you
142know, 14,000 kids, if you were talking to 14,000 parents all the time, then you just never would get your work done. So, I get it. I think that has been kind of new to Rockill Schools. Um, >> you got that, >> right? >> But we're still a small town, >> correct? And so I think that to that that from from what I've heard that does lend to some I don't know what that word is where it's kind of like why can't I have an open door policy? Why can't I get the response? So it's it's >> help educate them on that. >> It's encouraging. It's encouraging, but you know, culturally, there's still some things too that won't change. >> And I do get the small town thing. I do. And a quarter of a billion
143dollar a year business. You got to got to make those merge. That's hard. >> Yeah. Everybody always wants to talk to the to the top. When you know, you're in a store, you want to talk to the manager. You don't want to talk to the person at the counter. >> And you know, it just always happens. How do you feel this is going? Constituent services you shared. Do you think it's in progress? Is there anything you think needs to be done immediately different? >> I would take direction from the board on that. But I, you know, I do think that um going back to our last work session with you. Um most of the problems can be handled at the source and they should be and that's where those relationships are built. And so I
144that is firmly my philosophy. um when I need to step in, I step in, but most most everything can be handled by talking to each other directly. Um and and same same with employees, you know, they're they're constituents, too. But I think I think most problems can be solved with direct communication. Um I hold our educators and our school leaders in very high value and don't um don't wish to undermine them um unless unless it I need to step in and and support in some way. So that's um I think that they they would say that they feel like they they're able to pro solve more directly. So, and they they do appreciate that they nobody likes getting a call from the superintendent about something that they could have handled themselves. >> All right, let's
145go to board meeting prep. So, you're getting the agenda in advance. Uh board chair, vice chair meeting with the superintendent to prepare prepare the draft agenda. Board chair notifies board members of the method for review. Small groups, individuals Thursday prior to the meeting. Small group provide questions. Soup takes notes. Soup gets the notes out. You use this assembly. Is that what it is? >> It It's an off online platform like Blackboard. >> Got it. Okay. So, like Board Docs or >> Yeah, Board Docs. It's It's the >> competitor. Got it. Okay. >> How's How's that working? You getting what you need in advance? You're you're getting you you know what's on the agenda? You're turning stuff in. What's that? >> The small group the week before. I mean, we we the information is like I
146say, it's very transparent now. >> You get any surprises at board meetings? My favorite ever was I'm in Charlotte and uh we had this old board member Joe White, Coach Joe White, great southern draw, and someone asked me a question and if I ever said, "I don't know the answer." And he'd look at me, he says, "Dr. Gorman, why didn't you prepare for that answer? We have a process where we give you the questions ahead of time. So, you got that question ahead of time and you didn't prepare for it? No, sir. I didn't get that question ahead of time. Okay. And then he'd switch and ask the board member, why didn't we give that ahead of time? And you can't always know everything you're going to ask ahead of time. But when you start
147to see patterns of you're not prepping, then the board needs to talk amongst themselves to individual board members and say, "What what what's going on?" We shouldn't have staff saying, "I don't know." because staff should have come ready and staff comes ready if they know someone's gonna ask that stuff. Does that make sense? I know. >> Sorry, Dr. W. >> No, go go go. >> No, I I think to the to that though, it's okay to not always know the answer to the question right there. Um because I think this is just my opinion. I think too much preparation kind of doesn't uh open or give the opportunity for healthy dialogue amongst us. I think when we get in small groups, we we've got all the questions here because there's only two or three of
148us and so we're not at a place where we're having like Mr. Barnes in front of us and now we're all seven of us are having the conversation and we're all seven able to ask questions. therefore being representative to the people that voted us into office or the whole community of Rock Hill. So, I think that that for me trying to find the balance. I'm not trying to get into a gotcha moment by no means, but I also don't want to come to a board meeting and be a mute a m a mute and not ask healthy questions. >> Well, I think you should reass some of the questions in large group that you asked in small group because it's a benefit of the public to hear those things. Absolutely. I would never say that
149you should ask those things. It's just it's tough when there's a new topic brought out and you can't share it with the public and then somebody might even say can we table that so they can come back with that. Well shoot we could have answered that but I think you should reask some things. I know as a superintendent I used to frequently ask a board member they [snorts] ask a question in advance I'd answer it and I'd say would you mind asking that the board me I really think it'd be great for the public to hear that and also sometimes great for the public to hear some of the scrutiny you put the staff through so they can be cognizant of that that you're doing your stuff. So I I don't ever mean for it
150to uh limit discussion. That's not my intent. >> And I thought it was like it's my understanding that the questions that we ask in small group, we are free to we we are supposed to ask them again in the open session. The whole goal is just to >> not you know if if I had questions specifically on the presentation tonight, I was going to let her know in advance so that the presenter has the opportunity to adequately prepare to respond to me. >> Yes, sir. That that is the intent. Yep, that's the intent. Anything else about prep for the board meetings? >> I do just want to mention um we had talked about changing our small groups to the Tuesday before. Um and we hadn't done that yet because we had had a speaker um
151lined up for last Thursday that we ended up having to cancel. Um but at this time, are we ready to go to Tuesdays? I know we had talked about it before December. Are we ready to do that and make that a habit in which case I can um revise the plan with the proper date? >> My initial thought on that and it's not a gotcha and I realized schedules change. It says the Thursday two weeks before the next board meeting. So in theory that would be this Thursday you all would be setting and lining up your agenda >> as Thursday were Friday, right? Okay. >> But then we would know >> I need a bigger lead time on those small groups. And I realize things have gotten crunched recently and the holidays and things like
152that just for work schedule wise. I need if if you set it Thursday or Friday and that gives me knowing well then you would turn around and it would be the next >> right >> Tuesday. See this doesn't feel like enough lead time for me to turn around and do my job. Would it make sense because we are going to do our agenda setting meeting Thursday or Friday. We have not discussed when that is yet but like we have agenda setting meeting this week, right? Um if we as in the three of us sort of give a lead time on things that we know based on what superintendent has in sort of in the in the in the hopper that is going to be small groups for sure because part of that conversation is also
153that I'm supposed to tell you hey yes this warrants a small group this week we may not need a small group right >> so at least that way we can give the ones that you know we're going to have to have a small group because at this meeting I'm doing blah blah blah and that is important to have for small group or if you have a speaker lined up we also know that we have you know one we're going to have to reschedu at some point to give a little bit more lead time but I think we have to be cognizant that we may have things pop up that may make it difficult you know So, >> can I ask you a question, Lisa? >> So, if they're doing the agenda Thursday, so today's Tuesday,
154>> Thursday or Friday, depending on our schedule. >> So, Thursday or Friday. So, they do the agenda Thursday, two weeks before the board meeting. What? And then we have a small group meeting, not next Tuesday. >> It would be. Okay. So, so you're saying you need the information sooner so that you can be prep so you can be prepared to go >> so I can get off work. >> Okay. So, it's it's a logistical. Okay. Not a >> Yes. Either get off work or have care in the in that >> and maybe that's just me, but >> it's Yeah. So, >> and I get we're not there and this isn't mine, but that would lead me and maybe at some point we can get to where >> when you set the agenda for two weeks,
155you're in theory thinking about the one a month out to give us that. >> You may not have it set in stone, but realize that one needs a small group. That's kind of where I was getting at that, you know, I know that there are things that I know just through my old notes has to be at certain meetings legally, right? I also know that Dr. Elder has a I'm assuming a preliminary plan of when to bring us certain things based on her goals and priorities and her timeline. If we marry those two and say, "Okay, February 14th board meeting, we have to approve the new paint of this boardroom." Like it is a time-sensitive matter. Therefore, the week before we have to have a small group to discuss the paint chips, for instance, right?
156So that at least you can look at your calendar and go these five days I know I'm going to have small group >> fully knowing that there may be a dumpster fire that needs to be addressed in the process and we may have a whoops if that makes sense. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And I know you haven't done it intentionally. I just things have gotten crunched recently. That last small group we couldn't do because >> Right. >> Nobody was avail. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Bye. Okay. Individual accountability to communication plan committed to modeling professionalism integrity culture continuous improvement and if a concern arises a fellow board member superintendent will address it individually privately. If it continues bring it to the board chair for conversation. If it continues further come back to the board as
157a whole. So you're going you're going to the source first. If there's an issue you all have an issue with the superintendent you go talk to the superintendent. Superintendent has an issue with the board member. Superintendent talks to the board member. Board member has an issue with board member. They talk to each other. That doesn't work. Loop in the board chair. That doesn't work. It may have to come back to the whole group. Not sure that's happened. Not that you're not following it, just you're not running into those issues. Hopefully, this is an emergency escape that you don't need to use. Anything on that? We need to do that. >> You need to do this. >> Yeah. >> We just need to talk. >> You You got to process to do it. So, do that
158if you need it. All right. And then the next piece, you've got your contact plan that's out there. Encourage you to share that as much as you can. I want to give a big kudos out to our schools um because I subscribe to the majority of the newsletters and virtually all of them have this in part of their parent communication as it's going out and I think that that's helpful to forming >> continuity. Yeah, >> continuity. >> Love it. Anything else for the superintendent on this item? Okay, then we covered that. That's kind of the totality. Creating your vision and mission. >> Can can I suggest a five minutes? >> We could certainly take a fivem minute break. I also want to be clear. I don't think we're creating a vision and mission tonight. >>
159Okay. >> Thank [laughter] you. >> I just don't think >> Yeah, we're going to started at 3:00 if we were going to do that. >> I don't think we're going to get there. I think we're going to tee up next just to be clear. >> So then let's start tea. >> Keep going. >> Yeah. Let's go. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah. I just don't >> You scared me. I I don't think I don't think we can do really good >> at 8:19. I just don't do great work. >> Nobody does. Okay. >> We We've also been going since 5, so we >> absolutely >> been going since 7 this morning. >> Yeah. You you you you you've got a really great piece to help you with your vision and mission and and that is, you know,
160you've got some goals and you've got stuff out there. You've adopted goals. So, you've got that there. what you'll do. Objectives, you've got it all laid out. So, you've got that all here, but you got some questions you got to ask yourself first. When you say vision and mission, what do you mean? Because you've all got to mean the same thing. Because the superintendent came to me and said, "There's board members that would like to work on a vision and mission." Right? And then I said to you, for what? And what I mean by for what is so is this the board's vision and mission you want to work on that's going to guide your action or is it the vision and mission for the entire district? >> Yes. So policy nerd here we have
161in policy that we set a vision and mission for the district. >> That doesn't mean that we don't do number one and number three too >> but by policy we have to do number two. >> Yep. Absolutely. And then look at number three. Is it the work to guide the superintendent? I will tell you, I have a belief that multiple visions and missions become, in my experience, they're just hard. It's confusing. I would encourage you to do a great number two and link everything back to number two. And by policy, it says you have so do you have an existing vision and mission that you like? If you don't have an existing mission that you like, >> so we have an existing vision and mission. Um, it has not been there's only one board member
162that was part of that process >> because I remember you shared a doc. Do you remember you shared >> right and that was from that process which was back in 2017 I believe. >> So you're the only one around from them. Right. >> Right. That's what I'm getting at. And and when you have a board of seven members and only one board member had even input into that vision and mission even if it is the most amazing vision and mission and I'm not saying it is in the entire world we still have to bring it back so that this group have an opportunity to weigh in and look at it >> because right now it's not even anywhere on our website because nobody remembers it even exists >> and that's an issue Now, we may
163seven of us have a long work session and come out of there and say, "You know what? We're not changing a thing." Right? Or we may come out with something completely different. Regardless, this group has to rework it. >> You just stole my thunder and I'm thrilled you did. Yeah. I think you do. Number two, you come back, you bring the one, you look at that one, and you decide what do we want to do with this one and how do we want to approach it? Make sure you have enough time to work on that. Make sure that you bring your goals in what you've got and make sure that your vision and mission. First of all, you as a group need a common definition of what a vision does and what a mission does.
164From there, you say, does this accomplish what we want? And you make sure that whatever your definition of vision and mission are, my guess is they're going to be things that are precursors to going goals next. Does what you come up with the vision and mission support you accomplishing what you just did with your goals? Does it am I making sense there? >> Because if it doesn't, >> then we have a bigger problem. >> That's the point. >> So, I don't think this is something you do tonight. I think what you do tonight is you make a commitment to we're going to create a process where we come back and do this. Typically, that's something the board working with someone else on the board comes up with a recommendation for when we're going to do
165this and how we're going to do it. And you have to think as well of the entire panopia of everything you've got in front of you. Now, wait a minute. She's coming to you next meeting with the whole series of things you've got regarding the budget time. Just >> let me ask >> how's it all fit? Let me ask you something or ask everybody something. Is this something we can hold off on and maybe do over the summer for the start of the 26 27 year because we just got a lot in front of us on the budget and I just think that's just going to be distracting right now. But that's that's just Montreal Belton thinking. Um >> I think that we definitely need to put it as a priority. I hear what you're
166saying, but for me vision and mission is my north star. And I feel like when we talk about checking in with ourselves, I think that's what we're missing is a north star for us as a board. >> I think we can kind of mold the with the board goals for the mission and vision obviously and probably get through it pretty quickly. >> So thought and and I again I had input in what we're operating under. So I'm really not entitled to an opinion quite frankly. Right. It's the the six of you that needs to decide how to move forward. With that said, one opportunity is because we we sort of made an informal commitment to do what we do tonight. In other words, that we have one meeting that is solely focused as a traditional
167business meeting and the second meeting of the month is more of a let's get the business that we have to conduct out of the way and then do work a work session. Is it fair to say that the next work session meeting so to speak which would be the second meeting in February that we focus on the vision and mission as an opportunity just a thought where I see a pause I see you giving me an eye that you have something that you were planning for that I >> might >> okay so that's a bad idea I ignore that I just said that >> and the one after that >> okay >> too I'm sorry >> so that means that we would have to sort of carve out an afternoon or a a half day
168in order to do that. So, what I can do is over the next couple of days, because again, I hear you. I hear you. It's not on fire, but it's a priority, right? Why don't I send out a poll with some potential dates, coordinate with whatever is going on overall in the district. over the next couple of months to see what opportunities we have. Do we have a time to do this? Because the one thing I will say is if we're going to sit down and do the vision and mission, it has to be a commitment for all seven board members. We can't do this and be effective and not have everybody at the table. >> So, >> no one leaves our you do it and get it done, >> right? So, so how about
169I send out a poll before the end of the week? We'll coordinate, come up with an idea and see if we have a possibility to do it in the near future. Is that a fair way of go moving forward? >> Yes. >> Any signs of protest? No. Okay. >> Fantastic. >> My vision and mission work is done. >> I have handed it off. So, sorry. >> Yeah. >> All right. So, we can go over why having what a vision and mission should do. But that can cap come next one. You're getting my slides. You'll have all >> right. >> Take whatever you want. You don't like it, pitch it. >> So, what I may do with a poll is dump all of this >> so that you know everybody gets it anyway, but we can
170prepare like a little packet. >> So, I've given you just just in here for you know why have a vision and mission? What should a board vision do? What should a board mission do? And then questions that can guide your work. I' I've tried to give you some just thought starters >> so you can take it from there >> and then here's maybe some process stuff you but do do what you all >> and I don't think it needs to be like a all day even a half day I think I was I was thinking about your point Montreo our goals looking back at our goals that's that's our landing page right there and I just don't see it being a full day situation >> especially not if we have a lot of information ahead
171of time so that everybody can sort of commit to here's what we have right now. Here is read over your goals, here's a good process so that everybody shows up ready to rock and roll versus spending two hours on reviewing everything. >> And do do you have an idea, Melissa, of what you want it to be? >> Oh, [laughter] we're working together. >> Oh, that gets ugly. >> Our kids will be able to read. our kids will be able to do math, communicate. I'm just saying I like if you if you're passionate about this, I'm like a big fan of not reinventing the wheel. >> There's got to be a really good mission and vision statement out there already. We probably have one from 20 years ago that's still sitting there that we can modify
172the if you send I would love to just have something in front of you to look at just to think about and if we if we just talk about it for 10 minutes at a meeting >> there's no was it John Lock Tabula you don't need the blank slate you can start with something >> yeah all right let's put up my slide where I worked a peacock in there for you're proud of it so how about that >> my best work yeah um so all right so this is where I thought we would end tonight. I didn't think we'd do the vision and mission. So, you got a second semester to-do list. You got to do the vision and mission. >> You also, I just want to remind you, you did the superintendence evaluation kind
173of stuff the first semester based on the entry plan. >> What are you basing the second semester on? You got that ahead of you at some point, too. Now, I'm throwing that out there. Not that you asked me to, but as a person who coaches her, that's one of the things I'm starting to ask her. So, what are you going to be evaluated on second semester? How do you know you're working on the right stuff? So, at some point, she's going to need to talk to you all about that. Does that make sense? That's all I have, ma'am. >> Fantastic. Then we say thank you, Dr. Gorman. >> Happy to help. >> And uh I would at this point entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So move. [laughter] >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Second by
174Belton. Any discussion? None. All those in favor? All the motion carries.