001So, all right, want to let you know. Yeah, if you got anything, let me know you text me to we are recording yeah same vice versa you can text me if you need me. Okay, great. Yep, Neil we're recording. Okay, perfect. You want to let everyone in. Alright, good evening everyone and welcome to the February 4 special board meeting of the San Carlos School District. Thank you everyone for being here with us tonight. I do have one change. I'm going to propose the agenda just based off of timing and kind of efficiency I'm going to remove closed session to after our discussion. This evening would be. We're going to move six a to after nine a, but we can for efficiency we can also probably take public comment to on all of them, just at
002the same time. So, with that, is there a motion to approve the agenda with that change. And move approval the with the agenda with the modifications, as you mentioned. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Wendy. All in favor please say by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposition. All right. We courtesy of our fantastic policy subcommittee of trustee Wendy and trustee Sarah, they have made some adjustments to our ability to take public comment so we're going to try that here we felt as the special board meeting tonight to take public comment. Where people can, we will have Veronica unmute you once Wendy calls your name, I will keep the time and give you 30 seconds to try to keep you on top or to keep you within our timeframe as well as keeping track of the
00320 minutes time as well. And hopefully this will work as as advertised and Wendy I'll let you call on the names of those who want to, or just go in the order that you have created. We may want to give us just a little bit of kind of if people want to add a public comment how they do it. Based off the form we created but then other than that, I will also remind people that this is a special board meeting so it has to be on a topic that is agendized, so I will just to make sure we are efficient tonight with our time with our consultants to get the business asked you to hold comment till our next meeting if it's not something that is on our special meeting tonight. So, Wendy take
004it away. So, with that Neil it sounds like you're saying we can read public comment on 6A and 9A right now. Yeah, we'll just do that for time just for people, depending on when they decide to change it because of the change. Okay, well then we'll go six, we'll start with 6A, which is in relation to the conference with labor negotiators. And if I'm using the Google Sheet, and then I'm going to move to the email for public comment. There were many fewer on the Google form because it's new. So if Laurie Mecky could please be unmuted she said she would like to share it verbally. Sorry, thank you. Hello San Carlos Board Trustees and Dr. Harmeyer. My name is Laurie Mecky and I've been a teacher in the district for 31 years. I am
005writing to you out of concern for the treatment of teachers and our union in regards to our return to school. It is disheartening to learn that the president of our union is being publicly attacked on Facebook, next door, and during our public board meetings. Our President Dan Lanier represents us as a group, and he speaks for us. He meets with us, listens to us, and speaks for us as a union. Our bargaining team is meeting in good faith with the district regularly about our return to school and our current MOU is in effect. We are set to return to in-person teaching when our county returns to the red tier. I'm looking forward to teaching children in person, but honestly I am quite fearful. COVID is rapidly changing with mutations and is still very much out
006of control. Last Wednesday, a dear friend of mine lost her father to COVID. Many parents are treating our return to school as an easy decision. I wish all parents would really think about the implications of going back in person, how it could be life changing for some of us and our families. I know some teachers are not willing to risk their lives for their job and may not be returning if we are pushed back when numbers are still very high. We do not have an adequate amount of reliable and qualified substitutes to manage our large number of classrooms without teachers. Parents are asking what it will take to make teachers feel safer coming back to school. First of all, we want you to know that we are feeling uneasy about our return and would like
007you to respect our feelings of anxiety. Next, we want to know that families are being extremely careful about the way they are interacting with others and are following the recommended safety protocols. When we return to in-person learning, teachers will be exposed to all of the contacts that families have. Although it is most likely not possible, ideally, teachers would like to be fully vaccinated before returning to in-person teaching. In closing, I would like to remind our community that teachers want to resume teaching in person. We became teachers because we love teaching. Teaching through distance learning is not the same, but it is safe. Please remember that we are people, have families of our own, and that we care about, and we love your children. We're making the most of a very difficult situation, and we are
008also anxious to spend time with them in person. Thank you for hearing my perspective. Thank you, Lori Meckie. I'm going to read the next comment that was submitted by a parent and said that we can read it. And then after that is another one on agenda item 6A, which is Angela Norton, and she said she'd like to share comments verbally, so she'll be next. So this is from Amy Lau, and it is in relation to 6A. Hello, I'm a concerned parent of the San Carlos school district community, and I'm losing faith in the district. What's frustrating is that there seems to be a lack of transparency from the board and district as why we are where we are today. Two points, opening up schools. There hasn't been any discussion to urgently get kids back to
009school. Why are we still using the phase one through five plans? That was done last year when we didn't have much data on COVID and schools. Why aren't we tweaking the plan to get kids on campus knowing that it takes some time for the MOU negotiations? You are dragging our feet. How many teachers want to return? Parents have no data as to exactly how many teachers will not return if we go back. We have heard from the superintendent that there are staffing issues if we open up. Give us accurate data and info. Another point around teachers will die. Dan Lanier's comment of teachers will die if they return to campus is dramatic. I understand teachers are nervous, anxious, fearful. However, where is the data that teachers will die from COVID? There are no data points
010from San Carlos Teachers Association backing the statement. This community is strong. We have so much love and respect for teachers. They shape our children. They guide our children. They love our children. What is happening is unfortunate. You can nip all the rumblings, disappointments. Sorry, I have to scroll down. I'm in a Google sheet. There are no data points from San Carlos Teachers Association backing the statement. This community is strong. We have so much love and respect for teachers. They shape our children. I'm sorry I said that. You can nip all the rumblings, disappointments, and frustrations right now. My ask is to be honest and transparent with us. We need to come out strong. Thank you, Amy. Okay, so next up is Angela Naughton. Thank you, Wendy. Good evening, everybody. My name is Angela Naughton. I'm
011the chair of the SCTA San Carlos Teachers Association negotiations team. And the SCTA and district have actually both been working diligently to come to an agreement. In fact, both of our sides rely on outside representatives, and we've been balancing everybody's schedule. We meet approximately every two weeks and continue to meet on that similar timeline to collaborate and work towards a mutual agreement. The belief that the teachers don't want to return to school is misrepresented. Last spring, as we planned for an unknown year, the district offered every single teacher the opportunity to sign up for the Connections program. In fact, there were so few teachers that applied that the result was that the district had to post the jobs and recruit teachers from outside our current staff. Our teachers want more than anything to return to
012the classroom with students in a safe manner. In addition, I've been really disturbed by the recent negative tone of the rhetoric shared during public comment, during board meetings, and on social media. The content of the messages and the comments show a lack of understanding related to collective bargaining. A cornerstone of our district and our strategic plan is teaching our students to be well-rounded individuals. We teach them to gather information from multiple sources and account for the perspectives and input from both sides. Most of all, we teach them to act as upstanders in response to bullying. However, the recent attacks on Dan Lanier, who acts on behalf of our members, has really been the opposite of what we teach our students. The implication that Dan is the only one crying, the emperor has no clothes, is
013absolutely wrong and truly insulting to our members. Everyone has a voice and we have simply elected that Dan speak on our behalf. I ask you to please embrace what we teach our students and be an upstander. Gather all the information before you make statements or assumptions. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. I'm going to read the next one on 6A that came in by email, so it's not using the form. Jenny Chang, to whom it may concern, I have been mostly on the sidelines of the conversations regarding schools returning to in-person instruction. However, as I'm hearing more about the resistance of teachers unions to the governor's push to reopen, I realize that we need to engage and make our voices heard, too. My husband and I are both working as full-time physicians. Our days have been
014occupied with trying to follow the ever-changing COVID situation while also making sure our patients' ongoing pre-COVID health issues do not fall through the cracks. Similar to the growing data that children are not thriving with distance learning, there is data that chronic health conditions are worsening. As such, we've pivoted to seeing patients both on a virtual platform when reasonable to do so as well as in-person in the clinics. We've done this since April, long before the promise of any vaccinations. We have done so with a trust in PPE recommendations and an expectation that patients remain masked when in our small exam rooms. We've done this because we know we need to do so. It is our job to help patients stay healthy when we recognize that virtual care does not enable us to do so. The
015best of our ability, we pivot and adjust. I believe that teachers have the same expectations for themselves. In fact, I have no doubt as our teachers really are outstanding. We have two girls currently in TK in second grade, so we've been in the public elementary school system at San Carlos for three years. They've done an amazing job on this virtual platform. I can't imagine trying to keep an entire class of five and seven year olds respectively interested and engaged on Zoom, let alone keeping up with the curriculum. I am lucky that my kids are flexible and resilient. They have each other for company, and for the most part, they do not seem to be struggling mentally. Even so, by late fall, we were falling behind in assignments because as parents, we just didn't have the
016time to supervise. As a result, like many who were fortunate to have the financial wherewithal to do so, we hired someone to help. However, there are many families who did not have this flexibility and have sacrificed their jobs or financial security, their mental health, and their children's education and well-being. The narrative that parents are pushing responsibilities onto teachers and subjecting teachers to the risk of death is sensational and inflammatory. It is a dig your heels in response that closes the door to open discussion and problem solving. The frustrations expressed, often broadly labeled as lack of transparency, stems from the perceived lack of a plan to move forward. We are 11 months into this pandemic. We need to do what we teach our kids, shift from an I can't to a can do attitude. In those
01711 months, we have also more data to support the initial observation that kids do not seem to be as susceptible to COVID. This has been reassuring to parents. In addition, and what should be reassuring to teachers, the risk of transmission from child to adult is also substantially lower. I have listened in on the publicly available and very informative UCSF grand rounds regarding expert opinion on schools reopening. The data is spotty at best due to the lack of consistent contact tracing and reporting. But from what has been gathered from schools in Texas, Georgia, and a handful of other states, we have been in-person instruction for months. Oh, sorry, who have had in-person instruction for months? And in the middle of surges, exponentially worse than what we've experienced here in the Bay Area, is that in-school transmission
018appears to be quite minimal. The rate of COVID positivity within the school matches that of the community at large, and most infections, if traced, were acquired from households. The biggest risk of COVID infection for a teacher appears to be from teacher to teacher or from a home personal exposure rather than from student to teacher. This is particularly true for the K through 6, less than 11 years old population in whom we know COVID is less likely to bind and infect. St. Carlos and the Bay Area at large have a wealth of resources under fingertips. Parents are engaged and willing to help make this work. We just need to understand what the ask is. What deficiencies can we help fill? How can we help teachers feel comfortable? I was raised in the California public school system
019my whole life. I intended to have my children do the same. But I am, for the first time in this pandemic, considering moving them to a private school. As you know, we are not alone. Many have left the public system already. We understand that pulls more resources away from an already cash-strapped system. And the haves will continue to be able to pivot, while those with less financial flexibility will struggle further. But families deserve transparency, a tangible action plan to move forward. Thank you for your time. Jennifer Chang, a parent of St. Carlos' second grader. Let me see what else we have for 6A. Sarah McDonald. My name is Sarah McDonald, and I'm a St. Carlos resident and a concerned parent of two 7-year-old children whose local public elementary school has not offered in-person instruction in
020any form for nearly a year. Now that our local COVID numbers have dropped to no more than 25 cases per 100,000 residents, our trained public health officials have advised that schools could reopen safely. But the St. Carlos school district has no concrete plan to reopen. The district superintendent and teachers union apparently are at an impasse over reopening conditions. And it seems unlikely that our children will return to school at all this school year. My children and all their fellow St. Carlos public school students continue to miss out on irreplaceable in-person learning opportunities that students of private schools in St. Carlos and public schools in neighboring cities are offering. St. Carlos private schools and several public schools in neighboring districts have been providing in-person instruction safely for months. This problem has caused families I know personally
021to leave the St. Carlos school district and in some cases to move out of St. Carlos altogether. The children in our district are suffering. As first graders in distance learning, each school day on Monday through Thursday, my children get only 15-minute small group sessions with their teacher, a 15-minute session in which their teacher reads the class of book, and a short morning roll call beginning of the day kickoff meeting. On Fridays, their teacher provides only a brief morning roll call kickoff meeting. Those are the only times they see their teacher. For the rest of the day, my children are on their own to complete worksheets and other assignments that for the most part their teacher does not see or review. In contrast, first graders in private schools and other nearby public schools are receiving in-person
022instruction from their teacher for several hours, either daily or several days each week, and when they're not in person, are receiving live online instruction from their teacher. Studies have already emerged documenting that children in distance learning are experiencing learning loss, and all St. Carlos public school children are missing in-person instruction, including urgent learners who are struggling academically with distance learning. Our homeless have learning disabilities or who speak English as a second language. At this point, it is simply too little, too late to offer an hour or two of in-person social and emotional activities to children, particularly our youngest and urgent learners. I implore you to do everything in your power to advocate for our children who have no voice in this matter, to reopen our schools, St. Carlos schools for in-person instruction on core subjects.
023Respectfully, Sarah McDonald. Jamie Bailey. Hello, Dr. Herrmeyer, board members and teachers. My name is Jamie Bailey, and I'm a parent of a second grader. I'm very appreciative of the work you're all doing, especially the teachers. I can't imagine teaching young kids over Zoom period, but for this long, wowzers, thank you for hanging in there with all of them and with us. The school district and the St. Carlos Teachers Association are currently in negotiations for reopening schools this year, and I pray they come to an agreement very soon. I now realize negotiations take along a lot of time, and as a result, there have been missed opportunities for teachers and students to be in the classroom together. Therefore, I'd like to ask the parties involved, please come up with an agreed upon matrix for what the
024next school year will look like. Going into negotiations each time in the tier changes or a milestone is met or missed, e.g. vaccines, is not feasible. I know not all teachers are in the same boat in terms of the comfort level of being in a classroom with students. Families also have different comfort levels. I'd like to see the district, at least for elementary age schools, figure out a way to pair teachers and parents with similar comfort levels. Other districts did this back in October, and teachers who wanted to teach online are doing so and paired with families who want to continue in distance learning. On the flip side, teachers who are comfortable being back in the classroom with students are doing that with families who are okay with their kids being back at school. Families
025and teachers should have this option. Do you need someone to write an algorithm to make the matches? Let's find them. Do you need someone to create a survey? Let's do it. It's going to take some creativity and some work, but I feel we can and will do this together as a community. Parents, teachers, and board members, let's work together for the most effective group in all of this mess, the kids. Thanks for your time, Beth, Jamie, Bailey. And, Neil, just to say there's like three more on 6A and then we do have a couple on 9A. So do you think we're good on time? We need to move on to 9A. We got about seven minutes left on it if we can. So let's move on to 9A and come back to the couple more
026in 6A after we get done. Okay, because we're kind of lumping them together here. Okay, well, I can read one that's here in the email and then, oh, okay, the other one that I can read as well. Okay, this is regarding the superintendent search. 9A. Dear San Carlos Board of Trustees, as you begin your search for a new superintendent for our school district, I hope that you will be talking to and asking for the opinions of our teachers and classified staff members. My wish is that teachers will get to have a seat at the table in the discussion surrounding what qualities we would like to see in our new district leadership. I would also like to address the current situations of the very disrespectful tone, words and actions against our teachers and union members. It
027is unfathomable that the president of our union is being shamed and slammed on Facebook and in publicly read letters. Dan Lanier is just one voice in our union, one voice that is speaking for a large majority of our union. Dan is gathering opinions, concerns, and information from all teachers and relaying that information to you, the board and the community. Dan may be the face of our union while reading our statement, but he is not speaking about himself only. He's speaking for us, the teachers of San Carlos as a majority, and attack on Dale Lanier's and attack on all teachers in San Carlos. I have heard community members ask what teachers need to feel safe. Most of the teachers, well, so this is obviously a combination of 6A and 9A. I have heard community members ask
028what teachers need to feel safe. Most of the teachers are feeling nervous about the return to school due to all the unknowns and the constantly changing information we receive and the constantly changing virus during a world pandemic. None of us has lived through this before. We want the community to know that we all care for your children like they are our own. We are working very hard to bring a well-rounded education to each and every one of the students attending the San Carlos schools. Instead of shaming us on social media and in letters to the board, it would be nice if that energy was used to pressure the county into making sure teachers can all get vaccinated quickly before return. To ask about how you can volunteer for positions in our schools to support the
029teachers, that would be incredibly overwhelmed with protocols that we have never had before when we do return to school. We're reaching out to teachers and just saying, thank you, we appreciate what you've been doing. Kindness goes a long way. I have read many letters from neighboring communities and schools where the school board members and superintendents have sent out compassionate, caring, and respectful messages to their teachers, letting them know that they are heard, cared for, respected, and appreciated. It saddens me that after almost a year of working, however, that most of us have ever had to work, after a year of creating an entirely new way of doing our jobs, after a year of creating a brand new curriculum that works online, our teachers are receiving threatening letters and ugly words of hate and disappointment. We
030are all disappointed that this past year didn't go as planned. We, the teachers of San Carlos, are doing the best that we can, are working very hard, and would like everyone to remember that we are people that have feelings. We have families and loved ones that we care about, too. We care about your children and want to get back to school safely. Please support us in our desire to come back to school and in-person learning in a safe and respectful manner. Sincerely and compassionately, Karen Kaur, SCTA Vice President. So it seems that I can read those persons. Okay. My name is Leah Urwig. I'm a lifelong resident of San Carlos. I've been teaching in San Carlos for over two decades. As our district is searching for a new superintendent and we're negotiating our MOU, it
031is disheartening that we find ourselves in the dark place. When the adults come back from the recent parent survey stating that 49.1% of San Carlos parents were comfortable sending their children back to school, while the county is in the purple tier, I was shocked. It was even more shocking when, as San Carlos families began forming groups on social media, using it as a platform to slander and disrespect the hardworking teachers in our schools. One of the posts was found to be so inappropriate that Facebook removed the post itself. Teachers are human beings working with honesty, professionalism, compassion, and grace under the pressure that COVID has brought all of us. We support children and ensure them on every day. We support students who are struggling on Zoom or distance learning every day. We support parents who
032are struggling every day. No matter how hard this has been for us, we will still remain supportive and professional every day. So when we're asked what we do need as teachers to feel safe and comfortable, it is simple. We need respect, patience, support from families that want us teaching in the classroom while COVID is constantly rising and changing. We need to know that 100% of all families can honestly say that they are not traveling, not attending multifamily gatherings, and are following all the safety measures necessary to protect everyone in our community during the pandemic. Overall, we just need your compassion. Lastly, thank you to all the wonderful supportive families out there that have always been on our side, treating us as humans and the professionals that we are and always have been. Thanks, Wendy. I'm
033going to stop it there just to hit our time. Also, we have Bill and Nicole, who have taken a lot of time out to be here tonight with us, and then we can come back to the beginning. So thank you for doing that while we're organizing. So I'm going to move us on to 9A. If everyone remembers from last week, just a little bit of background is we brought on McPherson and Jacobson, our two consultants here. Bill and Nicole are with us. And kind of the first stage is to, well, Bill will run it through us, but kind of the first stage is to help develop kind of the criteria in a public forum for us to talk about that we're looking for in our superintendent and kind of what the job entails. It's not
034going to be, obviously, I think wordsmiths a lot of it, but it's kind of give to help them give a guidance to go out and recruit candidates. And they can better understand our districts more outside of just paper, anything else. So, Bill, Nicole, I'll let you to take it away. And then we'll go from there. Bill, I think you're still muted, my friend. There we go. I have to do it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for having us here tonight. And this is our first board meeting out of three public meetings that we'll hold with you. And I think it was good, Nicole, for us to listen to the public a little bit and to hear some of the thoughts, concerns about the superintendent search and then also about the efforts to open up school
035again, which I'm sure everybody wants to do. Tonight is our first board meeting and we will set a calendar tonight. We'll go ahead and identify stakeholders that you wish for us to get to get input from. And most most of the time will be spent in working on a criteria. But before I start, I wanted to see if Nicole had a few opening comments and she'll be just chiming in on on all the things we do tonight. We just kind of work as a team in a casual way, I would say. So, Nicole, go ahead. Yeah, thank you, Bill. Again, good evening, Board of Trustees, community members, staff, just really excited to be a part of this journey with you as I shared in our last session. This is one of the most important decisions
036you'll make as a board. And so Bill and I are always honored to take you through the process in a very methodical way that we believe will lead you to finding the best what we call fit for your district. And so there's a lot of amazing people out there. But we want to really make sure that we can recruit and support the process so you get the best fit, make sure that your stakeholders have great input and there's a balance for what you're going to consider in the end when it's time to make that decision. So what Bill is going to walk you through tonight and I'll share you know the process as well. I just want to make sure you keep in mind that everything we do moving forward is going to really give
037you the best information to make the decision that is again for a board, the most important decision you'll make because this is your only employee. And so we're excited again. There's a lot to learn and just know that it may sometimes feel like you're drinking water from a fire hose as we call it. But remember we're here with you every step of the way in between. You can always reach out and we'll always you know of course share those documents with you as you have. But just you know kind of sit back and relax I call it because this is a journey for you and so don't feel rushed, don't feel nervous about it. But ultimately it is the toughest decision you'll make and I think I said this at our last session is that
038at the end you'll probably be really upset with Bill and I because we'll have multiple people that you'll have to select from and you're going to have a really hard decision to make. So everything moving forward is going to build up to that point so I'm really excited for you again thankful to be a part of this process with you to lock arms and so I'll give it back over to Bill so he can get you started and then we'll be here to answer any questions along the way. Because this is your process your search and so again really honored to share the space with you. So Bill take it away. All right. Thank you, Nicole. You know, Nicole, you have such a great perspective on this and the role of the board. It's a
039real pleasure to be doing these with you. Yeah. So, and, and I think the one thing I'd like to say before we go forward is and I know I've said this several times but we work for you. And while we have a lot of recommendations and a lot of ways we think are good ways of doing things. It's really important that you question us that you say, Okay, but what about this, and we're here to tailor it to your needs, and to give you the search that you want. So while we were very organized, you know, I kind of have that reputation, being a math science engineering type of guy. But I want to make sure to heed what Nicole was saying is, you know, sit back relax a little bit and realize we're not
040in a rush. We'll move you forward in a timely way you don't have to worry about that but if there's questions you have. If there's procedures you want to do in some other way, bring it up at any time. And that goes for in our meetings or away from our meetings and Nicole and I, our phone numbers Neil has our phone numbers we can will exchange phone numbers you can call us anytime so we're totally accessible to you. Yeah. Okay. All right, so the first thing we want to do is take you through the whole process and set a calendar for you. And some of these states can change in the future but right now we'd like to kind of tie them down, if you will. So I'll take you through this handout and maybe.
041Yeah, there we go. Wonderful. Okay. So we'll go ahead and take it from the top we're having our first board meeting tonight we can scroll up a little bit. And we're going to set the calendar tonight, we're going to identify the stakeholder contacts for input. We're going to identify the criteria and other. I want to say something about that and I'll say it again is that while we identify the criteria. One of the concerns always is that oh gosh the board setting the criteria what about the public what about all this input should they have a hand in it. And the answer is yes of course they should. We not only set a criteria but we publish what everybody. And we're and we oftentimes will modify the criteria as we go along but we're very
042criteria driven, and we need to advertise to get out there and say, here's what we're looking for so we kind of do the best of both worlds on the criteria we put something together right now that is from you and I think it's important to hear it from from the board, but then we also will modify it in our, at our meeting, after we have our stakeholder input. We'll be gathering the board member contact information, our point of contact I think has been identified as Veronica Rickson and and we're very pleased with that and she and I will be making contact and arrangements here in the coming days. And we'll also tonight to talk about advertising about media and dates we want to get out there you've gotten out there already which is great. We
043want to get out there with with the application and get get into the marketplace as soon as we can. Okay, let's go to the next stage then next week, we will go ahead and advertise, and what we propose is that we advertise. I'm gonna have to get rid of that. Okay, we won't be interrupted by my home phone again that we use the McPherson and Jacobson website, and that we also use Ed join. Now if you wish to advertise broader than that we certainly can there's costs about about it but we have found that this is plenty of advertising that in the market are going to access your opening through Ed Cal through Ed join, and many through the McPherson and Jacobson website. Okay, and we'll try to put that into play next week. So
044we have about a three week window for stakeholder input and individual group meetings and tonight. The next thing we do after this schedule is we're going to talk to you about who is it that you want us to, to talk with to interview. This will all be done online we found it to be very successful in doing that. And we, you know, we do it extensively we're known for spending many days and many hours that gathering this information. And we also will be reporting back to you at the second board meeting with a report about what our findings are Nicole Do you have anything to add on that stakeholder input you're a key player in that. Yeah, I know we're going to spend quite a bit of time on it so I don't want to
045belabor it now I know you're just doing a quick overview but I do want to speak to I know there were a couple of comments, even in public comment about you know we hope that the community will be a part of it and this is the one process that actually is one of my favorites in the search, but actually really what kind of sets us apart from any search firms is just allowing the community to really give, not only input to the board but also to those who are recruiting and I think that was so powerful to be able to say, this is what their community wants in a superintendent here's the great things they see about the community. And I think that is really critical so Bill I know we're going to the details
046of that but that is really what I want to share is this is a really powerful part of the search process that really is going to make a difference when you look at how do you weigh all the different decisions you're going to make at the end. Thank you, Nicole. Yeah, okay next phase here go up to the next page. Okay, and we just have a few listings of who you might have but we have a we've actually I've actually worked with Neil and Irene about a much longer list and we'll go over that in a few minutes in detail. Our second board meeting is typically at one of your regularly scheduled meetings. It takes about 45 minutes. And so I've put it on this schedule for March 11 that gives us a couple weeks
047to get the report together. We will be in the middle of the advertising phase will still have a couple weeks left of recruitment to go. We can certainly do it anytime you wish but we're recommending may or I'm sorry March 11 to go ahead and meet with you again to really talk mostly about the stakeholder input, interview questions, the interview procedures, and taking a looking, maybe in closed session spending some time on the compensation package and identifying stakeholder groups that you want to involve in the interviews. So that, that, that does that's not a lengthy process. It usually takes half hour to 45 minutes. We have this job closing March 22, and that that allows for about seven weeks I think of it being open. I think that's enough time that's right in that's right
048in the thick of the superintendent sweep sakes if you will they hope all the districts now are going into you're seeing districts starting to advertise now and you'll see a lot more come on in the next few weeks, so I usually say between six and eight weeks during the busy part of the season is a good period of time so it seems like that that's a good amount of time. Scroll up please. Then the third board meeting is this is a special board meeting. And it's a, it's a bit lengthy, because this is the board meeting where we have you review the candidates with us in closed session and select who it is you want to interview. Now we typically will have sent you an awful lot of information before that you notice there's quite
049a bit of time between the closing and when the special board meeting is and I've left a window of time there. Neil you and the board might want to discuss before we get off this topic is there a, is there a day of the week or a certain day that everybody's available between the seventh and the 12 so we can tie that day down and get it on the schedule tonight. It is a lengthy process it takes quite a bit of time especially if we view pre interview videos that we provide for for you for the candidates on what we call our short list of candidates who we are saying these people look like they're highly qualified for the position. We also that night, I will appoint the stakeholder panel. Remember we recommend to you
050that in the interviews that the interview that the candidates aren't interviewed only by the board but also by a stakeholder panel or panels. If you will, and the board needs to identify who the participants on that are on those panels are because they are a committee of the board and so it's required under the brown act that you actually take action to appoint them to that. And then we'll put together the interview schedule so you can see there's a lot to do that night we think that you should have a special board meeting, doing just that task that evening, because it can take it can take quite a bit of time. Okay, and then we have the 15th 16th and 17th set up for interviews. We can. That's good. That's a really good window that's
051going to be right, right in the thick of it with every all the other districts, it's not. It's right on time. If you ask me it's not late it's not early it's right in the middle so we think that that's a very good time, we could do it a week later if you needed to. Let me tell you what we do we put three dates aside. And typically we use the first two dates, and the third date is if you want to call back some finalists. Sometimes it's better to wait some time between the second date and the third date so in other words, we would suggest to you that you interview candidates on the 15th and the 16th. And if, if you need to, I'd say, call Nicole what do you think maybe a
052quarter of the time boards need to call back candidates to get a second look if you will and to deliberate. And what the boards really need to do is think about it, you know, over, over time you don't usually find too much out too much more in the interview itself it's good to have another conversation. But it could be that instead of doing that on a Saturday you may want to wait until Sunday or, or Monday, that's just an option so that's why we have three dates there and we'll want to tie those down tonight as well I think Nicole. You also mentioned that the 17th might be problematic for for you Saturday, Saturday is a tough day to get everybody together sometimes yeah it's hard to say yeah but I know we have quite
053a bit of time to make any adjustments. Yeah, I think typically the reason why we want to have something kind of tentative is because you do also want to make sure that the applicants and eventually candidates will be able to plan as well because some may require travel you know there's there's a lot that goes into it. So it's good to have a roundabout time but we do have some time to adjust for this so for some of you you're kind of like trying to figure out how my calendar works just you know don't stress about it too much right now it's just giving you a big picture of what this will look like. Yeah, that's true we do sometimes that changes but I want to say we do publish this, so it's not a
054big problem to change it but but after tonight, when we go ahead and advertise it. They do ask you when is when are you going to have the interviews and so we publish that put it in the brochure can we can change it. We've changed it before it's not a big problem but that's the that's kind of the scope. Finally, we'll go ahead and the real, you know the official selection happens at a regular board meeting you have to choose from I think either one's fine. The 22nd of April, which leaves you about, you know, about five days that's a very tight timeline to get a contract negotiated now sometimes the contract just flows and goes real fast. Usually it takes a little thought and some dialogue so it's probably more realistic that you'll take
055action on May 6. Okay, and then we have a start date for you, of, I think I left a window there of June through July because there was some feedback that I got that you may want to have some crossover time with your existing superintendent but probably the hard starting will be July one. What boards oftentimes do depending on the district that person is coming from is buy some time, you know, for that person to come into the district work with the outgoing administration and, and, you know, move from there. Okay, what feedback do we have from the board members that on this calendar. Thanks Bill thanks Nicole trustees I guess, Irene I'll let you go first but I just want to make sure we kind of narrow the topics first bill just talk about
056anything. You're just looking to see any feedback on terms of we think we can hit our timelines, anything we may want to change based off of what we think we need right that's kind of what you're looking for first. Yeah, and if we can, and if we can, to tie the dates down for the third board meeting. That would be helpful I think the, you know, you can stay flexible on those other dates after that the interviews, the, the selection of the superintendent I think you're going to want to leave yourself some options there. Sure, just real fast. I think on the next iteration of this especially after we hear from our other board members, but there's more important work that you all are doing that's not listed on here and it's good to just
057put that down for clarity so I'm in between. When the application deadline is, and the next like you're doing things like paper screening, doing background checks moving people like there's important work you're doing and then in between the interviews, and the kind of the announcement or the approval. There is that contract negotiation so just really useful for our community to see those things. We can add that to this. Yeah, thanks. Yep. But I'm very interested in what Carol Wendy and Sarah what what's on your minds. Bill did you what do you how do you want to run this do you want to take questions. And can you yeah, yeah, any, any questions will answer and then any discussion that you want to have amongst yourself about the dates, and but the main thing is you
058need to you need to walk away tonight, we need to walk down the states right. So just really quickly, if we're looking for that third board meeting, which will be, you know, concentrated three to four hours, I'm just wondering, we have a board meeting on April 8, it looks like so I was wondering, could we do this special meeting on like the 12th, because then it would be during a week where we don't have one or wouldn't be like, back, back. That's one suggestion. I'm sure I can make it work if others want to do it on the seventh or the eighth, and I just are sorry the seventh or the ninth, but well no, the ninth is a Friday. So that's my proposal is maybe we look at the 12th but then, you know,
059as far as those interviews being 1516 17. Does that present any challenge. Quick question real fast just to focus is and does anyone have any questions for Bill Nicole in regards to just the schedule right now, before we just pick the dates. Yes. Yeah, I do. Great. Thank you, Bill for for and Nicole for putting together the calendar is very thoughtful really appreciate it. So a question that I have, I think, you know, I think it's really important for us to build in time for second interviews, the 1516 17th having the first and second interviews all within that three day period. To me, just seems like it's a little bit rushed, and not enough time for us to really, you know, give thought, you know, I think what you know, contact the previous districts that
060our top candidates have worked for or is that something that happens prior to the interviews that will yes that will happen prior but I agree with you that some boards like to have them come right back. I prefer to have a little bit of time between them to be honest with you so I agree you know we may really want to question that 17th date in case you want to bring them back. You know why not wait until Monday evening you're only, you only usually bring back to candidates sometimes three. You don't bring everybody back you know. And so it doesn't take and the second interview is much shorter than the first you know it's just another look that you have. And, again, a big part of the purpose, you know, is so that you
061have some time to think about it and to maybe there is a question or two sometimes you know after the first interview you say, boy, what about this about that candy, can you build bill can you and Nicole go out and find out a little more about this thing that we heard, you know, and it does help us to have a little bit of time between them so some boards like it all together some people, sometimes if there is a second round I like to have it as much as a week apart, or a few days apart. Yeah, and just you know to add to that I appreciate the question Carol because another piece that we may want to also discuss and we've had this request from boards, even though it's a little bit different
062now because of what covert has done in terms of visitations but, you know, there is, there are times when boards say hey well we want to go visit that you know district of our of our finalists. And obviously that looks a little different now. We typically don't have that happen, but that can happen in a virtual space possibly. And so we do want to buy time for that too so there may be some you know thinking about how much space you want, if that's something you request, and if it is we want to clarify tonight, because we want to make sure that's also on the calendar as far as one of the details because that is a big piece to for us to coordinate if you do request that. Thank you, Nicole. Yeah. And you
063have time I, you know, being interviewing you're doing your view on the 15th and 16th is a real good time. And realistically may six is when you're probably going to take action. In fact, we may just say may six. And then that that leaves a good amount of time between the 16th and the sixth I mean we've got there three weeks so so we can structure some things in there so what I hear the board saying or at least a board member saying is, why don't we pick a call back date. The next week. And the visitation is a good point Nicole we it since coven we haven't been putting that on the calendar because it's it's very hard to do, but some we did Nicole and I had did have a board where they
064wanted to, they wanted to make some virtual contact with people. It was tough, it was difficult but we did it. And, you know, we can always arrange that during that time we don't have to schedule that. And make sure that it's clear to the candidates. Another thing that we want to keep in mind is some especially if you have like a sitting superintendent. There are times when they do not want to release you know publicly that they're going to be you know looking at this job until they are offered the position or considered a finalist even in itself. It does create some complexities, you know when we talk about you know how do we kind of move to that place of of doing visitation so you want to have it on the calendar so that
065it's clear to the candidates what they're expecting throughout this whole search as well. So, just another caveat to that so I hear also the same thing bill I hear like the fourth the 15th and the 16th which is two days, which typically you would need and there'll be too long full days because you have a lot to do in those. So basically the next week, which is the week of the way have you looked at the, the end of the week is the 22nd 23rd is what I hear, basically, when I look at the calendar. So is that could be as early as the, let's see the 17th it's a Saturday, it could be as early as the 19th. If it's a full week you're right if it's a full week it'd be the 22nd
066and 23rd. Which creates some complexities if you have finalists that you want to have come back if there's someone who's you know flown up you know sometimes that's why we do those callbacks around the same time. Yeah, early, early, early, early. Hey, can we talk about the process of how you go from the whole boat of like applications. So the last time we went through this process, you have all the applications. There was a way to get to a round of kind of like a short list or semi finalists the board actually had a meeting then. And then you went from the semi finalists to the finalists. I don't hear that language here so can you just walk us through. Yeah, I'll go ahead and I'll go ahead and do that with, and we can
067put that. We can augment this calendar with that we try not to give too much detail early on because it is kind of like, you know, taking information out of a fire hose here. So, let's go back to April 7, through the 12th. Okay, that's a critical meeting but a lot goes on before that meeting before the week before that meeting, we will go ahead and to, and we will give you the information on the candidates that we're you, you take a look at to interview not all of them are you going to do that, you know, but we will let's say we have 30 candidates Irene, then we will probably say okay if these 30 here's 10 that we think are well qualified to go ahead and take a look at we can give
068you everything if you if you wish that and some boards wish that, but we give you quite a bit of information on those 10. And then, and so you have a you have your own time to electronically read that to do your own sort of thinking about it and then you come into that meeting. And out of that 10 you select six or fewer to interview. Okay, so that's our, that is our process. And that's the procedure that we recommend to you. Now I want to say, excuse me, excuse me, Bill, that you that six or fewer that's who would be interviewed on the seventh note on the 15th and 16th. That's correct. That's correct. That's who would be interviewed on the 15th and 16. And as you see as we get into the interview
069process more we're going to try to integrate the social component this year with you I'm not not sure we'll be able to do it but we want to we want to try to get it back in. We think that we can do it, we'll talk to you more about that. But as Nicole said, when we do our full interview process which at this point we're saying we should we should attempt. It, it takes all day with two or three candidates, it takes all day with two it's very comprehensive. We do a written exercise that the candidates do a performance exercise, you have a social time with them. You have your stakeholders at least one panel sometimes two panels interview the candidates. So it's a very comprehensive and very thorough time of it on the 15th
070and 16. If you have, you have. Yeah, one thing if you have more than six candidates, and we'll know that, you know, early on, we would suggest that we have some kind of a screening interview with a subcommittee of the board. We haven't had that problem. But once we had that one time. So that's just that's just a caveat I want to throw in there that we that might happen after we meet with you on the week of the seven. Bill can you just also tell me, tell us about how the, the, the multiple interview panels work I'm not on that. Well, most of the time we have one panel of stakeholders that interview the candidates in the morning. And let's say we have three candidates, then we'll have a nine o'clock at 10 o'clock
071and 11 o'clock interview with with the candidates with the panel. We'll have and when they're not interviewing, they're having social time with you, or they're doing a written exercise. Okay, so there's a round robin of events and sequenced in the morning. The board isn't watching the interviews. The board is not watching the interviews, the board, then gets feedback from your facilitators who's usually us. About what the strengths and the concerns are that came out in that interview with the stakeholders. When you deliberate at the end of the day, you have to share the purpose before you share the mechanics of how it works. Yeah, so if I can share a little bit about the interview questions that you all put together. Remember, there's a process where you all select interview questions, not only that you
072will ask as a board, but also you give that input on what you believe the interview questions from your stakeholders would be. But also keep in mind that when we meet with the stakeholder interview group, they also may have some feedback on those questions as well. And so what we do is we facilitate that process with the interview, the stakeholder interview panel. And so remember, there's a schedule going at the same time. So you may have, there's all these different moving parts on these days. So you're not having your official interview with the candidates until it's your space. And so you will then have us meet with you. Okay, and you will actually receive a written report that actually shares the actual feedback from your stakeholder interview panels for the end, all candidates. And so
073you'll literally, as Bill said, it will say strengths and concerns because the point of the stakeholder group is not to rank who they think is the best person. Okay, it's really to give strengths and concerns and you use that as one of your numerous decision making tools when you make your final decision. Nicole, can I just ask you to pause for a second? I apologize. I might have missed something. I'm just confused who the interview panel is that you're talking about. Can you just walk us through this? Yeah, sure. Let me take a step back and give it in more broad terms. And maybe, can you pull the screen up because that may help if we go back to the calendar too. That might help to see the visual. 8-26 is what you're referring to.
074Yeah, a little bit right about there. Right about there. So you're going to actually identify your stakeholder group for the interview. See that bottom bullet on March 11th. So those are the folks who you're actually going to decide who's going to be on your interview panel for your stakeholders. Okay, let me ask this another way. Is the board on the same interview panel with the stakeholders? No, they're not. So when does the board interview the candidate then? In the afternoon. I knew that was your question. I just couldn't get into it. So in the morning, there's a round robin of interviews with the stakeholder panels with the candidates. And then in the afternoon, the board has its interviews with the candidate. So the candidate goes through two sets of interviews. And then in the decision-making
075time in the evening, then the board comes back and hears what the outcome is of the panels, what was heard from the panels. We think it's important to keep these separate venues because we want you to see the candidate or we want you to know about the candidate, both for consistency and for lens, for the lens of the stakeholders. And so it's very important for the stakeholders to have somewhat their own venue, if you will, to be able to ask questions and to talk about the candidate separate from the board. Bill, I'm sorry. Can I interrupt? Sorry. We do need to step back here because we've been through this process before, and this is a new element. Right. Before we get into the mechanics, we need to kind of talk about what is the benefit?
076Why do this? And it's important to reiterate basic principles that we know that the decision rests with the board. It's the board that's making the decision. We're not relinquishing that responsibility. We embrace it. I think what Neil and I heard from you in your experience is one more way of getting input, and it's purely input, is to do something like this. And that if you're in a situation of strengthening trust, which was my perspective, that this could be a tool of valuable. But it's important for all five members to really understand that. Thank you. Just like we were. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I mean, and I have to remind myself that I talked to two board members in depth about it and not all five are up to the same level of this yet.
077I think you're absolutely right that one of the tenets of our searches that does set us apart from others is that we believe that the board really needs multiple sets of information coming in from them. Traditionally, the board many times traditionally the board has a bit of a close cloistered approach to selecting a superintendent. The board does everything. The board interviews, the board paper screens, the board, you know, and what and we have found and I think CSBA one of the reasons they picked us is that it's more useful for a board to be able to take input from multiple sources to make their decision. Now we are very clear with the stakeholders and with everybody throughout the whole process that nobody prioritize who the candidates are are in terms of, you know, their, their
078ranking or whether they should be selected or not, other than the board. So when we work with stakeholders, we make it very clear to stakeholders. We want your input. We find it very valuable to see how do you see these candidates? How do you see the different aspects of the candidate? But you tell us what you see the strengths of each candidate are and what concerns you have about each candidate. It's the board's job to make the match between what's needed in the district and the candidates attributes. And so that's why we separate these two. It's one of the reasons why we separate the two. We separate the stakeholders. They have one role and the board has another role. And we like to say that, you know, we have, we actually have five methods of
079bringing information to you when you make your decision. Your own interviews, a big one. Okay. The social component is another one. How a person performs, whether it is a scenario situation or a real presentation that they make to you during the day. And then your stakeholders are another one. And then all the vetting that we do, all the reference checking thing we do. So by the time we get you together to make a decision on who you're going to select, you're getting input from multiple lenses, from multiple sources. And what we have found is that, you know, your stakeholders really appreciate this. It gets the superintendent off to a good start because stakeholders know they had a meaningful role in this process. It's very helpful for a board because they can stand behind who they
080selected for multiple reasons. And you will know the candidate much better than if you had used a traditional process. So I hope that is helpful about why, about our process and why it is different than what you did before or what other agencies do. So will the board receive the feedback from the stakeholder interviews prior to the board interviewing? No, we do that on purpose because we don't want to bias you in your interview with the candidate. You get that information before you deliberate, before you deliberate. And then if you, sometimes what will happen is you get all of that and it might be at odds with what you heard. OK, so then you have to resolve it. And you might resolve it together by understanding it more and by taking the other parts of
081the information that's been given to you. Or it may be if you're, you know, really looking at the candidate and you want to know more, that may be a reason why you bring the candidate back. Yeah, that's that's that aspect. I, you know, I'm I have some hesitation with just because of exactly what you said. If the board hears one thing in in our set of interviews and the stakeholders are hearing another thing, the board really doesn't have the information it needs fully to understand where that disconnect is. I I really love the stakeholder interviews and I think that's a great going to be a great part of this process. So hands down, I think, you know, that I'm committed to it. What I what I wonder before you jump in is if is it
082possible for the board to be in listen only mode for the stakeholder interviews so that the stakeholders have the full reign of the questions and their interviews. But the board gets to observe the candidates, how they're interacting with our stakeholders and that that could then inform, you know, bridge that disconnect. I really I'm not a fan of siloing information. Yeah, I don't want to interrupt here, but I do want to because I think Carol's point is good. But I also think just to make sure this is not something we're not tonight. We don't need to set the interview process. And I believe it's kind of just part of our discussions that we had Bill and correct me if I'm wrong is also for us is kind of outline what it is. But also the fact
083that we're still going to be working on it between now and the 11th to kind of tweak it suggestions work together for those things. You can have that direct contact to do it, which I think is good. I just want to make sure I think we can probably I just think we'll be going on for a long time with it. I just want to make sure the first part with all those things in mind. I think the first question is, do we have the right time frame and calendar? Right. And it sounds like the first part of it is given the kind of the board's general I think experience or what it is. We should probably add another week maybe for that for another additional callback interview or visit. So we should probably set it
084at the sixth date would be our selection date and the seventh through that week of the 22nd, whatever that is. Right. Is that kind of that's kind of is that what I'm hearing from everyone is that we want to have that scheduled and first just in the first process. Right. Irene. Yes. Yes. Wendy. Sarah. Would you like to go on it. Let in. Yeah, make sense. Can I just wait and also on the the target start date I think it is it is really I mean I don't know. I think the board would probably hope that you there's at least a month overlap with between the the ending date of Dr. Harmeier and the start date because that's what will make for a smooth transition. So, you know, I think I'd be interested to hear
085from the other trustees, but that would be a high priority for me to because particularly with the conditions that we're operating under right now. That person really healthy overlap because of the complexity of the situation. Can you restate please before Carol said that what you were proposing. Oh, sorry, Wendy. It's just mainly what it is is the first question we need to add to just is the first question that's in front of us to just how to lock this calendar. So, right now, Bill and Nicole proposed the seven through the sorry, the week of the 1516 to do interviews, and that would include potentially a callback interview or a second interview by the board. Kind of Carol's kind of based off her experience and I would have a tendency to agree as well is if
086what we would do is then add that next week after. Not just lock ourselves into the 1516 but say that hey maybe that next week we can come back for a second interviews with people as well in case we want to do follow up in between as either call references on our own as a board do a site visit. Right. So a third day is what, like, instead of having it like on the 17th like maybe move it to the following me. Correct. Okay. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I'm curious the 15th and 16th or weekdays. And I'm just, or is, does everything happen in one day, like, would it be the 15th or the 16th or the 17th or some interviews, each day's I'm just curious, I'm just concerned about stakeholder availability on the weekdays particularly
087because I imagine we'd want, you know, some of our, our staff to be represented on the stakeholder panels. Yeah, our experience has been that it's important. And so, people make time for it and the district releases staff to do it. And it works, I think actually weekdays work a little bit better for staff and weekends. Yeah, if there are other of us that work. Yeah, they're on the panel that might not be able to be released by the district. And I just want to be inclusive around that and you know yeah and and you know it's. So, when that happens, Carol sometimes boards will want to do it on a Friday and start Saturday instead of a Thursday and Friday, where I've even had one board that that was very important people couldn't get off
088time from work and so they did it Saturday and Sunday that's your call. That's totally your call if you want us. Two days, two days or is it one day. It's two days we as as we've said we think that it could be one day but it will more likely be two days because if you have four candidates that you're interviewing and I think you'll have at least four. We don't do more than two or three candidates a day. So, with the full process that we do so yes it would be if you had four candidates we do two a day. So we reserve 1516. Maybe we'll put a hold on some weekend dates as well in there. This preferable for me honestly I mean, that's, I think just kind of given the sense let's
089just put a hold on them for those week for our calendars. We don't need to make those decisions tonight I know Nicole has some, we're going to bump into some conflicts along the way but let's just put some holds on our calendars for those weeks, weekends included, and then we'll just do our best of what we can to schedule then I think that's kind of the best we can do now. That's fine. Yeah, that's fine we just hold hold that time but I also will put a date the next week for, and we'll just call it, you know, visitation and or callbacks. And we don't need to tie that date down yet we'll just put a window of time the next week. I do want to tie the date down just so that we all
090the all the five board members right now say the 19th or the 20th. It's up to you if you're ready I'm certainly willing. My suggestion is just in our experience that it's, it's a little premature to set an actual date because there are different moving parts between now and then I mean we see it every time so I know Carol. I'm like you like you know we're all really busy and there are days that are just do not work. But I know that this is one of those where you at least kind of have an idea now and then once we narrow it down. There's never a good day. I'm beyond is there's never a good day so this is one of those things where you just kind of know this is going to be
091the time we make that sacrifice and the stakeholders have to understand the same thing. There's never a good day to do anything. So you have to just kind of accept that and that's why we like that range list let's just plan the range now and then you can decide a little bit later in your next board meetings you can revisit it and amend this calendar is not a problem. So I wouldn't stress too much about it now I really would. I wanted to mention that Neil's absolutely right. Much of what we've been talking about we're going to talk in a lot of detail at the next board meeting about the processes and procedures and then we can, you know, Carol you brought up about how do we get information out of the stakeholder group can
092we watch it can we be a part of it can we get reports early, we can talk all about that at the next meeting and we'll tailor it the way that you find it most useful. The only date we need right now, Bill, if I'm understanding you and Nicole correctly is you need a hard date right now for us to decide on that third board of education meeting. I think that I think we really need that date tied down because if we don't do that now, it'll be problematic later. Okay, trustees that week of April 7 to the 12. It's going to take three to four hours. We have a regular, I would suggest that we not start too late. If we could start at six o'clock that probably be a good thing. Can we
093do I mean are we able, I guess the other option is traditionally done it. We haven't necessarily in the past traditionally held up we can do this in the afternoon. But if that's a possibility, we can start earlier maybe for 430. Those are on people's schedules as well. So, Wendy, how's your schedule with that week. We'll start with you. You're on top of my screen. Well, I had suggested, whether or not we want, we have a board meeting on the eight. Is that right. We do. I had suggested possibly doing it on the 12. Because then it gives us some space. How's the 12 let's just start with you at the 12th. How about how's the 12th look for everybody. Carol, you're next on my screen, Carol. I'm looking at my calendar to see hold
094on a second. The 12th, the 12th works out anytime after five. Irene, you're next. April 12, right. I'm free at five. Yep. Yes, free. Sarah. That looks good. I'm the only question I have for Bill and Nicole is if if we don't make a decision until the evening of the 12th about who we want to interview. The 15th and the 16th. Is that enough time for those candidates, they'll be. That'll be fine. Yeah. Right. So we'll do April 12 5pm. Everyone good. Good. Very good. All right, we will enhance this and send it to you. I'll put a few more things on it as you suggested about the work of the board and some details. Yep. Yep. Sounds good. We don't want to overwhelm you at the beginning. And we'll talk a lot more about
095the interview process. And again, we'll make it work for what the board wishes to do and how you wish to get input. And we'll give you our experience about why we suggest things that that we do. Okay. All right. Now we need to go on to I want to kneel if I can confirm the media outlets if everybody let's go to the first thing on this list. Scroll back to the first page, we can just so you can see it again up there. Perfect. Right there. There we advertise move it move it down a little bit. There we go. There we go. So is this okay with the board to board feel like this is adequate advertising at posting it four times. And and I want to mention that it might it might end up
096three times. I think it will be four times there. There they have a lot of publications that come out in the spring because of job openings. So we would go week to week probably for four weeks in a row or we might if we can skip a week and get in there. But our home office will set this all up. We usually do 30 days online right away. And then also the our website and adjoin is an automatic for these. So is there any is is this adequate for you or is there something more that you want to do. One quick question just because I don't have the knowledge is what would be another option. Right. So these are the two that I'm mainly aware of and I'm fully informed that most people use. But
097if we were to add additional what would it be. There's a couple of other options. There are national publications that we could advertise in Ed week. What is it, Nicole and a SP, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. DC. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Locally there is I think there's still a publication with the Latino administrators group. Isn't that right. And I don't know about the African-American. Yeah. And I'm not sure of that. Yeah. I'm not sure if they have a particular with their particular rates are in comparison to these. But did to be honest these are the kind of top three where people look for jobs. I think it's more than enough. So I think that's a good question. And I think it's really important for Bill and I also are part of this list. Right.
098Like we actually do a lot of the outreach and recruiting through our network. So I think that in itself just creates a different you know, you have plenty of advertising. So but it's really up to you Neil. You all know of more if you think of more we can always you know explore that. I think it's really important for people to send out a brochure and a position advertisement to every contact that that they've ever had. Every candidate who's ever applied will get one. So that's in California. I think that that's somewhere up around five hundred candidates. So go ahead. Carol. Do we do we include the start date on the job description. We do. OK. So have we agreed on what that is. Does the board need to agree on that tonight then. That's
099awful. Yeah I can leave a window or I can have a hard date. It sounds like there was a suggestion that it be June 1st. The only thing I would I guess I would put it in the language I would try to use for it is a preferred start date first. The only reason I mentioned some candidates will come in under contract other districts until July 1st. So I don't want it to be a sticking point if I mean I'd like it to be a negotiation with their. That's good. But it's good to share a window though I think is just so people know like a roundabout. Do you want them to come and then you do negotiate and get all that taken care of. So yeah yeah but I agree. Trustees Sarah Wendy you
100haven't been through it before but usually what we're talking about is a lot of the other people have a contract till July 1st. So in the past what has happened or what proposed sometimes is that they will will buy weeks from their contract in order to get them to start early. But it's got to be negotiated. That's something we want to do. So we just want to make sure you two as well are comfortable with it and understand what we're talking about. Yeah yeah yeah in reality if you hire a sitting superintendent it will be very difficult to get them early. You'll get you might be able to buy some days if you have an assistant superintendent to be much easier. So you know it all depends what what the situation is. Yeah let's try
101it. And then I think that's where everyone to try for it and then we'll put it preferred. Right. Okay. Anything anything else on the schedule or on the advertising. Are there any other hard dates you need from us why we all have. I think we're good. I think we're real good. Yeah. Right. The board meeting we're going to go on April 12th at five o'clock. That's the that was the most important date to get. All right. Okay let's let's talk about before we get into the criteria about who it is that you really want us to talk to in the stakeholder input. Now remember in the stakeholder input we go ahead and we give everybody time to answer four consistent questions and we also have a survey that we put out so people can't make
102one of our meetings. They can answer the survey. We put that on your website. We ask that the district advertise that there is a survey out there. The four questions are what are what are some good things about your community. Tell us some good things about the school district. We use those to recruit. The next one is what are the issues that the next superintendent should be aware of as they come to take this job. We really do that one to make sure that we match a superintendent skills with the needs of the school district. And then the final ones the traditional one. What are you looking for. What are the skills attributes and characteristics you want to have in a superintendent. And obviously that broad question is is also to see that we hear
103what your stakeholders what your constituents need in a superintendent what type of person are they looking for. So we ask those questions are interviews are either group or individuals or forums. We do all all three of those at different times. So I would suggest I know we've talked it over a little bit with the leadership of your board that you do some of each. You know you have a very active community and you have people that want to give input and we have a broad window of time to be able to gather information. We did that on purpose with you. We have three weeks there where we'll be doing zoom meetings and we'll do many of them. Nicole did you want to add anything in on the process of taking stakeholder input for the board
104before we start listening to them about who they want us to make contact with. I think you've covered the majority of them. You know I mentioned about you know this is the best part that I enjoy because you get to you know kind of going back to I know Carol had a question about the stakeholder interview process right towards the end. But this piece also gives a good sense of what your stakeholders want to see in a superintendent. And I think this also gives you a really good sense about you know things that the board actually you may learn as well about what the community believes and feels about this. So I think you know the critical piece is that we do have to identify what that those stakeholders may be that you want to
105interview. And keep in mind there are a variety of folks you do want to consider I mean we've literally done individuals with like mayors before city council I mean there's all these different people who play a role in the community. So I don't want you to feel limited to who that is. But you do want to keep in mind there are specific ones that you really want to hear from who will contribute to this stakeholder input report. So when it's all said and done we take all of these all of the feedback including the online survey which are the same exact questions as Bill said and then you will get to see the report yourselves and get to see what the community is shared. And then also that will be shared again with the candidates
106are the potential applicants. And so it's a pretty lengthy report in the end because we don't change anything except for you know maybe some inappropriate languages about it but we really let it to be a candid report for you. So really now the critical part is just identifying as Bill said who is it that you really want to make sure we invite. And then of course you know we'll talk about how you may want to advertise and get the word out there that these are even going to be available. But those questions are really critical to stand really focused on those and then what happens is they're pretty broad where you'll get to get a lot of information that may be based on current needs but also just kind of bigger picture around some historical
107views of the community. So that's really it Bill that I'll add to that. Thank you. Start to identify. Neil would you like me to Neil and Irene Do you would you like me to go over the list that we worked on so that we have a starting point. Yeah, that'd be great. Alright, so this is what came up in our work that we did before this meeting I think was on Monday. The foundation, we should put an invitation out to the foundation members or their executive board. The PTA has an executive board so we ought to have a group meeting for the executive board of the PTA. There is a DLAC committee for second language students parents that we should do. There's a, I'm going to get the name of this wrong I was reading
108about it and I forgot it's healthy cities, help me out on this one what healthy cities something or other right. Tutoring. Tutoring. That's right tutoring all right healthy cities tutoring. We should put an invitation out for the participants or the leadership of that to be come involved. The Sequoia Ed foundation. That's a public health foundation that supports that school district we should invite them to get their input. Now this one we may get more information on general meeting for many service clubs and we could use some information on what service clubs are out there, but especially with the rotary, because they seem to have a quite a bit of interest in the school district. There's a group that I love this one that puts on the chickens ball I'm planning on attending the next time
109you have a chickens ball. But that's a very active fundraising group and we should include them in district. So that was outside of the district groups. We also would recommend that you have a meeting of city government leaders. Anybody on the city council, the mayor and fire police leaders come in. Sometimes boards are comfortable and having past board members come in and give them give sort of their perspective that's up to you on that one. Now for inside the district, it's a little more traditional but your, your representatives of the board said make sure you have one with principles that's a group we typically do have one with principles. I don't know if you have vice principles but we include them with that usually. We have a separate meeting for cabinet, so the cabinet can
110come in and chat about it. We usually have a separate meeting for union leadership and it was thought that both both entities could meet together. We have a, we have open meetings wider broad meetings with teachers with classified employees, and it was suggested we do that by site. So, so I think that's great we've done it that way before so we would have probably eight, I think we'd have eight meetings by site with anybody wanted to come and talk to us and give us an input. And then the school secretaries that that came up as a group, and we've done that before too is that they you know they have a great perspective on the needs of schools and employees. So that's what we've come up with so far. Bill. One that just dawned on
111is also when you think about the outside of the district was because they're a feeder district to high school districts possibly the superintendents that they collaborate with. Also as another one to consider high school contacts, high school superintendents, yeah, cool superintendent. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's a quite you, you are a feeder to Sequoia is that correct. And Carlman and Carlman. It's one, one high school district. It's a Sequoia Union high school district. There, their superintendent I believe is there and also interim. Yep. Yeah, similar. Right. Got the other ones worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yep. Yep. Thank you. On that line. You mentioned, you know, city government, but there is a two plus two committee. So I'm wondering if we should have representatives from that two plus two committee. Yeah. Those two.
112Yeah, that I think that's covered by the city council. Yeah, that there's two specific individuals. But I also see on your, on the sheet that you shared with us, the stable and group meetings that you had listed students here, but we haven't mentioned like a student group. Yeah, maybe it's the ASB at the middle school. And if there are student leaders, and I believe there are in the fourth and fifth grade, you know, there's a representative group there too, because we have a separate four or five campus. So, you know, seeing how you can combine some of those groups would be helpful. Okay. Right. It's important. Would it be, would it work if we ask the middle schools and the four or five schools to invite their ASB leaders, they can, and they can choose
113how many they want to, to a meeting for students. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. That's what we'll do. I don't believe there is any representation at the lower elementary is that correct. And it may be a little, a little young. I think. Yeah, they're organized. I mean, yeah, they have those sort of elected representatives so that would work. Yeah, my grandchildren would love to do it and they're in that age category. I just, I just want to, you know, put something in your minds about your students to ASB and leaders lead student leaders are always amazing but just remember everyone is not in that position who can give a diverse perspective and you know we talk about historically who's in those positions. Sometimes there are kids who aren't represented. Unfortunately, that's kind of a
114system issue across the education field so you may want to think about your principles you know asking your principles who might be those key leaders right who may not show up in ASB, but who absolutely would give some great insight on who should be the next leader you know of their school districts I think just keep that in mind. Yeah, Nicole I think that's a great point we you know what we might want you to do is to say to principles your leaders and unnamed leaders. Yeah, yeah. So people they see is have great leadership potential but may not be in that role right now. Okay. Did you already say that PTAC or PTA coordinating council. Okay. Yes. And, and then the other is, there are some groups that, you know, such as safe routes
115to school, you know that are active so I'll try to is that a district committee that safe routes to school. It's, I mean it's not a, it's not a committee of the board but it's a active group. Okay, the boards that it's very closely tied into the district. All right. A couple more thoughts for you. We have, we've got the charter learning center so just some maybe the executive director some governing board members from charter. Thank you. And then we've got some key partners on our enterprise. Folks who run the after school programs like bomb on after school ace. So, and that would give incoming candidates a good sense of the full range of their responsibilities. Yeah. Good. Okay. Anything else. All right, good, good. Can I just ask Irene would like smarty, and the
116preschool leadership, because they're employed by the district. They're already sort of considered in the staff that would be invited. Okay, let's, let's just make sure that they're listed. Yes, important to our smarty is our after school provided by the district and then obviously we have our preschool program. So those are partners. So, thanks. Sarah, did you. The only thing that is crossing my mind is whether, are there other parent groups besides p tech or do you tend to do you ever do sort of a wider broader, you know, parents, you know, whoever wants to. Yeah, I would, I would suggest we do that is that we have at least one open forum for parents just to come, and that the district advertise that and maybe to go into think Nicole. Yeah, I think you know
117honestly with any of the groups you have your specific leaders that you want to talk to which I think it is important to have like an individual, you know, small group meeting because it's very specific. But the reality is that you do want to make sure this is inclusive process so you want to open it up you know the open community open parent. Obviously the student one you know we kind of talked a little bit about that but just making sure it's inclusive I just want to say that because individual conversations are gonna be helpful and more targeted but your opens are going to be important. Yeah, I think we have several yeah I'm looking at. Yeah. Yeah, you have quite a number do you have quite a list already I mean we do these
118a lot, and you have a lot of input here. They do. Yeah, good, and there may be more that come up but I think we'll just bill and I can put our heads together on what might be the most strategic way to pull them together. And we may need to follow up with some of you on you know like who's who because there may be some that can come together versus like trying to do a bunch of individual meetings, because it is like hurting cats I do want to say that like I love the But it is hurting cats, especially when you get to like city leadership because they're super busy and so anyhow, but you have a great list so far any anyone else that we may be missing. And I do want to
119emphasize that this is a lot of work for the district too. So I mean, you know, as much will do whatever you need us to do but realistically we don't know these people we don't have their contacts and so you know Veronica will show have to help us with it and probably find some other staff to work on this and help put it together. We can do our own zooms if need be, usually, usually districts do the zooms but we'll work that out with your point of contact and see how we're going to do it. Yeah. Yeah, also what you're I think you're gonna find that there's a lot of overlap amongst a lot of that may help you narrow down. Yeah, I'm Irene and I are happy to work with you as well as
120you kind of go through and make sure. Cool. And you know if you hear of anybody who says oh you know they're having these means they didn't didn't ask me let us know, because oftentimes Nicole and I will just call a particular individual and then you know put them into the mix, you know, that will put them in with the group that they're most appropriate with it's been. It's not it's not at all unusual fact it's usual for us to reach out to a few people that feel like they've been overlooked, and we don't want anybody to feel that way. Yeah, but on the reverse bill I do want to say this because it is like hurting cats and we do know it's a lot that falls on the district staff to work with us
121if there are people who just no date works for them then we say you know what the online survey is available. And please please please give input and we actually asked the folks who show up to the actual meetings is hey there's a lot of people still not here please share the link, remind them that we want as much feedback, because the online survey ask the exact same questions in multiple languages so just keep that in mind as well so that we're not feeling like we have to include the entire world we want to but there is a process and it takes a lot of time to pull people together. Yeah. Nicole, could you just add measure and leadership we just had great community support to our tax and we want to reach out to
122them. Good one measure and you have an oversight committee in the process of being informed. Okay, well we'll, we'll just do measured him like mom. And isn't Neil in like Neil, and as an ego. Okay, are we ready for criteria. All right. All right. So, um, I sent out some examples of criteria and how I usually do this is I start with each board member on a broad sort of state set of set of thoughts. And you can see in all of those that there's most of them are five paragraph essays is what they turn out to be. And each, each paragraph. Yeah, here we go. Each, each one has some bold descriptors right at the beginning that are kind of the theme for that And that's what I want to start with, with the
123board, and, and both Nicole, Nicole especially if you could take notes and help me out with this. Yeah, if you can pull together what everybody is kind of saying what they see as the big broad categories, then I'll try to get the board to go ahead and winnow down to about, if we can, four or five if six if necessary broad categories. Then once we do that, we're going to want to take notes on each one of those from all board members all at one time. We obviously can't wordsmith it here online. So what we will do is Nicole and I then we'll take all that input and put together a draft for you to take a look at will send get that out to you pretty quickly because we use this in the application
124process so we'll have that draft out to you by early next week. And get your feedback on it. And then we'll once we get your feedback will integrate that in will use that for the application process, but we'll revisit this in our next meeting, along with the stakeholder input and come up with a final criteria in that second in that second meeting that we're going to use when we do all of our work with our, our, our groups, with our interviews and with our decision making that clear enough to folks that makes sense. A little just want to make sure I'm cleared so I you know we've gone, we've all looked at the example so you're kind of looking right now for us to give you about five or six of kind of on the
125examples you gave us the bold sections at the beginning right like That's right. That's what I'm looking for. In fact, I'm going to get you I'm going to give you a little bit of time to do some pre thinking and some writing right now. I what I would like you to do is to write down five or six, if you have to have seven that's fine. Of these, these bold state bold kind of areas that don't they don't have to be these. Okay, these are ones that seem to repeat themselves with with boards I sent another thing out later I don't think the board has seen it yet. That had about a dozen other districts but I found that it's it's awfully lengthy and just selecting a few is good. So take, if you would
126take the next go five minutes or so, and actually write down if you had somebody to write a five paragraph essay about what the criteria is for your superintendent, what would be the five themes that you'd want in that essay. Bill my turning this in or is it just for myself. Yeah, you're going to get graded on it. Nicole was an English teacher right. I was not but as long as I can read it. No, I'm kidding. You actually verbally just report out so you're good. That's going to verbally report. You're not, it won't be published. I feel like you all need some music right now. Yeah. Let me see what I can find for you some think music. Call you like this I got it. I bought a brand new printer for this job.
127Well San Carlos to feel really special. I think there was a moment I brought a new printer for one of our clients to because it was made a difference. As we're presenting I know there's a lot of community members and staff and folks who parents who are watching as the board is kind of pondering the criteria I always like to say the community. You know as you're watching and thinking if you're still on and really, you know, this is an important decision obviously that you, you feel is practice the same thing is what is it you want to look for a new superintendent and we always encourage you to be prepared to provide your, you know, feedback as we begin to get your input on this process. So this is always a good one for
128the community just to think about, you know, what is it that we want in our new superintendent. Yeah, this, this really is the last question that we ask everybody, we ask everybody where the skills attributes and characteristics that you desire. You might notice on some of these, they had requirements to and at the end, we will talk about require sometimes there's a board wants to have requirements for the superintendent that's a different thing than criteria. The more requirements you have the fewer candidates you have. Looks like Neil is like can see some of you and not all of you looks like some, some people are finished with their exercise and some still working on it. Are we doing we about ready. Yep. I see Wendy saying yes Sarah you're ready. Yep, Neil. Okay. All right,
129I'll, I'll go ahead and start with the president's board Neil but what are the, what are the main criteria you're looking for with a big big ticket items, big, big organized themes, if you will. So I will obviously, you know, can never make a decision so I will put the combined a couple of them here so I think is kind of like the language has been visionary and innovative leader who I guess I'd put it more as a visionary and innovative experienced educator, someone you know San Carlos has always been a district in town that doesn't necessarily believe we have to do it like everyone else, but we can do it, you know, differently and still succeed. And I think that kind of innovation and innovator attitude throughout the district starting with, you know, education
130through our enterprise programs is definitely kind of the one of the criteria is I believe we need a big one as well as a community leader. And I think that is that, you know, San Carlos has the ability you can be kind of the second city manager and being part of your community. It's an expectation I believe of the town and the district that you're out going to events, making sure you're part of a community understanding that that way. Another big one is a collaborative communicator. you are working with others, as well as getting feedback on your ideas and working toward kind of a common goal so that's a very very important one for me. I also call it the, I like the operational manager, but I think I call it like the jack of
131all trades is the better way I put it. It's a great opportunity sometimes I mean some people may look at it differently but I look at it as a great opportunity for you to be able to do have your hands and just about a little bit of everything in education from, you know, long term planning facilities how facilities works with your long term planning of innovative education and delivering education, as well as, you know, having we have preschools that integrate into our education from that early age as well so that's kind of a big one for me And I think the last one is just having a elementary district experience is kind of a big background for me it's very, it's a very different field and unified districts with very different background and I think
132you need to come in, kind of understanding what I call it I didn't know how to have a good word for it was the smallness of San Carlos, you get to know everything and everyone. So you have to be prepared for that and when you come from sometimes, you know, different districts can have different attitudes and we have, we're very unique, so that's kind of what I'm trying to get at. Wonderful. Thank you. Nicole, you want to give them a grade. I'm going to be fair and let everyone else go first and then I'm kidding. Always better in the current. Well, Neil, I was going to hold against you because I think when I was doing my research about you all was thinking about I think Washington if I saw correctly was one of your
133favorites and remember I was, I was an Oregon State beaver so I said I think I'm gonna hold that against Neil until I get to bias when we were looking through your application so I Thank goodness I went to the, I went to the University of Virginia that's far enough away. All right, who would like to go next. I nominate Sarah or Wendy. That's fine. Okay, Sarah, go ahead. Okay, so many of mine overlap overlap with meals, but I would like someone who is a strong collaborator and has that collaborative mindset. Someone who's centered on relationship building, both within the district, and also our broader community. An effective communicator is is a big one. Someone who's a strong operational and fiscal manager and someone who is committed to equity and inclusion and willing to lead
134in that area. A plus. Right. All right. A plus. Absolutely. Good stuff. Perfect. Relate relational was one that you had right. Relation to building. Yeah, focus building. Yeah. Good. Good. Okay, I'll jump in. I have lots of plus ones to what they said just using slightly different vocabulary but I said, also effective collaborator and coalition builder, so both inside and outside the district. And I said an innovator and risk taker, so willing to think out of the box, kind of Neil was alluding to that. A data driven decision maker. You know someone who's decisive who, but, but I think the data piece is something that we as a district like to try and hold ourselves accountable to. So that's important. Holds equity is a key value and principle. So, that would be, you know, being
135a visionary, someone who can clearly articulate goals, and what they want to accomplish. They have to be able to also communicate that effectively be an effective communicator but I just wanted to add that that being able to articulate goals. And then, as far as, yeah, I mean this has already been said but, you know, being a visionary you can think of the 30,000 foot level and are clearly but also is very knowledgeable of managing a district, as far as all the nuts and bolts, so they have to be as well. Yeah. And I think that's it. Great. Very good. Very good. Very helpful. There's a lot of crossover amongst all of you that's nice. We're hanging out with each other a lot of things. Yeah. I have a lot of similarities on my list as
136well. No particular order. Also strong operational leader especially in fiscal management and budget development really be able to understand the fiscal challenges facing a district since that's whose finances are structured like ours. Somebody who's a strategic thinker and innovative, a creative educator and manager that kind of understands these types of challenges and can think outside the box to find innovative solutions through collaboration. I'm looking for an engaging leader, I want someone who is going to engage authentically with our stakeholders. I want somebody who can demonstrate active listening and reflecting and can build trust with and between stakeholders. I want somebody who demonstrates a commitment to diversity equity and inclusion, and I really want to understand from them what that looks like in public education, and what's, and what's possible where we can take this effective
137communicator and relationship Sorry, a little admit I went a little bit past my allotted number, you're going to, you're going to get me. I'm almost done though. Student centered. Committed to transparency and excited to take on tough challenges. Okay, great list. I think I missed one though. Yeah, here it's algo. Okay, okay. So number one, student, a passionate instructional leader. Okay, they are student centered to a skillful operational leader. That's the fiscal side of the house the enterprise side of the house. HR finance all that. Third, that collaborative leader. You heard about the active listening the relationship building I might add empowering, right. Three, that really kind of authentic communicate, engage her with community. And those were my, yeah, those were kind of like the key, the key ones I think the plus one on
138the elementary district kind of really experience on that and that commitment to the. So I heard a lot of common themes which hopefully. Yeah, good. Yeah, this is good stuff. So, a couple of you, did I get everybody set five. I think so. Yeah. A couple of you said, elementary experience. That's going to be a requirement. Okay, so if you want it to be. That's the type of thing, and we'll talk about that in, in, in just well maybe we should talk about it now. So, every board wants to have some requirements, and they're either required, which means you have to have them to be a candidate, or they're preferred, which means you'd like to have them but you don't have to have them to be a candidate. Or they're not in there, or they're
139not, or they're not, not considered which means you can just take it into consideration whether they have what you want or not but you're not asking for it. So, the typical things that we find in that, and help me out again Nicole if I missed one is second language requirement usually Spanish doctorate degree. Principal experience, certain, certain group like you, a couple of you have said, certain grade level experience especially in an elementary or a high school district. They typically want to have that as a requirement so again you can either have this required or preferred, or you can just think about it later, you know, and not, and not put it in there. You probably ought to in order to kind of, you know, get that off, get those sorts of things off the
140table early here. Are there any of those things and I always put this out there the more requirements you have the fewer candidates you get. In other words, Oh, another one is superintendent experience that's a big one some districts say we have to have somebody who has been a superintendent, I had one district like that and they got a total of four candidates. And the next time we went out because we didn't get enough candidates the first time from them. I said open it up a little more and they got some very good candy we did end up picking somebody who had been a sitting superintendent. So those are the types of things that you can require, or you can say are preferred, and we put them right underneath this you can, I think you
141could see it on one of these right then one of them have their requirements in it but it is, it is in, in the application it isn't in the brochure about what the requirements are, are there any requirements that you have, or would like to prefer. Well, I'll go just because I went first last time I, the only thing I would require would be teaching experience. Okay. Okay. I don't, but I only mentioned that because I'm very open minded to anyone more in the know about what would be, I mean I would assume everything else would be preferred for district like ours but I mean I'm very open minded to everyone else. Now let me, let me just, I'm not. When I say this I'm not disagreeing with you at all I'm just trying to
142get you to think all the ramifications of it. Would you have that preferred or required for teaching experience I would have it required. Okay, so let me ask, let me ask a question of you, then. And what you know we obviously we get the board consent on these but just for thinking. So if somebody had been a very successful counselor, and then had been a successful administrator. Okay, which does happen. Yeah, you, you would not want them to be a candidate. Good question. That's when it comes down to this question of preferred or required, you know, uh huh. Well, let's be honest until you mentioned that I didn't necessarily know those people. One for me. I mean, I just value the teaching experience, right, like ours very strongly so that's why I like it. Even
143though there's that kind of distinction between maybe someone who was a counselor and it could be similar I just think for a district like ours it needs to be. And that's, and that's a good answer. That's a good answer. That's why I push you on that thinking because in some districts, teaching and learning is critical for, you know, your credibility, and if you don't have that even if you were a good counselor or administrator someplace else, it isn't going to make it in your districts and we don't know that that could, you know, Nicole and I don't know that so. And Bill, you may want to, you may want to add to just like sometimes boards will ask well what is the criteria to be a superintendent, and you know it's actually not as, as,
144as, as lengthy as you would think it is you know it's kind of similar to be a board there's some very few things right so you may want to speak to that too because you know you're all on the right track I see what you're saying and you're going to select that person who brings what you want right you'll see their resume you'll be able to make that decision but would be also as a good point is if you make the requirements too tight you may miss someone who may not match that and I think as a matter of fact I think we have a superintendent who that I know of who went through was not a teacher originally. Recently yeah but but you know went through and obviously was district administrator went through the
145process you know went through the we call the pipeline but so you just want to make think of that and so Bill you may want to speak to that too just about the requirement to be a superintendent so yeah there aren't any. And there it is. A lot of a lot of place a lot of states require that you have a certificate, you know, saying that your, you could be a superintendent we don't. In fact, not even an administrative credential is required. And so that's why this, this question about a principal or administrative credential sometimes is a requirement that boards put in there and I and you know my bias is that's not a bad thing, but there is no requirement for superintendent other than you are living breathing. There may, there may be. I'm
146not even sure if criminal record gets in play in it I think I think it's almost like a politician you could have a criminal background, and still be a superintendent. Anybody else have some requirements is a doctor in a requirement or preferred. It's not a requirement for me. Okay. Another requirement for me, I'm sorry, just to go back to the last conversation. Right, we were talking about teaching. Right, just to be really clear, if you had been like gone up through gone up through the ranks as like a speech pathologist. Right, and then increasingly took on administrative responsibilities you may not have been had teaching experience right that's right, that's right. And just to be clear our former interim superintendent married you that was her path. Right, happened. Yeah, right. Right. It happens. Yeah. Yep.
147Yep. There's the very, there's some very fine educators who were not teachers, but it's, but it does. Some districts think it's very important for the credibility with teachers that this person be have been a teacher, this would not be the first district that required teaching experience right Nicole, we've had absolutely. Yeah, well go ahead. I think we're debating this correct like we moved on and I think we need to pause for a second. Sure. Yeah. It seems obvious that it should be a teaching requirement but given my own knowledge of some really capable administrators like I would say that it's preferred but not required. That's my inclination as well I would rather not weed out those potentially really good candidates off the bat. Yeah, you can make that decision during the process but that's right.
148Yep, not to not look at those people at all. I might weed out somebody who could be a really good fit. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So Neil what I hear from several of the board members is that it that it might be okay to have a preferred. They see the value in it, but there may be there, you know, just might be an outlier there that is an educator and been very successful and knows knows teaching, but has not done it that might still want to be looked at. That's why I said I'm very open to it. So why don't we, why don't we leave that as preferred right now. Okay. All right, I'll come back to all of these. Okay. Just a quick point in the meeting, is it possible to stop sharing the
149screen just so everyone can see each other again I can see you all because I know how to expand mine but I know that don't always struggle with that so I just thought about it's like you can't see each other can see all. And so can I ask a follow up question with that so teaching experience preferred is what I'm hearing from the board. And so in that same vein you mentioned elementary experience so this is this a good segue into going back to that is that a preference in terms of they've had experience in an elementary district or is that a requirement. That'd be a requirement for me that they would have experience in an elementary district. Yeah. Any other thoughts on that. How about the rest of you. I concur. And obviously when
150we say elementary can't eat. I mean, right. It could be a 12 yes, it could be a K 12 district, I was gonna say, because K 12 doesn't include elementary so and this is why we asked like how do you want to look at it because it will again narrow down your applicants if you say K 12 only I'm sorry K 8 only. So just it's important to clarify today so that as we think about this you know we can, you know, as we're screening like this is a pretty big one, so I do want to. I meant, I meant, I meant that I would not consider candidates who only had high school experience. So if you had a candidate who was had been a high school teacher, and then principal, and then supervised high
151schools in a high school district that wouldn't be a candidate that we should entertain. Right. Yeah, that's that's I agree with you. Yeah. So, I think it's pretty broad still if we say elementary school district experience that's a pretty broad statement. Yeah, right. Right. How about if a person had been a superintendent of a K 12 and had been successful at that, that'd be okay with it, because they would have worked in elementary schools, largely, even if they'd been a high school teacher they still would have had a lot of elementary school experience as the superintendent. Okay. All right. I see a lot of head nodding on that one so I think we got that one. This is a requirement I want to make sure we're in the right spot. This is the requirement. Yeah,
152got it. Okay. And I second language does not sound like a requirement in your district is that correct. Okay. Okay. All right. Any other requirement, you can take off the degree you mentioned degree I think that's a good one to check on yet I didn't get anybody jumping up and down on that one. Is there anybody that think yeah, I appreciate that, not having my doctorate. There's, there are more and more candidates that have their doctorate but there are a lot of good ones that don't. So, so I think it's good to stay open on that and then you can you can always consider later when it comes down to who you really want, you know, does that make might make that may be the difference in the end who knows between two candidates. Okay.
153Okay. Anything else. All right, let's get back on task then to the criteria. And, um, so now I'm going to turn to Nicole, Nicole what did what did you hear what did you hear is some of the real common themes here. So I heard visionary and innovative leader came up and I'm not going to go through all the details but that kind of theme came up is visionary and innovation, which I think is a good way to put those together so that one came up several times. The opera, I like the word skillful operational leader, which is one that came up quite a number of times as well. The collaboration one came up as well. Collaborative leader. There was a couple different ways that you all stated that but that one came up quite a
154bit, including what I would say maybe the community piece which we may decide on if that's a totally separate bullet or not but the community. I love the word. God, where'd it go. Authentic engagement with stakeholders. Yeah. So, I think the word that came to me was authentic community leader or something like that I mean we can wordsmith a little bit but that came up. And then also commitment to de I diversity equity and inclusion, and let's see did I just I shared could affective communicator, I didn't share it either. Did I okay I'm going home. Oh no, no no I did not yeah effective communicator came up. And that may fall into the collaboration, which sometimes overlaps around collaboration. And so I was trying to whittle it down to five but I couldn't. The
155other one was student centered I think that was a big deal. And that one may fold into the visionary piece sometimes because you know eventually we do want to whittle this down to about five. And that one definitely came up a few times which I think is pretty powerful. Yeah, I'm not I'm trying not to it was really hard not to make more but you are some really good ones, by the way and so like the operational piece you know with the fiscal management budget development that falls in place. I think was a big one again and that was that visionary so I think those were kind of the what did I just, did I list six bill that I Yeah, okay. So maybe we can fold those into five but those I don't know
156if the board kind of felt like those are the things you heard is the primary criteria. Now board members, does that does that with what Nicole just said, she said, these are the six areas that she had visionary and innovative leader operational leader collaborative leader she liked the phrase authentic and community leader or an equity person that has equity is forefront in their leadership, a good communicator and a student centered leader with a six six common things that she heard from you. Does that make sense to you or do we need to modify that that makes that makes sense to me I think you captured them really well. The only, the only thing I would want to just make sure that we clarify is that when we refer to community is that community broadly defined
157or, you know, versus extra like Usually when we talk about community in our district, we're referring to kind of our external, you know, community, our stakeholders, you know, the more internal. So I just want to make sure that that we are committing to both internal and external community. Yes, and I heard that I have that in my notes and we'll be sure to include that. I agree. Yeah, internal and external. Yep. Yep. A broad array of stakeholders. Okay, I just wanted to say that I think I'm under communicator, I don't think effective is described as well as like what Carol kind of articulated because it was more, it was also about Well, I don't know if it went. If it Oh, yeah, it like ties in with the authentic engagement piece because it's about like
158listening and yeah, like that needs to be described in a richer way. Absolutely communicator. Um, yeah. Was it Carol that described it that the it was came up twice. There was a collaboration being a collaborative leader building trust building relationships building trust we're getting into the second phase here but that's okay building trust and somebody said about. I wrote it down here someplace I really liked it when they were talking about, about listening is not when you're a really great listener you don't only don't only say I hear what you're saying, you do something about it right you're, you're an active participant in in it. So there's, there was, there was that I'm using my own words but but Yeah, and remember, you know, I gave like broad themes but are I literally took notes
159and the majority of what you said and also because you have recorded meetings I always use our record. Going into each, each one. And yes, we're going to go through more, making a little richer about what you think in each one of these and then we'll be done. So, I would, I would suggest that right now for this moment, we leave student centered, where it is, because you have a lot. It didn't come up but you have a lot about whole child in the things I've been reading about the district. And, you know, I think it may be is going to end up standing on its own after you talk to me a little bit about what student centered needs to you. Okay, let's start with visionary and Nicole again if you can take arduous
160notes here I really appreciate your ability to do that much better than mine. Visionary innovative leader what is, what does that mean to you when you looked at that. And if you saw something written someplace don't hesitate to steal, you know, if you saw something someplace else and you want us to highlight it I can do that too. So what does it mean to be a visionary innovative leader. What are you looking for what are the criteria what do you want your superintendent to be as they're in visionary innovative leader. Neil said, you know, we've always been on the forefront of having innovation and having trying new things, and you know kind of breaking the mold sometimes right. Yep. For me it also means like really also turning to your staff to kind of unleash
161a lot of the creativity and talent that we already have. It doesn't mean doing things differently or starting from scratch, it would mean extending like our strategic plan and looking there for a basis. It would also mean managing the pace of change and being able to translate innovation and vision ideas but into kind of practical action. Okay. And I would add to that those are really good Irene, I really support all of that. And I would add to that, really somebody who is open to, you know, really reimagining what public education looks like you know open to open to the challenge of reimagining public education, because we're really being put in that position right now. So I was going to say so critical right now Carol don't you think I mean, oh my goodness with
162what we've experienced it. Let's have let's have this be a growth experience for us rather than a deficit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, important. This may come down to to word smithing a little bit but I think in some to some in some ways the whole idea of the whole child could be in this section as well because imagining what what that means and how you really achieve, you know those parts of our strategic plan and creative thinking. Yep. Yep. That's right. That's right. That may be how we deal with the whole child in this section. Sure. I think adding on this to somebody who's who's versed in that transformational process, you know, a little bit to Irene's point of that you know some of they can take it from visioning to implementation. You know, everything. And
163my computer is about ready to run out of battery so I'm going to go grab my cord. Yeah, mine's plugged in. All right. Okay. Anything else on visionary innovative leader. All right, let's go into the operational leader that was, that was pretty clear from you all fiscal obviously you know somebody can manage fiscal demands of a school district, especially these days, but somebody, some people also mentioned being able to manage the HR operations the facilities, you have an ambitious facilities plan master plan. And there were other comments to what are some things we ought to make sure that we get in this paragraph about a operational leader. Anything that I didn't mention. We may have that one pretty well corralled. I think the one thing just, I would add to it mentioned it just operates
164leader, the business side as well. Call it out. Yeah. And, and when you say the business side Neil. Are you talking about more than the fiscal part of it that also the, you know, running of an enterprise. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's been mentioned several times about the importance of running an enterprise in this, in this day and age, your after school programs your preschool all of those sorts of things. Yeah. Okay. We have a lot of partners that want to use our facilities, you know, so it's kind of negotiating being able to negotiate with multiple partners on. Yeah. Good. Okay. All right. Also, maximizing the use of our resources. Yeah, really understands how that can happen. Yep. Okay, the next one is, we've had quite a. I think everybody mentioned this the collaborative leader
165them. And this, this seems to take high importance. In your district right now at least it seems to me that from what I've read and heard even the comments tonight is that it's really important to be able to get an engaging, authentic person who collaborates with not only staff but certainly with staff with the teachers with the classified staff with the principals, but also with your community as well somebody who really knows what good collaboration is help us flash this out a little bit more you gave us a lot of great things. One person said it's important that this person is empowering of community and stakeholders. And another one said that relationship building is is paramount. It's really really important. Anything else on that. I just wanted to make a distinction between what is sometimes
166seen as a traditional role of a superintendent of being an educational leader. In this context, I think we need someone who is also a political leader that, you know, can forge these kinds of relationships with city government and civic groups and because of the nature of our community I think that really applies. I think that someone who's kind of come up like the traditional chain of sort of command in a school district is not necessarily going to have. I don't know, to be successful. I think you have to have that civic engagement. Yeah, really need to really do that well and enjoy it. As you know, like we had many personal tax measures and really engage with the community in those processes so I read some really interesting, you know, reports around that aspect of
167superintendent leadership, which I think is very relevant for our community. I do too Wendy and, and you're absolutely right, there are some superintendencies or situations that lead you to hone those skills, you know, certainly Berkeley was one for me but so was Lodi. So was Dixon really, but there are other ones that aren't you know there's some school districts that aren't tied at all to their cities, they may serve multiple cities or they may, you know, be a suburb of some place without much relationship to their government. So that's a, that's a great point. Yeah. Okay. Anything else under this on this. There's a lot here on that. Is there anything else on this collaboration one. I'll call the inclusive piece I want to make sure that one came up as being inclusive of the
168input of stakeholders and decision making which I think speaks to empowerment so I'm not sure if anyone to elaborate on that at all but that one I think I want to call out as well. Yep, yep, that was brought up the essence of collaboration, or I think you can tell from our list of stakeholders that we want to keep going so that is a very good summary what you just said so thank you. Okay, so now, the next one was equity. And we had several of you talk about the importance of an educational equity leader. Tell us more about that what does it mean. Nicole likes to say DEI. Well, there's all kinds of terms I heard equity inclusion and diversity always gets jumbled together but this is a good question you have Bill is
169what do you see as I say equity leader is typically the easiest way to say it. But what do you see as your, your equity and inclusion leader. Tell us more. Well, I don't know if this ties in, but I was trying to get at being a data driven kind of leader in that, you know, someone who can be very transparent about the success or failures of the district and who we are serving well and who we are not serving well. We are not at sort of the core of equity that we have to be, we have to ensure that we're serving all of our children, so that they can reach their full potential so for me that is just one of the. That doesn't really get at the essence of full equity, but I
170think you hear where I'm going like, who has like for me I'm talking about it from the analytical perspective of like, you have to be able to determine, first of all, how you're serving and who you're not serving. And then, Carol mentioned about. I mean, you have to be resourceful but not from just to be able to direct the resources to those in the students that need that additional support. I love it. And that is, you know, that's someone who really thinks that a systems level, you know, around the data and takes a really critical look. Yeah, powerful. Thank you. Well said. Yeah. Anything else in the area of equity. I don't know exactly how to incorporate it or if it's, you know, something we would talk about in our interview process not necessarily in
171the description but we have, you know, we have a contract with the DEI consultant that were just sort of at the beginning of that process so it's important to me that we have somebody who is committed to do that work doing that and doing that work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so you hit, but you've had about a really important thing in equity and that is this commitment is this level of commitment to the work. Nicole and I've talked about that about candidates many, many times right Nicole we look at a candidate say well this person says they're an equity leader but are they really committed to the work what evidence is there that they're really committed to the work what have they done. You know, yeah, so I think that's, that's an important you've you've
172hit upon an important tenet of this paragraph. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and we can help flesh out some language sometimes this is a harder one to call out because equity leadership is actually something that is, I'll use the word more popular now but also something that's the hardest thing to do is to transform as when he said you know the the kind of historic inequities in the system and so I think with that you know sometimes it's you have to be very clear about what an equity leader is because some people would define it as because they worked in urban district and demographics and that to me is kind of a that's a false way to you know inform your decision about an equity leader it's really about a Wendy I love you said transparent use
173the data and I heard you say like call it out right this is someone who's bold and courageous to use the data to call out where the inequities are happening and then do something about it which goes back to your other. I think Irene mentioned about you know really taking that information and now putting it into practice and so yeah so I think you're all onto something and there's a little bit of language we can use to help mold that particular criteria. If you're trying to think of like what's the word to use, and you all can then give feedback on you know does that really meet your vision for what you feel as an equity and inclusion and right leader. Good. Okay, communicator. All right, we got a lot of good good information on
174communicator is there. One thing I like to do oftentimes is that people think of communicator somebody that talks well well you know it's also written it's also technology. There's a lot of aspects of really good communication. And some districts have communication plans that are very effective. What, what, what should we include in this paragraph about being a good communicator. I think someone that really understands what effective channels are to reach our stakeholders. How to, you know, and have that feedback loop so that they know that the messages, you know, being received messages are being received that need you, and also listening for what information community wants to hear frequency and so forth and that maybe has a mastery of multiple channels for communication. Very good, Carol. Okay. Any other feedback on this. I think just
175what you said, Bill, something I can. I call it kind of touch different sectors and different ways right so you, it's someone that's going to communicate differently for different groups. Yep. It's kind of a big thing. What we're looking for. How about the board. Are you looking for somebody communicates well with you. Yeah, I mean a lot of a lot of boards will put that in their criteria because it's been an issue or a problem I don't know if it's been an issue or problem probably not but, but that's critical. It's really critical you have a superintendent that's very close to you and can really communicate well with you. Yeah, maybe it's making themselves accessible. The way to phrase it. That's, you know, you want someone who's open to that. Right. Right. Right. Who's also
176finding someone that's open to communicating outside of meetings. So, preparation meetings or for meetings with someone who's always open and that is accessibility as I talked through. I know when I coach superintendents and one of the things that I do on this particular notice I say, you know it serves you well if you talk to every single board member before a board meeting. And you'd be surprised how many don't. Yeah. The difference. Anything else under communication. Okay, remember now we're going to put together a draft and get it to you so you can react to it before we finalize anything. Okay. All right, I'm going to add just the clearly articulate goals if that's okay because I think that came up, and yeah, that's a powerful one. Yeah, the vision and goals which may fold
177into the visionary piece too but I think the articulation is what I heard which I love. Yeah, thanks. That was windy up. Okay. All right, let's talk about what's student centered means. What does a student centered leader embody. Where do I start. On the board has always been that the focus should always be, what's the practical effect of our policy. Always again, you know, it's not about driving the best for business or the bottom line but driving what's best in all of our decisions. So there's a decision making aspect to this right Neil is that all the decisions that we make is this really good and best for our students. Yeah, I used to have a board member that said is that a decision that's best for adults or best for students. It's really good
178question. Yeah. What else, what else. What about the whole child or their whole child aspects to this that are important to you as a district. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say that this is really where whole child fits in and really understanding that that's, you know, that's our, our metric, you know, we aren't a district that looks at the test scores and then that's what I hold is the, you know, as the end all. It's really much broader. And that understanding of the five C's and really centering their work and their leadership on that. Yeah. Yeah, Carol I think I think that's a main point on this one is that it's a, we want a leader that is not just focused on one thing about education, you know academic performance is important but meeting
179the meeting all of the needs of, of our students and their is so important when you're student centered, you know, and that's the whole concept of a whole child institution. So we'll, we'll word Smith that and work that out. But I think that that I've read a lot in your, in your mass in your strategic plan and other things where you talk about the importance of that. Can I add one element. Yeah, I, I don't know if this, if this resonates with with other board members but for me what really comes to mind, and especially because of what the pandemic has sort of, you know, turned education upside down. For me it's also about student agency, and the education should really empower a student agency over their education, and I feel like more now than
180ever. That is true. And what I wanted to point to is that our district for years has worked on project learning and certain, you know, certain pedagogy and whatnot to, I think, have a very student centered focus. But I just, I don't know, the words, sort of language around student agency, or the of of education, something that is important to me, and I just, again, think it's kind of brought it into focus now because of the pandemic. Yeah, this is very helpful for your recruiters here because there are superintendents that are really attuned to this, and there are others that don't have much experience with it so I this is I think it's an important characteristic that we leave focused like this so that people will You know we want them to write to these
181things remember in their application they have to write to all six of these, and those that do it well and press me those that don't do it well says something else, you know, so any anything else on this. Great. I really appreciate the input you gave us tonight. Obviously, Nicole and I are going to really enjoy we I can tell we're really going to enjoy working with you giving and taking crafting, you know, that the scope of the job and what we're looking for and being You know something that's very attractive to many many candidates so great start you guys, we will Nicole you and I have to go offline and talk about which we all split these up and each of us will write and bounce it off each other and we'll try to
182get this out to you by, you think we do it by Monday, Nicole. Yeah, I think so. And then, you know, yeah, Monday should be fine for us. I think it's more for the board because there's this feedback and turn around to us because we also have a brochure that we want to include these in and so we do want to mention that before we close out to Yeah, to make sure that the advertisement. So we'll get it out to you on Monday and then if you can get it back to us in two days is that is that going to work with you all get you give you a couple days to give us feedback on it and you can you can email us back, you can call us you can write us it's
183most helpful if you write something and send it back to us. That would be that would be really wonderful. And then we'll put a final one out there for for publication. Yes, Irene. I just wanted to express my gratitude for Dr Heimauer Hans and our current our principals and current district leadership. I mean, when you listen to this discussion to be a public education leader is enormous in terms of the qualities that we're looking for. So I am just so grateful for the team that we have in place who is working hard day after day after day. Yeah, yeah. We have a lot of professionals that are really working, working very hard right and they're, you know, they're worn out to they're tired, a lot of them, but they're still at it. It's amazing. Yeah.
184All right. No, I think that I think we fulfilled what we wanted to do. We're only five minutes. Well, we really didn't start till seven so we pretty much stayed within the two hour limit. Bill Nicole, can we ask just one question for clarification so for us to do our homework. Next time we meet, we're gonna what should we be prepared for to discuss with you, what are we going to go over. So the next time we meet, you should be, you should have gotten the stakeholder input document we get it to you beforehand, and you should go through that. You should compare that to your criteria and see if there's any modification that's needed. Okay, that's your that's your kind of the last chance to change the criteria before we get into the real,
185you know, selection processes. And, and Nicole, the other, the other thing is we will, we'll be talking about the process, I will probably give you a schedule of what our traditional process looks like in the interview. That would help you quite a bit and you may, you may, you may want to look at that you may also want to talk to one of us if you don't understand it so you're ready to talk it through and modify it in any way you want, we'll get into much more detail with the interview date that evening. Nicole those to answer Neil's question because you remember I mentioned the very beginning is going to feel like you're drinking water from a fire hose so tomorrow you're going to like half the things we said tonight you're going to
186forget. So one of the things we love to do is in between because your next board meeting actually until March 11 so that's still a bit of time. However, in between will be in contact with your point of contact will be in contact with you most likely and what we'll do is always give an update even on how the search is going. So Bill will be your main you know communicator of you know hey here's how many candidates have applied so far things like that but we'll remind you of your homework assignments. So the main one right now to put in your brain is just Bill and I will collaborate in the next two days we'll send you criteria by Monday. We need you to get that back to us by Wednesday, and that's kind
187of the right now. And then from there you can go back to the search calendar to always kind of remind you of what's happening and then Bill and I are also going to update it to I think Irene you mentioned about you know making sure there's more details on there so we definitely can do that I've already actually added them as we speak. So you can just remember like okay what's the consultants doing now but again Bill will always he's really good and I've always like just always like almost over communicate sometimes just so you know like here's what we are because you you know you are board members by the way you have other things that you're doing. So some things you are going to like completely forget and I just want to reassure
188you that this is why you hire a firm to take care of some of these things that you don't need to worry about. And anytime you have questions again Bill and I are always available at any time. If you need out, I call it a thought partner you have a question. Just know that that's what we're here for to support you during the process the whole way and if there's anything you feel uncomfortable with you what you're you have a question just always reach out. Okay. Yeah. You ever have a question. Please do just call us or email us and, and we're available to you. I thank you Nicole for the emails I typically will be emailing you I don't know what do you think every other week I probably send an email about the
189progress we're making where we are so you'll get periodic emails from me. Yeah. Right. All right. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. It was delightful. All right. To a great start. Thank you again. I'll give you a phone call right now okay Nicole. Sure. Yeah, I'll give you a call. All right. Take care everybody. All right, we still have a closed session to go to. We were kind of bumped up on the timeline but I said we'd take a look back Wendy if you had any other few more public comments that may or may not have been there before we started again, so I'll go back to you. Yeah, I'm sorry I'm just kind of glancing to see no more came in. Since I last looked. You said last time there's maybe two
190or one left. I don't know. Okay, so yeah I just want to make sure it was like really getting to the point of, you know, negotiations like it's not, you know, totally off on a tangent so I'll read this one clad at tan, San Carlos School District Board I wasn't a huge advocate of opening schools I am a hospital pediatric pediatrician. I see the germ cesspools of school. I know how hard it is to keep distance from from toddlers much less between toddlers I see these kids very sick in the emergency room and then in the pediatric intensive care unit. I kept my kids home from daycare in March 2020 even before the state home order was in place, I was not here to go back in the fall during the first lulling cases on
191San Mateo moved into the red tier. I was also very hesitant to start the reopening plan just before the holidays, but now is the time we know so much more about the virus and the spread we have seen daycares after school programs and private schools reopen safely with strict precautions in place. Case rates are declining in the population will be moving toward vaccination the decisions made in August or less relevant now that there is overwhelming data that schools can be safe. The inaction of public schools is creating huge inequities in education. I'm lucky that my children are actually doing fine at home I have neurotypical children that have each other for socialization and haven't felt the social losses as as acutely. I could transfer my children to a private school and my family can make
192it work with difficulty with one parent at home, but my husband's careers in limbo since we have no clue what capacity to schools will be open, this cannot be the expectation for all the residents in our community, Parents should not have to choose between our careers and our children's education and mental health. The schools need to open for students to be back on campus so that their parents can return to work. Without the framework of in person school the children miss out on valuable learning and parents are stuck in an impossible decision of supporting distance learning at home or continuing their career. I've never even entertain the idea of private school until this month is incredibly disappointing that we cannot come to an agreement that can satisfy both sides reasonably. This was not the cooperative
193community with great schools that I moved to years ago. I fear that we will need to make a difficult decision to move out of San Carlos to a community that values the residents both young and old. I hope there's a way to overcome the barriers to reopening schools, but at tan pediatrician mother of San Carlos resident. Ashley Brown, dear San Carlos school board trustees and community. Okay, hold on. Okay, this is. I'm a Rundle Elementary kindergarten teacher. With all of the background noise of pushing to reopen schools, regardless of the number of coven 19 cases reported I feel it is important to keep circling back to what is essential. It is essential for employees classified and certificated to be supported with the tools and resources required to return to work in a safe and healthy
194environment. As a district, we can talk about what is outlined in the handbook and what have been approved or procured. But as a teacher coming to my classroom and inspecting what forms of PPE that have been provided. I feel that is important to be transparent with what exactly classrooms look like in preparation for reopening all too funny. All too often I hear that every school site is different. Apparently each site has different comfort levels with this virus and different expectations of adequate PPE and equipment. I think that we are better than that. What do I and many of my colleagues need to feel safe we need the following vaccines to be available to teachers and staff as soon as possible. Accurate testing for teachers, staff, students and volunteers. Custodial support so that schools don't need
195to close because cases become more prevalent on campus and don't have the capacity to clean thoroughly. Hand washing stations outside classrooms because one sink isn't enough for 12 bodies. More disposable face masks available to us because new guidance suggests double masking. Additional nurses and or contact tracers so that our nurses are not following up on the weekends. For every San Carlos family to give us the same respect we have given them and follow the four pillars, complete the fever free app honestly and stop traveling until it's safe. Science around this virus is constantly evolving and the information on new variants which are more highly contagious and can result in reinfection should be something that we consider every time you make the push to reopen. Science is just not a headline or soundbite when the guidance
196is followed thoroughly. It can open the doors to opportunities such as safe schools. It's not just your lives which are at risk of infection but our lives, our family's lives, our students. All of that weighs heavily on me, Ashley Brown. And I read these other two that were for 9A because I went to those. I think that's it. Right. Thank you, Wendy. And again, thank you and Sarah for starting that new process. So, I'm adjourning us to closed session now. Board, before we start closed session, I'll give everyone five to 10 minutes to take a break. You should have in your email, a link to closed session, and then I'll start it up and then I will come back to this to report out on anything from there. So, thank you everyone for tuning in,
197and we'll see you later. Welcome back to you, Neil. All right, thank you. Thank you, everyone. We do not have anything to report out of closed session at this time, and we appreciate everyone staying with us, and we will see you the next board meeting is going to be next week, Thursday, February 11. Thank you all.