001Okay. And we're recording. All right. Good evening. I'll call the order of the special San Carlos School Board meeting of May 27th, 2021. At this time, is there a motion to approve the agenda? I move that we approve the agenda. Thank you, Irene. And is there a second? Second. Thank you, Sarah. All in favor of the agenda as is, please state by saying aye. Aye. Any opposition? Hearing none, that will carry for zero. So tonight we have our special board meeting for appointment of the seat left by Trustee Elliott. This seat will have a term remaining from the time of appointment to November of 2022. So just to give everyone listening at home kind of the details on the process, we'll go through of how it will work. We had one applicant, Ben Cornell, right?
002I got it correct. I put your names left and right. So I always apologize for that. So I get it right, Ben? Yeah. Okay. Ben Cornell was our only applicant. But despite being the only applicant, we will still go through the process to make sure he's qualified and the board approves him for being a part of the board going forward. So the process will be is that Ben will have two minutes to start, give us an explanation of why he wants to be on the board. We'll have then move into a question and answer session with Ben about his application and about some questions specific to the district or priorities of the board. For full public awareness, the committee on the appointment, Sarah and myself did meet with Ben. We did interview him about his
003application further and allow and have a further more detailed conversation with him about that. So tonight, we're allowing the other trustees as well to get further information for Ben and get to know him a little bit. Then at the end, after Q&A, he will have a closing argument or closing statement to give another two minutes to focus on anything outside of the application or the question and answer sessions that have been held tonight and with Sarah and myself to explain why the board should appoint him. The board will then have a discussion in regards to and then decide whether or not we will appoint him. So that will be the process. Trustees, any questions in regards to the process? Nope. Ben, any questions in regards to the process? No. Okay. Well, I will start then,
004Ben. Well, first we're actually going to take some public comment before we do start. I do believe there's some public comment. So Wendy, I will go to you. Great. So both people have asked that I read it and the first person is Marina Kaznacheva. I've known Ben Cornell for three years, both as a person and as a leader of educational projects. We've seen him creating a project from scratch and leading it to a successful end throughout the whole journey. He was well organized, paid attention to the needs of the kids and always fun to work with. The next comment is from Tim Hilborn. Hello. I would like to leave a comment on behalf of Ben Cornell and the school board appointment. I've been working with Ben for several years, now coaching an AYSO soccer in
005our community. Ben is a very positive and responsible person who has given a lot of his extra time for our community. Ben also brings a wealth of knowledge and experience both having taught in public schools and being the CEO of an established education and curriculum related company. I would highly recommend Ben for the position of an appointed school board member as he will add a lot of insight, experience, knowledge and positivity to the board. Thank you. And that is it. Okay. Thank you everyone for those public comments. And Ben, we will then go to you for your two minute opening statement. Great. Hi, everyone, members of the board, President Layton. It's great to meet you all and to everyone live streaming. It's an honor to be here. I thought in my opening statement, I would
006talk a little bit about my why. And then through our conversation, we can talk a little bit about the how and what. So as a fourth grader, I had been to three different schools. My parents had gotten divorced. And I was really struggling. I was going through a crisis. And I happened to walk into room four at Parkside Elementary School with Mrs. Kurtz. And in Mrs. Kurtz's class, anything was possible. We could be scientists one day, we could be rocket engineers the next day. And in that class, we would write these essays using vocabulary words. And I started writing The Adventures of the Four Tacos as a weekly syndicate. And Mrs. Kurtz would make time every week for me to read that out to the class. And I found my voice. I found my voice
007as a learner and as a writer. And that's carried with me all the way through to college where I was an English major because I thought I wanted to be a writer. And as I sat in the dusty bookshelf, in the library with the dusty bookshelves, I remembered thinking, do I really want to be a writer? Or do I actually want to be a Mrs. Kurtz? And from that point on, I really have followed a path of education, starting as a middle school teacher for five years. I love middle school. It's such a great age. I've gone to grad school and I've worked in many areas of the education sector, all thinking about how do we empower learners? And today, I come to the school board because I have two learners of my own, Sebastian
008and Nico. Sebastian is five and he's going to be a kindergartner at Heather next year. And Nico is nine and he will be at Mariposa next fall. And as much as I've traveled the country and even traveled the world to do good work in education, I'm really excited about the opportunity to contribute here locally and to their education. So that's my why. I'm really excited to learn from you all and excited for this process. All right, fantastic. Thank you, Ben. Sarah and I will ask a couple questions to start and then we'll mainly have Irene and Wendy focus a little bit and ask some follow-up questions on their own to make sure they have just as much time for an in-depth conversation as we did with you offline. In that regards, Ben, I would like
009to ask, you know, you'll be coming to this board, you would have a short term from about a year essentially before your term would be up. So, you know, within that year, based off of what you know about the district and where you've been and looking forward, what would be what you consider success as a board member for yourself personally and then also what would be success as the district on top of it within your term if you can? Sure. Well, I'm excited to hear the input of other board members on this front as well, but my approach as a leader in general is an inquiry driven approach and a listening first approach. And so I would hope that over the coming weeks, months and year that I could really understand the needs and challenges
010of all the stakeholders of the San Carlos community and the district community, my hope is to be able to connect the dots. And so I'm not really coming in with a strong sense of here's my vision, here's where I want to take things. I'm coming much more with the mind of facilitating the kind of community dialogue and connections that will make our community successful. More concretely though, I do think that we have a new superintendent coming and everything that I know about great education in public schools in California and the U.S. is that having a superintendent that is truly connected to the community, that is successful with staff, successful with families and successful with the leadership challenge of public schools, that's essential for a district to be successful in serving kids. And so concretely I
011would say a year from now, Dr. Frentress' first year would be viewed by everyone as a resounding success. I've heard her speak before and I'm aware of her work and I'm incredibly excited to support her and help guide her as she takes San Carlos School District to the next level. Thank you, Ben. Next question for you is this year we've been working on prioritizing diversity equity inclusion in our district and how would you ensure that DEI remains a focus in our decision-making processes as a trustee? Yeah, my approach to diversity equity inclusion is really around creating space for different voices and different representatives at the table and so I generally would take a process approach around asking who's not at the table as we make this decision, whose voice haven't we heard, and really trying
012to elevate those voices that may be silenced or those voices that maybe aren't typically involved in decision-making or at the table. My work in Oakland for four years, I worked with Invision Education. We served 97% students of color and our 97% students, low-income students, 60% students of color, and we were an organization that really thought a lot about creating space for diversity equity inclusion conversations. So that would be my approach with the board. I also will say I feel like we have a moment as San Carlos School District to reimagine our community engagement such that we think about diversity equity and inclusion on multiple metrics so that everyone feels like they can engage at the school level and at the district level. Great. Wendy, I will turn it to you if you have any questions
013for Ben or start a question and we'll keep going around. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. It's kind of a good segue. I think you touched on this question to a certain extent already, but I wanted to pick up on what you wrote about in your application about building community and connection as a strength of yours and that our district could benefit from increased community building to facilitate at both the site and the district level. So knowing that our board will likely hold several study sessions this coming school year to address a number of topics such as just a variety of topics, I wondered, how do you envision these sessions and or other convenings at the site level to build greater trust and community? Yeah, thanks Wendy. I think COVID has challenged all of us in terms of
014how we engage with our own communities as well as the community abroad, and there's no substitution for people getting in the mirror room at Heather and really talking about what's going on at the school and how to make things happen for learners. I will just say that COVID has also opened us up to new channels of reaching people who may not be able to be on site or maybe the timing of meetings or gatherings aren't ideal. From a guiding principle standpoint, I really believe that we should lean into the fact that we are a small district and some of the systems and organizational principles of the larger districts don't necessarily need to apply in our case the ability just to pick up the phone and call people, call parents. I'd really like to just see
015more proactive non-email outreach just to hear the voice of other parents and what they think about, what they're concerned about, what they're worried about. And I know during COVID, we all had a barrage of emails from a variety of organizations, but it was those phone calls or that outreach that felt personal that really connected people. So I really pushed the board to think about how are we reaching people in ways that feel more personal and are diverse in the strategy of outreach. Thanks. Irene. Hey Ben, such a pleasure to meet you and you just bring such a wealth and depth of educational experiences to us. I'm just curious if you wanted to just share a little bit about your operating philosophy or philosophy on just how to help teams be successful and kind of educators
016specifically, both classroom teachers and site leaders and district leaders. I have three operating principles in terms of running school organizations or education organizations. And I think one thing that I'm thinking about is how does one do this at a board level, you know, from more of a guiding the vision, guiding the ship. My operating principles or sayings are one, begin with the end in mind. So really just thinking what's the vision of what we're going towards and getting as clear as possible with stakeholders, what that picture looks like, and even giving them space to co-create that vision. Number two, seeing is believing. How can we give experiences to our learners or educators, our families on what learning could look like or what school can look like. So I'm a big believer in traveling to other
017districts or traveling other places or bringing groups of people to study what's working somewhere else such that we can not necessarily copy what others are doing, but be inspired by that and bring that back. And then the third is no one washes a rental car. That phrase really means that people take care of things when they feel a sense of ownership. And I've found that when there's policy written from on a high and it cascades down on people that they're much less likely to really take that ownership and deliver it to its full potential. And so same with the board as we think about our policies and our guidelines, how do we make space for our educators or our families or learners to own it? One of the big decisions that I had to kind
018of go through in applying for the board though was to think about what's different between operating education organizations versus being on the board. And I think where I'm coming from, I'm at a good space in my professional career, but also in my personal life where I probably have more, rather than bringing my principles, I'm excited with Dr. Frentress to help her communicate her principles and to ask good questions to help her define not just where we're going, but also the how we're going to do it and how we're going to bring people along. So I appreciate the ability to share how I've led in the past, but also I'm very excited and open to Dr. Frentress kind of in viewing us with core principles to drive the ship forward. Wendy, I'll go back to you
019before I go back to myself or Sarah, just because I want you and Irene to have a most in-depth conversation, Ken, if you have more questions. I thought I have a couple more for Ben as well. Pass the baton for now. Ben, along those lines, you did talk about your background in education technology. The question I have for you, I think a lot of people want to know, is what is A, your philosophy of how that would apply to you as a board member? And then I think also how do you see any conflict in it as a board member, given your background? Yeah, so commonly, technology in education is called Ed Tech. And there's a reason why the Ed is first and the Tech is second. You really, to be successful with Ed Tech,
020you have to have a vision for teaching and learning and a sense of the pedagogy and practice that the technology is supporting. And often in education, but in many industries, we get it reversed. It's Tech Ed. And we say, okay, we need to do the things that this tool is telling us to do, rather than thinking about what's the pedagogy and practice underpinning. So, you know, my approach to Ed Tech has always been how do we bring in the right tools to, one, like make the job of an educator easier, two, make the learning experience of the learner richer, and three, do things that we can't do with our normal non-digital tools. And things like connecting via Zoom to someone across the world, that is an example of technology enablement that defies what we can
021do with non-technical tools. In terms of this role, I really look forward to thinking about same kind of principle of asking good questions around where are we spending our technology dollars? How fragmented are we in terms of the number of tools, platforms, apps that we're using? Is there coherence in our vision for the role of technology? And how does technology really personalize the learning experience so that each child is really progressing according to their interests, needs, and capabilities? In terms of conflicts of interest, I have a strong sense of, you know, for decisions of contracting or things like that. If I have an official relationship with any of the organizations we might contract with, that I'll have to, you know, essentially step out of those meetings or deals. I don't really even know what the
022board, the level of involvement the board has in that, but should it come to board level, I'm, you know, happy to, you know, step out of those conversations. At the same time, to the degree that I can help bring or attract innovative technology organizations to partner with our district, especially given that we're here in Silicon Valley, I would love to use my network to the benefit of the district. So that's my overall approach. Great. Thanks, Ben. Sarah, back to you. Yeah. Ben, what do you think, if you're appointed to the board, what do you think your biggest challenge would be in sort of getting up to speed or just the experience and how would you overcome or address that challenge? I'm getting whispers from the audience here in the room. You know, I think one
023challenge that every board member likely faces, but also every educator, every superintendent, every family faces is work-life balance and board life balance, I think is going to be a challenge just to get that right and to find the ways that I can be as thoughtful and as engaged as possible, but also continue to support Nico, Sebastian and Juliana. I also would say a challenge is that I'm going to be, and I mentioned this before, that I am going to be out July, mid-July through mid-August with a pre-planned family vacation. So I'll have to really do my homework ahead of that, you know, that three and a half week absence. And then I think third challenge is that Dr. Frantras is new and normally one leans on the superintendent to orient new board members. And I
024think there's a benefit. We will be learning together and there's a challenge, which is that there's a lot of newness. So I'm eager while Dr. Herrmeyer is here to, you know, tap her knowledge and just to get a sense of, you know, what is the way that I can make the most positive impact. I know you didn't ask this, but I think one thing that I also would be excited to bring to the team is I have a deep knowledge of local control funding formula and a lot of the things going on in the state. I was COO at Envision during the housing crisis, you know, the years following the housing crisis. And boy, did we get to know all of the ins and outs of funding and the challenges therein. And I know a
025lot about, you know, the San Carlos local control funding formula. And, you know, in some ways we have some disadvantages in terms of securing the maximum funds from the state possible to support learners here. So I'm excited to lean in and work on that with the financial side of the team. Great. Irene, go ahead. Hey, Ben. Sometimes community and staff members get nervous that with all kind of like a lot of new and new superintendent, new board members, there's just going to be a lot of change. And so I wanted to invite you to just kind of share out some of the strengths you see about our school district. Some of the things you've experienced as a parent that you'd like to see preserved. Yeah. Well, they have this saying that change is the only
026constant in education. And I think that that's true. You know, as an educator myself, I remember how much kids would change. You know, I would teach sixth graders and then I'd often loop with them as eighth graders. And it's amazing how much learners can change. But, you know, in my opening remarks, I talked about how important Mrs. Kurtz was to me. We've had the good fortune in our family to have our own Mrs. Kurtz, and that's Mrs. Clark, who's a teacher at Heather. And she was Nico's K through two blended class teacher for three years. And she's become like an extension of our family. And I think that if you talk to parents across the district, everyone has a story about an educator that's touched their lives, touched their family. And I also will tell
027you, having sat in some of these parent-teacher conferences, often student-led, the professional development that our district has provided to educators and alignment around, for example, Reader's Writers' Workshop, it is top notch. And I mean, I really do travel the country. I've met with many schools and districts across the country, and the kind of pedagogical expertise we have in-house is super, super strong. You know, one of the concerns that I hear about is all the change related to COVID. And I would just say, we are in a similar vote to also countless districts, where there's not only friction between different stakeholder groups, like educators, families, and the district, but even within those groups, educators and educators not being on the same page, or parents and parents not being on the same page. And I feel like
028we as a space need to have coming space. We need space to come together and time to heal and process everything that's gone on. And so I think when you think about what the changes are that are coming up this year with new superintendent, new board members, new COVID regulations or not, and all of that uncertainty, I think if we can rally around our educators, our learners, and that sacred connection between the two, I think we're going to come out okay. Great, thanks. Wendy, back to you now. Yeah, I mean, you've had a really thoughtful and comprehensive yet succinct, you know, application. So I really appreciated reading through your answers. And I just want to pick up on one of the threads about the role of the board in communicating to our constituents, you know,
029about, for example, our financial situation and whatnot. You commented on that, you know, to help assist in that. So I just wondered maybe from your perspective, you know, in this past year during the COVID-19 pandemic or in prior years since you've been a parent in the district for several years now, I'm just curious if you want to comment on, you know, communication and ways to think about improving that. I mean, you did talk about, you know, engagement in terms of, like, personalizing that, you know, reaching out and personalizing, but any observations you have or ways you think as a board, you know, you would want to help improve that communication. Yeah, I think what I would say is I just draw on some examples of other districts that have had really strong communication plans. So
030in Cajon Valley in San Diego County, they really had a thoughtful communication plan where Dr. David Miyashiro, the superintendent, would host, you know, these coffee chats, but they would be targeted at micro groups and basically inviting, specifically inviting groups of five to ten families to come together. And part of that was driven by the number of different languages that they had spoken in their district, but what they found is that one-to-many communication was not very effective, but small group communication was really effective. The other thing that they did is they had a three-by-three rule where it was like the most we can communicate at a time are three messages, and we need to find three ways to get that message across. And so rather than having dense communications with, you know, many, many points about
031what's going on, they would really focus every message on having, you know, three Macs, and then they would think about if we're emailing it, that's one way. What are two other ways we can get this message out? So they might, they would do the same thing like we would do where people would come and pick up classroom materials. They would have a printout that would be in the classroom materials, or they would have, you know, phone calls or things like that. So I don't think that I've got any silver bullets here. I think that just learning from what others have done can continue to push us in thinking how we can improve, and I do think that this has been a unique year, and those elements that have worked for us, we should double down
032on for next year, and those that haven't worked, really revisit them and understand what we could do differently. Thank you. I don't have any more questions for Ben, but obviously I don't want to stop the conversation. So any other trustees have any questions? None? Okay, then we can speak to Ben for hours, but we'll get that opportunity. So I certainly felt tonight's given us like a really nice overview of why you're coming to the board and what you bring to us. Thank you. Yeah, there's a fine line between do you meet the qualifications to be appointed to the board and strategy session in public, so we will try not to dive into the ladder. Ben, then I will give it to you for two minutes closing and just to focus on something that we didn't
033talk about tonight that you want us to know about yourself or wasn't found in your application. I think we've covered things pretty comprehensively, so what I'd really love to say for anyone who listens or reads about this, that if you've ever wondered about public education, I feel like now is the time to step up and double down your efforts. St. Carlos is a special, special place and our schools are at the heart of that and I really do believe that this is incredible place to raise kids and to grow a family and so anyone, you know, part of my stepping up for this role is that, you know, put up or shut up kind of moment and I appreciate the four of you for leading the charge, but I encourage anybody who's on the fence
034who's listening there's so many ways they can contribute to our district, to our schools and I just hope that, you know, my drop in the bucket will send some ripples out to get others to step forward too, so appreciate you all for the time tonight and I'll keep my fingers crossed on the vote and excited if you should choose to do so, excited for the journey ahead. All right, thanks Ben. Trustees, now we have a, I say we have a discussion obviously about, you know, this is the awkward stage, I like to call it, where we talk to you Ben, but don't worry Wendy and Sarah have been through it, so, you know, half of the board knows. I'm happy to do that too. No, no, no, stay here with us just as well. So
035I'll start, I think, you know, these things are always difficult in regards to, you know, we've heard the community about, you know, elections, I've always liked to say is that they hone your message, they hone your talent, they allow you to get out and see people, you know, it's always in a situation like this, you want as many applicants as you can as well, so I know someone may say that, you know, only having one isn't fair to that process as well. To that flip side though, I like to say that, you know, this is kind of the beauty sometimes of when opportunities arise and I think we're in a unique situation where, you know, someone with Ben's talents and skills can come to this board. I always like to look at these for people
036know is, you know, I think the best part about the San Carlos board is we have a very big diversity of opinion and diversity of experiences and I think Ben lends himself well to that diversity to give a different perspective on EdTech and having, you know, management experience and how that can blend in because of a lot of what I think people don't realize is, you know, it's to be an assistance to a superintendent to have, to bounce issues off of you, to see how things work or get a perspective on it. Obviously, we're not the micromanagers of how the district runs on the day to day, but we're the policy deciders and obviously always have to analyze how those policies are playing out, review those policies and do it. I think Ben ads are
037a great perspective to that when we look at policies and how it plays out. I think his experience and background, I mean, I just know if I think about as a board member who will assist me in seeing through the issues we have at least facing this next year as we go from a, you know, pandemic world to hopefully post pandemic and the new normal as everyone likes to say. So, you know, I'm excited that even if it only was one applicant that it was Ben with his background, I believe he, you know, will bring the continued success we've had to this board, you know, even as Wendy and Sarah knew. It's hard, man. I'll tell you, I've been doing this for four years and now I finally feel like I'm starting to get my
038feet underneath me with still 8 million things underneath. So, you know, I'll be honest to Ben is it's going to be real tough for everybody, you know, to get your feet underneath you to feel comfortable. But I do believe you have the skill set to do it. I believe you have the background to do it in the short period of time that you will be allowed to do it. That's what I appreciate about you. And, you know, I'm happily supportive of you joining this board. Irene, Wendy, Sarah, anyone next? I'm fully supportive and grateful. I thought your application and your background five years, including five years as a classroom teacher, I feel that you are entering in a really thoughtful way about what the role is of a board member. I'm not being an operator,
039but you talked about being a facilitator in your listening stance and supporting Dr. Frances, our superintendent, to do her best work. And that sacred bond between learners and teachers is what we're all here really trying to support. Thank you for stepping up. I echo that. Thank you, Ben, for stepping up to this role. I think you bring a lot of knowledge and experience and perspectives that I don't have. And so I will find that very helpful. As a trustee and I think that, you know, as the other newest board member that he and I and Dr. Frances will have a lot of, you know, interesting opportunities to learn together in the coming months. So I'm fully supportive of him joining the board and appreciate everything, the perspectives he has offered this evening. Thanks, Ben. I'm
040really excited for this opportunity to have you as a candidate to join our board. I just want to say that I really appreciated your why and hearing and just appreciating your deep respect for educators, having been an educator yourself and an educational process and just all of the knowledge that you have that you'll bring to bear to help inform our decisions. I think that will be an incredible asset. And then also just knowing that you will bring that knowledge and resources to really kind of continue the tradition of, you know, high quality education and the whole child approach in our district and that you having kids in the district, you know, want to see that continue. And as you said, kind of take it to the next level. So thank you for stepping up to
041want to contribute locally. Yeah. Support your candidacy. Board, any further discussion? Okay. In that case, I'll make the motion. I will move to appoint Ben Cornell to the seat vacated by trustee Carol Elliott for the term ending November of 2022 at this time. The second motion to appoint Ben Cornell is the new. Thank you, Wendy. We got to do a roll call vote on this. So I will just go around in my squares. Trustee Chen, how do you vote? Aye. Trustee Casanago? Aye. And Trustee Jordan? And Trustee Layton is aye as well. That will carry 4-0. That means, Ben, as of now, you are officially a San Carlos school board member. Congratulations. Thank you. So I always like to tell people it's kind of a trip when you see your name on, you know, the
042flyers and things that go out. So be prepared for that. I'll be in touch with you in a little bit to kind of get you up to speed. Board members, just so, you know, I always like to tell people at the same point in time is that now that Ben is an official member, he is subject to all the same rules. All of us are, you know, as of five minutes ago. So Brown Act, everything else as well, just in terms of how you communicate with him and reach out to him and go from there. And, Ben, same thing for you. You know, we'll try to get you up to speed as much with putting in touch with Michelle and then as well as getting in touch with Dr. Fentress as she transitions on July
0431. Any last words, Ben? Thank you all. I'm excited for the journey. Fantastic. Well, thank you all, trustees. Thank you, everyone watching at home. Ben, thank you. This is a little bit different process. We were, you know, in terms of the meetings you've had compared to other ones, but we appreciate your candor and being open with us and taking probably extended time that we've done in the past with our candidates individually. So I do appreciate that. As well. So with that, I will officially adjourn us at this meeting and we will see everyone June 3rd for the next board meeting. Hi, everyone. Congratulations, Ben. Thank you. Thank you all. Have a good night.