May 1, 2025 VISD Special Board Meeting

001Um reminder that there is a Google form survey available. Um you can find it the link in parent square or in your inbox. Um we are looking for um feedback about what they thought about the free presentations we'll hear tonight. Um, I want to take a minute to mention that we are um, uh, going to be hearing from some of these firms, so not all of them, about their capacity um, and skill in potentially identifying um, interim superintendent candidates because we absolutely as are going to want interim. We are also um as a collective and individual board members seeing what um possibilities there are in our networks for identifying potential interim candidates effectively on our own which would obviously save us money. And we are highly highly aware as a board of being exceptionally thoughtful

002and frugal um about his search and um finding opportunities for savings where we can. Um that being said, you know, this is um a an investment that is worth making, especially in the permanent superintendent search. Um we feel very excited to hear from all three of these at least. Um one of them would be a fantastic choice. We have really enjoyed speaking to everybody so far. Is there anything I missed before I amend the agenda? Um the amended agenda um is correct on board docs. Um the previous iteration of it had land acknowledgement and an opportunity for um public comment. Um and they those have since been removed because they are not required for a special meeting. So at this time I get a um uh sorry uh make a motion to approve the agenda

003as it currently appears on I make a motion to approve the agenda as it currently appears on board. Um I realized also I also should have me mentioned we don't actually have to do a first read because this is not a policy decision and so we can um come out of this meeting with a tenative agreement uh to work with a particular term and then the contract ideally as soon as possible will be in a future regular meeting agenda. So, I'm not sure if people feel they want to vote on that as well or if we feel good to go much. Um, let's see. It is 6:03. We're just barreling through this. Great need to be on through. I know our first presenter is sort of in the Zoom right in waiting room. Is there

004anything else that anybody wanted to say sort of on this front about the search or about interum or anything like that so far? I I would also say um if you haven't gone to the home, you know, website of the school district, there is an update on the search. Um every time that there is a decision made, um I go in and update it. Some people who really have detailed questions, uh I always wonder how much do I put on a web page. I would urge you to email the board if you re if you want um really detailed uh answers to things like uh what do you consider, what happens next? Yeah. Anything that you wonder about that isn't on that web page and you feel like uh we might be able to enlighten

005you about the process. Um, please feel free to just send us an email with your questions and if we can answer them, we will. Um, I know you mentioned in terms of people getting their feedback in tonight, I don't know if you mentioned it by what time. Do you have Yeah, so these that's a great question. The um the firms will each have effectively uh 30 minutes for their presentation starting at 6:15. Um, so, uh, theoretically we'll be done at 7:45 with the presentation. And so that's kind of the 7:45 is the depth of two. That's why we made the survey really simple. We're just asking people to rank um their first, second, and third choice and give us uh kind of any feedback that they'd like to in the moment. Um, I know that's

006a quick turnaround, but um, as we've said before, the Dr. she is uh moving on to Breton at the end of June and in order to identify a search firm, maybe also conduct a sort of a mini search for an interim if we're not able to go in on our own. Um those things obviously all take time and we need to really um kind of get a move on. Um this whole thing already feels like we're sort of a little behind, but I think we're actually um doing the best that we can and feel I feel a great deal process so far and um yeah doing this work collaboratively. Um anybody else? Yeah, one last um in the last meeting I thought you articulated this really well, but just to reiterate it here for folks

007turning into turning into the search firm that while this process might feel a little bit compressed to the community. I do feel good about it given the timeline we're working with, but there is a deep commitment to have significant and meaningful community involvement in the actual hire of the superintendent that you're definitely a priority. Thanks, River. That's a great point to to bring up again. And you know, some folks have already written to us and said, "Hey, we we want to make sure we're heard." And if if that's you at home thinking, "I hope they're going to get to me." Let us know. and whatever your sort of identity or role is in this community. Um, and you want to make sure that you you or your or your group or um whatever is um

008heard from we want to hear from you. Great. Um danger early I think we should go already. If Lydia's if she's ready, you or your or your group or Hi Lydia, are you there? Hi. Oh, we can't hear you. That's because I muted myself. I'm so sorry. It's okay. We we we realized we were um sort of ready a little early. If you need a few more minutes, we are happy to sort of vamp. I do not. Uh thanks for having me. Shall I share my screen? Yeah, please. And I know it's sort of on the late side where you are. So, thanks also for that. It is my pleasure and it's the nature of the work. I'm always working with people around the world and so I'm always having meetings at odd times which

009is fun actually. Okay, let's see. My screen is not working exactly the way I wanted it to. We are in good shape time wise. Okay. [Music] Sorry, I'm going to have to share my screen and then start the slideshow. Okay. Are you um able to see a title slide? Yeah. No, okay. I'm just trying to Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much for having me and good evening from Houston. I prepared slides in response to the invitation that I received and I'm honored to be here. I understand you'll have a Q&A at the end of the session, but feel free to interrupt at any time. It's just the nature of my presentation style. I'm happy to be uh interrupted at any time. So the prepared slides that I uh put together just give a brief introduction

010to the firm, to me personally, to the process and timeline both as a standard process and as a slightly uh late process which I heard you discussing immediately before I joined the call because I was watching your board meeting on YouTube. So I just presented a little bit of how I usually handle that because it does happen a lot. um some distinguishing features of uh my firm as opposed to the other firms you're considering or other firms more broadly and then time for Q&A. So just getting started about um tradition um I founded the firm with a partner at the time in 2015 on the principle that leadership search is a unique moment of opportunity in the life of an educational community. I served as a board member uh in your seat of an educational

011organization in 2014 uh and we hired a big national search firm and they did fine. um they placed a leader into the community and the leader was suitable for the community. But I felt that the largecale nature of the relationship and the sort of commercial nature of their work made it less of a connected process that unified could have unified the community and increased morale among all stakeholder groups. And I founded the firm to do that to be a more boutique firm that really got to know uh communities individually and I really really get to know them and it's very satisfying uh and meaningful work for me. Um I do we work I I'll explain more about the structure of the firm but we work internationally but we're not trying to scale. Um I am

012the search consultant with whom you would be working and I have a team of assistants that helps me in the background but I will be working with your board with your faculty with your parents um with your community partners it will be me I don't advertise our services um we get sent referrals by previous clients which is how I think Vashan had heard of us in the first place and we're also referred by national firms in challenging situations such as um failed searches they'll come to me for a second or third search really common leadership change scandal that kind of things as a kind of a cleaner. Um I like to say we wrote the book on educational leadership surg um and we maintain connections with those larger firms as a backs stop both you

013know when when you're a small firm you need a back stop in case of you know force measure in case of um an unlikely event. So, I do maintain um for security purposes effectively relationships with large national firms, but I'm able to provide a small boutique um bespoke if if you will relationship with each client. Um I'm going to switch slides here. I'm running two at the same time. So, I have notes, which is why you'll see me consulting back and forth. Um a little bit about me. I initially come from a technology background. Um I have bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science and an MBA. I worked for a variety of consulting firms um and for venture capital at Vulcan in Seattle and at Amazon a million years ago uh before moving to

014Philadelphia and um and I have worked in a variety of roles since in managerial roles and consultative roles which is where I got the um a tremendous wealth of hiring experience and business running experience. Um when I worked in Philadelphia, I mean in excuse me in Houston for Sapple Partners, uh they managed the National Charter School Resource Center for the US Department of Education and so I got some experience there as well as uh within different charter school networks. I taught for seven years in the business school at Rice. I teach business or I taught business communication which was kind of an introduction to business as well as public speaking and business writing um which is where I honed a passion for stakeholder engagement of various kinds and founded the firm at the same time.

015Um and so these have overlapped between Rice uh business and traditional search partners since 2015. Um, if I always have someone who's color blind, I apologize. I tend to use color, but I put the purple rectangle where my years in, sorry, that's my next slide. My years in Seattle. Um, let's see if you can see it here. Yeah, there they are. Working at Amazon and Vulcan were my years in the Seattle area. So, I am uh I love and am familiar with the region and have obviously done a lot of search work in the region as well. So, that's a little bit about me and about the firm. Um the process is the part uh the timeline and process are the part that I think is most standard um just structurally across firms but I

016want to go through it anyway lest you think I have sort of skipped it. Um I think of it as sort of a funnel. We do a a research process, an advertising process, and I'll go through each of these. A selection process, a hiring process, and we support you through the transition process, which typically refers to from the date of contracting through the first year completed of work for the superintendent. For each of these steps or phases, I have a goal. Um, and this is outlined in the first book that I wrote, Hire an Ideal Head of School, but it's equally true for any kind of educational organization. Um, I really would like everyone in your community to feel valued in the process. And you were touching on this. I'm sorry I can't read your

017names. Uh, River Branch, is that is it okay to address you? Um, that everyone in the community should feel heard and valued. And I really mean that. And so you'll see on my on my first slide and my last slide, you'll you have my cell phone number. Um, and anyone who wishes to reach out to me can and I'm very serious about this and it sort of scares people, but I really want people to feel feel seen and valued. That's why I got into this business in the first place. Um, in phase one, which is the research phase, um, I really want to collect the information that we'll need to succeed. And that means really listening deeply. Uh, and I think it's where the magic happens. And I'll touch on this a little bit later.

018Uh, goal number two is that every qualified person on the planet knows about the job. Whether they're looking for a job or not, whether they're ultimately interested or not, I want them to know that it's available. For goal three, uh, I want to assist this board in selecting the best available candidate using the best available techniques and data. And we do that a little bit differently. And then goal four, hire your ideal candidate and set them up for success in the role. So just in a little bit more detail, um, in phase one is most easily described I think in research is in inputs and outputs. Um I conduct and I and I put it in yellow and bold um with in partnership with the board surveys and focus groups as many as want to

019meet with me. Any person on Vashan Island or who has some stake according to the board in Vashan Island School District or in Vashan Island itself can meet with me in a group setting and I will make myself available by Zoom or in person as appropriate until every single person feels satisfied that they've had a voice in the process. Um, additionally, when I conduct surveys, I offer the opportunity to click a box saying you'd like to be contacted, and I will reach out individually to any stakeholder who asks to be contacted individually until they feel their their situation has been heard. I often like to say both in these emails and these focus groups. I'm not a decision maker here. My job is not to take sides. So, it's not uncommon within a focus group,

020as you're probably familiar, to hear lots of different perspectives. I always say, "My job is not to take sides. My job is to take notes and to report back if there's a controversy here, the controversy itself is of interest, right? It's it's important to the health of the community to be a for me to be aware that a controversy exists and so my job is to take notes and report back to you. Additionally, I use um kind of well-known strategy frameworks and operational frameworks. I'm particularly partial to the Baldridge performance excellence framework for education that was put out by the National Institutes of Standard and Technology each year. Um and then collaborate with the board. So those are my inputs and out of that we get uh a very important prioritized list which I'll go

021over in a little bit. Um a job advertisement, a communication plan and a search calendar. So those will that'll be weeks one and two should you decide to engage with me. And it's fast and it can include an on-site visit as you like. Some clients feel that's important and some clients don't and I like to operate according to the preferences of the client. From weeks three to eight, we do the advertising process. This is really a three-pronged approach. The first is we do have a large database and partner databases of uh qualified candidates, superintendent and superintendent candidates in Washington as well as elsewhere um and leaders from other types of organizations who might be non-traditional candidates if you're open to that. So that's the first database is people we already know. We do mass advertising.

022We created the a 100 places to advertise an educational leadership position guide. And so obviously we advertise according to our own guide. And then the third is with the team of assistants. I do one-on-one outreach to potentially qualified people who may not be looking. And it's never my goal to interfere with anyone's contract, but to the extent that it's appropriate. Um perhaps they're not looking for some other reason. Um I want them to be aware that the position exists. more more often than I would imagine, I end up finding the appropriate person for a leadership role through this one-on-one outreach, either because I hit on someone or because I hit on someone who knows someone. And this actually turns out to be a remarkably effective three-pronged approach. Phase three is the selection process and this

023is the one that I think under usually is rolling. This one also depends on the communication cadence preferences of the client organization of this board in uh in particular. Um, so I review resumes myself and I conduct video interviews with anyone who appears to be a credible candidate. I present candidates to the board at the cadence you prefer. If that's as they come in or weekly or monthly, I I will uh work according to your preferences. Um, you will review the candidate information and select uh semi- finalist candidates to interview by video. And I talk a little bit about the video process later. Someone said I should call them Zoom interviews, but I actually tend to use Google Meet. But you get the idea. sort of like what you're doing with me now. Um the

024board will then conduct reference checks and I will assist you in that reference checking process. Um the board will then select finalists for on-site visits. Once comprehensive reference checks have been completed and I will do surveying again to collect feedback of all the stakeholders who meet with the candidates. The board will then vote according to its u bylaws on a superintendent and that's weeks really 3 through 10. And that's a typical um superintendent schedule. And then in weeks 10 and beyond um you will finalize the hire and the contract. We will work together to create a communication plan um for that hire and that that to integrate that person into the um into the community as appropriate. Uh we'll set up a transition plan and um my goal, my hope is to help you all

025work together to produce smart goals for the first 90, 180, and 365 days that the superintendent is on board. Uh that typically refers to specific, measurable, attainable, attainable, relevant, and timely goals. And I'm happy to go into that further if you'd like. Um, since the topic of kind of a late search or perhaps we're late in the season came up, I wanted to just present to you how I usually handle that. And again, this is uh certainly up for discussion if this is not how you prefer to handle it, but this is how we usually handle it. Um, from the kickoff date, the first two weeks would would be research and then with your approval, of course, the position would be typically posted as interim or permanent superintendent with the same advertisement. People looking for

026interim roles would apply as interim and people looking for permanent roles would apply as permanent. And we would ask during the application process, would you like this job for 2025 or 2026? So you can imagine a 2x2 matrix of some people who are interim for this year, some people who are permanent for this year and some people who are permanent for next year. We would review résumés and interview candidates on a rolling basis. If we find a permanent person who's available this year, then they start on the preferred start date, maybe a few weeks later given the lateness of the date. If a permanent person is not found, then an interim person can typically be found um to start on the start date because of the way in which the process was conducted. I always

027like to throw in that I'm partial to uh internal interims should you have an inter internal interim available. Um if not obviously that's not an option. Okay. So uh some ways in which working with our firm I think I believe is different um from the large national firms who work with us as partners and referers. Uh we the four main buckets are we don't do many searches. Um our fee schedule and contracting are done differently. We use data and technology pretty deeply and inclusiveness is baked into our project and into our process in a variety of ways. And I'm going to go into that a little further. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, uh we work internationally and have an international database and a network, but we aren't a big corporation and we were

028founded not to scale. Um we I was I founded the firm in order to do three to four searches a year and get to know each community deeply. I mean like knowing the teachers and knowing their uh you know favorite snacks and knowing the issues that each I became really friendly with a particular bus driver in one district a really wonderful longtime employee who had lots of interesting input to give um this is why I got into search in the first place. I had worked with a big firm and it wasn't an appropriate u for me uh it was a missed opportunity. um we still have as I mentioned the expertise and the process and the relationships and databases um but this is really a hightouch process and that's why I got into this business

029if that's too much uh process if it's too much interaction if it's um we want kind of a more sterile process we want a little more distance and there are there are clients who do there are better firms this is the I got into this to do a particular kind of process and I really want to be transparent about that um and you can see a faculty member in one particular search gave the feedback the teachers have been talking about how much they appreciate your qualitative approach. You really make people feel heard and valued. That's why I got into this business in the first place. Um kind of con consequently u my fee schedule and contracting are a little bit different than the larger firms that I work with. Um we get paid on the

030basis of satisfaction of milestones. So, when you feel that you're satisfied that we've provided you with a good list of semi-finalists, then I submit a second invoice and you pay me. If you decide you're not happy with our work, our contract is written to allow you out of that contract with no penalty or additional obligation. It's not my goal to work with people who are obligated to work with me. It's my goal to provide value and and to be seen as someone who's providing value. Um, similarly, uh, as I understand it, and I'm here, I'm happy to be wrong. Um, most search firms and we used to provide a one-year guarantee of the hire. Um, if smart goals are provided and and they're provided to me, then we provide a two-year guarantee because my goal

031is not just to make a placement, but have it be a successful placement. And that, uh, in my experience, has been the key differentiator. When a board and a superintendent work together to create a manageable list of smart goals that both agree on, then you're off to the races and the organization is much more likely to be successful. Um, here I have an additional uh quote from a board member of another organization. Uh, you're without a doubt one of the best consultants or service providers with whom I have ever worked and I've worked with so many. So that's my goal. Um, a little more about data because nowadays everybody says they work with data. So, I just want to be pretty clear about it that it is in my my blood. Um, I focus the

032process on a sort of a strict prioritization. I'll get into each of these. We use AI to create better job ads. We use behavioral interviewing and I will u educate everyone involved in the process to the extent that you're interested on behavioral interviewing in order to reduce bias and predict job performance most effectively. and we assisted in the reference checking process to ensure relevance. Um, in both the behavioral interviewing case and in the reference checking case, there's a tendency to hire people that look like we expect them to look. I'm sure you've all heard if you ask a young child to draw a scientist, they draw a man. There's just a certain we have certain biases. It's my intention to reduce bias in all this process to hire the best candidate who's most likely to

033be successful in the role. Um, another quote from a board member. Um, okay. This is an example. This is real data, but I try I tried to block it out. Um, through the surveying process, working with the board, all those inputs in the research process, I mentioned we come up with a ranked list of priorities. This was a real ranked list of priorities that one organization had put together that I had put together with them. They're numbered. So, number one is the highest priority, two is the second highest, and so on. Um, 17 is the lowest priority of this particular organization as surveyed. um these survey results as as concluded into a rank list of priorities, these become our lighthouse for the entire search process. And on on our website, there's a video about why.

034Um but just to get into it very briefly, um if you look at a bad job advertisement for an education organization, it'll have 20 priorities on it. It'll have everything that could you could possibly ask of any person. And the reality is that no one can do all of those things. A good candidate sees that and says they don't really know what they want. They want everything and they're not going to be able to manage me to a fixed set of expectations. In my opinion, a good job advertisement restricts itself to about five really high priority um requirements or preferences with additional nice to haves. That gives us from the beginning our job advertisement. It gives us our interview questions. It gives us our voting criteria when you select a superintendent. And it helps with

035the creation of smart goals and the transition process as well as the evaluation that the new superintendent will be evaluated against. So this is a really important and valuable exercise. Secondly, as I mentioned, we use AI to create better job ads. Um, I use an off-the-shelf AI product tailored for job advertisements. It tells me the specific length of advertisement that attracts the most highly qualified candidates, specific syntax choices, vocabulary choices, and certain content additions um that help attract a high number of highly qualified candidates. And I've had a lot of remarks from candidates over the years about excellent job advertisements. Excuse me. Um here are some examples. Um some words that you see particularly in the tech sector tend to attract women more than men. Some words uh some job advertisements lean so heavily male

036that they repel women. Some uh lean so heavily towards one age group that they repel another age group and so on using pardon me I'm beeping. Oh oh no I think that's on our end. Don't worry about it. Thank you. Um so words like maniacal and wickedly attract more men for example. So, we um in addition, as you could see on my first slide, to being a woman-owned small business and a carbon neutral firm, uh we're also a certified inclusive recruiter. I'll get into that a little bit more. Um here you can see corporate insider bias, cultural bias, gender bias, etc. Um Oh, would you go back to that? I'm not sure if you're going to send us this deck, but we take a minute just to be Yes. So, in my Is this a

037slide that you built or is this This is from the inclusive recruiter certification materials. I I have a BL um you can kind of see it down at the bottom. No, that's not bad. I see. Yes. No, I didn't create this. This comes off of tens of thousands of uh job advertisements and the applicants that they produce. I encourage uh behavioral interviewing. This is a uh technique that I picked up in the Silicon Valley corporate world. Um I believe that is the most predictive of job performance and the least biased. Um I I think it also again if tied to the priorities that we just talked about um helps to ensure that you're hiring people on the basis of the priorities that you feel important. I kind of made a sample just so you would

038see what I mean. If you decided that one of your top priorities was a proactive professional communicator, then one question you might ask, and I will help you figure what those out, tell us about a time you dealt with a controversy in your current district or organiz excuse me, organization, the board would in advance um put together elements of what it considered to be a high quality response. And I put in elements that I consider just for the sample purpose. For example, you might have anticipated, the leader might have anticipated that they might be dealing with a controversial situation and then collected stakeholder input in advance to try to avoid the controversy. Obtaining buyin prior to the decision-making process, preparing a communication plan to try to smooth the decision and standing firm as appropriate once

039a collaborative decision is made. You might decide as a board that you consider those to be elements of a highquality behavioral response to that question. kind of commensurately you might decide a lowquality response would be to behave reactively to act alone and to blame others for a problem. Then when you ask a client either uh excuse me when you ask a candidate either during a video interview or in person you can kind of tick off did they answer they gave me three out of five of the elements of high quality response and none of the elements of a lowquality response. So this is a high quality answer to this question. It's a very scripted process. um it's focused on your priorities and it's prepared in order to ensure that these interviews are predictive of job

040performance and not biased. So that was just a sample and I put that one together. So you could use different questions, different priorities, different uh grading system. Uh finally, we assist in the reference checking process. This can be a really high value exercise or a really pointless exercise uh depending on how you do it. We guide in the creation of an effective rubric um and we focus on the transition and support process. So if I contact the current supervisor of a superintendent in another district with you, uh we might ask how can we help this person be successful in this role if hired and people um speak more I think more honestly in a less guarded fashion and gives you the they give you the information that you need in order to help decide if

041this is the right person for you and to help them succeed once they're in the role. Um, fourth, as I kind of alluded to previously, uh, it's an inclusive process the way we run it. That's why I got into it. Um, I seek broad and deep stakeholder input. Use AI to optimize the job ad to be as inclusive and as broad in the reach of the of the advertisement. I have diverse networks and diverse outreach efforts. We use behavioral interviews and rubrics to try to eliminate bias and focus on priority fit over culture fit or other things that may be more superficial. Um, I help everyone who will be involved in the interviewing process to show up prepared and to collect information that's valuable to the process and then my firm will support Vashon through

042its transition from hire to through the first year. So those are the ways in which I believe that our uh process is a little bit different from a large national firm. Excuse me, I skipped too many slides. Okay. Um just one quick uh note before I get into the question and answer session. I ran these slides as is uh you know appropriate for my collaborative and inclusive approach uh by a board president of another um former client district. And I said, "What do you think of these slides?" She gave me some feedback and then I said, "But more broadly, how did you find the how did you find the uh presentation?" And she said, "Perfect. No nonsense. Gets the job done just like you." And I thought I asked her, "Can I use that as

043a reference?" And she said, "Yes." So if uh if we end up working together, I think that is how you will find me. No nonsense and I get the job done. Um and just like this presentation, I hope. Um so in conclusion, I uh again, this is a QR code that if you scan it will put my contact information on your telephone should you like to contact me to ask any follow-up questions or at any point. Thank you so much for selecting us as one of your three finalists. Um, again, feel free to contact me at any time with any questions. And at this time, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Um, anybody have I have a lot of questions, but I also feel like take up way too much room. Um,

044and also when people do ask a question, if you would um say your name first, I think you can read our name tags, but it would be good. That would be really helpful. Say your name for you. jump in. Great. Go for it. I'm River. Um, thank you. The presentation and work that went into it. Um, I two questions off one and then what others go, but what um I am curious in terms of looking at all of the schools you've worked with and you know other entities with whom you've worked. I'm curious in terms of roughly what the percentage is in terms of working with public schools versus private schools. Um, and a little bit in terms of what distinguishes a search within a public school district versus the other entities that you're working.

045So I initially started out actually working with parochial schools and independent schools and because I didn't advertise explicitly was contacted and referred and contacted and referred. So I've been contacted really for CEO type roles for nonprofit organizations and have um really just compared is this an organization I think I can help. Um it's as I said not a business I got into to you know become wealthy. I got into it to do what I felt uh was work that I could contribute to an organization. So that's I really compared my skill set with what I thought the organization needed. Um so to date most of those have been um either independent schools, parochial schools, charter schools, nonprofit organizations. Um I have put in um a number of proposals for uh smaller school districts nationally and

046I have found that I often get to the finalist stage and present and then am I and I can't speak for the veracity but I'm often told we want someone local we want someone based in our you know driving distance and and who they actually did hire bore out with that. So I think I believe it's true. So to the extent that I've worked mostly with independent schools, it's not been for lack of wanting to work with public schools, it's really been um a geographic choice on the parts of the boards when I I think when I've submitted uh proposals and they've selected someone local, which is why um when Jessica Adams reached out to me, one of my first questions to her was, you know, I'd really love to work with fashion. I'm sort

047of familiar with it through a variety of ways. Do you really want to hire someone local? That was kind of one of my first questions. She said, "No, not really." And I said, "Great, but I'm happy to put in a proposal." Um, to your second question, how do they vary? Sometimes the organizations are smaller. Um, sometimes significantly smaller. So, for example, um, I worked with a school that at the time had 38 total students in it, and that's just a different situation. Um, they deal with slightly different issues like there's rarely collective bargaining agreements in private schools. um they have different contract terms, nothing substantial. I think um where on on my side the procedurally the largest difference is that there isn't an elected board and in fact um there are two ways in which

048in my experience public school searches are much much easier. The first is that you have an elected board and you're democratically put in your positions to represent all of the different stakeholder groups in the community. So, while I'm genuinely truly interested in hearing the feedback, ultimately the decision legally and morally resides with this board, which is simpler, and that's that's helpful. Um, the second is that [Music] um there are more qualified candidates for public school superintendency positions. And it's unusual to get 25 qualified candidates for a private school position. And it's not unusual in my experience to get 25 candidates, highly qualified candidates for a public school position. And then you get to decide from among them and they'll self-select based on if they want to live on Bashon or not or, you know, there

049there's those qualifications. Um, but in general, because of the sort of formalized process of becoming a superintendent and going through the certifications and because of the elected leadership, I think public school searches are easier. And um I still apply the same level of very hightouch service in either case and I think that's appreciated regardless of the organization. I'm sorry it was a long answer to a short question. No, that was great. Thank you. Thanks. Anyone else have one queue up? I have a very simple one. Oh, yes. I'm Martha Woodard. I see. Pleased to meet you and thank you for doing this. Uh, how many public schools that are roughly our size have you dealt? The the one that I've done that uh is relevant to you is Mercer Island. Um, it's a little bit

050larger and the the other organizations that I've done that are similar in size aren't independent school organizations or conglomerates of independent school. I'm curious um when you showed us that slide that had I think there were 17 uh ranch priorities. I'm curious about the origins of such a list. I I have two questions. I can just start that or I can hand them both to you. I typically produce a draft of such a list and then the search committee which in your case is the board reviews the list and says that one can be removed. These can be merged. this one needs to be rewarded for a community etc. So for example in a parochial school setting mission alignment or you know you could have a school focused on students with a particular learning difference

051or you there's a lot of different ways in which these this prioritized list can be specific to the nature of the individual educational organization. So I produce a draft based on my experience and what I think from the outside and then the board would revise and approve it with me until um it was agreed upon that this was the right list. And if you had for example um an educational consultant or a senior administrator who you felt you wanted to consult with is this the right list then we would bring in that person as well. Does that answer and then yeah I think so. I wasn't sure. So I guess I the the other one of the other questions I have is you talked about doing really robust stakeholder engagement really right up front. Yes.

052So I wasn't sure if the list sort of in part came from that. And also then part two of that question is um is there then is there or do you recommend um another round of stakeholder engagement and what that looks like when you've got the finalists kind of in the in the queue? Yes. So, one of the I I like when people ask me what my worst failing is, and I know this doesn't seem relevant to you relevant to you, but my I um I heir on the side of overcommunication and radical transparency. And I've had to modulate that some. So, sometimes I overcommunicate and sometimes I'm too transparent. And I've learned that in my adult life that I transparency isn't always necessary and I need to check with the appropriate people. And the

053reason I mention that here is I am personally inclined for example when I have a draft of a job advertisement to send it to the community for public review for 5 days. That's my personal inclination. That doesn't work in every community. It works in some. Um so I've learned to modulate my um inherent desire for transparency and public comment with the particular culture of the community. Um if you're open to that, I would love to include stakeholder feedback at every single day of the process. And that means um providing bi-weekly or monthly emails to the community, updating them about um the search process and signing them with my cell phone number if they want to participate. It includes inviting them to participate how you feel comfortable with in the finalist interviews and giving feedback. So

054really at any part of the process, um inviting anyone to participate from beginning to end of the process. And I've gotten good at modulating this, I promise. We have two more minutes. Um, who else has questions? Hi Lydia, I'm Jessica. Hi. Um, hi. Can you remind us and the community that's also watching this what the actual cost of this is estimated to be? Yes. Um, I charge a flat fee of $40,000 for services including advertising, like all of my expenses. The only thing in excluded from that is travel. Um, so if you bring in, if you want me to come in, um, I would run all the expenses by whoever in on your board would like to pre-approve my expenses. I don't stay at the four seasons. I, you know, um, I try to be

055modest in travel expenses, but everything is pre-approved. And then the same for finalist candidates. So, I would expect that if you had three finalist candidates and you flew each out for two days and me as well to meet with stakeholders that you'd end up around the $45,000 mark with no additional expenses for um advertising. Thank you. Uh and real quickly, does anybody else does anybody speak Spanish on your team? I do. I have a really um you mentioned the reference checking in your presentation but in the written proposal on page five it says um that the hiring organization will conduct initial reference checking and I'm just I'm kind of wondering yeah and the language does say the same on the presentation I it is my understanding I'm not a lawyer and I hate to give

056legal advice that the hiring organization is the one legally responsible for conducting reference checks. So I play Sarano de Berserk essentially. I will be on the call. I send text messages on the back from my own experience saying this sounds like a red flag. Can you dig into this a little bit further? So I'm I'm there to assist um and to provide what I hope is expertise and value. But ultimately I think the legal responsibility falls on the hiring organization to conduct reference checks. Um, having said that, I I consider it a very important part of my responsibility to make sure that everything is heard that needs to be heard. You know what I mean? Okay, I think we are at time. Um, really thank you for um spending the time with us and the

057care to put the presentation together. Um, we will be in touch. Really appreciate this. Like much have a good evening. Hank or Hanks human capital I think two not sure can we can we Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Steve. Can you hear us? I can. Can you hear us? Yeah, you're in. And I think Robin's also in, although we can't see her. Oh, now she's coming. There she is. Okay. Hi. I couldn't find the button until I was full screen. Good evening. Hello. Welcome. Um, thank you for being here. Um, we, uh, yeah, I think we're happy to just jump right into it. I appreciate you showing I know you showed up a little early and we had to leave you in the waiting room for a minute while the other firm finished up, but um, we're

058happy to hear uh, from you. As we've said, you have about 20 minutes and then ideally we'll have 10 minutes for Q&A on our end. Um, Yeah, super. Robin, do you want to launch that PowerPoint? Yeah, let me get it up on our screen. There we go. Can everybody see that? Yes. Thank you. All right. Super. Well, good evening, Madame Chair and members of the Vashan Island School Board. I want to express our deepest gratitude to you for the honor of presenting this evening on behalf of human capital enterprises. My name is Steve Webb and I'm currently an executive search associate with human capital enterprise. I retired in 2021 as superintendent of America's Vancouver public schools in Southwest Washington after serving in that role for 13 years. Um, over the past five years, I've led,

059co-led, or provided associate support to over a dozen superintendent searches in Washington and Oregon. And I'm currently wrapping up as the lead of the Pugis Sound ESD search. And I'm going to invite my colleague Robin Bean to introduce herself. Thank you. Well, I'm Robin Bean. I'm also a retired educator. Um, one of the slides says, "My entire career's been in Oregon." There's that's there's an error in that. I actually had one year in Snowomish, Washington when I first began before we moved to Oregon. Uh, I retired uh five years ago as well from Northwest Regional Education Service District in Hillsboro, Oregon, where I was the chief human resources officer. I've been with Human Capital Enterprises since that time. um have also done about a dozen searches. I also do a number of um cabinet level

060executive searches every year. I just wrapped up some work for uh for a scroll school district and two superintendencies in Eugene and South Lane this year. So I'm really excited to be here with you tonight. Um we want to uh I think jump right in and tell you a few things about what we think. Uh or did did you have any framing to do that I forgot about there, Steve? I I I did, but that's quite okay. We're not We know you've had a chance to review the submitted proposal, and we also know we have limited time together. We want to be sure that there's ample time at the end for a Q&A. So, we're going to focus our presentation on what we believe sets us apart from other search firms and highlight two central

061priorities that center our search work. constituent engagement and equity. Robin, well, there you go. Uh, I'm I'm going to start with this first slide and talk about um the things that we think really um make our superintendent searches um you know, far and away the best. And um we want to talk a little bit about each of these topics. Our success of our superintendent. Um the fact that we have national we're a national firm, but we have really strong regional roots. Um we work really hard to get a diverse pool of really exceptional talent and a bounty of information for you um to have in front of you when you get to the point of making a selection. So to each of those will speak a little bit. Um, first of all, in terms of

062the longevity, I I don't need to read a slide to you, but the key takeaway here is that um, over the last seven years, we've done 29 superintendent searches. 26 of those 29 still hold the position they were hired to um, and or served in their role for at least five years. Some finishing their career in a place and then retiring. So maybe not their the full seven of these statistics, but for a um greater than five five years or greater. Um so that n 90% longevity rate we're really proud of. I think it sets us apart. Um and it speaks to, you know, the work we do to really make sure we're matching um getting uh candidates that match your uh needs, desires, hopes, dreams. Um one more um to that end u one

063more bit of data we have um in the 13 years that the company's been in operation conducted 101 searches altogether so far 13 years um again that 90% longevity rate and no failed searches. We've not come to the end of any and not had a candidate um who was uh poised to do really well in a place and no failed superintendencies um to date somebody um being asked to depart if you will. Um we think that our uh focus on those equitable kind of bi not kind of but very bias mitigating processes for recruiting top talent is uh the reason for our success. Um and again the deep engagement with you uh you the board and your community um your constituents all of the stakeholders that really helps us understand who you are, what you're

064looking for, your hopes and dreams for the children um that you serve. Um getting to know those well helps us make a really recruit the right candidates so that you can have a great match for your needs. Steve, so what what sets us apart in terms of not just our national connection but our regional and place-based roots tied directly to Washington State and then more importantly tied directly to Bashon Island. My connection to Vashon began in the 1970s and Robin doesn't even know this story. I grew up in rural Pierce County in Graham. My dad was a horse trainer and he had clients located on Bashon Island. And so we made many a trip to the island. In fact, one of our summer uh favorite activities as a family was to hop the point defiance

065ferry uh land on the other side on Vashon uh head into town and grab ice cream and hang out. Um, I fell in love with Vashon uh when I was a student at the University of Puet Sound in Tacoma and as an undergraduate and then subsequently when uh I was an assistant principal in the Peninsula School District um just across the pond. Um and uh I uh interviewed uh for uh the principal ship at McMurray Middle School in I think it was 32 years ago. It was either 1993 or 19 uh 94. Uh Monty Bridges was the assistant superintendent. Um and for the life of me, I can't remember who the superintendent was. Uh but I know if I heard the name, it would come to me. Um, so we we have a a the

066importance of telling that story is I have a deep personal connection and experience with the rural roots um and and the culture of uh the island itself. Uh we we certainly have uh national and uh regional and statewide connections and we're absolutely confident that we can bring you uh an exceptionally talented, highly qualified pool of candidates whether it's for the interim uh or for a permanent superintendent position. Next slide. Uh my slideshow just went away. Did it go away for others? No. Um, what's the same slide you had previously? What sets us apart? Yeah, I can't get it to move. Um, hang on. Sorry. I'm going to do it one more time. And I'm here. [Music] Wow. I'm apologize for that. There you go. Um and uh for the board, um I was not selected

067as the principal at McMurray. Um I was heartbroken at the time. Absolutely heartbroken at the time. Uh but I was a young administrator aspiring to a principal ship. So I think it took me another year or two to land my first principal ship which was in Lake Stevens uh school district at Lake Stevens Middle School. Uh so I uh and I think this slide uh speaks again to uh our commitment to uh bringing to the board and the community a diverse pool of exceptional uh talent. Uh and uh just want to reiterate our uh connections and and uh networks uh both in Washington and Oregon and certainly uh throughout the country. Uh in 2018 I served as the Washington Association of School Administrators uh president still very connected with uh WASA uh and uh currently

068uh consult with ASA the National School Superintendent Association and have uh broad national uh networks and connections uh through that uh professional organization. And one thing I would add here is that we unique, you read this in our proposal probably. Uh we believe it's also unique that we pair a human resources uh professional with um a superintendent. So someone who really knows and understands the work, someone who also um has a strong background in recruitment and running a process that's really um fair and equitable. And um we think that sets us apart. And uh I'm also engaged nationally with the American Association of School Personnel Administrators. And so we both have national networks and people take our calls from far away. So um the the last thing we want to share about that sets us

069apart is this piece around a bounty of information. uh districts board members routinely tell us that by the time they get to their finalist stage the hundreds of data points they have on their candidates um exceeds uh their expectation. You have information from um uh the application process of course itself, from preliminary interviews, from community um feedback, uh um telephone references, background checks. There's a a wealth of information by the time you get to this stage that you're making a selection. And we think that um that amount of input is probably um uh exceeds uh other firms. Um so the the Vashon Island selection process, we want to talk a little bit about planning, engagement, recruiting, selection, and transition. But we do know we highlight these things in our proposal. And again, want to be

070sure we leave plenty of time for your questions. Um, so just highlighting real quickly here, we'll move on to a couple of key areas that we think um will be uh very important to you as a board. Um, and then we'll again those questions that you may still have from reading the proposal. Um, we'll be sure we have time for at the end. Um, I think jump here or add anything to that, Steve. Yeah. Um in the proposal I think we identify a number of options. Uh know that our firm has conducted uh expedited uh interim searches. Um we've conducted a combination of interim searches and permanent searches and certainly permanent search only. So we would uh if selected uh convene in a planning meeting to really customize an approach that uh met the interests

071of the board and the community, but know that we're well equipped and have conducted a range of searches uh including expedited interim searches. um a little over a year ago uh as an illustration uh I I led the uh PROSER expedited interim search. We were awarded the contract uh in the second week of May and we placed an interim uh superintendent in the role. By the third week of June, we had 20 applicants for the position. So um we we take our responsibilities very seriously and we recruit tenaciously. Next slide. I want to highlight uh just two specific areas that uh are uh priorities as part of our uh planning and execution of a search. Uh the first uh focuses explicitly on constituent engagement. Uh it will include uh significant time with uh each board

072director. Uh we'll identify a number of focus groups uh by role. We we'll conduct those focus groups uh virtually either in English or in Spanish. On occasion, some districts will invite us to convene Spanish fing uh focus groups uh in person and uh we have associates who are uh first language Spanishspeaking consultants who are equipped to uh facilitate uh those kinds of uh conversations um very effectively. uh we also uh pro provide access through a community online survey both in English and in Spanish and other languages as uh desired. In fact uh with the Portland public schools search we had seven uh different languages um uh five other than uh English and Spanish. So we take this notion of listening to the community uh very seriously and that helps inform the identification of a document

073that uh we present to the board and then the board will uh iterate that particular document which is the next superintendent criteria that serves as um our marching orders with our recruitment board. Uh and then last I just want to highlight here in the interest of time uh the equity uh focus. It is at the forefront of every uh step in the engagement, recruitment and selection phase. Uh we're very deliberate working with district personnel to ensure uh that we are engaging a diverse group of constituents. And oftent times we'll work very closely with uh someone who may serve as a community liaison or have a community leaz liaison sort of function to help us uh uh sort out what um audience um how might we approach a particular community in order to ensure that those

074voices um are are heard. often we find that in a community survey uh it it doesn't necessarily lend itself uh to uh under represented voices. And so we're very deliberate about making sure that those voices are in fact uh heard and heard in the way in which it makes sense uh to that community. And I would Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Rob. I was just going to also add um from the standpoint of the applicant we're mindful as well about um mitigating our own biases. So, as one example, we're really um uh we are intentional about first of all, we're reaching out to people that we do know or we hear about and that, you know, our recruitment, as Steve said, is tenacious. But of course, then we um have people who respond to um advertising

075we're doing or to our eblast who we don't know. And we're really intentional about more than one. Um both of both Steve and I will connect with uh candidates. In addition to that, we reach out to any uh candidate anyone who reaches out to us who meets all the minimum criteria. Sometimes people just self- apply. We've never heard of them. They apply. Um we reach out to them in advance and say, "How can we answer your questions? Can we tell you more about Vashon Island?" um because not everybody knows that actually it's an okay thing to do to reach out to the consultants not to you the board but to us the consultants in advance of the closing. So um so that we we we are mindful of the candidate experience um all along the

076way and I just want to extend that just a little bit in terms of recruitment. uh we activate our networks and are very intentional in connecting with colleagues with Nancy uh with uh Alice uh with voice for equity so that we're uh inviting uh colleagues who are connected with uh BIPO professional educational leader uh uh networks uh to refer uh potential prospects to us that might uh be interested and might fit uh the profile of the next superintendent criteria. Uh and in terms of uh the selection phase both in terms of the interview process, the interview panels uh we structure those in uh a manner that controls for bias including pro providing antibbias training uh for the board, providing antibbias training for uh community interview panels so that um we're mindful ful of u our

077own mindsets and how that might inform our judgments and deliberations in the selection deliberation conversations um together. Robin, did you have anything else to add there? I don't think I do. And we're at the again my I'm frozen again. Um but we're at the question phase and I think we're at the maybe 9 minute mark. So, we want to be sure we get to the place where we're fielding your questions. Um, thank you so much, Robin and Steve. And, um, again, if folks have questions, please introduce yourself uh before you uh before you launch in. Martha, I have a very quick question partly for the public that is also uh here and listening in. Um, do you have a base fee and then additional costs that are structured and if so, how much? Um, for

078the interim search, I think those fees are established in the proposal, right? Um, the the harder pieces wrapping two things together. Uh we we do um could you just say for a permanent not as separate just that's easiest if you were just doing a search for a permanent not without an interim what are we talking about Steve did you we talked about this a little earlier I don't want to uh we talked about what if it was a package do you want to speak to it does vary some based on size, the number of focus groups, the number of community engagement panels. So it um you know you throw a number out and then it's not exactly right, but generally speaking, I would say 22 to 24,000 um is a as a permanent search rate.

079um can be a problem. Yeah. We understand that I just wanted to follow up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um other questions here folks actually follow in this same regard. Certainly sorry I'm River Branch. Um, if we were talking permanent only, does the fee or does the proposal include site visits, right? And and roughly the number of site visits that would be included for um engaging with stakeholders in terms of a generative process as well as through the interview process. Our base fee does not typically include uh site visits. Uh the uh certainly we would uh work with the board and develop uh a uh fee structure if the board was interested in conducting uh those site visits and having human capital enterprises facilitate those. I think the base price that Robin quoted would include

080uh one uh community engagement or constituent engagement uh interview panel. Um you'll see in the proposal the uh expedited interim searches has that as an additional separate fee. Thank you. Um, we have one next. Did one of you have a question? Sound like you have one. Um, can you if if if it was up to you, do you have um sort of a recommended timeline that you feel like is um you know, if the sky's is the limit, sort of a good human capital surge lasts four months or it last 18 weeks or kind of can you speak to your timeline a little bit for a permanent search? Um yeah, so we frequently get awarded [Music] um a contract in November and December and we we absolutely can quite readily facilitate you know in those

081November, December, January through so four to five months is sweet. um when we get a a permanent search and we have all the time that that being awarded it in the spring allows. So we get started in September and October, it's a the pace is a little nicer. The open window for the search itself. I mean for the recruitment period is longer and you get a named superintendent a little earlier, but um I would say four to five months is a lot of time to get the work done from start to finish. Not. So, if you get awarded now, we would start, let's say, September, and there'd be a a named superintendent in January or February, um late January, early February. Uh if if we get it in November, it's usually a March announcement. So,

082uh yeah, and um just to add, uh it it really depends on when the contract is awarded and the start date of the search. We were awarded the PSESD search in uh early February with a planning meeting on February 18th. So really uh we're in the third week of February. We will wrap up that search on May 16th. Uh so it it can be compressed um certainly uh depending upon um you know the time constraints and uh again I shared the proer uh illustration where we were awarded uh in uh the second week of June, excuse me, the second week of May and place someone uh in the uh interim role by the end of the third week of June which is an expedited search. But the permanent search then, when did you when did

083you kick that off, Steve? Then we transitioned into the uh permanent search. Um we launched that in the third week of September and we wrapped that up um in early January. Yes, Jessica. Hi, I'm Jessica. Um, do you offer any guarantees to your placements for the permit when how long? How long is that? What is that? I believe most of our contracts read that if um a superintendent leaves in the first 18 months and the board that's is um the majority of the board is still sitting that that chose them that we'll uh redo the search. um for no new contract fee. There could be of course travel for uh the your candidates, a little travel for us in all likelihood, but not a new fee to do the search. Um we have not had

084that happen, but we do guarantee that 18-month piece. with board ter if there's a full board flip that then releases a a superintendent. That's why we do say if the majority of the board is is still present that hired the superintendent. That's actually Thank you. Um anyone else? We're kind of we're nearing time but I want to want to check anybody else. Okay. Um thank you so much for the time and the care footage presentation. Um, as I said to the first person, it feels a little bit like speed dating and so we appreciate your willingness to do this with us. Um, and uh, yeah, super great to meet you and we will be in touch either way. Well, it's been our pleasure and our privilege. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you so much

085everyone. Byebye. Anybody need? [Music] Hi, John. Hi everyone. Hello. We're all here. Uh thanks for joining us. I hope you didn't have to wait too long. This is uh we're doing this. We're doing fast and furious trying to meet folks and have thoughtful conversations. So, we appreciate you all joining us tonight. And um really, as soon as you're ready, the floor is yours. All right. Well, thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm going to get the presentation up and um uh welcome to Sylvia Abara. I think your screen name might be a relative there. Um can let's do a test. Make sure you can be heard. Yes. Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Wonderful. All right. Okay. How are we looking on your end? Great. Thanks. Okay. All right. Well,

086we'll jump right in here then. We want to again thank you for this opportunity. We're going to share a bit about our firm, our process, our commitments and guarantees. Um, again, I'm I'm sure other firms talk about what sets themselves apart. We'll do the same. Um, and then we want to make sure we leave ample time for your questions. Uh, my name is John Bash. I'm a senior associate with Hazard Young Attean Associates, HYA. And while it is a national firm, um I am part of the Washington state team and that's where we do uh the lion share of our executive searches. Um and in our proposal, you um had a list of those that we've conducted, some of them very recently. Um not able to join us tonight is uh Dr. Christine McDuffy uh

087who uh is also a senior associate and has conducted a number of searches in the five years that she's been engaged. Uh a little bit about uh Chris, she brings 41 years of public service in Washington state, including 17 years as a superintendent in three different districts, uh three very different districts, um and some small and some very large. I think her largest assignment was Edmund School District uh before she retired. Uh she also spent 26 years uh in higher ed with Western Washington University training principles and superintendents along with mentoring of those folks. Um she not only does executive search work, she assists boards with board development, board superintendent transition when a new superintendent is hired, uh and strategic planning. Um my background is similar. 35 years in public education and uh that includes

088kind of the oldfashioned path. I started as a teacher um elementary and middle school was a school leader for a few years and for 25 years I served at the district level wearing just about every hat uh except finance lead um over that time period. And I also did serve as a superintendent. Um, I also uh served my last four years of service uh retiring in 2021 as um a regional board member for the Washington Association of School Administrators where I was able to build a statewide network that I continue to grow and lean on doing this work. Um, and like Chris, I've been at this for uh 5 years mostly in Washington State, but we also do work uh up and down the West Coast and as far south as New Mexico. Um, Sylvia.

089Yes. Well, good evening. Uh, and thank you for allowing for the opportunity to be here. My name is not Miguel Bar. Miguel Bar is my son and I'm using his laptop and so I was not able to to change the name, so I apologize for that. As I stated, my name is Sylvia Bar and I'm a a retired public school educator with 35 years of experience all in title one schools. Um during my tenure in education, I served in multiple roles, including teacher, counselor, principal, and superintendent. Uh and because I worked in title one schools, I have a deep understanding of working with special populations, school improvement efforts, and school finance. I'm also, uh fluent in Spanish, so uh I truly enjoy working with Spanish speaking uh parents and community members. Since my retirement in

0902024, uh I joined HYA as an associate and in this role I support school district with superintendent searches and um most recently I work with this team with Christina and John on the Messa public school superintendent search in Mesa, Arizona. So that's a little bit about me. Again, thank you for having me. Okay, so I'll go ahead and share a little bit about HYA. Well, first and foremost, we are a very wellestablished uh search firm with a history of very successful searches over 1600s. Our firm has a deep commitment to equity and recruiting diverse candidates. Uh because we are a national firm, we conduct searches all over the country, including Washington state. And the experience that we bring in uh Washington is um we have conducted searches in districts very similar in size, demographics and

091community to Vashan Island public schools. HYA is known for our comprehensive stakeholder engagement as well as our thorough process for vetting candidates. Uh so again we also have a great support team uh at the at the back office and IT support to help us throughout the search process. Now um one of the core values of HYA and its associates is again as I stated is our commitment to diversity, our commitment to recruiting candidates that that have historically been underrepresented. As you can see from our slide, we recruit uh a diverse pool of applicants. And this diversity is not only within our candidate pool, but also within our firm and this team. As a matter of fact, as a woman and as a Hispanic, I'm very proud to be a member of the HYA team, not

092only uh for the work that we do, but also for our core values. All right. And I think most firms have a process they'll outline for you. We are going to go into detail on each of these phases. So, this is just the one uh one slide overview of our four-step process, and we'll jump right in with uh the engagement phase, which uh Sylvia just mentioned is um something we take great pride uh in in terms of robust engagement, but that only happens with a true partnership and collaboration with you as a board and members of your uh team there in Vashon Island because you know best the groups, the individuals, the culture, the community context that we really uh need to learn from in order to build that robust uh process where everyone every

093voice is heard and multiple opportunities in different ways are provided to your stakeholders to be involved in this process. um not just at the engagement phase where we're gathering information uh from folks regarding um the strengths of your uh district and community, the challenges they believe you're facing now and into the future and the most desired qualities and characteristics they want in the next superintendent. On the left side of the slide, you'll see uh the different ways that we engage in this work. Um, we also know that from um a racial equity lens, um, our experience and training has taught us that, um, you need multiple, uh, ways and multiple strategies and settings in order to truly reach all the members of your diverse community. And so again, we like to leverage strategies, groups, individuals

094that have a relationship with folks who are historically maybe not heard as often or as much uh as they need to be. Um and so an example would be um a district we served recently wanted to hear from the parents of English language learners and their staff member that worked with those students every day said, "Well, they gather every Sunday at the Catholic church. Are you willing to go there and meet with them after mass?" And we were happy to do that. Um scheduled that with the church. um and the church ended up providing uh refreshments and we had uh over 80 people attend. And so it's strategies like that that are truly customized with each search that we do um that we like to share uh as examples. Uh the recruit phase uh happens

095alongside the engagement phase. And again, I'm not going to read the slide to you in the interest of time, but I want you to um understand that ours is not a just a passive approach. Yes, advertising is important, but we do active and proactive outreach of candidates, including uh work with the Association of uh Latino administrators and superintendents, all and the National Alliance of Black School Educators. And we are recommending for this search an advertising package uh with those organizations and that would be part of the recruit phase. Um we do um our pre-screening and initial background checking for you. That's part of what you're paying firms to do. Um and we prepare a summary of all of the information we're able to uncover on each applicant. um and assist the board then um in

096presenting all the applications. So we don't screen any candidates out, you see them all um in preparing to invite folks to come and interview in a first round. So the next phase of the process is the select phase and uh during the selection phase we present the candidates to the board and we help the board narrow down the pool of candidates for each round of interviews. Uh we also support the board in creating interview questions and prepare for the interviews. Um also we conduct a comprehensive third-party background check on your top candidate or top candidates. And this background check typically includes the verification of academic degrees and certifications, a review of court records, finances, finances and their social media presence. Um, additionally during this phase, uh, the board will select their candidate and then enter

097into contract negotiations. And to support you with contract negotiations, we provide, um, a summary of salary and benefits from comparable districts so that the board can make informed decisions going forth with contract negotiations. The next phase is the transition phase. And uh you know we recognize that a smooth transition is critical in ensuring the long-term success of the district. And so to support this our selection phase includes a two or three to three-hour workshop. And this is designed to facilitate this transition phase. During this workshop, the board and the selected candidate will have the opportunity to review key insights uh that were gained throughout the process as well as to work on establishing team norms, operating agreements, and setting initial goals for the team. Uh and we also offer additional services which you can see

098on the screen and we'll be happy to to share more information if you're interested. Um the timeline is always of special interest when you're launching a process like this. And I'll I'll start by saying while we're uh presenting to you tonight um our proposal for a comprehensive search for a permanent superintendent, um I know uh the board is uh urgently considering uh how to proceed with a uh interim search. And so, uh, we're just going to weigh in and share with you that, uh, while we're proposing a comprehensive search, uh, if we are selected, we are willing, uh, to consult with you and assist you as a board in the event you decided, uh, to proceed, um, and lead that on your own as a board. Um, and we have placed interims. We have a

099a process for that. Uh but time is of the essence, I know, given that it's May 1. Um and so I just wanted to put out there that as an experienced consultant team, we're willing to um serve in a consulting capacity. Um so for the comprehensive search, um we find that uh a search can take anywhere from 3 months to 5 months depending on a variety of factors. The timeline you see here is based on what we've learned over the course of uh many searches particularly in Washington state given um milestones in the school year and a a typical school year calendar. Um and so this one shows that there would be a summertime planning meeting with the board and this assumes that you've placed an interim by that time so that you can turn

100your attention to this comprehensive search. uh we would do individual interviews with board members. That's a routine initial step of the engagement phase and then we're recommending October and November for the engagement phase. Uh so why not September? Well, late September certainly is a possibility, but what we've learned is as schools open in September, there are a number of activities and events um that happen that we might end up on top of and it might jeopardize participation rates. and engagement of folks. So, get the school year started is our uh recommendation to you. Um, and so it could be late September, but in the fall then we start the engagement phase. And then we just put in what we assume to be your board meeting dates in October and November next year because our process

101includes routine updates for the board. Those are uh usually remote um unless we've got a milestone in the search that requires us to come in person. Um and then we obviously want to get the position announced as soon as possible. And so as part of a planning meeting we conduct with the board. We work with you to uh create uh a position announcement that reflects um really u the most common uh skills and qualifications and experience that um u has shown are really a minimum uh in terms of u a superintendent's ability to perform a broad scope of responsibility. Um that said, each of these position announcements are customized to fit what you're after. In that announcement, we also indicate that through the engagement phase, a separate document called the leadership profile report will be

102generated to reflect the strongest themes that we uncover in listening to you and your stakeholders uh through face-to-face focus groups, community forums, um and a survey that we strongly encourage you to consider um so that we can identify again the the greatest strengths of Vashan Island. Um the greatest challenges folks perceived that the next superintendent needs to be aware of um and then the qualities and characteristics that are most desired. Um so in December prior to the winter break um we've staged here to present that to the board and then provide that to the candidates and post that to your website so stakeholders can see that. In this model the application deadline would be shortly after the winter break. uh logic beyond that timing is if you have sitting superintendents or other administrators with a

103a little downtime in December, that's a great time for them to prepare uh an application. Um right around that time, then we schedule a an uh interview workshop and also present all of the candidates to you along with our vetting results. uh and then in late January, early February, semi- finalist interviews followed by finalist interviews and the selection would happen mid to late February. Now, all of this can be adjusted u and either stretched or compressed uh based on again a number of factors. One of them is competition. So, if we look with you and see that four other districts are uh closing their position in December, we may want to back that train up and rethink our calendar. So, those are that's one example of a factor we would pay attention to and make

104you aware of so that we can be as competitive as possible as well. So the board portal. So uh we provide you with access to your very own board portal. And so this is a confidential website only for the board which contains information pertaining to the search um documents, applications and so forth. And on the slide you have a sample of what what you would expect to see uh in your board portal. I can tell you this is a great tool because it keeps you informed and up to date with the most current uh information pertaining to the search process. Uh other boards uh who have used this tool find this tool very useful and beneficial. So again, this is unique to HYA. Yeah. And this is where we'll also um load all of the

105application materials, our vetting results, so that you have 247 access to this as soon as that information is completed. Our fee for a comprehensive search is $15,500. We believe in the current market that that represents a great value uh for your district. We also uh factor in the size of your district and so we've done searches where we charge over twice that amount but uh because we've all served in smaller places uh we are sensitive to the financial realities that come with not being a large district. And so um so that's part of the rationale behind uh the search fee. for that fee. You see on the left side of the table here all of the services that are included. And unlike some firms, I want to emphasize that you're going to see a lot

106of us on site, meaning um ours is primarily an in-person supported process, not a remote associate kind of process. It doesn't mean that none of the work happens remotely, but uh if we just look at the chart, I would tell you that um if we are on site, we've conducted some or all of the board interviews in person. We conduct all of the focus groups and community forums in person, and that's one or more associates there um in the community. Uh when we present the leadership profile report to you, typically it's one or more of us that are coming to a meeting to share that with you and answer questions. Um, if you jump down to the interview phase, we are present with you for interviews. You're certainly conducting those, but we are greeting candidates,

107uh, making sure we work with your staff on logistics. We just make sure things roll out the way we intend. Um, so we're kind of the hosts. Um, in addition to the reference checking, there's contract negotiations. And while we don't negotiate on behalf of the candidate or the board, we do uh prepare you uh for that and also um get you prepared by uh encouraging a consultation with the district's legal counsel and any HR folks uh you may want to consult with there in the district. Uh both Chris and I and I know Sylvia is a former superintendent, we bring many years of administrative oversight of human resource operations, special training in human resources and so we bring that to bear in providing consultation to you at this phase as well. And Sylvia mentioned the

108salary and benefit data. We we ask for copies of current contracts for superintendents because we found that the data that's out there in other places sometimes is missing various pathways to money that superintendents have. So in the spirit of transparency, we prepare a chart for you that shows not just the base salary for a sup superintendent, but all pathways to money in a total total package cost so that you can be well informed and detailed fashion. Okay. So why HYA? In the interest of time, I'm just going to touch on a couple of points. First and foremost, we offer unparallel customization and support. And so what that means is that we tailor each search to align to the specific needs and requirements of the board that we are serving. Um also we have very favorable

109recommendations from boards um that we have served and um you know our board portal is unique uh and uh we're very proud of of of that particular board portal and the and the service that we provide and um also uh we ensure that we're one of the only firms that we do not hire student superintendent as consultants. And so this is important because we want uh your consultants to be dedicated and focused only to your search and so hence we eliminate a conflict of interest. So these are only a couple of examples a couple of of uh factors uh that uh we feel that hya u makes a strong partner in your search. We do uh have a guarantee uh where we reference client satisfaction. and it's really a retention guarantee. So, um you'll see

110in the proposal it says within uh during the first year, if the majority of the board's still in place and the superintendent leaves, we will repeat the search process with no fee other than advertising any independent background check and travel costs. Um, and while that's a one-year guarantee, if there are other proposals you're considering that provide, for example, a a two-year guarantee, we will certainly consider modifying our approach. Um, if that's um a high priority for the board in terms of uh selection decision, um, we also do a price match again. So if if our price is higher uh than other proposals and the services are largely similar, we are willing to uh work with you on a price match. Uh and then our guarantee around not soliciting your candidate is uh uh for uh

1113 years. We will not um solicit uh your selected superintendent as a candidate for another position if we're hired by another uh district. in um and conducting a search elsewhere. Um and we add that because there are some firms u who don't include that. We wanted to call that out. Um and with that we're at questions. Thank you so much. Um uh folks remember to uh introduce yourself, look for your question. Who has questions today? Great. Go ahead. Um, thank you. First of all, and I'm I'm River Branch. Um, I a couple questions identified here. One, um, when you were talking about when you were talking about advertising and outreach, I guess I'm I'm interested. You earlier, sorry, I'll connect pieces. You talked about associations you work with which um which are um productive in

112terms of generating a diverse pool. is advertising in those arenas included in the initial advertising piece because you mentioned like WA a couple of other pieces in terms of where you where within your proposal you will advertise and I guess what I'm wondering is are you including associations um that that might play a role in generating that pool. Thank you and I apologize I should have clarified that during the presentation. Um so the state channels that we put in our proposal was um the uh Washington School Board Association that's all included um along with posting to the HYA website which is kind of a national clearing house for superintendent searches. So everything you see in the proposal, there are no additional fees for that. In order to post in Alice and NAPSY, they do charge.

113Um, and so the pass through cost for a six-w weekek posting in a 30-day posting at NAPSY is $800. And so that would be on top of the 155 base fee that we quoted. Um my question is I think sort of very similar though I um the the base fee it looked like there were also some things I'm sorry I didn't catch the number of the slide that you kind of recommended um and I'm assuming this um executive or the community and leadership profile survey and some of these um specific and professional groups. Are there other things that you would really say these are like here's the basics and here are the musth have some of them some of the add-ons that you have are are very well explained in your proposal but I'm wondering

114if there's some where you really feel like this is really even though it's not included in our basic it's really the thing we think is the hallmark of of a better search right uh well um I'm going to jump to our search with South Whidby because that's very recent very similar to do and our recommendation is to follow the same uh plan they did and that was with the base fee uh go ahead and advertise with the Alice and Napsy package that $800 package. We do not believe you need to do the comprehensive survey. Instead, we include a Googlebased survey. It's a Google form survey that's part of the base fee and we can do that in multiple languages for you. Um and uh and what the way we structured that survey is to match

115the same questions that we asked during the face-to-face uh focus groups and community forums so that we're gathering similar qualitative data throughout the process. Um the only other thing we do strongly recommend is the comprehensive due diligence. It's an independent background report. Sylvia gave a quick thumbnail of the deep dive they do and we we just don't have the capability to do that, but it's such an important decision um that you know that turns over the rocks we're not able to turn over. And um and so what we recommend is only do that with the person that you select and you make it a condition of employment. Meaning when you go to take formal action to name your superintendent, it's, you know, I move that we appoint this person to be superintendent effective July 1

116contingent upon negotiation of a contract and the board's acceptance of an independent background check report. Um, pretty common in searches we do. So, here's my I have a question. What's your name, ma'am? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Martha Wood. Um, it's a follow-up question. Um, so let's say that we got to that point and did the due diligence and the guy turned out to be or the woman a rat, right? Um, and we had to go back. Uh, then does that incur more fees from you folks on the search or what? No. Well, first, we've never had that happen. Uh, I'm happy to share that. Um but um we still recommend it uh because for example that we might uncover a default on a mortgage in that report and then as a board you have to

117wrestle with well is that a big enough deal to us to not select this person. U so the answer to your additional charges question is no. Um we help you until you find a superintendent. So, if that means we need to back up a step or two, we we're right at your side and we do that with you for the same base fee. There's no additional cost. Thank you. Uhhuh. Anyone else? Yeah. Thank you so much for such a comprehensive um Thank you for the opportunity. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you really very much. appreciate the time and the care and we will um we'll get back to you shortly. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. Bye. All right. I So, for those watching at home, that concludes our presentations

118and Q&A. Um if folks want to make themselves heard, um I say we give folks about five five to 10 minutes. We're scheduled 15. We scheduled 15. You have until a little after 8. Let's call it 802 803. Um, feel free to fill out the survey. Um, again, it it's on the district website. It's in Parent Square. It should be in your inbox. Um, and um, anything else before we sign off? will be back on at We will be back on at See, yes, 8:30. Yeah, 8:30. So, fill out the survey, log off. We're going to leave and go into executive session off camera. Um, we're not going to make any decisions until we return to the room, but we're going to discuss and we we'd really love to hear your feedback. Please give us

119some feedback. All right, we'll see you at 8:30, but fill out the survey for the next 30 minutes. Thank you. Thank you for being as always. Thank you. I now turn this meeting to executive session. It is 7 48. Thank you. Great seeing David. [Music] I just love that. All right, it is 8:30 and we are reconvening this special meeting. Um, want to um re reiterate um in all sincerity, we felt um sort of an embarrassment of Bridget really would have um I think had a good experience with any of these firms that offered their time and their expertise to us tonight and we're really grateful for that. of us really um we learned a lot um and it also was a great um framework for which to evaluate our choices and think about um

120what we need in this moment going forward. Um I'm going to ask folks uh to say what their choice was and I can talk a little bit about very briefly um afterwards um and our understanding tonight is that we will walk away with a tenative agreement and then work into um attract negotiations. So Jess want okay I am I am um as we said it's actually not an easy decision. We were really fortunate to be able to um consider the input um that some of the community offered and it was aligned with our thinking which was a really nice course um for this moment in time. um the way things were outlined in the proposal and felt like a a kid student a real focus on students was really important to all of us. I

121think that's the decision we're going to make. But um it was not easy and we are super grateful um for sure. Um and with that um I will uh contact um uh Martha's been the primary contact with PA. She and I together will contact them uh tomorrow and work towards a contract and then we're off and running. Um we are um continuing to uh sort of see what's possible in terms of securing an interim candidate or candidates consider um maybe without a search firm price tag attached to it which feels very important to us be able to look for savings where we can get them um and as soon as we have any updates on um that we will let folks know um as as with anything anytime reach out um to one or all

122of us work for you and we Never forget that. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Waiting is turned 8:33. Thank you. Didn't we tonight? Yeah. I miss expect they