001Hi, good evening and welcome to our board meeting and thank you everyone for uh accommodating us by meeting a little bit early this evening. So the board met in Oh, first of all, we have translation services are available. If anyone requires translation who is attending the meeting, please go to the back table and we'll set you up with a headset. And if anyone online needs translation services, go to the bottom of your screen and click on the globe icon and translation is available. And now we will have that translated for us, please. Thank you. All right. The board met in close session uh prior to this open session here this evening and we uh discussed a stipulated expulsion and at this time I would request a motion on that to accept. >> I move approval
002of the stipulated expulsion. >> Thank you. >> I'll second that. Okay. Uh, Mr. Unger, >> yes. >> Mr. Banfield, >> yes. >> Miss Baltadono, >> yes. >> Mr. Clawson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Roger, >> yes. >> And I believe Mr. Buckman was absent during that portion of the meeting, but thank you. And I'm a yes. So, that motion carries 6. All right. Uh we also discussed an item of anticipated litigation as well. So um is there consensus on the order of business? >> Good. All right. Thank you. So this evening our first fun event that we are all excited to hear about is uh CL Smith program highlights. So welcome Seal Smith. All you superstars out there, let's hear from you please. Okay. Just want to make sure the slideshow is ready. Awesome. All right.
003Good evening. Um, my name is Vanessa Parsons and I'm the proud principal at CL Smith. Thank you, President Schffer, board members, and district leadership for having us here tonight. We're so excited to share what's going on at our school. Uh tonight I'm joined by our student success specialist, Stacy Sancho, who plays an important role in supporting our students and also helps create a positive school culture. We are also excited to have five of our students here with us this evening. Casey Smith, Colton Gomez, Michaela Slaughter, Elelliana Slaughter, and Angelina Knox, who will help share their experiences and the impact at the at Seal Smith. All right. This year we intentionally chose the word belonging as a priority in our focus. We wanted to strengthen connection and collaboration and build belonging within adults and students because
004as we know people learn best when we value their being seen and being um heard both in and out of school. This was a staff priority established during the beginning of the school year. And as we share today, you'll see how belonging is built, measured, and sustained throughout student practices, staff practices, and really daily routines from student leadership. Our focus on belonging directly supports our district priorities and also aligns with us as a leader in Mi Lighthouse School, empowering voice, leadership, and strong relationships. For example, as a testament to our work, a staff member in our food services department shared that for the first time, she truly f feels heard and valued at Smith, which is a powerful reflection of our collective work this year. Hello. Staff connection is foundational. Coffee mornings, walks to Lagona,
005and informal check-ins allow staff to experience belonging themselves. Learning walks are on focus on empowering instruction and pure teaching because staff can't create belonging for students if they don't experience it themselves. One teacher shared that providing a way to connect with others at our monthly coffee mornings has helped her feel connected and supported by colleagues, which has energized her classroom practices. Students in third through sixth grade have the opportunity to participate in different schoolwide leadership opportunities by applying for one of the seven student lighthouse teams. A few members are here to share their experiences. Hi, my name is Elelliana and I'm a sixth grader. One of the amazing things our school has to offer for third through sixth graders are the student lighthouse teams. We have over 100 students who are a part of the
006seven teams making up the student lighthouse. We have the welcome wagon, galaxy guides, communications crew, peace patrol, assemblies crew, campus crew, and your and the junior campus crew. I am on the communications crew. One of the main things we do is record the weekly announcements. During our weekly announcements, we share what events and activities will be coming up to make sure everyone feels informed and included. For example, we advertised an event called Math Night. By sharing out the event ahead of time, students knew what was going on and encouraged them to participate if they wanted to. We also share student and staff birthdays so that others can celebrate with them. We also do staff shoutouts, providing teachers a chance to share how they support and appreciate each other. Another lighthouse team is the Galaxy Guides.
007They give tours to new students so they know their way around the school. They also introduce new students to grade level peers so they can start making friends. We have an assemblies crew who plans and runs all of our assemblies. They recognize students who are modeling good behavior during the assemblies and celebrate their leadership by inviting them to play a minute to win a game. This has been a great way for us to connect as a school community while celebrating all of the leaders at our school. The peace patrol team helps with conflict resolution during the primary lunch to teach the younger students how to use our seven habits during recess. They teach them how to seek first to understand, then to be understood, synergize, and think win-win. Good evening. My name is Angelina. I
008am a fourth grader at CL Smith and I am a part of welcome wagon. We work together to share ideas about what we should do to include everyone on campus through through different events. Earlier this year we celebrated the great kind kindness challenge and one of the activities was to write appreciation notes to others to make them feel seen and appreciated. We also organized spirit days and school events. Once we have a theme and activity, we start making posters and promoting the the day to get everyone involved. We also create created new student socials that are offered once a month. These socials are a very safe place for students who are new to the school or who want to make new friends. Aubrey G, another fourth grader, comes every month and says, "I love these
009socials because I because it's fun and I get to see my friends and interact with new people. People are nice to me and it makes me happy to be there. It also helps new students who might meet at first. I really enjoy being a part of Lighthouse and the welcome wagon. We are really happy to plan activities that help build school spirit, inclusivity, and kindness. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Michaela and I'm a third grader. I'm here to share about our studentr run clubs. These clubs are organized, designed, and run by students. They come up with all the activity ideas, the days their club meet and where I meet. We have over 15 clubs right now. Some of the clubs on campus are Adventures Club, Cursive Club, and Bead Club. I even run
010a club called Arts and Crafts Club. I started this club because it was a club we had last year, and I thought it'd be fun to teach others different art techniques. Anyone can attend these clubs, and it's a great way to make new friends with others that have the same genius. My My name is Casey and I'm also a third grader. This year, I was excited that our school started a junior lighthouse. I wanted to join the team because I wanted to make the campus cleaner and teach others how to be more responsible with their belongings and trash. I felt that if there were more people on the team, then it would make a bigger difference at our school. One time when I was doing the food waste, students were throwing their trays in the
011bin where food belongs. Once I started the stack of trays in the correct area, students noticed where the trays were supposed to go and there was a ripple effect. Teaching students the correct way to discard their lunches is one way we can make our school cleaner while helping the environment. This will make our school a better place because everyone is helping. My name is Colton and I am in third grade. I am one of the members of the junior lighthouse because it is fun to help out the school by cleaning up the campus. I also saw my older brother doing it the last few years and it looked really fun. So far I've been helping run the Shine Store, which is where students get to shop daily using their Shine Credits. Students can earn Shine
012credits by showing leadership around campus. Some things I've gotten to do at the Shine store are setting up, keeping it organized, and collecting Shine credits. Looking ahead, our focus is on sustaining and growing the sense of belonging we've built this year. For adults, this means continuing to prioritize connection and collaboration through learning walks, peer teaching, and reflective practices. Staff will also continue aligning their work with the leader and me principles, ensuring leadership and empowerment are embedded in daily routines. For students, this means expanding leadership roles, practicing responsibility in classrooms and across campus, and reflecting on their personal and group goals. We will continue to measure our progress through surveys, wildly important goals, engagement metrics, and discipline data to ensure our efforts are making a real impact. These early successes show that expanding leadership opportunities and
013fostering connections across adults and students has tangible impact. We will continue measuring and growing these practices. >> Belonging belonging isn't a program. It's how we teach, lead, and care for each other. This year, our staff and students are building a community where everyone matters and every person has the opportunity to grow as a leader. Wasn't that awesome? I just Thank you. Um I'm just so proud. Um thank you for the opportunity to share tonight. Our students are doing incredible things and we are also proud of them to s support their growth, their leadership and success at Seal Smith. Um, at this time we're happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> Miss Bto. >> Well, thank you. That was a really great presentation. I I don't have any questions because everything was really
014clear, but I just really appreciate all of your participation on the um lighthouse teams really demonstrates how powerful you are as role models because everything you're doing, others are learning from you. So, you're kind of like teachers in that regard. And so, I really appreciate how you are role modeling such really great um attitudes and behaviors and um learning on your school site. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> So, my question is a little more down to earth, I think. So, I just if each of you can tell me what your favorite thing is that you bought at the Is it the Shine store? >> Does anybody want to tell me one thing? >> Go ahead. >> You got a notebook. >> All right. >> Awesome. Anyone else? >> All right. Well, I'm going to
015come over and see what I can find. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Shine points there. >> I I'm going to come over and take take spend a day in the sixth grade class. >> Awesome. Thank you, Clawson. >> So, you guys did a great job presenting. Thank you for being here. I have a question for those of you that are in third and fourth grade, which is in future years, are there lighthouse teams that you want to be on that you haven't done yet? What are you looking forward to doing in the future? Casey, can you come to the microphone, please, so we can all hear you? There you go. >> So, what club would you want to join in the future? Okay. >> Um, >> both either or. Um, a club I would like
016to join next year is maybe an art club or a bead club. >> Cool. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? So I wanted to thank you so much and I also I mean everything you're doing each of your individual contributions creates the whole environment for your school and that's really important. Not one person can do everything but your pieces make it a whole campus and it's so appreciated. I also wanted to call out Miss Sancho because every time I'm at Seal Smith, she is there doing something really special with kids and um >> it sometimes involves it sometimes involves costumes or wigs or um but I've watched you do do the uh rehearse for the announcements that whole production and I really appreciate your your role there and what you're doing with kids. So, and
017you're here tonight as well. So, thank you very much. >> Um, looks like Mr. Banfield. >> No questions, but I wanted to thank all of you young people for your good presentation. Very nice. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. All right. They wanted to do one more thing. You ready? Superstars together. be shy. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thanks for coming. >> Thanks for coming tonight. >> Yep. >> All right. Our next item is the special education impact awards. Let's see. Good afternoon board members, Dr. Prader, staff. Um, always a really hard act to follow. Wonderful student speakers. Um, I am Amber Gallagher, the executive director of our San Los Sabispo County SULPA and the SULPA in partnership with the slow county uh community advisory committee recently conducted a
018countywide nomination process for the 2026 special education impact awards. These awards are designed to honor individuals who demonstrate exceptional dedication, innovative teaching, and a deep commitment to the success of students within special education. Nominations were sought for representatives serving slow county public schools across distinct categories and we were blown away with the amount of nominations that received over 170 in total during this season. We are proud to announce that the following St. Louis Coastal employees were among those nominated countywide for their outstanding contributions to our educational community. So I'm going to read a list of names of those who are nominated in categories. So in the category of classified classroombased Sarah Pores, Christa Fema, Carrie Regal Parks, and Luke Cynacle. We had two parent nominees from this district, Deborah Passage and Lillian Remy. Uh, in
019the category of district special education administrator, we had two nominees, Shelley Ferrari and Joyce Hansen. Related service providers, we had Aaron Roberts, Eileene Wright, and Nelson Zuniga. For the general education teacher category, we had Silia Yuri. For the special education early learning teacher, so those teachers serving um anywhere of our students ages zero to five, we had Angela Para. For special education elementary teachers serving grades TK through six, we had Sarah Roski and Sydney Garcia. And in the special education category of secondary teachers, so serving grades 7 through age 22, we had Alex Boyce, Gwen Fehey, John Taylor, Ashley Leonardo, and Julie Macdon. Each nominee received an electronic certificate from us at the SULPA that summarized the recognition uh that was captured within the nomination form. So, we didn't want somebody to go without recognition
020because we know how hard people are working out there to serve our students with disabilities. Along with the 20 nominees, St. Louis Coastal had one specialed impact category award recipient this year. It is truly an honor for me to recognize Janet Gold. I'm gonna make you come up now. Your executive director of student support services as the recipient of the special education impact award for 2026 in the category of district special education administrator. >> Okay. Hey, I have a lot of kind things to say about her. Dr. Prader, you're going to have to wait a second. >> Janet is a cornerstone of equitydriven leadership who has dedicated over 30 years to championing the well-being of every student. She balances a sophisticated analytical mind with a kid-first philosophy, mentoring countless colleagues and navigating complex challenges with
021grace and clarity. She listens without instant judgment and allows for others to express ideas and opinions in a safe space. She shares successes with everyone, never missing a chance to give credit where credit is due. Through her guidance and leadership, she has led student support services to be a department for all students. She's created new vision. She has encouraged and supported growth of student support in the area of wellness, mental health, and social emotional learning by champion increased services. She's worked closely with leaders to explore and grow areas of funding that bring sustainability and true commitment to student well-being. Janet leads with her signature motto, work hard and be nice to people. Simple. Her hands-on approach and solution focused mindset have transformed special education programs. As she prepares to step down at the end of
022this year, we honor her incredible legacy of compassion and the profound lasting impact she leaves on the students, families, and educators within the district. >> Thank you. >> Okay, now I'm done. Have a certificate here. We have a certificate for her and I didn't take it out because it might get my fingerprints on it, but a lovely little glass plaque for her for a shelf. >> Thank you very much. Congratulations. Thank you. Now, >> Janet, would you like to share a few words? >> Take a mic. >> Thank you everyone. This is a true honor. Um, I appreciate having the opportunity to have served in this um, challenging and worthwhile um, position over the last five years. I appreciate um Eric and taking a chance on me for this position and all the support I
023have from all of the leadership that we have at our district and the absolutely amazing dedicated people um that I get to work with in my department and throughout all of um special education counseling nursing support services in our district. It's it's really an honor. So, thank you all. >> Could I ask the board to come in front of the podium here or in front of the We'll take a picture. those are >> Dan, will you do me a favor and >> you want to do mine? >> Angela, join in. All right, tighten in. Chin like you like each other. Get close. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. On count of three. One, two, three. Take about eight. >> Got you. Three. Start playing a lot more. secret. >> Okay, I'm just going to move on.
024>> Okay, at our next item is uh 6.01 correspondence. And at the time the uh the agenda was published, the board had received an email from Bren Belellier uh with regard to correcting a prior email. And then at this time is for public comment if there is anyone who would like to address the board on an item not on the agenda who is present here tonight. Um and just we have one person so just if we don't take a lot of time asking for public comment that's why so you know and I will ask is there anything you'd like to address the board on this evening or public person okay thank you then we will move on to 7.01 which is a resolution authorized issuance and sale of general obligation resale bonds. Mr. Pinkerton. >>
025Yeah. So periodically um in speaking with our financial adviser, there'll be come times where depending on the market, what's happening with interest rates where it behooves the board to look at refinancing some of our former bonds. So in this case, uh there's about 42 million bonds from measure D um for series that it looks like, you know, right now with today's market that we could save the public about, you know, 4 to5 million in in interest rates over the time period. The beautiful thing about this is that it's unlike a home loan where you're you kind of start over again with 30 years, right? You go through these um refinances actually maintain the same length as the current bond measures. So in terms of you know being paid off so the the bonds were going
026to get paid off over the next 15 years even with the refinancing would still be 15 years. So tonight, we're asking the board to um move forward, pass a resolution for us to uh proceed with the the negotiated sale um and refinancing of approximately $42 million of uh measure D bonds. >> Thank you. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to address us on this? Thank you. Then we'll come back to the board. Any questions or concerns? Mrs. Roger? >> Yes. I'm just wondering is there any limit to the number of times that this can be done if it appears that it would be beneficial? >> So I believe it can be done twice and again it's per series that were sold. So we had three different series of bonds that were sold with
027measure D. So within those you can do a refinance up to two times. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> Any other questions? All right. And this is an action item this evening. >> Yeah, it's a resolution. Yeah. Is there anyone who would like to make a motion? >> I'll move to um approve resolution number 162526 authorizing issuance and sale of 2026 general obligation resale bonds. >> And I'll second. >> We have a motion by Miss Baltadono, a second by Mrs. Roger. Um Miss Baltadono. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Roger. >> Yes. >> Mr. Buckman. >> Yes. >> Mr. Clawson. >> Yes. >> Mr. Banfield. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> And I'm a Yes. our taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you. >> We thank our taxpayers very much. Okay. So we are moving on to our
028next item which is uh let me get the exact I've got many pieces of paper in front of me now which is 8.01 our superintendent search firm presentation and interviews ending concluding with the selection of the firm uh to assist us in the superintendent search process. So, first um I'd like to thank welcome everyone. Thank you for being here tonight on Zoom or in person. Uh the board will be conducting interviews with search firms that responded to our request for proposals and these firms are being considered to assist the district with an upcoming superintendent search which everyone is aware of. Um, we are I want to be clear that we are not hiring a superintendent this evening. Rather, tonight's purpose is to hear from and evaluate the firms that will be guiding and facilitating us
029in that process. We've all reviewed the written proposals. Thank you to all who submitted those. And today's goal is to evaluate how each firm communicates, prioritizes, and responds in person to the board's questions. We will use a structured format and score independently to ensure a fair and focused process. Before we begin the first presentation, we will open the floor for public comment. Uh this will be the opportunity for uh the public to comment. We will not be returning to the public after until um this is your only opportunity on this on this item here this evening. Dr. Puchia will be escorting each firm into the boardroom from room J3 for their interview appointment. Each firm will work hard to stay on track here this evening. Each firm will have 15 minutes to present its proposal
030and then following each presentation, members of the board will have an opportunity to ask questions related to the particular proposal. Uh the interviews are as follows. First, we'll begin with Hazard Young leadership and then leadership and associates followed by McFersonen Jacobson followed by the Costco group. At the conclusion of all the interviews, the board will reflect on their scores. We will deliberate in public and we will select a firm and then we'll meet with the selected firm on April 16th for further discussion. Then on behalf of the board, thank you to all the participants for your time and engagement this evening. So it's we all have I just wanted to also review that we all have the um interview protocols and procedures. Those were given to us earlier. Uh and we also have the the
031materials we need to uh score and rank the presentation the uh presentations as they are given to us this evening. So with that um it appears that Dr. PIA has exited to bring in our first >> Oh, you're on Zoom. I'm sorry. I noticed that Dr. Pia was gone. I didn't know where he went. So, thank you to um to Hazard Young and we will look forward to your presentation at this time. >> Absolutely. Thank you, board of trustees. I will share our screen. Um I believe that the board has um a copy, but I'll share our screen. Um, I believe we're able to share. If not, I will put a request in to share. Oh, we're still just seeing the participants. Okay. There we go. We are >> We are shared. >> We are
032good. All right. Uh good evening board of trustees, cabinet, uh St. uh St. Louis Coastal Unified School District community. Uh we are excited tonight to share our proposal from HYA uh for the superintendent search. My colleague Dr. Vivian Essen and I are extremely excited for the opportunity to walk alongside the board and partnering um and possibly uh really doing this search with the board. Tonight we will outline for you um who we are um in terms of HYA as a firm. We'll outline our process um our search team. We'll introduce ourselves um and we will speak to the board regarding our processes, our engagement process, our select process um as well as our transition phase. Um so tonight uh we're excited to share this information with you all. Uh a little bit about the firm.
033We have been in business for about 38 years. Um we have um completed 38 years of executive searches. We are both a national reach and we uh as well as a focus and a local perspective. Um HYA um um we have roughly 130 plus associates nationwide. Uh 35% whom are persons of color and 49% uh represent um women. We uh at our satisfaction rate we are 9.4 out of 10. Um, and we are highly active. We complete roughly 1,600 searches so far. Um, that's averaging about 80 searches per year. Um, and we are resource um, we have a full-time back office IT staff. We have the ability to analyze and research um, uh, every step of our process um, in terms of analytics um, and um, back uh, capabilities. Um, and we are the go-to
034place for job seekers. Um, and why HYA? Uh, we do believe that human interactions are very important to us. Um, building strong relationships from the beginning phases all the way to the end um is really important to us. Um, you know, at the beginning we it is important to us that we learn about your district. We learn about your community community, we learn about the needs. Um and on the other hand we are also building relationships with candidates. Um we have a strong application pool component to um our our our our back office. Um we we we make connections. We un we we understand their background um the districts that they serve and ultimately um we we we we pair them with the districts that we feel um is a good fit. Um and this
035is your search. This is your superintendent search board of trustees. Although our phases are defined, we are flexible and we will work with the board to determine um if we need to adjust at any phase of the process. This includes um finalizing the timeline. This includes meeting dates, whom, where and when we engage and whom we engage with. We are flexible. uh we engage in a datadriven process uh both qualitative and quantitative uh uh data through every step of the phase. This information is crucial for us as associates so that it will help guide our work with the board. And lastly, we're an accomplished firm. Um, as I mentioned before in um, a little bit about uh, HYA, uh, you know, we've given that we've been in business for 38 years or so, we continually
036look on refining our practices. We look for current and best practices um, and uh, which leads ultimately to ongoing improvement. the HY uh HY search team um dedicated search team members to the uh St. Louis Coastal Unified School District. Uh my name is Von Fabers. I will serve as the lead associate. Uh my administrative career has been primarily in the Milbury School District which is in the Sonteo County. Um, I've served as a dean of students, principal, assistant superintendent, and uh, ultimately as superintendent. Um, I, uh, it is so important to me and and, and at this juncture in my career, I'm at the intersection of what I do and what I love to do. Um, and that is really to coach um, inspiring leaders. Um I get to meet a lot of associates, a
037lot of uh leaders who um are seeking to be cabinet members or superintendent. And another passion of mine is to partner with boards um to ensure that I understand your desires. I understand the needs of the district in order to complete a very successful search. Um and my team member who's here with us tonight, Dr. Vivian Xian. Dr. Vivian, your mic is not on. Um, I unmuted so hopefully it is working. My apologies. My name is Vivian Etchin. It's such a pleasure to be joining Vaughn today for this search that is so important to us. I've also um led an career as an educator for 38 years in K12 public education and for the last three years I've been coaching superintendent, aspiring superintendent, teaching in higher educational equity and excellence courses and also joining as
038an associate. What you probably want to know is where I create the most value for you. So for one, I was recruited by HYA for the district that I served as a superintendent. So I certainly have that customer centered point of view and I served as a chief human resources officer in LA Unified for eight years and interacted with many different search firms for cabinet level positions. And the reason I joined HYA was because of their professionalism, their national search, and the detail that goes into the work. I come as your concierge associate. If we're awarded this proposal, I don't intend to work with any other school district until your superintendent has been selected. I live in Southern California. I'm committed to the work that you're doing. I studied your school district very carefully before
039making a commitment to HYA for this search and look forward to hearing more about what we can do for you. Back to you, Von. >> Thank you. And lastly, um Miss Ellen Roser, she's not on the call tonight, but she will serve as our project manager. She serves as um support in the back office uh supports the associates and if there are any techn technical needs that the board of trustees may may uh require. The HYA search process consists of four phases. Engage, recruit, select, and transition. Uh many of the search firms that the board of trustees will hear from tonight consist of primarily a similar similar phases. Um however we believe that HYA not only has the infrastructure but we have the expertise and the relationships uh which we'll share a little bit later
040uh with the national and state and university partnerships that we bring to the table beginning with the engage phase. This is our opportunity. This is our opportunity to listen, to learn, to better understand the district in terms of its strengths, its uh areas of opportunity, uh immediate and future needs, as well as the desired characteristics and skills that not only the board of trustees but your entire community desires from your next superintendent. Our initial uh engagement process begins with conducting individual interviews with trustees. This aligns with our core value of learning about the district through building relationships. Um, and from past experience, uh, during this early stage, we do begin to gather significant information that guides our work. We then hold a board planning meeting. This meeting will inform associates in terms of your desires
041for the entire process from start to finish. Um, this includes timeline items, items that the board would like to see from your applicant pool, uh, and as well as general information and detail plans. Um, um, for example, a communication plan, for example, the selection process. And so this board meeting um, collectively is a very important meeting that sets a direction that you all give us as the associates and the team members on this search. The proposed timeline um as mentioned this proposed timeline is is based on the board's desire to have a sitting superintendent by July 1st uh of 2027. However, a superintendent to be named um by the end of September or early October. Um and our hope was to backwards plan so that we would be able to successfully um implement the different
042phases of the search process. During the engage proc process um we will have conversation with focus groups. We will hold community forums and we would administer a state stakeholder survey. Certainly it will be the desire of the board in terms of the focus groups that we conduct. However, um we do have potential focus groups that we've identified in the past and in terms of district in terms of working with school districts. They're just listed on your screen tonight. Um h however, as I mentioned, the board will will determine who we meet with and when we meet with. Um we are very flexible. Um we have noticed and we we understand that that Zoom and Google Meets has been extremely popular in this last few uh years. However, um we are open to face toface, Google,
043Zoom, survey, evenings, weekends, um and whenever uh it is it is um conducive for your community. So, here is an opportunity for me to compliment your school district. As we were studying the strengths of the district, they were incredibly evident. Just looking at the California dashboard, the high academic standards, looking at your website, your focus on safety and mental health, your student senate that is vocal and also active, your ed foundation that is engaged not just in fundraising but also influencing the priorities for the children as they prepare for opportunities in the future. and strong community and parental engagement. Uh complements to your staff retention and leadership stability unparalleled from a perspective of studying this data from research point of view as well. And most importantly, the fact that you've invested in a thoughtful comprehensive
044timeline for a superintendent search process. So that demonstrates the seriousness with which you've embraced this process and how you're willing to commit time and effort to make sure that the next person selected for the seat is the right person who ranks against your current priorities in terms of someone who can come forward and make that work, lead that work and make it happen. your immediate and future priorities. Well, unfortunately in a state that we live, budget is an issue and uh your district is not protected from that even though you're a basic district. The reality is that enrollment is declining for a variety of reasons. Much of it may be to birth rates, but also immigration trends and uh the cost of living that is uh encouraging our families to move out of California. These
045are not specific to your school district as current symptoms of public education, but they are impacting your school district. However, if when we talk about future priorities, that's where the conversations with our student voice panels, with our parent groups, with our employee groups, with our cabinet members, and any other partners that are in the community are crucial because our future priorities may not be evident, may not be posted. We may be looking at chronic absenteeism but have to look uh do a digger dive into the information to know why. Uh that is the only orange you have on the California dashboard. But the desired superintendent qualifications and attributes can only be drawn from the information that we be will become available to us as a result of the meetings and the surveys and the direction
046that the board of education will be offering to us as associates. I'm going to break in for just a minute. As you know, all groups have been given the same amount of time to present and you are uh nearly out of time. So I we want to share to everybody. Thank you. >> Of course. Thank you very much for the reminder. So in our recruitment strategies, we are very aware that you know and have read about our digital marketing and the reach we have across the nation and for partnerships. Certainly, we are on the ground in organizations, in school districts, on social media to be able to recruit the best candidate based on the priorities that you will determine. >> Okay. And um as we >> as we uh move >> Yes, we can come
047back if there are questions around the diversity piece. Go ahead. >> As we uh move towards the select phase, this is how we will support the board. Um we um the deliverables are we will present a slate um based on what the board discussed during the planning meeting. Um we will take care of candidate management all the way to um preparing and um setting everything up for the school board um so that you'll be ready when you select your semi- finalists and finalist candidates. Um we do offer a transition academy for the selected superintendent. This is a six-month academy. This is something new that HYA added uh which would produce uh four essential components which is the 100 day plan KPIs the evaluation process and your strategic plan assessment. And this brings us to our
048last slide. Um I want to honor the board and the community's time. We want to thank you for the opportunity uh to present tonight. Um um we found some images that are really nostalgic. in 1912. That was your first school uh home. And um this is one of the newest buildings of one of your high schools. And so we are fortunate to be here with you tonight. And we look forward to be here today. >> Thank you. Uh we'll now see if the uh board has questions >> for you. I see Mr. Anger. >> Yeah. I I'd like to know more about your uh electronic dashboard that you talked that that you talked about in the presentation and um how that how that relates to this the the recruitment process and what what kinds of
049outcomes you find with that. >> Awesome. Uh we we in the the back office we house um our databases and so uh Dr. Esen and I are able to um um so the the dashboard itself have unique users and they range from folks who are just interested in being a member of HYA and then we also have uh folks who are interested in serving in cabinet roles or superintendent roles. And so on one end what we're able to go in and log in um you know we are looking for candidates who have served in school districts of 5,000 to 10,000 students with the certain demographics um and then we will get a report of all the folks who have served in a like districts. So that's one component of it. Another component of our dashboard
050and the back office support is um we are able to track um how many clicks and analyze how long they have searched a particular um posting. And so should we be selected and we post um St. L uh St. Louis Coastal Unified School District were able to track who visited, how long they visited, and if they did not specifically apply, we would um those would be targeted efforts in reaching out. And so, um we use that throughout our recruitment process. We set internal numbers in terms of goals. Um um in addition to some of that analytics work, we set specific numbers to say we would like to have so many applicants by this date um the applicants that will come in. We can see that numerically. Um we can then also check the number of
051clicks and the number of visits. And so we have that capability from um candidate searches to the analytics of our posting in terms of visits as well as a comprehensive look um to not only our own search but the searches that um HYA u completes across the nation. >> Mr. Buckland. >> Yes. >> I'm just going to go along a little bit with Chris's comments. As I went through this, my sense was that um while you have great data that it often was an extra charge, so there was basic data, but a lot of the data seemed like we would be paying um more for it each time we used it. Is that true? >> That is uh the propos the the the cost on the dollar uh the cost on our proposal um is
052would be all-incclusive. Um, the only cost that would be additional to what is listed would be if the district chose to do the third-party background checks and to um reimburse for travel and um for for semi-finalists and finalists. But in terms of us doing this initial data and presentation of information, that is all inclusive in the dollar amount propo uh listed on the proposal. I have a follow-up question on on that one. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Um, so just to be clear, uh, it would be our decision whether or not to reimburse candidates, but I'd like to know if travel expenses are included in the uh are included for your travel. >> We made that part of >> Okay. >> Yes, we made that part of the entire package. >> Okay. Thank
053you for that clarity. And um I have another question, but I can wait my Okay. Um I noticed that there are add-on costs for things like translation of the survey and um and so I'm wondering if there are things that our district can do inhouse. Are we can we do that? Because we we are interested in um you know, we have to be very mindful of our budget. >> Correct. the um the the languages that are offered are English and Spanish as a standard that is part of the um yes any other languages beyond that would be the additional cost. >> Okay, that's also very helpful to know. Thank you very much. Um that's it for now. I'll let someone else. >> Okay. And I just since we're focusing on cost for a minute here,
054my question also has to do with that and that is it seemed in your presentation that you were leaning towards, you know, preferring Zoom remote gatherings perhaps. Okay. I was just an impression I picked up and that may be a mistaken impression. >> May I jump in on that one? Um, it only happens that for this evening's presentation, uh, because Van was in another state, we prefer to both be on Zoom rather than have one person on Zoom and one person um, in the room. I am local, so I am making a commitment to be conducting all these meetings in person. >> Mr. Buckman. Yep. So, I I appreciate that um that there's a sense of things that are all inclusive. Um your sense of how important advertising is for this kind of a a
055search. um from our experience um when I was the superintendent um and we had a uh cabinet positions and um higher level positions. This my superintendency was about 10 years ago. Um I knew that we needed to get it some we needed to get something into AXA and um that was 10 years ago. What we're learning now is the amount of traffic on our online services, it just trumps anything that is printed. And so, um, our website draws that attention. Um it it it is we we not only um post HYA searches, we post every single search that any firm um um um is is is part of. And so if we don't do the search, we still post that position. Um and we're able to analyze some of those clicks as well. Um but
056from past experience and with the last four searches that we've done, we have not gone with the additional services of um of of um marketing on other uh forums >> and having uh retired 2 and a half years ago and continuing to work with aspiring superintendent, I can share with you with great certainty that the word that St. Louis Coastal is looking for a superintendent has spread throughout California. So the national dialogue would be around HYA sharing that information more widely. But you are a desired school district. So, I don't see you having any problems getting the word out that uh you your superintendency has become available after almost 17 years, which is unheard of, unparalleled. And congratulations to you for the stability you've created for boards and superintendent to continue a positive relationship with
057one another. >> Thank you, Mr. Anger. >> Um I I I perhaps read this wrong, but it looked as if You know, speaking about the the dashboard that we were talking about, um it looked that like there was some way of incorporating the feedback that you had gotten from um the board and the public in order to help the bo the board understand better um what is important and then be able to use that as we look forward. Is that true? that that is the I believe if you're s if you're referring to the community survey those are the the results from the community survey the survey is part of your uh of our proposal um but the community survey is beyond our um beyond our community forums and beyond our uh focus groups. They
058are um um they are really design questions to help us analyze even further the desired characteristics of a superintendent. Also some of the priorities um that the community may want to focus on. And yes, we do take that information and we merge it u which would be produced in your leadership profile report. Um and so that leadership profile report serves two purposes. Number one, um we will certainly dig further through the uh survey and our conversations about what your community views as strengths and um future priorities and possibly um challenges that the district may face and also desire characteristics. And so we we merge the information from the survey with the live conversations we have with focus groups and uh community forums. Sir, are you asking whether you will have access to the dashboard? >>
059Yes, I I was asking that, but it look my my understanding from what the written uh information that you sent was that that there would there that would be created in a way that we could use that as data for other things as well, including the superintendent evaluation if we chose so chose to do that. >> Correct. That that that information would be shared with you. Um, and you have you would do whatever you choose to do with that information. >> Okay. >> Can I ask one more question? Do we have time? >> One more. >> Oh, okay. I'll Erica, do you want >> Dr. Estrian? Um, you were superintendent in Glendale. You should know there are two people here that used to work for Glendale Unified. Um, >> my but but more interestingly to
060me, you were you said you were chief HR officer for LA USD. >> Yes. And I guess I would just ask you in your role there. What do you think what was your experience finding trying to help find superintendent? I know that you know they did a lot of recruitment for LA Unified a lot of superintendent. Um and and how does that how does that uh experience that you had there um help you with your concier service? Well, as a candidate, an internal candidate in LA USD, um I was one of the two finalists and um I understood that the decision was split amongst the board and um I accepted the fact that the qualities that the board was looking for or the majority, the four not the three uh were about having a business
061background. ground or coming from a non-educational industry. So I accepted the fact and worked very closely with the superintendent who was selected then. But I felt highly supported by the team and in particular for Glendale. I was really never looking to go to another school district. I was already the deputy superintendent was tapped on the shoulder. I lived in Glendale. So there were a lot of um handholding opportunities and convincing by the individuals from HYA that I still stay in touch with because one of them is uh still a mentor person to me. Um that I felt convinced that maybe I didn't know that I was ready for that superintendency but that district uh wanted me to be there and they did a great job supporting me. So I have firsthand experience that the handholding
062for the candidates is encouraging and doesn't allow you to drop out of the process just because you feel neglected or um no one is communicating with you as to what's happening. >> Miss B. >> I'm so by the way I'm very happy that there are two members former members from Glendel. I'm not aware of the second person, but I know of the assistant superintendent ed services as I was reviewing your information that um has a history in Glendel prior to my being there. >> Thank you. Um, I did not see in the written proposal or here tonight any um any data or evidence of successful placements uh either within the last x number of years or within our community, you know, within California or anything like that. And and I'll just be very honest with
063you, I reached out to all five of the references that were provided and didn't hear back from any of them. So, I wasn't even able to gauge any information that way. Um, so, um, and and I did email them. They had several days. Um, so just wanted to share that feedback for you. Um, and just curious if you can briefly speak to, um, evidence of successful placements. >> Well, uh, Trustee, thank you. We will we will certainly follow up with the references that were listed. Um um the the latest one that I'm familiar with which I was not part of the search however um um with the Santa Clara UNC >> um that was um uh that was the latest um uh that HYA was engaged in. Um although I was not part of that
064particular search, I know that um um you know we reflected u as we do in many of our searches. Um but I you know that was this the only one that I'm familiar with and have had conversations with in terms of associate conversations >> and also um not to be looking for excuses but this month has been spring breaks in a number of districts so that may have something to do with it but we certainly can follow up with them. >> I see Mr. Buckman has a question but we have time or yeah if if it's brief please we need to gather our thoughts and the we have others waiting so thank you go if it's brief please >> so I'm going to assume that the survey um includes some questions that that are standard
065so do you have a limit on the number of local questions or how do you how do you decide on those >> yes uh well the our survey is uh researchbased Um and we will um uh they are um they are standard um and for additional questions that would be of a fee if it goes beyond what what the standard questions would be. >> All right. Thank you very much. There be no further questions from the board. You are welcome to uh remain with us this evening uh or we will advise you at the conclusion of the meeting who the board selected this evening. So it is your choice. We are now going to um sit with the with the board just so that we can individually uh review our notes and do what we
066need to do. But thank you so much for the time and for joining us this evening. We appreciate it. >> You're welcome. Would you like me to explain? >> Yes. So, so force raiking basically is you're right now writing notes kind of giving a score to our first group, right? Hazard young associates. So for for them for for them then you have your force ranking sheet where they of course would be number one right now right because we've only you've the board has listened to one group they're your number one selection now the next group is going to speak which will be leadership and associates the board after hearing from leadership will then score them and we'll have a choice to make which one did you like more than the other so did you like
067hazard young or or did you like leadership associates? So, you're force ranking yourself, right? You're going to rank them in order one or two and then you go to the third one and then you're going to force rank them one, two, and three. So, after each group, the board will rank who they feel like is the best at the time, but you may listen to the next person and think, "Oh, no. I like them better, and now they're going to become one." And then the group that was one will become two. So, it's it's kind of just it's just something that's supposed to be helpful for the board, right? To to be able to to uh kind of rank as you go. You of course can wait until the very end and make that decision
068after you've heard all the presentations. So, you don't have to use that sheet. Um you can you you know at the end basically the four groups that go through you can just rank them at that time. One, two, three, four. It's totally up to you. Yes. I got you. No, actually >> I needed my stage manager. hot chocolate. >> The correct hot chocolate. Chris Anger, please return to the podium. turn. So, it's like almost making I did, but I've already left. There's one person on Zoom for this and one person So, I let Mr. Banning in. >> Okay, welcome. >> And we're we're uh ready for your presentation. So, I'm gonna Can I move it a little bit so I can use >> Yeah. >> This Okay. Excuse me. >> Yeah. >> You want You
069want to read this? >> No. I have my notes in here. >> No, that's okay. It's fine. It's fine. >> You good? >> I think so. I'll figure it. >> Hi. Oh, that's a >> Thank you very much. It's nice to be here. So, um I think Bill is here, so we'll spend in a minute we'll get to introduce him. But, um I first want to thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts about partnering with your district as you undertake this uh significant decision. Um especially, I think after you've had somebody for 17 years, that's a long time and so it's a big big step. Um, some of you might be nervous about it. Um, I remember when I announced my retirement to my board, they got a little nervous about what was
070going on, but I we're very aware of your successes, thinking about your measure D and C, um, how much the community has supported you over the years and um, but also aware of the challenges some of you've had that you've had over the years. Um, so I'm going to start with Bill giving you a little introduction into him. Bill, you're apparently muted. Wait, does it >> How about now? You got me? >> There you go. >> Okay. Um, good evening everybody. Thank you for for having us. I wanted to just take a minute and introduce myself. I'm Bill Banning. I'm a partner with Leadership Associates. Um I'm joining you virtually to support Peggy tonight. And uh I want you to know my background includes uh um superintendency in um the Galita School District in Santa
071Barbara County, another coastal uh community funded district. Um I also worked in Salana Beach School District at the cabinet level. another um another um community funded district. So um and in in addition to my work uh as a former superintendent and now working for a superintendent searches, I'm currently serve on the school board for Santa Barbara Unified School District. So uh I have a governance perspective and understand the unique uh fiscal and community funding dynamics that you're navigating. It's a pleasure to be here and be part of the team presenting to you tonight. >> Thanks, Bill. So, a little bit about my background. You can see that I was a superintendent in San Diego Union High School District, also near um Bill in Salano Beach, and I was also superintendent of Brea for about a
072total of 14 years. I've been with Leadership Associates since 2009. Uh I've done probably well over 80 searches. I don't like to count because it seems too many to think about at times. Um and I've been um you know, excuse me, I need to have a glass. Um uh I have done searches including two executive searches here for your school district as well. I currently lead a superintendent network in the central coast area. Um Dr. Prader has been a participating participant in that for about the last 10 years and Bill Banning is the coast co-f facilitator of that group. Um so the next see if I can get that up. There we go. Um I think this key personnel uh assigned to the support support our searches are really the one of the most important
073things we have as a difference from some of the search firms. Um Linda Harter, Kenny Penny Pile and Serena Farington um are all former executive assistants to superintendent in places we did searches. So they've been through our search process. They know about our search process and they would be an invaluable asset to Mrs. Dawson uh who's they provide templates. They provide language about posting. They do all those kinds of things and really support the the your executive assistant throughout the search. >> See we are um a sample of those searches at Tascadera Newport Mesa Irvine Orange Unified Lamp Oak Park. You're certainly welcome to call any of them for references but we've done those kinds of search. I personally have done Orange Unified Oak Park at Irvine and Newport Mesa. So, those are some of
074the searches that I've been involved in. Bill, anything you want to add on that one? >> No. Um, the Tescadero, the other three searches are ones that I was involved in as well. >> Great. I think it's important to recognize we are a statewide firm. We u have a statewide reach. We're California-based. Now, we certainly place candidates who are from out of state, but we are in fact a state um we're we are personally located. I think one of our differences is we're a partnership. So all of us have a vested interest in the success of the search firm. We're not consultants that are picked for different searches. We're a partnership and we are work to do our um to be assigned to searches that we can really assist with. We have a mission statement
075in our document that says we help leaders in California schools do what's essential to educate all students to become productive and contributing citizens of our democracy. Um we meet twice monthly um on a zoom call which is interesting when there's about 23 partners you can see the number of people throughout the state. Um but it's a good way for us to keep track and when you have us as consultants Bill and myself we have all those other partners who support us with references with information about candidates and so that's been very very helpful as we do that. We also meet twice a year for inperson so we can continue to improve our practices. We think that's very important. Um state and national reach. Um we are a CSBA silver affiliate. Uh we are involved in
076all of these other groups. One of our members was the executive director of CALSA and so we have a lot of connection with people throughout. Um our we also have a subscription service which I think helps us with that state and national reach. We have over 1,600 people who can access that that as soon as we have a search, they get notified of our that the search is part of our search process. And those people are in California, but they're also around the country. So, we have an opportunity um to certainly, you know, reach all different kinds of candidates. And we have candidates who are out of state now, but they may have been in California and they'd like to return. So, that's part of what we work with. And I might might add, Peggy,
077that the uh the the information when our searches go out go out to 1600 people, but most of those people are also forwarding them to others that are saying, "Hey, here's somebody here's something that sounds like it might be good for you. >> Thanks." So, um it's interesting in reading all of your some of your documentation how important things are. and our values in our business plan are integrity, equity, diversity, inclusion and accountability and transparency which I read throughout your documents. The search process itself um it begins with the and ends with the board. It starts with you. What are you looking for? Who would you what kinds of candidates do you want? What what their characteristics? What do you see as key challenges for the district? What are key strengths of the district? We
078have certainly some ideas about that already, but we talk um really starts with you and helping you think about that process. Then we do all the education partner input. We're going to ask you in your our first meeting with you about what you know who should we meet with, who are the important groups, who are the important people that we really want to spend time with. And we can do that. We do an online survey, we do it in person, we do it Zoom. All those uh opportunities are available. We also know that after that we've got to start really recruiting, campaigning, looking out, reaching for the kinds of candidates we think are going to be a good match based on all the input we receive from you as well as your community. Um, we
079want to really make sure we do a a great job of vetting candidates. We don't want you to be surprised. We don't want to be surprised at all. And um sign watching my time we do have offer your uh after you sorry you're going to interview I'm going to go back for you're going to interview we will help you um provide you an opportunity to see all candidates applications you don't see some you see all and you'll have we'll have some recommendations of people we think are a good match and people we think might have issues that you should know about and that's part of our job so we really spend a lot of time on that and then you'll interview we'll help you develop questions based on the input. Um, and I'll go to
080back to some of that in a minute. Okay. Timeline. That's based on your RFP. This is a draft of the timeline at the first meeting with a board. We always go through that. Make sure those all those dates work. Figure out when you want to actually interview. Um, and and also, of course, we're going to talk about the candidate qualities and characteristics you want and define the groups that you're interested in. That leads us to a position description and it also leads us to a final executive summary that you're going to get that's going to summarize all the data from the survey, all the data from the input. These this is what your community and all your stakeholders are really saying about what they want to see in the new superintendent. Um, anything else? I
081might I might add as well that that our role is is guiding and supporting the the board and um we we want a successful outcome for you um based on what your needs are. So that that last uh graphic that said starts and ends with the board. It really is the most important governance um activity that you you can you can take part in. It's making the selection here. And uh we're here to support but not influence that decision. So the community engagement piece again we're going to ask you to tell us who you want to talk to. Um we're going to do the online survey. It's in multiple languages. I'm currently doing one where the languages are Tagalague and Camir which is Cambodian as well as English and Spanish. So we have those surveys
082kinds of things available that informs our position description and helps us come up with that executive summary for all of the allit. And I want to say also when we finish all of those documents, that executive summary, the survey, all the input documents, once you select the candidate you want, that's your choice for superintendent, they're also provided that whole packet of information, gives them an opportunity to see what everybody has been saying, and helps them really know what they're coming in to to, what the stat questions are, what are the challenges. they'll have done their homework. So hopefully, of course, they'll know a lot of that ahead of time. So, Bill, anything else on that one? >> Uh, no, no, thanks. >> Okay, thanks. Okay, this part, uh, the background checks and the vetting is
083really probably it's probably one of the most intense parts of the search for us because we want to make sure we really vet every candidate. We talk to every candidate, of course. We kind of do some screening and thinking about is this a good match? Are they if somebody applies and they they take out interest in applying and they're high school principal, we're going to probably have a conversation. Maybe that's not the best step for them or the best step necessarily for the district. Um our comprehensive reference checking of course we use our networks, our personal connections. I um I currently and I'll talk a little bit about next, but we also are all involved in professional development. So have an opportunity to really know a lot of outstanding candidates or potential candidates around the
084state. again um interview you're able to read all applications you can look at every part of it we help develop you criteria of what are you looking for what how you kind of rate those candidates see how they really fit with what you're doing uh we'll review all the candidates with you in a closed session meeting um that's later on in the of course in the timeline we help you with the interviews and provide all the materials so you can take notes so you keep track of the candidates. We provide the rating sheets, all of those things to help you sort of think about what am I going through in during that process. Um, we assist with salary comparisons because sometimes you need to think about what are we going to offer in compensation and
085we also assist with the contract with assistance with the board. Um, I think one of the part benefits of our partnership is we are able to access all of our partners about candidates and say what do you know? What have you heard? They're they're in this they're in your area of the state. What have you heard? What can you tell us? We we do not obviously do just the references that they give us on the form because the form is what they're hopefully they're giving you c people who are going to say good things. So we want to also know what are they going to say if we call the county superintendent if we call a superintendent in nearby district who has worked with them. So we're going to be doing that as well. Um,
086I >> I would say that it's also a huge advantage that the the partners across the state build that those relationships and and and have reputation. So, we're able to access informal networks and go well beyond the listed references. >> Thanks. So, the next piece is kind of our recruitment strategies. Um, we are also actively involved in executive development um across the states. Uh, I mentioned the superintendent network. I do one of them. We have several. We have 45 of those across the street. The superintendent leadership series, advisement and workshops. Some people in our we're coaching. We're supporting different groups. We have people involved in a thing called strategic visioning, a different term for strategic planning, but we have nine districts involved in that. We have assistant superintendent leadership networks across the state, 44 districts.
087Uh instructional leadership series, an annual summer institute. I also have done two years in a row of aspiring superintendents, people who want to be superintendent and we have a separate one of those that's a an virtual one from around the state. So we have number of people involved in those and I think that's helped us really get to know great leaders everywhere. Um so that's kind of a quick overview of sort of the professional part. Um I think of the why. Um, I've been thinking about this because I I have been up here for a couple of searches, obviously. Um, I've gotten to know Dr. Prader. I've listened to the kinds of things you've had challenges with from the TK funding to being basic, what they call basic or versus LCFF versus those kinds of
088things and the things that that does to you as a district. Um, I think about the, you know, the Diablo power plant issues that have arisen over the years and you're always, you're like, "Oh, please. We've heard so much about it." But that's certainly been an ongoing back and forth thing for you. And when you're close in tight in a basic aid district and then you can become not basic a quickly, those kinds of things have real impact on what you do. But I think that, you know, the kinds of successes you've had with student achievement, um, kinds of opportunities for kids, but also I'm going running out of time, so I want to say real quickly, I'm one of the things I'm very proud of is that I think we are appreciated by our
089boards that we've worked with across state and as well as the candidates that we support as well through searches. There I kind of >> Yeah, thank you. No, you we I know we had a little issue with the with the muting not muting. So, sorry. We're we're going to give some grace with all that. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. At this time, we will come to the board for questions. Um, Mr. Buckman. >> Oh, I didn't realize it was on, but I've got plenty of questions. Um, let me let me just work on the ones. I appreciate the background checks and I appreciate the the e education process, the pieces that you're looking at, but these days it's the ethics, it's criminal crim, you know, criminal activities that that really are
090um for catching up and surprising the community and their boards. >> Yeah, we do spend time on getting through all of that. Um we um we have a couple of services that we've used to do that depending on where the situation is. In many cases we already know some of these people and we may know that there are been issues. Um so but we do use services to help us when we need to do that kind of >> and if I can just follow up real quick. Sure. >> But so where in the process do you start you get the let's say you see an application is that where you start running that kind of a background? Yeah, we we're kind of we you know we have a a when what a little process thing.
091So people request an application on our website and our executive assistant sends it. We start a running document of what we call RFA and so we start to see who's there and I know for me when I'm doing searches I start looking then right away to say huh that's a good one. Maybe we want to follow up. Sometimes they may request an application and they don't intend to apply but maybe we think they're a good person to apply. And so we may reach out to them from that standpoint too. So I I think we try to start early and it also helps us to say to our other partners this person's request an application. Anybody want to talk to me about that? So we try to get because frankly when you close a search and
092you have 40 applications or for you know 40 actual applications not just requests but applications you don't have a lot of time. So you want to start as early as you can. >> Does that help? Thanks, >> Mr. Banfield. >> So, I take it that you'll be visiting with each member of the board. >> You'll be visiting with each member of the board. >> Yes, we do it different ways. It's up to the board, but typically it's good for us to talk to everybody just to kind of get We do the group thing because I think your public wants to hear what you have to say on that kind of thing. Do you think it's um do you have plans to visit with our superintendent who's been in for 17 years? Do you think that's
093important? >> Yes. I think you know one of the things that if you don't think it is, I I won't have to. I will say to you something >> I think it's very important. >> No, no. I think that um depending on the circumstances of the superintendent, there are times when the boards don't want us to talk directly to the superintendent, but in this case, I can't imagine we wouldn't sit with him and talk about the kinds of things. One of the things that it's important to know is, you know, you can talk about the strengths. What are the challenges coming up in the next three, five years to pay attention to? >> Yeah. I might be speaking out of turn, don't we? >> Do we think that it would be important? >> Oh, absolutely.
094I can't. >> We don't want >> Yeah. >> I mean, you know, we've he he's been here 17 years. >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> The board has kept him here for 17 years. And so >> I you know, I would think one thing important about that 17 years, by the way, is the for a candidate looking at a place to go to work, the longevity and the stability is really attractive. >> Yeah. >> Right. you you stay um I followed a gentleman in San Diego Uni School District who had been there 29 years as superintendent. That was an attractive place to go to work >> because you knew the stability of the community. You knew the stability of that leadership um the kinds of people that they had hired over those years. It's a very attractive
095position. So yeah, I think that's important. He has he can help uh us as we talk to candidates. If I'm doing a search in a district where they are in serious financial trouble, then I need to be looking at candidates that can say I need to I I'm the kind of person that can handle that. Uh because it's different than when you have money. >> Mrs. Roger and Mr. Clawson. >> Thank you. Um well, first I'm I am impressed with the um the depth of research that you did on our district. Um I've been on this board a very long time and I don't recall working with you, but I have familiarity. I was it the Steve Lad search? >> When have you >> I've never done a search here. >> Leadership has never done
096a search here. Oh, I not not at superintendent level. >> I've done your I've done your two assistant superintendent. >> Oh, okay. >> position, but I have not done a superintendent search. >> You have a um a very deep um list of districts with which you've worked. >> Okay. >> Um and I thought it was in your proposal, but apparently it wasn't. I can't find it right now. Um, which districts in our county have you placed superintendent? So, Bill, you I think you >> Well, re uh recently Atascadero um and Pasar Robas um those are those are the ones that come to mind recently. We just placed a an assistant superintendent in in Atascadero as well. >> Um >> and were you active in Lucy? Yes, I think I think >> we we also did
097um San Santa Maria High School District and Santa Maria um um elementary district. So, we've done those two. I know they're not familiarity with our county. I'm I'm wondering um of the superintendent that you have placed, >> do you have any information about how many of them are still in their position after five years? Yeah, our percentage is 80. Bill has he's better at the data part than I proposal. >> I think it's 85% who stayed over five years. I looked for it. I couldn't find it, but I I remembered. So, yeah. Okay. It was your proposal. >> All right. That's that's a good tracker. I mean, thank you very much. >> Can I say something real quick on to that point? I think the important thing is >> sometimes you have a district where
098there wants somebody just for short term. >> I don't think that's going to be the case here. I would assume you have because you're used to longevity, you would like some longevity. And so that's part of what we really look for when we're talking to candidates and when we're doing our reference checking and vetting. >> Yeah. I was going to note also that um beyond the county the um um St. Louis Abyspo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties all comprise region 13 of AXA which is the association of uh California school administrators. And so, um, you know, both Peggy and I have had opportunities to work with, uh, with Eric in various settings. And, um, you know, if, if not in the district, um, um, as Peggy was mentioning, Santa Maria, both of those districts, LMPoke
099recently, the college school district, um, Galita in in, uh, Santa Barbara. And so, um, we're really familiar with this sort of central coastal area. and and in particular the the piece about um community funding um which I think is a really critical part of of information that is helpful for for us because you know folks with just the LCFF background um may not understand some of some of the intricacies and I've been involved in community funded districts since 8 I believe >> right and you understand the difference between low and high wealth right absolely Absolutely. Um the the board that I serve on is a very similar lowwealth basic aid district with 60% unduplicated pupil count. >> Okay. Well, thank you. >> Okay. We're I'm going to let the the we're going I I'm going
100to get to each board member, but we are if we can keep it as brief as possible on with questions that would be appreciated. U Mr. Clawson. >> Yeah, I think we're at the end of our Q&A time. So maybe just very briefly my first of all u thank you for the presentation and the proposal. The area that felt least concrete to me in terms of understanding your approach is the community engagement piece and I was wondering if you could >> Sure. >> It seemed like you were kind of suggesting you you do what we want and and you're flexible but I mean what would you recommend there because I think that's an important piece for us. Typically we end up scheduling about three or four days in a row to work on the the
101input. And so in in the case of let's assuming it's here I love coming to San Santa Bos. So I would be happy to come and spend a few days. Um but we would come and we would be here in present. I find in doing searches since Zoom since co when everybody started going to Zoom for things there are some groups that are okay on Zoom and some that are not. For example, in this district, if I if we're lucky enough to do the search, I would want to meet with the principles in person. I don't think they zoom them. I I don't they have a vested interest. They've had the same superintendent for a long time. I think meeting with your union leadership in person is critical. I think that um most some parent
102leader groups are particularly good. Sometimes the city council might want to be do Zoom because it might be easier. It just depends on the community. But we ask you those questions. So for example, is it important that we spend time with Rotary or is it Rotary and Kowanas and so the service clubs together? Sometimes they're okay in Zoom, but there are certain groups in my perspective. And so if I'm up if I'm here for three or four days in a row, there's a lot of people you can meet with. Bill only lives in Santa Barbara. Um so he's not that far away and we can be here and and spend the time. It's easy. >> Thank you. Appreciate it if you >> that help. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Thank both. >> Thank you. I'm
103going to be very brief and these questions are just yes and no because I just need clarification and then one to explain at the end. Um I just heard conflicting information about the salary comparison study or a availability of that. Is it included or not included? >> Oh, we take care of that for you. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, and then, uh, you talked about the great job on vetting candidates, but a and you referenced working with third-party companies to do the deep dive. Um, do you is that included? It is included. >> Ours is an all-inclusive price. >> I understand, but I dug deep in across the proposals into what that background check actually consists. So, it's criminal. All of that cost. >> Thank you. Um, the um Oh, yeah. And then is the
104all-inclusive fleet fee does that also include the travel expenses for for the partners? Okay. And then the last question for you to elaborate on, thank you for that. Um is um can you tell me about whatever skill or experience you have in specific stakeholder engagement with our harder to reach more vulnerable communities, um communities of color, low-income communities, our English language learner communities, that sort of thing. >> Yeah. I think that what one of the things we've done is we we go to communities where they are, right? So if we have if there's a parent group at this area at a church or something, we go there or sometimes it's easier to do it at a school site, do input at a school site because they have they're connected to their school if their parent
105groups or their student groups. Um and by the way, we also spend time with students. We want to know what they think. That that's pretty important. But we really try to figure and again a lot you'll have to tell us some of that but we want to go where people are and help them and get the information from them directly. Um and it it varies frankly on what the groups want and what the community has. >> Thank you. >> Okay Mr. Buckman briefly because I have a couple questions also. >> Yeah. Go ahead. I my question was answered. It was about students. >> Okay. Thank you. M Roger. Do you have another question? >> Oh no. I'm sorry. >> Okay. So mine are pretty brief. Um I see that you advertise on EDCAL. Do you
106advertise any place else? >> Not typically. Um because of our our service, we have done national ones. We've done AASA. It will depend on what if if you're not interested in candidates from out of state. You don't need to do AASA necessarily, but if if you are you are, then we can do AASA. There are other options for us. CLSA has helped us before. >> Okay, great. Thank you. And then um you indicated that we would see every applicant, but do you do any initial paper screening to determine if they even meet the good >> lowest? Really good question. We uh you will get you'll get when the search closes and as we've done our reference checking, we will sort of tier the candidates by these are the people that seem to match the best
107and these are people that don't. Um there may be various reasons. We may know that they've gotten fired out of their last two jobs. Unfortunately, that's happened. So, so we're going to know those kinds of things and be able to really say to you or we have principles who apply for the superintendency. They probably don't have the experience that you're going to be looking for. So, we'll help you think about that, but ultimately it's your decision who you interview. I mean, it is that's the beginning and ending with the board is that. >> Okay. Great. Um, those are my questions. We really appreciate >> Mr. didn't ask anything. Is that okay? >> Um, Miss Btoon, did you have another? Okay. Make sure we're good here. Um, all right. Thank you for your presentation. You're welcome
108to stay with us if you wish. Um, >> no, I think I'll >> Okay, we'll advise you um after we've made our decision. >> Thank you. And luck >> size for sure. Bill, any closing comments you have? >> Thank you for the opportunity to be with you this evening. I appreciate it and making the the opportunity to do this hybrid with Peggy there in person and me here virtually. It's it'd be an honor to be part of the process. >> Thank you very much. >> Thanks so much. >> The board quickly before we bring in our next people, does anyone feel the need for a quick break or do you want to keep plugging along? I know. >> Good to see you. question. >> No. probably see the process. packets. >> The next group They
109didn't give you any popcorn. You can only see out here. Okay. Should I tell Greg? This is another joint online and in All right. Good evening. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Can you hear me? >> You're going to be right up here. >> So, there's your clicker. And uh again, if you want to slide this closer or further away, you can do all that. All you got >> Hi, welcome. Our next presenter is here and this is McFersonen Jacobson. Thanks for joining us. >> Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me. And I believe we have Stephen. There he is. >> Yes. Can you hear me? Can you can you hear me? >> Okay, great. Thank you. That's wonderful. >> All right. And is the presentation already pulled up here or >> Oh, speak of the
110angel. Where's Mandy? Hi, Mandy. I just want to say hello. >> We've been talking to Mandy the whole time. All right. Well, hello. Thank you for having me. My name is Dr. Shelley Jones Holt and I'm here with my partner on Zoom, Dr. Steven Lauder and we are from McFerson and Jacobson. So again, thank you for having me. Next slide. Or unless I can. Can I do it here? >> Oh, even better. >> All right. So, here's just a little bit of an overview of the information that you already have in your packet. And I'm not going to go over too much of exactly what you have in your packet because you have the packet. So, this is mostly about getting to know who we are. um Stephen, myself and Stan and answer any questions
111regarding our process. So I'm going to go through this fairly quickly just um to do an overview and then I'm excited to hear your questions. So here's a little bit about who we are, Mac and Jake and in particular I am a big fan of Mac and Jake um because of the way that their process works or our process I should say works and the fact that we have the results that we have with our superintendent. So, here's a little bit about our our belief systems and our mission. Um, I can attest that this belief system and our mission is truly who we are at our core and everyone of the I think this is the next slide that's going to tell you a little bit about our uh superintendent, but we are a well-established
112leading national firm. Um, I'm actually born and raised in uh here in California, but my superintendency was actually in the Midwest. And that just speaks to the fact that we have this broad range of experiences from all over the country. Um over 130 consultants and we all do communicate many times with each other and connect with one another. And so that's another network of people that are really um engaged with this process and with one another. We do recruit like we said on a national um level, but you also have local consultants. And so we are here. I'm actually back in California, which I'm very happy to be. Um, but we do have our connection and our network nationwide. For Mac and Jake, we do customize every one of our search processes to your needs.
113So, I want to be very clear that we do not have a a cadre of people that, you know, we have in our back pocket that are rating. Absolutely not. Um, what we do is we actually look at what the district is looking for and needs. Um, I had the pleasure of being able to ride around the area today. This is a beautiful area. Um, but honestly, I had no idea how much one ad there was here, but and um the the differences in the community, if you will. I had a chance to ride around and as someone who has served in the superintendency, we and all of you as uh members of the community, you know how important it is that we know the area, we know the community, and we know who you
114are. Um, we do authentic engagement of stakeholders. This is actually the part of the process that I particularly personally enjoy the most is getting to know your stakeholders, your kids, your families, and ensuring that we have as much engagement in this in this process as possible, especially given that Superintendent Prader has been here so long. We want to make sure that um and that's an excellent thing to have in a district, but it can also create a little bit of trying to find the next Eric Prader, which yes, we want another superintendent, but also it can create some challenges with people being able to be themselves. We want to ensure that with our engagement in the community, we can uh ensure that. And we have a track record of successful placements. Um here's a little
115bit of our data. We have had over 1,000 successful superintendent searches in 45 states with all of our consultants. And so this is something that we don't um you can't have a cookie cutter model in order to have that kind of growth and experience. You have to have a model that is flexible with what we have. And here is your team. Um and so um you've seen my resume and my information. I I do want to give Dr. Lauder a moment to tell you a little bit about himself because he is our our regional director and advisory consultant. So Dr. Lauder, did you want to tell a little bit about yourself, please? >> Sure. Hi, welcome. Thanks so much for having us here tonight. We really appreciate the opportunity. Um, so um I started out
116uh teaching in uh Humble County up in far north coast and I've got 34 years of being a superintendent in California. Um, I started out teaching in tiny districts of about 110 and finished with a Stockton Unified, which was a pre-K12 of almost 39,000 kids. So, I've got a deep experience being a superintendent and going through all of the difficult things that districts and boards and superintendents go through. But I think the fact that um the mission statement of Mac and Jake is, you know, it's about the kids and and that's why I still do this at my age and I've been doing this search process for the last 11 years after I retired. Um and I think that we are different. We we are your co-pilot. We um we're not a vendor. We're a
117thought partner. We we're here to help you through this important process. It's your process. We have a a rubric that we go through, but in the end, you get to control the process. We do the heavy lifting, and you get to make the decisions. Um, that's what I like about this process, engaging with the board, engaging with the community, engaging with staff and students. and and in the end all the firms are going to do a fine job for you, but you need to find the team that you want to work with because as I said before, this is kind of like a little bit of mini marriage in a lot of ways. It's um you don't really know what you're getting into until you're there, but you want to do the best you can
118to pick out the people you want to work with. Uh you'll have our phone numbers 247. Um you can send us emails. We're giving you updates on a regular basis. The home office staff are there to help your staff or you if you need information. Um it's about service and that's what we do. Uh this is about servant leadership and we've tried to continue to do that and find the superintendent that is the best fit for you. It's not about all those people out there that have the credentials or the paperwork and maybe some experience. It's about the person who is the best fit for your needs to lead you down the path to the direction you want to go and to the goals you want to obtain. That's kind of me in a nutshell.
119Um, appreciate it. Thanks. Go ahead. >> Thank you, Dr. Louderder. And so, um, Stan couldn't be here today, but he is definitely uh involved in the process. >> Something a little bit to tell you. Uh, oh, it keeps going back. Okay, I'll let I'll look at it here. Um, something that I do want to be very clear about when you deal with Mac and Jake, the lead consultant, which would be me on this case. I only have one search that I'm working on. I am a full-time superintendent and executive cabinet coach. Um, that is what I do for a living and I love it. So all day long I've been working with superintendent or I should say all month pretty much this month, especially with the last couple of months and some of the interesting
120decisions that boards have h have been faced with with budget cuts. My job is to work with the superintendent and with the board uh to make sure that we're making good decisions for kids. At my core, I did tell you a little bit about myself. I am about the kids. Period. End of story. But I also fully understand as a former superintendent, as an executive director, as the 2016 AXA equity administrator of the year, I fully understand that we have to work with the adults to do good work for kids. Period. And in order to get great adults to come together, that is a skill that is called leadership. That is what we are here to help you make a decision on how to choose the best leader for your school district. It takes a
121leader to find a leader. That is what I am here to do. This is what I do full-time. It's not a side thing that I do. And I actually have results um as a superintendent, as a coach, and as a supporter that um I should say within recent years. I've only been with Mac and Jake for the last six years. Um because I was a superintendent before that. And with all of this time, I've been a superintendent coach after leaving my superintendency. Full disclosure, I have no desire to be a superintendent. I love folks, but it is not the job I want to do, but I'm really darn good at coaching those uh that are in those roles. One of the things that is huge with Mac and Jake is our ability to create sustainable
122leadership. And so, as I go into this, you're going to see me kind of scoot over to um phase five because to me, phase five is what makes us different. So, I'm going to walk through the phases because phase five is what gets us the sustainability of of leadership. Every single person that I have had the pleasure of either placing or working with in the superintendency in the last six years is either still there or still working with me because they know it's important to have that sustainable person, that coach on the side that I don't have any stake in this other than their success. That's it. My goal is to make sure that the board and the superintendent are successful together. Sometimes that means having difficult conversations with the superintendent, full disclosure. Sometimes that
123means having honest conversations with each and every one of you. That is what I enjoy doing. I'm pretty good at it. And I and we have a great team that is here to help. We do tailor our search to all the district protocols. As you can see, we are completely transparent through the process. You will get frequent emails and communication or phone calls depending on what people enjoy. Um I tend to be more of a phone call person. And I like to talk and talk things through sometimes, but I also understand that we need to follow those up with email correspondents and keep everyone in the loop cuz some people like to ask more questions than others, but the answers need to go to everyone. Um, we work only for the board of education. So,
124to be clear, we are your search firm to help you find your superintendent. I have no loyalty, if you will, to any particular candidate. My loyalty would be to make sure we have the correct candidate for this board. Um, and I want to move through where I'm trying to get to is the five phases. There we go. So, here are the five phases. Phase one is obviously we meet with the board and we get an idea of what it is you're looking for. We the phase two is we meet with the stakeholders. We get a very clear picture of what they're looking for. Then phase three, we really look at evaluating each of the applicants. Once the uh applications are out, we go through each applicant with a fine tooth comb. And so, yes, we
125call their references that they put on there. And this is where our network comes in cuz we call everybody we know that they may have thought they may have known at some point and we talk with them to get the real truth behind who people are. Some people are are It doesn't mean that if some we find something in their history that they're kind of out of the question, but it does mean that we need to have transparency for each and every one of you throughout this process. Phase four, we meet with you to uh review the list of candidates and of course participate in the interview process and have you choose your candidate. But like I said, my exciting part is phase five. Typically that first 8 to 12 weeks, we all get to
126know each other very well. But then we have the superintendent. So now we have the person. Then what? This is where Mac and Jake is different. We stay with our people with particularly as a superintendent coach and it could either be myself, it could be Dr. Stan, it could be Dr. Louderder, um, whoever the person feels most comfortable with and they help you all through that first year in particular. What I will say is that every one of my superintendent after that first year have decided to keep me on as their coach after that because the relationship is it's a confidential relationship. It's a thought partnering relationship, but it's also one built in trust. This part is what makes the Mac and Jake difference because we stick with you through the process. And you also
127have our guarantee that um if uh provide we give the two-year guarantee which is that if you um forgive me, Stephen, I want to make sure I say this right because you know I'm about to mince over my words because I always get it cookie. Uh Stephen, what is the two-year guarantee? Would you mind expounding on it for me? >> Sure. Sure. that is um if the board selects one of our um um shortlisted candidates that we provide a tier guarantee that if that person leaves for any reason whatsoever, we'll come back and do the search at just our cost. Uh we make no more money. We don't increase a fee. Uh so it's basically the guarantee is just we'll do that search again. Uh and we make no more money. We just pay our
128costs. That's it. >> That's it. And so that part, like I said, I've never had to use it. Um, but it's an important part of our process. Currently, the investment for M McFersonson Jacobson Services is 29,850. And you see what is included there. If you would like a more detailed outline, you can turn to page 37 that has the out detailed outline of the cost. And so you see there includes two consecutive days of in-person stakeholder educator educator partner meetings. That means me personally I will be here possibly with Dr. Stan and Dr. Lauder if they're available but I would for sure be here to actually conduct those searches. I actually live about 3 hours away in uh Fresno Fryant area. So it's not that hard for me to get down here. And it's actually
129a lovely drive. Let me just say it was a beautiful drive um to come here and so better than LA. just saying. Um, and so this is a little bit of what you get with us. And here's a outline of the professional supports beyond the search. So you see that you get the executive coaching and support. You get the board governance and leadership role. So we actually come in and do a session with you all talking about and just reminding because you you've been in a process and in a comfortable relationship if you will with uh Dr. Prader for some time. So we may need to revisit what is the role of the superintendent and board because it's going to shift and change and grow over time. Uh we definitely get into the leadership strengths
130and styles. This is because being the leader that you hire is one thing. Being the leader that the people in your organization need is another and we have to make sure that the person you choose has developed those skills. You also get access to K12 insight and innovate K12. As someone who is delving deep into the world of AI, this is absolute gold, especially on the part of board members to understand a little bit deeper about the ed educational instructional side of the decisions that we're making. And so with that, I want to thank you for having me and I am excited to answer any questions that you have. >> I have just a couple little things to add. Oh, >> one. Oh, music. >> If if you're brief, go go ahead, please. >> Yeah,
131just very quickly, we have a calendar that a draft calendar gets you to uh the end point in about nine weeks. You could hire a superintendent around the June 15th through 19th. Uh 3D is what we call our background checks. We don't rely on the references. We also do AI background searches. Um and if there's an issue with cost, we can propose a modular uh package. you can pick and choose what you would like. And the last thing is I hope you've had a chance to look at the memo we uh provided because that does outline some important pieces that we've done as far as researching what we think is best, but it's not what we think, it's what you think. Uh one last thing and that is there's one paragraph that is not quite
132right. It talks about uh we did start in 1991. Um, it says 750 super national, sorry, 750 superintendent placements. We actually have more than that. We have a thousand. And so that I apologize for that error. That was an office mistake, but that's it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Now, come to the board. I see Mr. Buckman. >> Yep. So, I've got three questions, but I'm not sure they'll allow me to say ask them that because everybody else has questions. So, I'm going to start with background checks. Um, I actually just heard something about using AI. >> Yeah. >> Two questions. When in the process do you start the background checks? Do you start wait until we have a finalist or do you start at the beginning? >> We actually Oh, go ahead Steve. >>
133Go ahead, >> Chel. >> We actually start as the applications are coming in and so um like for re recently I can speak to we're doing a search and standard and as the applications were coming in I was assisting I was not the lead. I was assisting Dr. been with looking those up as they were coming in. Then once the application deadline hits, then we come together and so he's doing background searches, I was doing background searches as they were coming in. Then we come together and we put together a short list for you. These are people and you'll have a lot of information on that short list. So you'll have the full list and the short list with our um notations on it. And then from there, once you get to your finalist, that's
134when we go into deeper background checks and we start calling folks. We don't necessarily do a lot of calling until that time, but we will do internet searches. I search their Facebooks, their all their social media. I'm in all of it before the >> So, and I appreciate that. So, in in my mind, there's ethics in the background check and there's the educational background. >> Yes. >> So, I'm interested in when the ethics part starts. I appreciate the education. >> The ethic that's what we look at. So, we're reviewing their Facebook pages. We're using their their LinkedIn. we're reviewing articles about them. Um, so the education part is actually the easier part. The ethics, as you mentioned, is the more difficult part and that's why we have to go deeper into their history. Once we
135get the finalist of candidates, that's when we for sure go three deep at minimum with every one of the finalists and we are deep deeply doing ethics backgrounds at that point. Dr. Louder, anything to add? >> No, just that we all do them things a little bit differently. I I tend to do the AI searches right away so I can see if there's anything that pops up and not that AI is perfect, but it does give us a a broad net to look at and we can certainly follow up on that. So we don't I I tend not to waste time. I really want to try to get that vetting done as soon as possible, but everybody does it a little bit differently, but just suffice to say that we do what we say 3D
136plus the AI. We do the the credentials, the criminal, the financial background checks as well before you get somebody that you want to hire. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome, >> Miss Bolton. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Um, Dr. Jones Hold, I appreciate that you said your favorite part is the engagement with our community members and our students and and everyone else. Um, and I just want to commend your proposal. Um, the inclusion of the commitment to including ethnically diverse communities and reaching those communities is really important to me. Um, and I note that your non-discrimination policy is way more than that. It it makes the connection between this process, the hiring and education. So, I just want to call that out and appreciate that. Um, I also appreciate your track record with a
137with a thousand successful searches in 45 states. Um but to to be very honest with you, I tried contacting five of the references that were provided and I couldn't reach any of them. So um so I just want to give you that feedback. So I wasn't able to check with any of the local um California references. So I was wondering if you could maybe just say a little bit more about your success overall um locally or in California. >> Stephen, did you want me to take that one or you want to go? >> Uh well, yeah. I'm just surprised that you haven't been able to follow uh people haven't been able to um respond to you. Uh certainly give you uh my most recent is is Medford I mean sorry um Bakersville City Schools. I
138just finished that search and uh certainly get uh I think very good reviews from them. Uh out of state I just finished Medford. I did Juno. Those are uh just finishing up right now. We'd certainly give you information about those as well, but I think you want California in partic pardon me in particular. Uh, I'd be happy to do that. I'm not sure why those references did not respond. That's really puzzling to me. >> I know of Travis Unified and um Washington Unified in particular. Maybe they were on I don't know if it was because of spring break. Was it the last couple of weeks? >> Um, some of it people are no longer there or one person they didn't even know who it was. So I can information later on that. >> Yeah, >>
139that's odd. Okay. Well, it's it's good feedback. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for that. Uh we'll certainly make that course correction. >> So you you mentioned um I believe the words were it takes a leader to find a leader. >> Yes. Could you tell me a little bit more about that in terms of how how your leadership and your vision of leadership uh helps you recruit and find the kind of people that we would want to have as our superintendent. >> So part of the one of the things that I personally look for in leaders is how adaptable they are to the different environments that they're in. That's part part of how we define equity is getting people what they need when they need it and the way they need it delivered. You have to have
140a person that is not I'm trying to say this in the nicest way possible, but isn't so self-absorbed and egotistical that they are not willing to change and adjust their leadership for the people that they serve. That being said, you also have to have someone that is very deeply grounded in who they are, in their ethics, in their values. We do a lot of this through the conversations that we have. So know that we're having conversations, the three of us with the candidates from the moment you get them off the short list and we know that who we're going to be connecting with. We're constantly talking with these folks. Um at times I will give them some leadership assessments or ask them some scenario questions to see kind of what you would do in these
141situations. And we do let you know if we believe that um some people might be a little too rigid or they might be a too a little too flexible or um they they um one of the things I look for is whether or not they're wishy-washy and that's probably the best term I can probably think of in their values because that means that they can be easily swayed. And you don't want someone that's necessarily easily swayed, but you do want people who listen. So I'm asking about their listening skills. I'm listening for their listening skills and trying to understand their reflexive versus reactive um type of or responsive if you will um ways that they're leading and having conversations. And so these are just a few of the things that we're looking for in their
142leadership because if they can lead other people and adjust themselves to leading those people, then they'll be able to do what's right for St. Louis city. And and then when you're looking at this then are you also looking at the district um the district data and and and whether the person has achieved their goals and >> absolutely that goes without saying absolutely we are definitely looking to see does and not only if they're in a district that achieved the goals but what was their role in actually doing that because you can have folks that come from great districts that have great results but if they didn't play a role in that or their role was minimal in that then that's something we want to look at as well. What was their role? So, not only
143are we talking with the person, we're also talking with the people who have worked with that person to see what it is working with that person is like. And again, not just the folks on the resume or on the references. We go three deep, which means that we're asking the people that they are suggesting who else may know and who else may know and who else may know so that we can get to the root of who these people are. >> Does that help? Yeah. >> The other thing is sorry I just wanted to just mention the fact that um it tells a lot about the kind of leader they are if they always say that I did I did I I accomplished or whatever versus you know we did uh and I think that's
144one of the things I look for is what kind of leader is that person are they a collaborative leader or do they take credit for other people's work? Now I the other the other question I have is I know that some um some of the search firms have what I would call the stable, >> but you said you that's not something that you have. So how do you re how do you create these relationships quickly without having that pool of people that you already know about? >> So first of all, many of us are from California. Um yes, I did work in other states, but I am born and raised here in California. And so with almost 30 years in the state, you get to know quite a few people. There are so we don't
145have a stable. There's no list of people that we come from, but we do h all have networks. And so when we talk about those 130 consultants, not only do you have um those consultants, but you also have their networks. And so what we do internally when we get your uh stakeholder and your board level feedback of who you're looking for, we then go out to our consultants and say, "Hey, who do you know that carries these characteristics?" And we actually talk with one another to start to see like, you know, who have you maybe seen in other searches? That's that's one way. But also, who have you seen coming up in the system? Uh many of us having been here in California, we've worked with some of the the the folks that are now
146coming up since we were assistant principles and teachers together. This is now the crew that's coming up. And so we do know each other, but there is no staple of people. It is more so the networks of the 130 consultants, many of whom have been superintendent that we call upon uh when we put these advertisements out. There is also the various national networks that you see that are part of your package and you can add additional ones if you choose which means that if you want to go even further with the search outside of what we typically do you may want to go into different organizations we do typically the ed join the AASA those kind of organizations but if you want to go deeper we can do that as well >> so there's I
147think a a critical difference here is we have relationships we have knowledge about people we have professional um relationships and knowledge about who and what they are, but we don't have a group of people that we promote. Uh some agencies actually work with people and say, "Okay, you're next in line, so we're going to promote you for this job." We don't do that. We find the very best person we can find that fits your needs. That's what this is about. It's about the best fit. So, when we say we don't have a stable, we don't promote people. We find the people that we know and we actively recruit to find the best fit. >> Thank you. Right. We are getting short on time. Mr. Buckman, if you can be brief and then Mr. Banfield. >>
148So, you written some stuff about um reaching out to the community. So, it's quick just quickly uh give me the names of the types of groups you're going to reach out to. So, whatever it is. >> So, we'll reach out to your school different school groups. So your PTAs will reach out to your your kid groups, your clubs. So let me put it this way. We do have adult groups that we reach out to and we have student groups that we reach out to. And so I will ask for your uh ASB directors, your club advisors. I will ask for your sports teams, your coaches. Then I will ask for your groups of community members like your pastors, like your different um Kowanas, Lions Club, whoever you have in the area, but also your partners.
149You have an a foundation, you have different associations. So, we hit the full gamut. And of course, we have the teachers, the classified, the administrators, but we do a deeper dive than that. Um, one of my personal favorites is always the troops, the Girl Scout and the Boy Scout troops. Those are always fun. Um, and getting the younger students involved as well as the older students. And that's one of the great thing about having former teachers that are doing this because we have a lot of fun with that part of it. But we do contact multiple levels of people. >> You're welcome. ecumenical groups, elected officials, uh police, fire, that sort of thing. All those groups. >> Thank you, Mr. Bfield. >> Last thing before, Mr. uh we also encourage people to respond in their
150home language. I am fluent in Spanish, so I can read and write and speak in Spanish, but there is also malic we encourage people to respond in their home language. >> Thank you, Mr. Banfield. >> Yes. Uh you outlined briefly the five phase approach. When do you work with Dr. Prader? >> So, he is actually someone we work with the entire time. So, he will be someone that we're going to connect with. We'll get to know what we're what we're looking for. And truthfully, the involvement of Dr. Prader is going to depend on you as a board. I would love to have u many conversations with him, but then there's going to be times when you're saying, "Okay, thank you and we need you over here." And there's going to be other times where as
151a board you're going to say, "Actually, we want his advice and his thoughts in this." And so he is an active part of the process, but it is at your leisure and you guide us on that. >> Mr. Clawson, did you have a question? >> No, I'll set. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. You are welcome to stay and wait or you can go on your merry way and we'll advise you over our decision later this evening. But we really appreciate your taking the time and all the materials in the presentation. >> Thank you. and everyone have a great week. Appreciate you. >> Thank you. The last thing I would say is look for the best fit uh with consultants and uh we'd love to be able to do that for you, but
152uh it's going to be your choice. Thanks again. >> Thank you. Thanks so much. All right. Well, we need a couple minutes um to to take care of our our part here. Hey, they get the pants. Thank you. >> Oh, I don't want to take this. >> Right. I will be coming back real fast. Y'all have a good one. >> You too. Enjoy your day. I'm going to try to Are you guys ready? The next one is only in person. Good evening and welcome. >> Good evening. Thank you so much. >> Yeah. Thank you for Thanks for coming. >> Yes. >> All right. I think you do. You have everything you need. >> Yeah. We do. Are we loaded on your computer our presentation or do you just want to go off the um >>
153We've got the He's here. I'm like, >> "Oh, fantastic." Okay, wonderful. Thank you. >> Okay, sounds great. How's everyone doing tonight? Good, good, good, good. >> Okay. All right. Well, good evening. It's a pleasure to be here, Madame President, board of trustees, cabinet. Thank you so much for extending the invitation to be here. We are from the Costa Group and we are very excited to present to you tonight about what we can do as we come alongside you in this very very important decision in looking for a new superintendent. So the Costco group TCG we like to talk about trust. One of the most important things, of course, is building trust with every relationship that you have. And this relationship is a very important one. As you venture on to finding a another a new
154superintendent after a very successful, longstanding superintendent, we know the importance of consistency and building a relationship with the people that will facilitate and help to support that process. We will show you throughout this this evening and through our presentation that with the Kuska group, we have an immense amount of commitment to the boards in which we serve during a search. Each one of our partners, we only do one search at a time. So, if we are chosen to work with you in your search, uh both Tom and myself will be solely committed to your district to your board. We do not run concurrent searches. And then guidance, we are not the decision makers. You are the decision makers. Our work is to guide and to facilitate and help to to bring the process along that
155is um directed by the board of trustees. And my name is Deborah French. It's a great honor to be here tonight. Again, thank you for the opportunity. I am a former superintendent. I retired just about two and a half years ago. I served two superintendencies, one in the county of Los Angeles and one in San Monteo County. I was up in the Bay Area for a little bit of time. And one of the things that I think somewhat differentiates me in the search world is that I was a precoid superintendent. I was a COVID superintendent and I was a postcoid superintendent. And I'm the more I say that I'm like that maybe I'm going to take that out soon because we're far enough away. But I will tell you that that was something that really
156framed the work that I did in the work with the board and all of our communities and our students. Um I I learned more in that time in the superintendency than I did collectively in all of my years. I've also served in the role assistant superintendent of both educational services and human resources. I was an elementary and a secondary principal and I had the honor of being the AXA region um superintendent of the year in LA and I currently coach I do leadership coaching and I am pretty committed to one district right now with um working with cabinet level folks in um helping them decide whether or not they'd like to move on in their career and supporting them mostly in human resources and a little bit in ed services. So again, it's a pleasure
157to be with you tonight. I look forward to chatting. >> Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak to you tonight um from the Costco Group. Um and thank you uh um President Schffer and um we uh um my name is Tom Johnstone. I was uh a superintendent in the Weisburn Unified School District in Los Angeles County. I spent my full 38 years in education as an educator in two districts in that area. 28 years in Lennox, started as a middle school teacher um and counselor, assistant super or assistant principal and principal at an elementary level uh director of curriculum instruction and assessment. And then I was uh assistant superintendent of HR for 10 years before moving on to Wiseburn to become the superintendent. did my doctoral research at Pepperdine University and my focus
158was leveraging parent support um for uh the instructional program. Uh the average adult in the community had 5.9 years of formal education. So uh it was an education process for the parents as well. I was also an adjunct professor in um at Pepperdine University. Uh I was also like Dr. Prader and Deborah uh region superintendent of the year uh superintendent of the year from Pepperdine University and um also uh the school of education educator of the year for Lyola Marry Mount. I'm fluent Spanish speaker. I've lived in both South America and Spain and I'm a resident of Avala Beach and I'm proud to be uh to claim St. Louis Coastal as my home school district. We have a couple things we wanted to say about St. Louis Coastal. First of all, we'd like to con
159commend you on having a um an excellent and informative website for our founder of our firm, Dr. Frank Costa. District culture was everything. This remains one of our foundational beliefs at the Costco Group. A culture of care for every student is a pillar at St. Louis Coastal. Stability and continuity are essential features of this culture. You have a stable board and a very wide, diverse, and talented um skill set that you bring to the community's educational programs. In a state where the average superintendent tenure is less than three years, you have Dr. Prader has served a remarkable uh 16 years going on 17 years. Stability and continuity are number one priorities for the Costco group superintendent searches and our goal is an excellent and productive board superintendent relationship and something that we always strive for.
160It would be our intention that the superintendent that you hire carry on this outstanding culture and the next superintendent retire as your superintendent. Um the results in St. Louisis Coastal Unified School District with this formula are very self-evident. Outstanding community support as evidenced by uh measure C22, an excellent San Louis Coastal Ed Foundation. Um that's both innovative and impactful. Both high schools recognized uh by US News and World Report as um some of the finest high schools in the United States. both middle schools um Lossos and Lagona um national forum schools to watch Monarch Grove and Pacheco being California distinguished schools and the goal for all of us Los Ranchos Elementary being a national blue ribbon school. You have a lot to be proud of and uh above and beyond with all that you have
161an outstanding parent participation program which is near and dear to my heart. In closing, you have some fun and interesting challenges like eliminating the achieve achievement gap at every one of your schools and the not so fun uh issues related to the budget, especially with the uncertainty of uh Diablo Canyon. We hope to continue to our support um and fill in the shoes of Dr. Prader as he moves on to the next phase of his life. Um what's different about the Costco group? the Costco group, 95% of the people that we place, and I was one of those um back in 2008, have served for uh five or more districts. So, that's a premium for us. It's something that we strive for, and we're very very selective of the um the districts that we select.
162We want them to be in alignment with our with our core values. Deborah. >> So, as I spoke about a bit earlier, this is not our search. This is your search. And one of the things that Costa Group really prides themsself on is ensuring that the search is tailored to the board's needs. And that can be a variety of of things dependent upon how you want candidates presented to you, what type of information you'd like to receive, how much information you want to receive. So, that is all led by the board. And of course we continue to adapt that throughout the process including interview questions interview format anything that needs to be so basically in short the last search that I conducted it may look very different than the search here because it's dependent upon
163your needs and the specificity of the desires that you have for the involvement in the search. There is continuous communication with the board. The board makes that decision. Do you want the communication to come from the board president? Are there appointed folks? that is your decision but the communication is very robust because we are involving you in every part of the venture and there is an open candidate pool and one of the things that is um as Tom said 95% of our superintendents who are placed they do stay in their districts for five or more years and so we do not I will affectionately use this word we do not poach our superintendent so once we place them we may find some another search we may think oh man that person would be perfect for
164this job. We do not go back and poach our folks. So we have an open candidate pool and we bring you every candidate for your consideration. And then we have full applicant disclosure. So you get to you learn about every single candidate even if the we determine them in our professional opinion to be a candidate who is not a recommendation. It is full disclosure of every ca every every single applicant to the board for your consideration. Our services in phase one in the pre-recruitment phase includes similar to what I've just spoken about. It's complete work with you. We develop our needs assessment. We can we talk about our stakeholder meetings that includes in person and online. That again is determined by um what the board would like. Would you like town halls, individual focus groups,
165community, students, staff together or separate dependent upon your determination? And we design and confirm with you on all of our electronic marketing um documents. One of the things that is also a little bit different at the costa group is that we run your search. We do all of our own clerical work. We have support definitely, but you work with us directly. So you're not calling the office and then talking to someone else who's doing that work. We will do all of those components. We'll work directly for you with you for any refinements. In the recruitment phase, we distribute our brochures nationally. We have about 35 partners in the Costco group. So it's not just Tom and I who are working on this. It is everyone we know. Quite honestly, in the search world, you've probably
166heard it now about four times tonight. We all know each other and we all know when someone has great candidates. So, we're not we're talking to as many folks as we can to find the perfect candidate for St. Louis Coastal. And we um set up and maintain all of our own files and our records and we disclose every single one of those to the board and then we handle all of our applicant communication. So, they again just like the board do not go through a tech team or a clerical team. they are directly talking with us throughout the entire search. >> So after a very uh thorough recruitment, we review and we screen all of our applicants. Now this is phase three. We conduct the initial uh reference checks immediately. Um um as Debbie pointed
167out, we'd have a panel of experts from our team. So you're not just hiring two people, you're hiring an an entire firm. We provide candidate files to the board so you get to see everything um unfiltered um which is an important one and um we facilitate the board interview selection and then into phase four which would actually be the um the interviews. We have a bank of questions that we customize to meet the the uh um unique criteria of St. Louis Coastal. So we develop the interview questions with you. We schedule and coordinate the interviews. We present a compensation study um for the board which is based on the districts in St. Louis Abyispo County. We assist the board selection of a finalist and then we provide an in-depth background review um to make sure
168that you don't have any surprises when you have a new uh superintendent come on board >> in phase five of the search. This would be the time in which the superintendent would be appointed. So if the board so chooses to do a a finalist visit to the district in which he or she currently serves, we do arrange that visit and and all of the components within that. We notify all of the candidates on behalf of the board. Of course, the candidate that is you've been that you've selected and those that have not been selected. We can assist in the negotiations of an employment contract. That is part of the service that we provide. One of the things that sets the Costco group apart is that we stick around for two years at no additional cost.
169So our fee is inclusive of two years of support. However the board determines that support is necessary. Whether that's to do board workshops, governance workshops with just the board, working with your new superintendent, providing support to cabinet, we are here for two years. And similarly, but a little different, if for some reason the superintendent does not stay for two years, we conduct an additional search at no cost. And then um we announce in that final we assist in those final announcements, helping you put together your public, you know, your PR announcements, all of that type of thing. And then we can assist, as I said, those two years are also conducting any type of one-on-one with your superintendent. That is something that basically the set aside that I just want to reiterate is that we
170are here for two years at no additional cost to support in coaching and in governance workshops. >> I think we're uh we're uh running low on time. So just very quickly we have a very purpose uh purposefully un um unhurried timeline which is a little different than this presentation. Um, you can see, uh, pre-recruitment, we would like to finish that by the time school gets out. So, we take advantage of everybody being here. Recruitment all summer long. A selection of candidates uh, at the end of summer going into the month of September, an appointment for potentially the October 6th board meeting and then up to two years of uh, support and again long uh, a long onboarding process. So, we've got four minutes to say goodbye. >> Okay. Yeah. >> I'm sorry that we didn't
171get through it, but I'm happy to answer any questions. I don't want to encroach on your time. >> Oh, thank you so much for the presentation. Um, I'll go to the board for questions. I see Mr. Banfield and then Mr. Buckman. >> You said that you develop interview questions. How do you do that? with who do you do that? >> We we have questions that we've created in the past, but we bring those. We actually would conduct a workshop with the board. We would look at areas in which you would like to to ask questions. It can be in all areas of the superintendency. After we've determined timeline of the interview, how many how long you want them to last, we would guide you in creating questions and selecting questions that are specific for the
172candidate that you would like to to be able to hire. >> Does this does this process involving does this process involve interviewing Dr. Prader? >> Of course, if of course yes, he's an important part of this equation for sure. Um, some searches, just to be totally candid, some searches boards ask very explicitly, please don't talk to our sitting superintendent. Um, when I left my second superintendency, I basically facilitated the search. So, it's very different dependent upon the board's desires. If you would like Dr. Prader to be spoken with and to be part of the process, then he will definitely be involved in that. >> Thanks. I noticed in your um papers that you sent us the word students appeared and I'm very interested in that. So what's what kind of outreach do you do to
173the student for the students? >> Again, you are the ones that direct us to the focus groups that you want to do. In most districts, we talk to students. We talk to student body uh people. would talk to um whatever students you want us to talk to, service clubs, um whatever. Again, I think it's important that you you're the people that are running the uh the search and we are unlike a lot of firms, we're we're willing to interview as many groups of people as you want because we want to get the most uh comprehensive and full picture of the uh district that we can put out in the um recruitment brochure. So, the more people we talk to, the more information we have, the better decisions we can make. >> Thank you. And if
174I can just add on to that really quickly and kind of take another page that we didn't get to, we do not, as Tom said, we do not give you um a limit on the amount of focus groups. So, we can do as many as are asked. Um and it in my last search, we had about five student groups that we spoke to. So, we went to the schools, we spoke to the students, and then we worked with the current interim superintendent in that district and the principles, and then they chose a gamut of students that could come and provide feedback. And it's it's very structured. It's fun. We make it fun. We bring candy, of course, and all of those types of things. And then they speak to us um about what they're looking
175for. And interestingly, many many children are very aware of what a superintendent does. And it's very refreshing. So, they're a great they're great people to get information from. >> Thank you. >> Of course. This is Roger. >> Thank you. I think what Mr. Buckman um may have been trying to get at or maybe I'm just trying to get at it is when you um conduct outreach. This board is uh very interested in receiving feedback from our SED population and our ELELS. Um you you you said that you were fluent in Spanish. >> Yes. >> Um so that is helpful in reaching that group and I appreciate that you are not limiting the amount of outreach that you will do. Um, in terms of written questionnaires, are you proposing that they would be provided in Spanish,
176English, and I think there there was one other >> We can provide them in any languages that the board requests or Dr. Prader says if these are the four languages you send things out in, then we send out our online surveys in those languages. >> Wonderful. >> Yes. Okay, thank you very much. >> Of course, I do not speak fluent Spanish, but Tom does. I just wanted to make sure I didn't I don't think I said that because if I did, >> I don't speak Spanish, but Ellen does. >> I I'm I know enough to be dangerous and and have a conversation, but Tom's got that covered. >> All right. Um, Mr. >> So, I have two questions for you. One of the things you you talked about that, and you shared this with a
177quite a bit of pride, was you said the board directs the the search. Um, but we've never done, you know, we haven't done a search in 17 years. >> Yeah. >> So, my question for you is, how will you help us structure things so that we can ask the right questions, do the right things, and get the right superintendent. >> Of course, maybe direct is the the incorrect word, and I apologize if I use that word. We one of the first things we would do is um have a workshop with you and we would provide you a kind of a a format of what a search looks like where we're talking about the board directs that is not all firms and I'm not in saying this in a bad way. I love all of them.
178They may not present all candidates to you. You may want all candidates to be presented. You may say we only want to see top tier candidates. So we'll kind of we will guide you along every process. Similarly to the interview process, we can give you what are best practices, what are questions we absolutely can never ask, what's the best, you know, process for the actual day of interviewing. But ultimately, we may say a best place is to do it in a neutral area and not in your boardroom. And this board may say we want to interview in our boardroom. And we would say okay, then we'll inter we'll make it happen in the boardroom. But we will give you best practice. We'll give you format. We'll give you guidance. And then along the way, you
179may have some um items that you'd like to, you know, sort of mold to fit your needs. >> And how do you how do you help us determine when you present? I think you called it an open I forget what the word was where we would have an opportunity to see everybody, but obviously there are going to be some that are going to rise to the top. Tell me about how you use your expertise to help guide us in in that selection. And if we're seeing, let's say, you know, potentially we could see 40 people, >> you tell me how how you how you get to a ranking and how you match that with what the district needs are. >> Of course, we will present that we will present them in tiered. Um, so we
180would say candidates that we recommend based upon what the board has decided for your superintendent criteria. For example, if you were to say that your superintendent must possess a doctoral degree, and we have six applicants who apply who do not have a doctoral degree, we will let you know that they applied um so that you can see their documentation if you so choose, but we would we would not rate that as a top tier candidate. Um, and then of course we would look at everything that we do in our reference checking and our background checking. Um, and bring all of that to you and we will tier them as tier one, tier two, and tier three candidates. >> Okay. Basically, a tier three candidate is ones that we wouldn't recommend. Um, tier 2 candidates may
181or may not. And tier one candidates are the ones that we spend a lot of time talking about. And then we have an entire day of a workshop or whatever it takes to decide, yep, these are the people that uh we want to interview. Typically, you're going to interview four or five people. We we've found that you get more than more of that and um it becomes counterproductive. You're better off. Yeah. And then la last question I have. Um your your your bid rate was pretty significantly lower than everybody else's. Can you can you tell me, you know, what what about that and what are there add-ons, things that we should also be thinking about? Um, I'll I'll get started and let um Debbie, you know, add to it, but um we think that our
182rates are competitive. We um you know, we've made several adjustments along the line, but there aren't any add-ons. What you see is exactly what you get. And you know I think probably the most important one from your perspective would be you know just unlimited focus groups. Those are we we we are interested like I said in the relationship um that uh in the relationship that you have with the community and we're interested in the relationship that you have between the superintendent and the board. And I think you get a lot more information if you the more focus groups you can look at whether it's students whether it's uh SED parents whether it's um you know English learner parents whatever it's um the more the marrier >> and I I would add that that yes I
183I do believe that our our fee is not significantly but it is lower than some of the other firms. Please don't let that be any to point in any way of our um the work that we do. Yeah, I know. And I it's actually the opposite. Um I don't know if Dr. Prader knew Frank Costa, but if anyone if you knew him, you knew that what he cared about was getting the right people in the right place. And because we don't have any ancillary folks that have to be paid in the background, we talked a little bit about when you're calling us, you're calling us directly. We're doing the brochures. We are answering our own phones. That type of thing. there's not other costs. Um but most importantly there are no additional fees. The the
184216 is the fee and that is what it remains. >> Miss Baldono then Mr. Clawson then I've got a couple questions then I guess Mr. Buckman again. >> I'll be brief. Thank you for the presentation. Um, I appreciate um that the written proposal in your presentation really outlines what the in what everything that is included in that includes comp study and very complete background checks. Um, the two-year guarantee and travel expenses and then the unlimited meetings. All that is very helpful. Um, I've noticed, um, in evaluating different firms that there's often a caveat to the two-year guarantee. If if the superintendent were to be hired and then leaves within two years, um, that there can be um, a repeat search. Um, I think that's what you said is that correct. >> So, a lot of
185other companies will have this caveat that if a majority of the hiring board is still the same. So, I'm just curious if you have any caveats to that guarantee. >> No, you the seven of you can hire this superintendent and there could be seven other people who ask that superintendent to leave in a year and we will come back and do the search at no cost. >> That is our guarantee and it's more of a guarantee on our process of finding the right people. Our background work and Tom can attest to this is extensive. Um, and so we we believe we bring you really solid candidates. Um, but if your board turns over, the guarantee stands. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And I might just add that philosophically, we don't just go for every single
186opening that comes up. We look at the district and we want to uh work with uh with boards and districts that, you know, share a similar philosophy to us. So, we would not expect uh a turnover and, you know, some of the things that you might see in some other boards. I mean, I worked in Los Angeles County, uh, um, 81 districts, and there's some districts that have really, really good reputations, but they've had seven superintendents in the last 10 years. That is not what we're looking for here. We're looking for um, we're looking for the person to retire. Um, I don't know. You know, getting 17 years is awesome and uh, you know, that's but we had cases in Roondo Beach and uh, I' I'd say in terms of our search, it says 95%
1875 years or more. It's probably closer to 10 and 15 years. So that's that's a value that uh, that we take seriously. >> Thank you, Mr. Clawson. >> Yeah. Question. Uh, Dr. Johnstone. Just as a resident of our community, I was wondering how much interaction you've had with our school district outside of this search and just how much you that would affect your ability to >> so engage here >> mostly with the with the Ed Foundation. Chrissy Robertson um and I have been talking on and off for several years. We took a group of teachers down to look at the programs that we have down in uh uh the Da Vinci schools, the Weisburn Unified School District, and we were going to take a group of students down there. It just turned out we have
188what they call these presentations of learning that they wanted to see. So, all of the students have to do an oral defense of their learning. And it's it's awesome to see. and we wanted to take a group of students and um they you know they were doing it like the last week of school and the people down there thought it was just a little bit too much. I think we could have taken 30 or 40 but she wanted to take two bus loads so it didn't work out but uh um I've worked with Christy. I've been to um some of your fundraising events. Um, so mostly in the area of uh of the Ed Foundation and uh I've got some thoughts about uh the old school house in Avala Beach that I'd be very interested
189to talking to people about, but that's that's another story. >> Don't go there. >> Okay. So, yeah, that that's a story in itself. Um I would say I I I'm gonna I'll get to you, Mark. I have a couple questions. Um two things you you had indicated your um having been through COVID and all your times I will let you know that there are four bed four people sitting at this table four trustees who were precoid during COVID and postcoid trustees. So we've been through that as well. Um a question I have is that you you're you're I'm interested in the compensation survey that you indicated you do. How familiar are you with uh including basic aid districts in that, especially lowwealth basic aid districts such as ours? >> So, in my last superintendency, I
190was in the Bay Area and I was the one school district nestled between very high compensated basic aid school districts. So, I learned a lot about basic aid very quickly. Um, but basically we had to tell everyone why we weren't basic aid. Um, but we look at your surrounding districts. We look at a variety of districts. We work a little bit closely with school services. So I would say I wouldn't say that I'm super familiar or Tom I don't know how where you are on basic aid districts. I mean fundamentally I we know what they are but we look at districts holistically and then we do that explanation to the candidates about why I mean most candidates who are coming to the superintendency understand the difference in pay rates based on on what type of
191district they're serving. >> And I would just add we only have one basic a district in Los Angeles County and that's Beverly Hills. And that that's another whole different animal. So, um, you know, I would say that, you know, most of the districts in San Louis Abyspo County are basic aid and I think we would be doing our comparisons within uh within that and uh um there's some interesting issues, you know, I not to mention the Diablo Canyon, but uh yeah, we we understand that there's some uh some big issues there. >> Okay, thank you. All right, we are way up on time with questions. So, if you can be brief, please, Mr. Buckman, and >> Sure. Go. >> I'm looking at your um recruitment process and some of it's paper and old style and
192what's the value of going out with paper and edcal and and that kind of stuff, a brochure. >> Well, that's such a great question. Um, we've been having that talk internally. Um, I mean, I'm a retired soup, so I can tell you what I do with my edc when I get them, right? Um, but that's not the case for folks who are looking for jobs. So, it still is a source that people go to, but we work very closely with like we are talking with the folks at school services. We're talking with the folks at CSBA. Um, I in my consulting life, I go to I still go to places like CSBA. I go to other places where superintendents are. So, for us, it's also word of mouth. Um, and it's talking with superintendents in
193other states. It's the last superintendent that I had the opportunity to place came from out of state. So, it's not that EDCAL isn't a great resource. It's not that any of those things cannot still be very helpful, but it's not the only thing that we rely on. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you so much for the presentation. We will discuss as a board and we'll be making our decision this evening. and you're welcome to um wait around or we will advise you of our decision after it's made. >> Okay. Thank you all so very much. still a a regular meeting. We'll do our final forest ranking and then we'll begin our discussion. So if people could just let me know when they've uh completed the force ranking and then everyone should also have
194the um the kind of the procedures and protocol papers that will help guide us through the the next portion of our discussion. There we go. It seems like >> bandana stripes. So my mom used to do this. Is this knit or crochet? >> Look. What is it? Look at that. Oh, that's so funny. >> Are you really? Yeah, she's quite the knitter. >> Yes, she is. >> Yes, I was her. I was her. >> I believe it. Turn around. Were you dancing? I found it more useful >> than you anticipated. >> Well, no, I mean that that ability just still kind of >> Oh, yeah. >> blows my mind off. >> I know it is sort of weird, but it was useful. >> You're a hot mic. >> I know. All right. Are we ready
195to um begin the next portion of our program here? >> Yes, President Schoffer, we are. >> Thank you for that rousing support, Mr. Clawson. All right, so I'd like to begin by kind of seeing where we stand. If people would uh I'm going to go through the list and come up with kind of a master uh force ranking and see where we stand. So I'm gonna make this up as I go along. >> Okay, I think I can Oh, Mr. Claus. All right, so I would like to know uh if we go down the row, how on the far right your final ranking? >> Uh Mr. Buckman, would you tell me how you rated Hazard Young? >> Well, we only interviewed four firms. >> Okay. >> No, >> wait, wait. We're just going one at
196a time. We're going to do this one at a time. Um, Mrs. Roger, >> four. >> Okay. Um, Miss Baltzado, >> four. >> Mr. Mr. Banfield >> Mr. Clawson >> uh four >> and I was a four. So that >> takes care of them. Sorry. I I appreciated their coming and their presentation, but this is where they landed. All right. Uh leadership and associates. I'll start at the other end. Miss Baltadano >> three. >> All right. Um Mr. Anger >> three. >> Mr. Vanfield. >> I'm torn. It's either a one or a two. >> Pick one. >> That's why it's called a forced ranking. >> I know. >> Yeah. I'll say one. >> Mr. Clawson. >> One. >> Mrs. Roger. >> One. >> Mr. Buckman. >> Seven. >> Excuse me. >> Okay. And I'm a
197one on them. All right. Um, McFersonen and Jacobson. We'll start back at Mr. Buckman's end. >> Um, Mr. Bfield, >> Mr. Under >> Multidono, >> one. >> Mr. Clawson, >> two. >> And I had them as a two. >> All right. Erica's going first again with the Costa Group. >> Me? Yeah. Sorry. Um, two >> Mr. Mr. Banfield >> two, >> Mr. Clawson >> three. >> I had them as a three. Mrs. Roger >> and Mr. Buckman >> one. >> Okay. So, we're doing >> Okay, I'm going to because I didn't write any of this down because I was relying on >> I wrote them down. >> Okay. He's made a little spreadsheet as we went. >> So it looks like Can you >> like Yeah, we're going to do a summary. Okay. So it
198looks like then in first place is leadership and associates and then tied at second and third are McFersonen and Costco Group and we're just going to drop off um Hazard Young. So we need to so and I'll give you the scores. our uh leadership and associates was a 12 and McFersonen and Costco tied at 15. So the low score is the higher ranked. So let's talk about let's figure out what we want to where we're similar, where we're different, where we want to go from here. Anyone want to make their case for any of those? >> So, is it okay if I start? >> Yeah. >> Thanks, boss. Um, so when I was listening to Costa, there was a a different feel entirely. I didn't feel like they were trying to sell us a car.
199I felt like they were trying to become a partnership. Um, and I really believe them as opposed to some of the others. I was interested in some things that the others did not mention, such as helping us do a compensation study. Um, that's that's going to be part of the part of what's going to help us attract a quality superintendent if we know that going in. Uh, let me see. They were really excited about working with student groups. Um, they did not mention specific other subgroups, but they were really um introduced to that. they were there was a lot of it that they were they kept mentioning with with board support with board support um and I I was kind of interested in that and then in having been a former print person I was
200kind of interested that they're like they're still willing to do a brochure. I guess that could be put online but I didn't hear anybody else say we're going to do a brochure. I didn't he I thought the marketing strategy was was a lot better than the than the than the other ones. >> Another thing I'm sorry and it at one point this this was actually critical to me. They interview who they want to work with. Nobody else said that. They said, "We're not going to take somebody that we don't we don't agree with or whatever." And I I found that refreshing. And that was what I was talking about where they were not necessarily trying to sell us a car. They were really looking for a car to buy. Oh my god. >> Okay. So,
201>> bad analogy. >> Just I just wanted to point out that McFersonen also does a compensation study. Um provides compensation information. Um just I mean just trying to keep all things being equal here. Um well I'm just going to first names here. Sorry we're just going down the >> Yeah. So uh my general thoughts were first of all I think um all four of these firms could do an effective job for us. So I don't feel like there's an outcome here where I'm not going to be confident in in the approach. Um, in my analysis, um, I I felt like leadership and associate strength was that they had the strongest familiarity with our district. Um, they'd worked with our district, um, on two prior searches. Uh, they seem to have the strongest experience in California,
202specifically on the central coast. Um, I was attracted to the fact that one of their members is on the Santa Barbara school board, um, which is facing similar challenges to ours and and has some cultural similarities and, um, so so that was why I I I ranked them as my strongest. Um, I also thought that McFersonson was particularly strong. Um, I liked um, Dr. uh, Dr. Jones Holt a lot. Um, I think that they of the different groups would bring the most experience in diversity and inclusion to the process. And I thought that was a real strength and I thought they were consultative and thoughtful. I I didn't see them as having as much experience in our area in California was my drawback there and which is why I ranked them behind leadership. And um,
203for Costco, I really like that they took a tailored approach. I like that they're going to adapt um the the community outreach to our needs. Um I I was surprised by some of the answers at the end in terms of knowledge of our local um area and so uh I I actually had them move a little bit higher and then and then then uh fell back in the Q&A I would say. So, >> well, I from the get-go as I was looking first at the notebook that we we got and then just reviewing that alone, I realized that Leadership and Associates and uh Costco were California based, you know, kind of like homegrown, right? Um I really liked the Costco group. The economy was I mean you know really really good but um it seemed
204that leadership and associates had a little bit more depth and understanding and um that's why I ultimately went with them. >> Yeah. I um I also liked the Costco group, but I felt the reason that they're my number two was I felt that they didn't display although they had um a representative that lives right here in our district, they didn't uh display a any kind of a real understanding of basic aid. or of the issues that you know that we are dealing with. Didn't talk about TK, didn't you know they just didn't seem to um have familiarity and also I felt that um the I didn't get the sense that they would be going out to as broad a base as I would like in terms of a candidates's pool. um because they had no
205stable of candidates and I know that they have resources, but it I just didn't get the sense that they were going to have as many there would be as many people to choose from if we went with them. with leadership. They're not the cheapest, but I think there probably is a reason that so many other districts in our county have chosen to go with them. and they exhibited the greatest I thought uh understanding of our district, you know, specifics about our district where anybody could have come up with, you know, an equal amount of information, I guess, if they had put in the effort, but leadership really did put in the effort. And so they are highly recommended by local districts that I value. Uh I value their opinions and they were my first choice.
206Um let's see. I would say that the reason I ranked McFersonson Jacobson the highest was um for a lot of different reasons. Um I like that it includes a lot. The price includes a lot. Compensation study. Travel expenses are not extra. Very complete background check. No add-ons there. um a very strong I mean by far the strongest commitment to um engagement of a diverse group of community groups and a clear comfort level in doing that. And so what what's important to me is having the expertise to do that, but also having the ability to draw out voices that we don't always hear from and um in a way that people feel people or students will feel like they can be honest and um one of the um consultants with McFersonson Jacobson is also bilingual. Um,
207so all of those things were stood out to me. Um, the thing that the only thing I think that concerned me with Bigf Fear Jacobson was I heard two days of inperson for um those outreach meetings. And so that's an adjustment that, you know, my sense is that if we gave them the contract, they'd work with us on that if it was important for us to extend that. But that was the one hesitation I had with that firm. Um, and I think, oh, and then the other thing is that I do really value I think it's I'm gonna just talk in positives more than negatives. Um, the other thing that I really value is I think it yes, it's important to have California connections and a wide California network, but I think it's also really
208important for us to consider national networks and connections. This is a major executive level search and we have a lot of phenomenal people in California, but we don't want to cast too small of a net. And so I appreciate that they have those assets as well, those connections as well. And um I appreciate Leadership Associates has a very positive local reputation and has done a lot of work for us and and work for others. Um, but I don't want to confuse familiarity and comfort with what's the right thing to do for us at this time. And so I think it could provide us with a wider opportunity. Um and and I also am thinking about how are the consults some of them call themselves consultants some partners but the two or three people assigned to
209us I'm wanting to think about how are they going to be received perceived and engaged with with the members of our with our stakehold stakeholders how are our stakeholders going to feel in engaging with them um and I those are I think my key my key issues there I Um, yeah, Costco, is it Costco? Costa ended up higher than I expected it to. Uh, based on the written proposal, I thought it was a little sparse. Um, I thought that there was too much time spent in in telling us about our own district, which we know about, um, and their bios and so we didn't get as much detail on some of the other aspects. But what I did like about them was um first of all the unlimited um number of focus groups and the
210um the uh everything that is included in their fees. So I appreciated that. But I do have some concerns about how wide their networks are and um and so that's that's a hesitation that I have there. >> Well, I I would say that that Mrs. Miss Baltadono and I there must be something about being at this end of the table because we ranked everything the same. Um but I I I I liked McFersonson and Jacobson the best. I I thought their presentation was the most well organized. Um she got she got to the second what she needed to say. But I like that what I my notes were I like that they she said they have 130 consultants. They're local consultants customized. Um the the no stable part. I'm I just wonder about that. But
211I was okay with it. Um I like that she talked about sustainability and and and the sustainability of of the positions. Um what else did I write? I like that she said we'll be checking social media. I thought that was really important. Um I love that she said uh something about leadership. Um, leadership finds leaders and and and that that that impressed me a lot too. It takes a leader to find a leader, I believe, is what she said. And if we want to go if we want to look outside of California, I would be comfortable with that as well. Um, I like that you said that Eric could be a co-pilot and a thought partner, which you know, we'll have a year to look at this and and that's I'm I'm hoping that that
212that the leadership experience because all all of them talked about we will be, you know, we will provide services for you and support for you within a certain time period after after the the hiring is done. Um, I just I there were I I felt I just felt a stronger connection with them. Um, I liked Costa. Um, I thought they did a they did a fairly well organized job, too. Um, the no I I sort of appreciated the no poaching of superintendent that we have an open pool, although that did concern me a little bit. Do we get too much where, you know, what kind of suggestions are we going to get to to to tear out the people that we would that we would be ultimately choosing? Um, let's see what else I wrote.
213I like that a lot of these people had HR experience, which I really appreciated. Um, I thought that was pretty interesting, too. Um, I think that that's about it. Um, I I was frankly not as impressed with Leadership Associates as I thought I would be. Um I I don't don't think they were as well organized as McFersonson Jacobson or the Costco group in terms of their presentation. Um I didn't think their their explanation of their approach to stakeholder engagement was as robust as I would have wanted to see either. So that would be my comments about uh leadership associates. I know that they have a strong presence here in the central coast. Um, but I I I I guess I just need to say I wasn't as wowed as I thought I was going to
214be. >> Okay. Um, I'm just going to make a couple of brief comments and then we'll sort of recount everything. Um, McFersonson and Jacobson, I felt that the presenter, she talked a lot about coaching and that seemed to me to be her love was to be a coach was what happens after the board makes a decision is that she really wants to be a coach for the new superintendent. And I I didn't feel she was as invested in the process of getting us to that point as being a co. That just seemed to be what she really loves doing that. Um and that's that's fine. But um I do like I am not at all feeling like we have to have a California person. We just hired someone from Arizona to be the new principal
215of Moral Bay High School and I'm, you know, don't know him yet, but everything I've seen is positive. So I I'm not at all averse to greater outreach. I do think that if we expressed that to leadership that they would advertise more widely that they would they would um not be averse to that at all. Uh I I liked with McFersonen the lots of communication, the support, the outreach. Um but I I just I didn't connect as much as it sounds like some did. I really felt like she her her love is to be a coach and that's that that's a wonderful thing and an important thing but it's not what we're looking for right now. So I didn't have that same level of connect of connection. Costa Group I really liked um Dr. French
216the her colleague did not seem for for living here he could have spent a little more time getting to know the district. I feel like he kind of um was the anchor to that presentation that she and not not in the kind that you know in the kind that drag that drags the presentation down. I was impressed with her and her enthusiasm and all that she would do. Um but that I I was not appreciative of his lack of knowledge. the ability would have been so easy for him to learn more. Um, and leadership rose to the top for me because of their uh some of the things that were expressed in terms of the collaborative nature of their organization that they get together a lot, their their knowledge of the area of California as
217a whole. I don't think it's just Central Coast. um and their their ability, their lots of um uh the familiarity with basic aid, their uh working with they were the only ones who said they would meet with board members individually as well as as a group. And I think that could be an important uh an important piece of of getting to know what board members are interested in. I I don't want the whole wouldn't be support the whole thing being that way, but at least you get to know individual board members a little bit. Um, so that's where I stand. I just felt like they they expressed a greater knowledge of our uh of our district in particular and have a deeper understanding of where we are and how we got here. And um so
218that's why they rose to the top for me. So I guess my question now would be has is anyone making any adjustments and if not then then we are open to continued debate. >> We're open to continued debate. You know talking it's stating defending your position. We do need to make a decision tonight. So >> okay if I can. So, I'm open to to to changing my vote. Um, mostly because I think so many of I think um leadership associates in Kaskka were were close. Um I was disappointed in um all of the the ones and I think it was everybody who didn't send their whole team who were felt they could to go to Zoom when they kept talking about we're local we're going to be there for you and um Costco I think
219was the only one that sent their whole crew. So, I I I was disappointed in that, but um I'm more than willing to to change to leadership >> just to be clear because I'm got this tally Fair enough. >> Anyone else? >> Well, I I would like to go back to my concerns about their approach to stakeholder engagement as they presented tonight. I I would like to see um not necessar if not more robust, I'd like to see a a more of a detailed plan on how they plan to do that and who they plan to speak with and things like that. That would be very important to me. I don't I I I I I marked them down in that area and I think the others did a better job explaining that to me.
220Um I know that they that they have an evidence of successful placements. We've seen that throughout the area. I guess as I'm thinking about sort of emotionally, I felt like um I felt like they they sort of took this for granted and and I'd like to know that they are enthusiastic about it, that we will be important to them, that they will do put their all and all into finding us the best superintendent if if they're who we choose. And and I would need to hear that from them because I didn't feel like I heard that from them in comparison to other group tonight. So, I'm going to ask um Brian where our numbers presently stand. >> Yeah. So, I mean, if I was to summarize it, leadership has 11 points, McFersonson has 15 points
221and Costa has 16 points now. So, it goes leadership, McFersonson, Costa. I mean, just looking at the responses, leadership has five first place votes, but it has two third place votes. and McFersonson has two first place votes and three third place votes. So, the two leaders have multiple third place votes, which I mean is probably what we need to reconcile to make sure that um there's not any opinions here that that feel like um I don't know. It'd be simpler if it was everyone's first and second. You know what I mean? >> I'm sorry. Can you repeat that last phrase? I didn't hear it. It trailed off. Uh what I was saying is um so I was saying it'd be simpler if um these two that have the most aggregate points were consistently in the
222top two for most board members, but out of the two that are in the the highest ranking position, they're ranked third across five of the seven board members. So, um, like if you take leadership as an example, um, it has five first place votes, but it has two third place votes. And, uh, I I I think it would it'd be a different situation. It clearly the two of you see them as not second. So, um, we're not necessarily just deciding between clearcut first and clearcut second. There's some strong variance and opinions is what I was trying to point out. >> Sure. No, I appreciate that. Can I say something? Um, but what you just said, Mr. Clawson, clearly we see McFersonson as number one and leadership in second place, I think is what you just
223said or >> No, the aggregate scoring uh leadership has five first place votes and has the best overall score. >> I thought Yeah. >> And McFersonson has two first place votes and has the second um best score overall. So, so in the score right now it's leadership then McFersonson. Yeah. >> Then uh Costa. But my my point was that both of those top two have multiple third place votes in the mix. >> Yeah. So I think there's for me there's a distinction between um and and I was really tied a lot between um leadership and Costa. So I I don't feel very strongly about which one is above the other. Um I feel very strongly though that McFersonson was top for me and if it if it were between leadership associates and McFersonson if we
224said those were our you know those have risen to the top um it's not just my positive feeling about McFersonson but also I have concerns about leadership and I've already expressed those so it's you know and and so that's I think that's where I'm coming from. Um, I will say the leadership um, associates um, provided references. I wasn't able to call every reference, but they were the only ones that provided a reference for someone that actually called me back. So, I had a very helpful conversation with a school board trustee in um, Oak Park, so near Agora Hills. That was very helpful. Um, and one of the other references um was out of town, but I know her, so I called someone else from the same school district that I knew, and that was also
225helpful. So, of all the calls that I made for all of the references provided by all of the firms, the only people I ever spoke with were from leadership associates. So, I'm also kind of factoring that into my >> So, it sounds like if we were to do a a forced ranking right now between leadership and McFersonen, it would still fall out that we'd have. >> Yeah. >> Five. Five to two. Yeah. >> So, >> are you looking for more input at this point? >> Nope. Well, I want everyone to feel like they've had their say before we take a vote. I mean, I don't I don't want to short circuit this part of it. >> So, um uh uh McFersonson is the only one on page 22, page 11, um of their work that
226said they're going to call Mandy and say take care of the logistics. they're going to call Mandy um for a couple of other things rather than some of the others that said we'll take care of all the logistics. We'll do everything that bothered me about McFersonson and the sense was that they're going to call the district to take care of some stuff that the other ones are going to take care of um translation and that in McFersonson the way I read it was we're going to pay for the translation of the survey. Um, I think that was page 30. Um, as I looked at it, um, work with the district. So, page 34 was Mandy Pines, a translator. Um, mention the contractor. I I didn't see anything in McFerson other than hearing it tonight, but
227within the proposal, I didn't see anything about um on-site visits. So, I have some concerns of what's embedded into their into their document that they gave us as opposed to what we heard tonight. I have others. Chris, I I had a hard time hearing um when you were speaking. So, were you saying that you would need uh more robust information from leadership about their outreach? >> Yeah, I I I felt like they were the weakest in their description of the outreach and that and that bothered me because that's was something that seemed to be that seems to be very important to the board. And um I can I'm just going to tell you I can live with McFersonson. Um but I would like to see a a a stronger plan, a more detailed plan about
228how they what their thoughts are in terms of the the the outreach and how they would present that to us and in in the format. Um, I will say I that was the one thing about Hazard that I was impressed with was how they were going to aggregate the data from um from the the focus groups and things like that. Uh yeah, I I felt like it was just I I just didn't feel like that was very strong for me and I'd like to have assurances from them about what this is exactly going to look like, what we're going to get from it and how that's going to affect our ability to choose the next SE superintendent. >> I think I'm wondering if that's not information that we need to give them, who we want
229them to go to and how we want them to conduct their outreach. I don't think I I think that that's up to us >> and that that's exactly my point is I think we're if we're going to choose leadership, that is something that I think that we need to make very clear to them what it is that we want and what it is that we expect back from them. >> Um so that that was my >> I agree with you. I agree with you on that. >> Just on that. I mean, in in my notes on leadership, that was my biggest weakness I had for them. I mean, that's why I I asked him a specific question on that topic. And the answer to the question they gave though was that they would do four
230days of in-person meetings was my understanding and that satisfied my concern. But, um, I had the same exact view of of the largest weakness of their proposal. But I don't know if that adequately addresses it. I mean, >> yeah, it it it adequately addresses it. This is going to put it on, you know, us as a board, Mrs. Schffer in particular, and probably you, Brian. Um, but making sure that they're very clear on what it is that we need and want and how, you know, how they're going to satisfy our needs. >> Okay. Both are done. >> Sorry. Um I think all of the firms were pretty clear that we set the parameters of who we want them to conduct outreach with. I mean that was pretty clear to me. Um and so if we
231want them to meet with ABC and D, they'll meet with ABC and D. And it's on us to ensure that that includes um a a diverse reflection of our faculty, sorry, our teachers, our staff, our students, etc. Right? our um maybe local um community partners, foundation, etc. So that is on us. I appreciate that. My nuanced concern is that once we set those parameters, we then send out the two consultants to lead and facilitate those conversations. And I'm looking for two individuals that are going to um elicit the most honest feedback from all of those groups. And so that was my sense is that um just having folks that have maybe it at least the way they presented it more expertise in that arena. Um I noted that that was highlighted as sort of um
232yeah I heard a little bit about the coaching um the chef uh with Dr. Jones holds. Um, I agree with that, but I actually thought her her her emphasis or her where she's really happy and shines is really on that connecting with the outreach groups and eliciting the feedback. Um, and I think she's als she's one she's also bilingual. So, that that's where I was coming from. Um, I I have no doubt that it is on us and should be on us in terms of how who we want them to meet with, but I'm just thinking about because I've been in the room um with principal searches or whatever when I was a parent and I was in those Zoom meetings and you want a facilitator that is going to really elicit honest feedback um
233and um from a diversity of perspectives. and and to just thinking about when I when I did a little AI search on leadership and associates, one of the concerns expressed was um the the transparency of the process of uh of the outreach and some of the some some now it was a strange it was a very strange um strange circumstance. It was Fresno Unified. There was a lot of controversy. there was a lot of controversy among the board. >> Um but there were but but there was an expression of concern about who was involved with what. So I would want to make sure that we don't get in those kind of confusion confusing situations and it seemed like at least the union leadership and pasobels expressed those same concerns. Now I don't know if they
234were expecting to know what the final the finalists were because you know we obviously want to keep that confidential. Um but but again I think that's an area that we need to be very clear with them about if those are the people we're going to choose. >> No >> Mr. Bman. >> Thanks. So again for those that when I looked at McFersonson I started to you know I was reading the document it was interesting but um they kept tonight they even said it it keeps saying it's all inclusive. They said it was all inclusive when I asked about advertising. They off they offer they they offer four at least three advertising packages in the back. $720. It goes drop to $2,000 and then it goes a lot more. So I I don't think that's all
235inclusive. Um and then uh for the background checks, it's very limited. >> Mr. Buckman, I think you're thinking of hazard. Okay, maybe I'm on the >> Yeah, that had a whole menu of add-ons, just as you said. Yeah. And I'll tell you that one of the things that >> say it again, too. >> One of the things that I dug deep on Yes. >> before tonight was on the background check stuff because I feel very my background in employment law. I I just think we need to put a premium on that >> for this level of a position. And so I asked all my questions >> today. And so even when it sounded like it wasn't as inclusive as it was on the strength of the background check, what they told us tonight is that
236it was. So there's actually less space between them than I thought there was. >> But my my fear is is saying something as opposed to having it in writing. >> Well, this is not our contract. This is a proposal and then when we contract with them, we would just have to make sure that it's as robust as they said it was. >> States is that they will provide four back. Oh, >> I'm sorry. This their proposal states they'll provide four background checks >> and then anything additional is at additional cost >> for McFerson. >> Uhhuh. And I think that what we would I would hope to receive, you know, at at least eight people going forward after the initial screening. So how much is each additional background check? Well, I think that there's levels of
237background check and I think we would get a certain level at a certain stage and then once we were narrowing it down to the top four or top two or something like that's when you dive in even deeper. Um, that's the way I imagined it. I wasn't worried about the limit on the four for the for that. But, you know, that's that's a good point. Sorry about being >> like I said I'm I'm I'm willing to I'm willing to support leadership and associates. I just think we I want to be very clear with them and I know we'll have a contract. And by the way, who creates the contract? Is that something that that that there's a standard contract or is there a contract that our >> that Dan or Josh Josh writes up for
238us? How does that work? >> Yeah. Lozano Smith will represent us on this. So they'll work with us on that contract. >> Then and then I guess my final question is Ellen, you will be the point person for this. Who are you most comfortable working with? And who do you feel as president of the board you'll be able to achie help them achieve the goals of the board most efficaciously? Would that be the word? >> Yeah. I mean I I like my number one choice was leadership and but I will I think I'm able to work with just about anybody, you know, with the the will of the board. Um I will certainly uh work with however we land on this. I that was something I took into consideration was um who would I want
239to work with? I know that uh I also know that it it's going to involve, you know, a lot of Miss Dawson's time in working together. She and I have already been talking about a calendaring and things like that that we're going to need to work on. Um but yeah I my number one choice for the reasons I stated was leadership but I you know if we land somewhere else then I will absolutely you know I think I'm able to work with anybody but I appreciate that you raise that as a consideration. So Marilyn and then Erica. >> Well I I still I I mean I still feel my rankings haven't changed but I guess I just want to say that this is not the big enchilada. I think that any one of these firms
240could do an adequate and successful search for us. The big enchilada is the candidates. Mhm. >> So, I know it's a lot of discussion and thought about which of these firms has this and who has that, but um any one of them I think could could really satisfy our needs. >> Yeah. And I appreciate that. I also think that even even if whoever we go with we as we come to talk about what we want to see as a board to f meet our needs, if they say, "Well, that's going to cost $500 more or $1,000 more. that's not going to be a a enormous concern because of the job at hand, what we need to accomplish here. >> Um, I was just going to say that I, you know, appreciate the the the discussion.
241Um, and I I'm also comfortable if it's not a unanimous vote. You know, we we do have a majority at this point to to vote. So >> So it sounds like we're ready to vote on this. Um, so we would entertain a motion. >> Yeah, this is a we're >> I will move that we extend uh the selection to leadership and associates. Did I say that right? >> I'll second that. >> And I'm going to ask Miss Dawson just to be clear, did we word that appropriately? Is that good enough for a motion for this? >> Yes. >> I would like No, I think maybe I would like to move that we uh select leadership and associates as the preferred vendor through this request for proposal process with the caveat that staff will finalize proposals
242and negotiate a contract effectively and efficiently and professionally. Wow. >> I second that. >> All right. We have a So, we have a we have a motion by M by Mr. Clawson um and a second by Mr. Banfield who said what he said. So, um Mr. Clawson. >> Yes. >> Mr. Banfield. >> Yes. >> Miss Baltadano. >> With all due respect and I look forward to working with them. No. >> Mr. Anger. >> Yes. >> Um Mrs. Roger. >> Yes. Mr. Buckman. >> Yes. >> And I'm a yes. Right. So that motion carries 61, I'm sorry. >> All right. And thank you everyone. I think this discussion was really important to get where we landed. Um, and I appreciate Miss Baltadano's reservations, but and also look forward to her support as we go through the
243process. I mean, that's the best it's a it's the best outcome for not having it be exactly as you'd hoped. So, but I appreciate that. So, what do you need? everyone would please turn in their notes and their forms and their everything to Dr. Puchia and then we are we do have a little bit more. We have a um >> okay well I is it all right if we finish the agenda and then we'll um yeah because otherwise I have no idea where I am right now. Okay, we are going on with the uh consent agenda, please. Uh we'll vote on this in just second. Let me know if you want anything pulled. 9.01 is award e contract contract for district network electronics. 9.02 memorandum of understanding between Templeton Unified School District and St. Louis
244Coastal. Uh 9.03 approval of minutes from March 17. 9.04 approval of warrants and payroll uh of warrants for March 2026 and payroll for March 10th and March 31st. 9.05 acceptance of donations. 9.06 approval of quarterly report on uniform complaint filings the Williams settlement. 9.07 07 approval of certificated and classified personnel items. 9.08 approval of purchase orders and cow card purchases. 9.09 approval of furniture and equipment requests uh from March 10th to April 3rd. >> I move approval of items 9.01 to 9.09. >> Second. >> All right. We have a motion by Misser, second by Mr. Clawson. Mr. Yes, >> Mr. Clawson. >> Yes, >> Miss Balttoano. >> Yes, >> Mr. Banfield. >> Yes, >> Mr. Buckman. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Roger. >> Yes. >> And I'm a Yes. >> All right. Um, anything for advanced
245agenda and reports by board members? >> I have. >> Did you have a report, Mrs. Roger? I just wanted to let the board know that I will have to miss the study session um next week. >> Okay. Thank you. And again, I just want to really express my um appreciation for the collaborative process we had this evening. And it's um I imagine it was an odd experience for for Dr. prader to sit through. Um >> yeah, and um there's no turning back, I guess, although there could be. We'd we'd we we'd entertain it, I'm sure. >> So, um yeah, you'll have talk to leadership and associates if you're interested. So, thank you everyone. Really appreciate it. And um we'll see you at our next meeting. >> Oh, yes. Oh, Miss Bald, did you have a
246a board report? Well, I just >> I didn't see your light. I'm so sorry. >> That's okay. It and there just wasn't an opportunity to say it later. So, I just want to thank all of the um proposals, all of the companies that provided proposals to us and their time this evening in presenting and answering all of our questions and being part of this process. >> We'll I think we'll we'll have a better process for hearing what they do, how they do things. I think we all learned a little something from each of them that will help us go through the process better. So thank