001uh president chamber ready to begin uh thank you and as i just lost the agenda um good afternoon everyone today is saturday uh what is it march 6. sorry i just had the calendar the agenda up and now it's gone uh we are starting our uh special stage session today and um our first order of business i believe is wrong absolutely thank you i'm sorry just no problem there it is um if everyone would repeat after me ready i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic [Music] uh trustee corzel here trustee proctor here trustee warren here trustee watkins here and i am here as well uh approval of today's agenda we have our governance agenda does anyone want to make a motion or are there any changes
002uh please let us know i'll make a motion to approve the agenda thank you trustee proctor do you have a second a second thank you trustee warren or roll call vote trustee corzo yeah trustee proctor yeah trusty warren yes and trustee watkins yes and i will vote yes as well um so the the um agenda is set uh we have let's see we don't have a translator yet so we won't make that announcement so uh we'll go to public comments president chen i'm working on the translator um she needs to have a new link um so i'll just be one moment but i can go forward with a comment okay thank you why don't we start with public comments oh so this is public statements this is a special study session so basically public statements
003related to the to anything on the agenda is all taken now and will limit public comment to three minutes please so if anyone would like to make to make an a a comment on to the board on this agenda topic um please raise your hand at this time uh president chin we have one raised hand um randy uh would you like you said three minutes right please yes thank you randy please go ahead hello thank you for taking this time to work on your governance for an extra two hours on a saturday afternoon among the many hours that you already spend in services trustees i'm confident that a couple of you sought out and took on this responsibility solely out of interest for communities public schools and children and have no interest in using this
004position as a stepping stone to other public office i appreciate that pure intent and i recognize the work and responsibility involved either way i read through your handbook in advance of today's session and there are some points that stand out to me as a parent a community member and a voter who does pay attention on page five it says school board trustees are the representatives of the people elected to ensure the district schools educate the children in consideration of the interests of the local community the role of the school board is to govern the district to me this doesn't mean that the school board runs the operations of the district the superintendent does that the school board doesn't represent the district the school board represents the people your role is to govern or to direct
005or to oversee you have the authority to hold the superintendent accountable you are not the chief gratitude officers you are not the chief communications however to be honest in board meetings it frequently doesn't appear that you as a board understand completely this role you ask for things but you don't follow up so there's not accountability you ask for permission from the superintendent and you take a lot of direction from the superintendent instead of the other way around there's a lot of time spent on exuberant praise for people just doing the things that they're paid to do their jobs there's time taken not to discuss business but to rather explain the things for the benefit of the public i don't believe that this is the place or time and this is not your job there have
006been things pulled from the consent agenda simply to highlight your own accomplishments not for any meaningful discussion there's not always a respectful or professional demeanor with the board president spending the majority of his time rambling and then at times threatening to shorten public comment time and interrupting commenters before their time is up while most board members consistently put the needs of students first as part of their comments the current board president rarely does the students he mentions are usually his own finally there have been times when there have been rambling circular discussions with many ideas thrown out and the superintendent says thank you i have my direction without stating the direction or the action the public is left wondering what was directed and i wonder whether the entire exercise is to say as many things
007as possible so that the superintendent can choose what she would like to pursue as the direction you all have been elected to represent the people we need you now more than ever to do that while you're wearing your board member hats you need to put your own kids needs aside and think about all of the community communities kids and their education and then when you're off the call you can go back to being the number one parent of course and in the spirit of searching for our next superintendent we need a ceo who can manage and lead proactively with vision and strategy and you need to work to be the board who can direct that work thank you thank you president chin we have no more raised hands great thank you i need one more
008moment to uh our celia landa verde is with us as a translator and i just need a one more moment to set up her um channel great no problem um i'm gonna close public comment for today's meeting and then just while you set that up uh maybe just ask trustee corzo to make the language translation services announcement is we're ready for the translation right yes we are thank you so you you're set i see you noddy okay perfect thank you very much great thank you um so now we are going on to item number six which is 6.6.1 is our board governance uh study session so i know we have nicole and dr rose i don't know if you're going to introduce her or start the meeting off but um we're ready all right well
009we're very pleased to have nicole anderson here she has been the consultant working with her equity task force and also um as part of the superintendent search and she is here today to conduct a governance session with the board so with no further ado i'll turn it over to you you have an agenda from nicole that was attached to the posted board agenda right good afternoon everybody good to see you good to see you i hope all is well on a lovely saturday um i know we have a short period of time time today um to dive into your work um looking at effective governance with an equity lens we have had a opportunity to hang out with each other quite a bit these last couple of years and i'm really excited to see the
010progress the work the struggle productive struggle um through trying to really lead intentionally with an equity lens so today we're going to spend some time really kind of taking our work and looking at how do we continue to build that effective governance structure so that your equity work can be sustainable that it can be impactful because we know that this work is really hard but it requires effective governance practices to be able to really advance that work so today we're going to do a little bit more technical work today um less about our adaptive work i know we do a lot of learning together we do a lot of discussion and today we're going to spend more technical time um trying to make sure that our structure is in place so that we can continue
011to advance the work i'm acknowledging lisa i know you're the newest member of the team so it's always important just to what i call recenter the work but it's always great for even our most veteran members on the team we always go back to re-centering making sure our structure is always solid so that we can advance our work and keep building so today again is your professional learning space so while it is open to the public i always want to remind governance teams that you do effective governance teams actually do spend time learning together they spend time discussing what's working well what's not working well so as the public may not always understand like the process this is also great for the public to see that governance boards do work on getting better at what
012they do they work on learning together they work on ensuring that anything that needs to be tweaked that we take care of those things and they can't always happen in our regular board meetings in our regular business so i just want to say that that it's okay to have professional learning time to work out the bugs right to work out the kinks and make sure that we continue to kind of regroup and recenter so we can be effective not only in our work across all of the different spaces across our district but of course doing all of that with an equity lens so we're going to blend that to it together today so before i get started i know um that joan i'm going to run you know kind of facilitate the agenda and there's
013a couple of things i'll pull you in for but um did you have any comments um before we get started before i jump right in um with regards to the work okay go right ahead all right perfect just wanted to make sure all right so what i'm gonna do um is i'm gonna pull up a couple of visuals just for you to give a little context for today um and then we're gonna jump right into our um handbook work um in a moment but sit that to the side just for a second we're just gonna get started um just a couple of things to front load our day um one is as i asked you earlier how you doing i hope you're doing well um it's important to check in just to make sure as
014people as you know that there are folks who do care about what how you're doing as a person as individuals so i want to acknowledge that on a saturday in the midst of everything and just want to thank you for your service as a governance team member that we know you serve uh many and you have to be all too many and that's not always an easy job because you're individuals too so i want to acknowledge that but as we come together obviously we're not individuals today we're going into our team space so i want to just start with reminding you that although um you know this work is so difficult i want to just remind you of why we're focused on equity okay and i think frederick douglass always has this quote that sticks
015out to me when we think about how hard this work is and why it's hard is that as we're focusing on kids you know it's a lot easier to build a strong child right than repair a broken woman or man or person and it's so interesting when you look at this work and why it's so important that as an elementary district right that you really think about why import it's so important to lead for equity strategically and impactfully um and so as you do that work it gets really tough to try to build that that space because you are dealing with adults right and adults who have been harmed by all kinds of inequities um often say you know people have been harmed by racism right everybody so what happens is when racism comes up
016it becomes very difficult when any form of oppression comes up it becomes very difficult but as a governance team remember we are always trying to build a space that is safe for us to engage in this work very important and don't don't forget this step so again we all remember our four agreements right you know we want to enter into this work we want to ask our community to stay engaged in this work even when it gets hard right stay engaged in this work even when we get uncomfortable because being uncomfortable is an expectation why we can't grow we're not uncomfortable right we want to interrupt some inequity so what that means is people will be uncomfortable but we want to remain safe right we don't want to attack we don't want to make people
017feel like they can't enter into this work but we do want to recognize discomfort happens when we're interrupting a system we want everyone to speak their truth right your perspective is so important in this work and everyone's truth is not going to be the same and i want to reiterate that right now because there's a lot in many communities outside of san mateo foster city lots of communities have people speaking their truth and they are different from the others so it creates conflict and discomfort but when we speak our truth we get to learn from each other okay and then last but not least is our expectant except non-closure to be okay with the fact that you're going to continuously be working on this journey together so when we haven't accomplished what we want to
018accomplish it's okay okay we have to recognize non-closure because when we're doing equity focused work as a governance team you are it's gonna take time and so we call it go slow to go fast and that's a message also that our community sometimes have to hear is things aren't always going to go as fast it's not that easy because we're trying to move a system which is like that big titanic analogy right it's hard to move a system and it does take time so being okay with non-closure with the messiness of the work with the discomfort is something that we have to kind of figure out and so these are four agreements i just recommend you continuously keep in mind as we advance this work together as a team okay so unpack this i'll make
019a couple connections in a moment but what we want to do today is i mentioned recentering our work so i love using simon sine is golden circle to help us kind of think about this because the work you're doing there's so much you're expected to do but when you start recentering let's go always back to what's our why right so we're going to talk about your equity statement today okay what's your why why are we doing this work okay the how of this work right like how do we get this work done so we're going to talk about your norms your protocols your roles okay all the things that are important to go back to that are still rooted into again are why and then the what of our work okay your policy your priorities
020okay the things that you're going to be doing to make sure as a governance team based on your role that you stay focused on so simon's in this golden circle is always a good one to go back to when you're thinking about okay how do we re-center our work like we got so much going on let's just kind of go back to what is our what or why in our house okay so we're gonna unpack that today so one reminder um when we think about this work is you remember we're doing this work with a systems approach so as we continue to unpack your governance work remember when you read the water system change it was a while back and i think lisa i think we sent that over to you but um if you
021haven't had a chance to get to it definitely um for all of you i want you to revisit this because when we talk about trying to do systems work we want it to last and so your article is your reminder about the framework to address the work of equity when we talk about not just where you operate at the policy and practice level and the resource level right as a board this is your role but also i want you to be thinking about what goes up under that what comes into play is the people in the system right and so as we implement this work we have to remember the relationships that are critical that have to be established continuously the power dynamics who has the voice in making decisions right and then also the
022mindset the mental models those are always going to be the things we have to consider when we're trying to make system change and guess what equity work is about system change so we're not just going to be able to solve everything by just changing a policy and we're going to talk about that today i'm going to talk to you about where are you at with your equity policy right where are we at in our space where are we thinking about how we shift our resources all those things are amazing structures that have to be in place to see equitable outcomes but they don't happen that easily we have to work on having our positive relationships intact with our teachers with our classifier with our parents with our students how do we make sure student voice
023is part of our decision making right these are all the things to consider but most critically when we talk about mental models the bottom of that mental model um that inverted triangle is about people's belief systems people's narratives and that's where culture lies right this is where differences lie with people we have to know those and also recognize that everyone might not believe in some of the work you're doing as a board everyone might not believe and understand what equity is so that's a constant ongoing thing we're gonna have to recognize okay so i'm gonna give you an example in a minute to kind of unpack this so one is um you know when we talked about your um effective um governance practices i mentioned that a lot and when we first met with each
024other in our first study session i introduced you to this board assessment so we went through it and you all talked about you know the eight characteristics of effective governance and these are the things that you went through and you all kind of rated yourself and so one of the things that i want to remind you of is as you're doing this work we're going to always have to go back to doing a self-assessment where are we in our processes so if you notice again about having a commitment to vision right strong shared beliefs that's a huge part of this work which is always a work in progress making sure you have collaborative relationships with your staff and your community those are all great processes that you're going to have to ensure you have holding
025yourselves accountable right less time that you're spending on the operational stuff but more about student achievement right the things those are the priorities we talk about data savviness all right we've talked a little bit about that how to use data to really measure the impact of the work based on the vision that you shared okay where are we with that the sixth one is our board right how do we align monitor and sustain our resources that's your budget right big part of your budget is people you spend 85 90 of your budget on salaries right so how do we make sure that we align those resources and make sure we're supporting our equity focus work professional development obviously is one of those which you're participating in now but most importantly that you all take time
026to learn together and this is a really critical piece of this work you're learning together constantly with your superintendent making sure that we're always unpacking what do we know about our values our commitments our knowledge together okay now this assessment again is one that i always just recommend look at like every quarter go back to it where are we in our process okay it's one thing to say we believe in something but do we actually show that in our actions and so this is a great assessment to provide that okay the last part of the assessment again is just the three kind of outcomes having an equity statement you got that right we took care of that excellent we're going to talk about how to apply that statement today having an equity policy so you
027have a resolution you have um potentially a policy that you can evolve and have as an adoption we'll talk about that but also having a plan right how are we going to oversee this work to make sure it lasts and so this is where your equity task force leveraging that group is going to help you be supportive with the plan so you all are in a great role i just want to bring this up and and hope that you see it as kind of a celebration that when you look at this assessment um overall i feel like you all are really moving in the right direction i think you have a solid foundation for the work but as you continuously grow and things are changing you have to always go back and make sure are
028we still in a place where we feel we are effective okay and so i want to pause for a second and see if anyone has any comments or thoughts about the board assessment kind of where you feel you are in terms of what work we've done these past couple of uh really years together when you look at the totality of it but how do you feel you are any comments thoughts about your board assessment before we jump into roles and then our handbook just go ahead and unmute yourself jump right in any thoughts questions about your assessment of where you are in terms of effective governance i can start um so i would say i think overall we're definitely mostly there there are areas where i feel like we're very effective there are areas where
029i feel like we're somewhat effective um i also feel like i'm kind of like looking through like like some a little bit of a jaded lens because we're still in a pandemic and so this is like difficult a really difficult time um to like i think like assessing our board right now versus during you know good points the before times i don't even know what to call it um it's it's just a different ball game yeah um so yeah that's kind of how i'm feeling about it i i do feel like you know i think maybe by like i'd be interested to know you know the differences between now and like the the beginning of next fall or just there's just so much yeah um kind of transition happening but overall i think there are
030some areas we can improve um specifically around like the the the data we've been getting a lot more data right um and i think where we're at like we just now need to focus like i think we've been getting more data we're going to continue to get more data and now i think it's going to be uh the focus is going to be on okay what do we do next what what what do we need to do differently yeah yeah and so that i know it's more like the implementation piece so i'm trying to like yeah i know that's a good stuff reality but good stuff yeah you're on the same way i appreciate that yeah we'll talk a little bit later too about like data and also like questions like the role of the
031board and looking at dating the questions you can ask and to help measure the impact of the work so powerful and i want to acknowledge yes this is hard to look at i shared this with you all pre-pandemic by the way this this document's been around longer than the pandemic and as you can imagine like does it look different now than it did before and it it shouldn't which is why we're doing this this workshop right like it shouldn't look different right yes the pandemic is unprecedented moment in in educational history so i want to just say hands down yes this is very difficult but the core of effective governance is that we really stay in these same effective characteristics regardless of whatever wins blow our way right that's why it's so important to just
032have that foundation because we could take the pandemic put that to the side it'll be something different like you all remember governance before the pandemic it was always something that was like in that moment that heavy thing that sat before us so what's important is that when we talk about equity work right equity work's going to create a whole lot of other storms besides the covet right so that's why we got to have solid foundation for our practices so annoy i appreciate you pulling that out because it's a great example lots of boards are struggling with like pre-pandemic now like what changed for us as a board and really nothing should have changed as a matter of fact we should have really leaned into our governance practices during the pandemic because we have to really
033stay effective even when we have pressure from voices and different ways of i mean just the personal experiences that you all have had right it has transformed the way we govern right because of what we've brought to the space where we've seen like humans be really impacted and like never before so it's important to remember how do we stay grounded as a governance team and this is a great assessment to do so um ken i think you were going gonna jump in oh um my only comment was um and you just mentioned that we had done this pre-print pandemic and so the idea is like you know i i think it would be good for us to go back and sort of look at it even though you might say that some things haven't changed
034i kind of feel like you know especially as we make this sort of leadership transition that would be good sort of to for us to go back and just look at our ourselves over the last year and just to see um especially also give the opportunity to lisa who hasn't had the opportunity to probably fill this out so yeah absolutely it'd be great to give sort of do some sort of update yeah yeah and and thank you for that um lisa why don't you jump in i know it's it's kind of a first time going through this in terms of um i mean we've been together for a few sessions now but in terms of just like your thoughts about the um what you see within the self-assessment anything that sticks out to your questions
035you might have um you know it's interesting to me because i feel like i've seen this before from attending these meetings before as a parent um but now i'm looking at it from a different lens and a different side um and you know just from the board meetings that i've attended since 2017 i definitely see the board moving towards a more equitable stance you know of course with anything implementation is always a challenge because you're challenging old way of thinking and trying to develop a new way of thinking you know and it's very challenging to do so um i'm looking forward to being a part of this in a part of this work um much more so from like the inside as opposed to looking at it from the outside and wondering how this is
036going to affect me um and the children at my children's school um and i just see it as a work in progress i mean it's never going to be a finished work yeah um you know it's always going to need to be i don't want to stay modified but um just fine-tuned to how you know basically everything evolves out in the world yeah yeah i appreciate that feedback as a newer member to the team um it is definitely i i want to glean from what you said about shifting my understanding of my role like going from parent to board member right and and that's a really powerful you know space to to be in to be able to recognize that so that effective governance can happen as a team and so and i'll give you
037example there's a visual you all have seen this before but always like to go back to this um because it gives us a great reminder and a visual about our roles right and when we look at our roles we think about you know there's that dotted line right and so like when i go from okay i'm a parent now i'm a board member right so notice on here there's nowhere it says parents right nowhere it says we're teachers where anything except just there's a superintendent and there's a board member right and the reality is that with governance teams you know really always re-centering our work around our roles is super important um in recognizing that how i view this work is different even though for example i think i've shared this with you all like
038i had the pleasure of doing a um a campaign uh management for a board member who was a 35-year veteran out of that district that they ran for the school board and one of the things to this day we talk about you know i still kind of advise him and talk to him about his experiences but i talk about look you are no longer principal you're no longer director you're no longer the person who's everybody in the community um and literally you sub for the principles right so you go to the schools and everybody thinks like you're still the principal it's like you're the board member now and even your discussions right how you view the work has to also shift and so this is always a great image just to also kind of recenter
039our work right is to remember we have two different lanes and you see that dotted line there's the role of the superintendent right there's the role of the board and remember the board is that like that thirty thousand foot you have the vision you set the goals you create policy but you also monitor how that policy lands in the trenches which is where superintendent and their staff is required to implement the work so this is really hard because you have to work together and that's why there's that dotted line versus a solid line because it's not that we don't ever cross each other's lanes but what it does mean is we have to still remember our roles and so that dotted line is where we're going to talk about your handbook because the handbook really
040talks about what is our culture right like what is the culture of our our governance team right like how you all operate in san mateo foster city could be very different from the board in vallejo right and the board that's all the way in corona norco the board that are is all the way across in vista down in southern cal i mean there are so many different ways that governance teams operate there are some basic constructs right which is where i get went back here obviously you have effective characteristics of boards right functioning boards effective boards but then you have what are the clear roles obviously you have laws that govern you right you have your brown act you have all these different policies regulations that govern but what does become very unique is how
041you all operate together how do you treat each other how you communicate what is that kind of culture of the board and that's where the dotted lines come in this is where i want you all to start thinking about let's go back to our handbook with the lens of understanding that how we operate together understanding our roles we have to have a process for that okay and so there's a culture that currently exists but it always is a culture that can evolve based on who you are as individuals right each of you learn a different way you communicate a different way you have a different vision possibly but your role as a board is to come together right and it's also to make sure we have a cohesive way of operating so this is where
042a handbook discussion comes into play all right so what i want to do is i want to take an opportunity um to have you get your handbook out so it's handy and then we're going to take an opportunity to kind of go through the different processes that are going to impact again how you come together as an effective governance team and the way it's going to work today is we're going to review but then we're going to have make some revisions and then you'll actually adopt any revisions amendments to your handbook at a later board meeting okay so i want to make sure that's really clear that you're not taking action today you're just revising um and do you did it last february which is great you're revisiting about a year later um you always
043when you're re-centering the work and onboarding your board members always good to go back to where's our documentation that talks about how we're going to work together okay that's your guide and so um there's a resource that um also is really helpful and i want to just kind of throw that out there for you that for all of you if you haven't had a chance to get a hold of the governance cord this is always a really great resource to go back to in terms of again just unpacking like the how we work together um some great resources there and i know csba uses it um works um i know with um with davis campbell quite a bit with the mig trainings too so i think it's also a great way to kind of have
044a resource to go back to when you're looking at okay how do we really like see this work together so i'm going to stop sharing the screen for a moment and i want to make sure that everyone have their handbook out all right perfect some of you may have we did get those books so that you can good good everybody has them good good good to hear i was glad to hear that um i think that's me a great resource for y'all and potentially use that as like your own book study for your uh study sessions moving forward um does everyone have their so handy and i know some people like to have theirs your hard copies um some of you may have it in front of you um i can pull it up on
045the screen so the community can see it as we go through each page but i do want to spend some significant time and this is kind of what i call the technical work um you know this is my personally not my favorite part of governance um because he and i'm going to tell you very candidly why um every governance team has a handbook right that is a very that's a necessity for you to have my concern is once we finish with this handbooks typically go and sit on a shelf somewhere okay and so why i'm bringing it up before we go into this is as you make revisions i want you to really see this as a living document that you go back to to recenter when you're not sure right to remind us like
046oh yeah this is what we said and then we want to internalize this and actually implement this with fidelity okay so i want to say that very clearly because again this is why this is not my favorite part of this work because at the end of the day does this handbook become something that really guides us or does it go sit on the shelf and that's something you have to think about when we talk about re-centering our work and always remembering our role as a board is to remember we have in our handbook our norms our protocols right how we're going to communicate um how we run our meetings right um and so what i want to do is um kind of begin with um taking about i want to give you about five minutes
047and this this five minutes is really critical um i know you all have seen your handbook um i know you all like read it every day right it's sitting right next to your bed i'm just kidding and that's a sarcastic comment but i want you to just take about five minutes just thumb through right and just get re-familiarized with your handbook okay and then we're actually gonna go through section by section okay and just make some revisions okay but i want to just be fair to you just go take about five minutes just pause like just go back just kind of re-um familiarize yourself with some of the key things that you have and then we're gonna go section by section okay any questions all right perfect do you want some handbook music or would
048you like just quiet time all right we'll give you about five minutes for the community who is uh watching uh i believe the handbook was part of the uh packet if i'm not mistaken um i don't know joan if you can clarify but if anyone is is wanting to follow along and also i believe the handbook is on your website it is posted yeah perfect all right so we'll go about five minutes just re-familiarizing yourself all right so we're ready to just go into the sections by section and just uh break down some of the details or you need a little bit more time just to refresh all right good good good okay so here's we're going to do as you know your your your handbook very customized what i love about it is it's
049very much kind of like customized to what works for you all um it's not just necessarily just what everyone else has but you have some specific specific things to your culture so i just want to acknowledge that um and so what i want to do is i want to look at like four sections specifically that we want to kind of go into in detail and then what we're going to do is talk about specific kind of scenarios and specific impacts um which i show on your agenda around like your meeting minutes your kind of protocol around emailing communications um things of that nature so we're gonna go into those details but i wanna just start with your handbook so i wanna start with um your norms um in particular i'm not gonna go deep into
050the first couple of pages because obviously that's just kind of your vision um your equity definition i do want to say probably needs to be updated so i think joan you already have that notated not a big deal um don't need to go through too much of that um since you just did that um obviously your team you got to update your team on your page your first um your roster okay don't want to go too much into that um but as far as your actual um table of contents will adjust that as necessary so i'm going to skip that for now okay but what i want to do is um i want to go specifically into norms but i want you to just bring attention to your value statement okay so you have a
051value statement on page one and so the way i want us to kind of look at each of the um sections we go through is that you look at what kind of the the pluses like are we good okay then what are some things that may need to change and then we'll have a discussion for each section okay so what's works well what needs to change and then what discussion we need to have and we'll go through each section one by one okay and if you feel like you're being rushed at any point through the sections just let me know okay nicole we need more time for this okay but i want to make sure we can get through each section one by one so i'm going to start just with this on page one
052if you all on page one you see your value statement so what we value is a governance team so take a look you have one two three four five different statements take a look what's working well for that kind of your pluses okay let's start there what do you like about those what works well with your value statements anyone just unmute yourself jump right in so we're on the plus side um i think that um for me uh what's working well is i think that we've we've been focusing and prioritizing um every student and um and trying our best to collaborate i think there's some challenging times right now and that's in that but i think um our focus when we come to the meetings are on students and what's best for kids okay okay
053so you like your values you feel like this encapsulates what you all value as a team okay no one else want to chime in about what you feel in terms of these values this is these are what's what's working well i i i feel like um they're all really good um yeah i like i like all of them but i think um the our diversity piece um i think i yeah that one i think we got a i think there has to be more work done in not on our governance team so i guess i don't know i'm going to be quiet enough basically i'm i'm thinking ahead i shouldn't this is a good uh this is a good value statement for our team so yeah i feel like perfect and yeah noelle i think
054your brain is going into how you measured it right like is this happening because this we're just talking about we value this these are our beliefs remember back to our our board assessment right is do we have shared values belief so that's all this is do we value these things right not are we good at them per se or do we all these things happening but this is what we value right so this is what we come with as a team so we all feel like these are still the values you have as a shared group i was gonna say too and just jump in with i think yes as a board i think these are great and i think we follow them wonderfully do i think that the translation into what gets carried out
055at the school level i don't think that this uniformly applies across the district okay so what we so i hear you lisa going into like yes we value these things how they show up is where we have to really look at which is not what this is for this is not necessarily how you carry it out but i see what you're saying okay right it's just here it's like that dotted line in you know it's like it's it's like that dotted line is no longer dotted it's solid got it okay okay does anyone feel like these um any of these value statements need to be changed so this would be a great time to chime in because i hear a lot of like yes these are values we agree like these we these these work
056for us but is there anything here that may need to be changed that may not be working that you may want to adjust one of the things i was thinking about as um noelia started to share and i don't know if this is where you were going with this but this is where my mind went with us around the diversity piece um you know there's something to me around and i think that this has definitely emerged as we think about reopening and kind of um there's something around like how we prioritize voices um that we don't typically we aren't hearing from currently in the same way so i don't know if that falls under diversity or community but there's something around uplifting holding space for ensuring that we're prioritizing voices of our students um and
057their families that traditionally haven't been successful in our school system and so i don't yeah i could see that falling under one of those two areas but um that to me is something that i feel like is is missing and maybe that doesn't go under values but to me it feels like an important piece to be considered yeah yeah and i think what's hard about this one is when you do value statements often you want to go into like how we're how this looks on the ground level right which is a good reflection but i think this page is really just do we believe in this right like it's like yes or no and that's really it right like do we believe in this now how it's carried out is where we have to go
058into our other sections right but do you feel like like wording wise i think sharon noelia what you were sharing um do you feel like the words captured here really capture what you all value and that would be it do you what you value right so i see the words committed dedicated prioritized we value our students you're calling our students so so do you all feel like these are kind of your core values that you can still stick to or is there anything that needs to be changed here one other thing to throw out there um [Music] is there a place for a value around i'm trying to think about like what the right the term that comes to mind is like anti-racism uh but is there like a term for like very specifically addressing
059and tackling the systems and structures i don't know so so these you know equity and inclusion gets at it in in one way but it doesn't get at it in a way of like confronting those systems and structures um and i feel like we've spent a lot of time talking about that i think about that with like the sro resolution and just other things so i don't know i'd be interested to hear what other people think about and anti-racism might not be the term i can't think of another one that um i'm trying to think of like another one but potentially something like that that more specifically conference that could be yeah yeah so just kind of terms that are more explicit is what i hear you saying i think you all have some very
060general statements that no matter what the topic is no matter what form of oppression exists i do think that you capture that that's my opinion in this when you talk about inclusion of every student right so if you started to go too deep then you're going to have a little really wordy value statement right but i do agree that um if you all feel like you want to be more explicit about anything then this is a place you could do it um i just i'm not sure that calling out one form of oppression over another would be as valuable because then what we do is we're our values are now kind of going more deeply into specific what i call equity uh racial equity gaps for example right so then you're going specific so that's
061why i go like sometimes value statements are very broad on purpose right so i don't know it's just my thought i'm trying to find it too shy where it fits in but i feel like you called it out already when you talk about equity inclusion um and inclusive and equitable practices i feel like it encapsulates that it's just not explicit around um anti-racism if that makes sense and your values may show up in your resolutions by the way right your values may show up specifically in other spaces but this is kind of a big picture tell me you're thinking do you think you want to add anything or you feel like you've you captured it in your broad value statement um i'll just say that um i don't think it hurts to to put that
062as a value i think um if that's you know it's like we have been doing a lot of work around that and um i kind of think like taking a strong stance and putting it in writing and saying that's inclu that includes um that's included as our governance team values is something that i wouldn't be opposed to adding um just because it is kind of nothing is very specific on here and so i think i mean doesn't hurt it yeah tell me where you might place that like where would that show up on here to me it would just be a separate bullet point yeah i'm thinking and again like that was the word that popped into my mind but it can be something that's that doesn't have to be the term i think um
063it can be something that's more inclusive but i i do think there's something around like taking a firm stance against those things as a board that that is something that we value it it's encompassed in equity inclusion sort of but i don't necessarily agree that like i think you can be focused on equity and inclusion and also not proceed as a board in an in an anti-racist way or in a uh i don't know where you're kind of like really confronting injustices head-on i don't know like what the exact right term is but it's something around like no we're gonna actually tackle these these issues head on and that's something that we're gonna take a strong stance on so can i push you all to think about that if you go back like three pages
064you have your equity statement which um i think encapsulates that in in itself right it's kind of your statement you pulled out which is not only values right but obviously you're explicitly calling it out so i feel like you have done that um i'm not sure there's value in putting it into your value statement but it's up to you all it's your handbook but i think your equity statement is really your kind of standalone right here is what we believe um equity is and i think it calls it out um remember you all added words like um the uh that correlate with any social or cultural racial factor when we talked about um removing the predictability of success or failure so i think you all called it out in your statement i'm just not sure
065that you want to you know kind of add it back in the values or you want to you know just have it be kind of it stood alone in your equity statement which is part of why we create this work right with governance teams like you need to have a statement right so i think you've called it out but if you want to add it to your values it's fine i don't think it matters either way to me but i think you've called it out very explicitly in your equity statement that you just um amended at your what two board meetings ago want to say can i just ask something as well i totally believe you know taking a stand as a district against racism is completely important but then where do we draw the
066line i'm like what about ableism you know what about those with disabilities in the district i mean that's a huge thing for this district um completely from a disability standpoint um you know it's like how do we address the socioeconomic disadvantaged um i guess that's just my thing and and please i i'm open for explanations and education but to me if we're looking at a value statement it just feels like it needs to be broader so that we can put all of that under an umbrella because i just feel like there's a chance that we would start either leaving a group out or we would you know just end up with this you know value statement that's 10 pages long yeah anyone have wait uh response yeah um i am in support of including it
067and i i just want to say that in my experience i i understand the point that you're making lisa but also you know working within different systems uh you know in our like my experience working within different systems is that racism is kind of like underlying everything like within the disabled community within the foster care community within like within every system um i think like addressing racism kind of improves everything for everyone i don't know if that makes sense or if i'm saying that properly but um i i think that it does it does stand alone in a way and it and it and working on that actually betters everything for everybody um and that's been my experience right working in the different systems that i've worked in um so i that's that's part of
068why i think it should be able to stand alone but um i don't know if anyone else wants to share how they feel about that i'll just i mean so like i said that was just the initial term that came off i i mean i would also be okay with something like interrupting inequitable practices right like i i but i think the point is um because i you know if you're saying like the equity definition should suffice then then presumably that means like we don't need to include equity and inclusion anyways right because we have equity definition right like i i don't know like to me it's like no this is a space where we call out additional values um to the point about like i also think for me like the anti-racism piece is
069important because i think very often in this work the counterpoint is like well what about everything else and doesn't mean that you're not focused on everything else but talking about race explicitly makes people very uncomfortable and so then to say like well if we talk about everything then we don't have to specifically talk about race and i think kind of to noelia's point like that underlies pretty much all like that doesn't mean that there aren't inequities that are outside of race there absolutely are and those are things that we need to address but within those inequities race is an additional inequity right so if we're talking about special education for example there are in equities between our special education population and our general education population and within our special education population there are equities that
070are based on race and so calling that out explicitly i think um i just think sometimes that it's it's uncomfortable and so we like to go to a place of like let's let's do this so that that it's not uncomfortable and i i don't and so um i don't know um i i i personally think that it is important to call out explicitly i would also be fine with potentially like doing that and also saying interrupting inequitable practices or um i'm just looking at the equity definition to see if there are like other pieces in there like that we could pull out that kind of more explicitly call out like the ways in which we address these things had honor that we're committed to doing that right um because i think that's a harder thing
071to do than say we value equity and inclusion and if we're like really wanting to move systems and structures as a board like we need to start we need to start doing that by being comfortable and having uncomfortable language in our value statement right like that is how we model how we do that as a community in my perspective from my perspective i'm sorry oh no go ahead i was just saying that you do have a statement that might help in that um examining and eliminating biases um that was uh added and most recently in your last update yeah i'll put it on the screen too if it helps to have a visual so this is the most recent yes this is the one where i show where the red is where you made amendments
072to it yeah so see where you called out and you added in these pieces so i think what i hear the group saying and alice i know you were going to jump right in um is that you may want to in your value say them very clearly call out as a board in our value statement we want to more clearly be explicit about language that we value and so go ahead alison yeah it's gonna say um just looking at some other um missions and value statements of organizations the um idea of collective liberation also um is one that kind of seems like it might be a good like what you call it and then we could define that it means um working together um against oppression and um and i mean there's different definitions but
073i thought like that might be like on the right track if we're looking for a term okay any other thoughts ken did you want to jump in i know i'm not going to belabor the values piece we're going to get to our other stuff um our norms and our protocols i think it's important but any other last thoughts we're taking no i'm i'm um so i'm appreciating the discussion i um i also looked up um what our last equity statement was that we approved and so i know we have that and i'm glad you put that up on the screen um you know when i we started the discussion i was thinking okay you know going back to your i guess was your bend it wasn't your venn diagram but it was the circles yeah
074they weren't concentric circles but it was about the y and to me this is sort of like the why this is why we're here this is what we're doing right you know i know it's easy for us to get past this sort of y and immediately start jumping into like what are we doing and how are we doing and stuff like that um but the value statements are nice and short and sweet because this is like this is why why we're doing this um i can see why you know going above and beyond sort of our mission statement and our equity our new equity statement um to add something here about being sort of an anti-racist um i think you can kind of allude to it through our equity statement and also the values of
075equity inclusion and then also the just diversity um paragraph here or statement but it does you know it does lead to the fact that you know we are moving um we're definitely moving in this direction so i mean we're we're you know dove right in and so i feel like you know maybe that does need to be something um i like how it's a lot of ways like the values here are all very positive and so what trustee proctor brought up um was some idea to sort of to add it but to have like in some ways a positive spin on it and not saying spin but in a negative way but like to have a positive way of how we how we grow go about this um i think i think i mean i'm
076open to that so how do you feel about this um again we're just making revisions kind of discussing and then you all will come back to this right and make final you know decision but um i um what i can do is i've taken some feedback and i can give you kind of send back to you two kind of versions either an extra bullet or we can infuse words like anti-racism and all forms of oppression to really be more explicit about our beliefs does that sound like that what kind of where i'm hearing you want to do just make sure you're more explicit and that we can really call out those values because that's what we do value and we want to call it out so am i hearing that does that sound okay all
077right all right good good okay so we're moving along i don't want to make you feel rushed but again you still have your norms your protocols um your meeting guidelines that i want to get to so i want to make sure but i think i hear you clearly loud and clear we want to explicitly be clear about our values that have evolved right since our last handbook in february so that that makes a lot of sense and so i do appreciate the discussion um and with your permission i'll move to our norms is that okay all right cool so keeping your equity lens on i appreciate it um so your norms actually show up in two ways so you have norms on page two and then you have norms um on page number um four
078which is more about like discussion so i want to start with page two with just the behaviors of the board so again your norms are kind of like how we you know kind of work together um specifically so i want you to take a look at this and i want you to just pull out you know anything that you feel like is like yes this really speaks to our norms and i want to just read them real quick so the behaviors by which the governance team is characterized as follows okay and again keywords behavior how we interact work together okay so we keep the best interest of all children as a priority okay so first bullet be respectful we give respect and dignity to each interaction be prepared we come to meetings prepared and ready
079to deliberate be transparent we communicate openly and honestly with one another and the community be inclusive we commit to representing and empowering the entire community be collaborative we work collaboratively towards a common vision and purpose and be unified we respect and support the board's decisions all right so what kind of sticks out is like the positives the things that are working really well i want to start there and then we'll go into what maybe we need to adjust i'll do it this way let's start with be respectful okay we all good but be respectful we come to i'm sorry we give respect and dignity to every interaction do you feel like that's a norm that you still want to keep you think that works yeah um i i like all of them i want to
080keep all of them so you like them all okay all right okay so let me let me back up that way because i want to just see what what's working for you i know your brains are spinning on okay the you're doing i know what you're doing you're doing an assessment right like i don't know we do well at this right and i get it right but right now you just want to kind of back up to what do we expect of ourselves okay what do we envision of how we work together so noelia says i like them all anyone else agree with noelia you like them all you're good you want to keep them okay i see ken's like yeah lisa i see a shakehead yeah allison good shara yes but i have one
081i want to add are we not there yet yeah no i was going to say we can move right into okay so what might we want to adjust and then we need to also have a little discussion so i want to make sure so go ahead i'm sure once you jump in is what you feel is missing and then let's talk about a little bit of a discussion i want to pull out a few of these so go right ahead so i think i have well i have one i want to add and then i have another comment um so i'm on i'm on like the same kind of like thread here where something around like be brave be bold like something around like making the hard decisions taking the hard stances sort of um
082piece again like coming back to like keeping the best interest of all children as a priority so something around that just like continuing to push ourselves to do that which i know that we're doing but you know continuing to do that um and then and then the i guess the follow-up to that is just like more around um and i think we talked about all this when we originally did it but like what are the ways that we because i agree with kind of what you were sharing like this is only as valuable as we make it a living document and so how do we do that right like how do we keep coming back to these how do we come back how do how does a community know this is what we value that
083these are what our norms are how do we check in and hold each other accountable to these like at every meeting and so i think that putting something yeah and in here around that is going to be really helpful um because otherwise it's just like we do this once a year and then we're never cycling back to it yeah and that's not helpful right like it's not a good use of our time then absolutely that's why i say this is not my favorite part of doing board study session however i want to say this show one thing that may come back to you when we go to the protocols that may come back to what that language is because i know what you're saying like how do we like you know be accountable or be
084decisive like you know once we make decision like i know what you're saying and so it may be it shows up in your protocol section so a part of me wants to say maybe we don't you know add it yet until you really see like maybe we've covered it here but that language you're right like it could be something that i want because i want all of you to see that but i i hear what you're saying and and those are two separate comments though one is like the accountability piece the part about like being bold that to me is like a norm a norm so that's that okay okay got it got it okay that helps okay anyone want to chime in and maybe share if you have questions for sure based on that
085um kind of addition to your norms so after the um two words that says be respectful it would be like be be brave or bold whichever word you like better um what's the sentence is it um you know um take a stand on difficult issues and articulate those commitments or you know what would be what would be the commitment we're making under be brave and bold i mean i can throw something out there but this is just me just something like you know we commit to making [Music] i don't know decisions that interrupt and equitable practices even when they're not popular or something something like that you know that kind of like follows from what we said before but other people might have ideas [Music] sure i'm going back to like the board assessment because
086there's some interesting language around like data driven um in the word accountability driven but um making tough decisions usually centers around you make it based on data not just emotions right because i think that's a big piece for boards is that um when we make decisions as government teams a lot of times it's easier to lean towards whatever that kind of pressure is right whatever those voices are versus like the facts right and data and i think i feel like that might go into that you know as we commit to making data-driven decisions um it's something in that because i i know exactly what you mean and again those are not always popular decisions right when we start to look at data so i i'm i think i hear you i'm just trying to throw
087out someone or more language that may be helpful with that sentence that joan asked about something on the order if we commit to make data data-driven decisions to interrupt inequitable practices or something on that order yeah okay i'm understanding just to clarify sure you mentioned two things well i'm sorry the second one um was can you please um remind us sorry so there was two things one was sort of be bold be brave but the other one that you mentioned said there was two separate ones and so i was oh no it was just around like how we monitor whether we're doing it like how we make it more of a living document yeah yeah absolutely okay so i think i want to throw this sentence out i think i might have one and here's
088where i want to you know keep it at um you know governance level work is um we make we couldn't we could was it coming no we make uh data data-driven decisions focused on equity and policies to improve student achievement and and now that kind of speaks to again not only equity but remember the role of the board is policy making decisions right so i want to be really clear because remember sometimes we make decisions that maybe when i go back to that implementation superintendent role like this is where we want to call out our role as a board right and our norms really call out we make decisions based on policy because that's where you live in the policy world does that help a little bit in terms of talks about data driven equity
089is called out that's focused on equity and policy um that impacts students because now we're calling now also that piece around these are your norms and when you were when you put this in writing i want you to keep in mind what we're saying right like this is a living document we're holding ourselves this is our norm right so when we talk about making decisions this is where we go into that whole like priorities versus we talk about hot topics or things that maybe one community member wants and it's really not equity focus and it's not policy it's not around policy it's around things that really have no business at the board level i just want to throw that out there because that that absolutely happens especially when equity work comes to mind people will
090interpret equity in many ways and remember i use that joke about people will be interested in like the schools aren't equitable because that school has three trees planted in front and that school has five trees planted in front and that can come to the board meeting that is not our role right so i just i'm saying it for that context right because remember your role as a board is not to do implementation of practices and so go ahead go ahead uh one one clarification is this is this is the norms of the governance team yes which actually does include the superintendent so it's the norms for all of us so while we talk about you know the superintendent's role versus our role you know i look at these norms as like it's everybody so um
091i get i get your point about um about the distinction um but i look at these are the norms for for all of us so yeah yeah that there is a there's a role for um sort of what um what i think you know charlie's star would like to add so i think yeah well i look at that way yeah i agree absolutely this totally applies the superintendent um who has to implement this work right so i think it's important but i called out student achievement for a reason right if you're going to call out how we make decisions you got to call out what is what is it for and i just so i say that it's really your decision on what you say is your you know kind of norms as a group
092but this is important to just really keep yourself centered on when we make bold decisions that may not be popular as shara said right for what it's about kids right that's our norm and if it's about adults i'm calling it out if it's about adult interest that's where you're gonna find your decision making and your norms to actually come back to haunt you because when you go back to your norms your handbook it's like wait we weren't really clear about why we're making decision and that's why i threw out the data part two because that helps you stay centered on it right the data is always going to be centered around our babies so you want to sit on that one and and because you're all going to go back to this right you're going
093to go back and say okay hey this is what we agree to but or we seem like we're in the right space with adding that additional bullet you all agree to that for now okay no final decisions okay all right um all right so but it sounds like overall you all are good with these um i want to call out a couple of things that uh may be helpful with some of these um just as far as our discussion um and so one is um i want to just call out obviously respect and dignity um you know i think that that interaction that you all have with each other i think that you know when you do your own assessment you probably agree like we're pretty respectful group together right i've seen some boards that
094are not respectful with each other um and so i think that that's something that you always want to call that's how we behave together um the one that's on here about coming to meetings prepared and ready to deliberate so this one i just want to call out in terms of um it will show up in your protocols but just to give context this is where we look at our we we do our homework right we read our board packets right we're prepared to be able to discuss and answer questions and that's a norm that has to be a commitment to each other because all it takes is one person who just kind of misses it and then what happens right your board meetings become longer right because we may have things that we're not understanding
095we don't have the context because the superintendent staff put together right these packets to give you information so a lot of times just the basic structures of board meetings become very long because we're just not as prepared right and so it's not in the in any individual i'm saying this to i'm saying as a collective board this is a great norm to always revisit like am i doing my homework am i prepared based on what the agenda items are and we'll talk about the agenda building in a moment but the reality is that this is that preparation piece right and so i think it's really important to always go back to your norms like where are we at on this because this is really critical when we talk about advancing the work um there's another
096piece here i want to call out that i'm sure um you've heard before um around the concept of being transparent so communicating openly honestly with one another in the community so i want to speak to this because i think this is a really hard one um when again go back to the role of a board the role of a superintendent and so something for example when things happen in a community when things happen in the school community district community great example is like hr right staffing issues right things come up that are confidential that cannot be shared but it may be perceived as you're not sharing information right things like that you have to think about what is our norm around how we communicate when there may be things that come up right that the
097community may want to know but really are not privy to that because it's a legal issue right so how do you even communicate how you communicate things right that's transparency sometimes community members don't understand that you can't share every detail of everything you do okay all districts right now are dealing with the reopening piece right you all are no different and their folks are like hey you're not transparent with us and the reality is this right is that there are so many nuances to running a school district that there's no way you can share every detail right but how do you create a communication structure that people know the process right and that's something to think about when you think about our norms what is our norm for communication right how do we communicate what's
098going on so their community feels like we're telling them what they need to know right timeliness where we communicate how we communicate those frequency like all of that is something to think about we talk about communication um because honestly what happens is when that doesn't happen then the assumption is that people are being honest and that's what often happens when you're in a public space right but as a person who knows what happens behind the scenes sometimes as a person on the other end they don't know that right so to defend community members for a moment who are like you're not being transparent it's because people don't know the system so we have to be better at educating our community about what is happening and sometimes that may show up in your um your conversations
099and your board meetings around even your board reports right it's just sharing processes like this is how this happens right sharing an opportunity for people to know kind of the nuances of what happens with governance these study sessions are opportunities for anyone who watches and likes to sit on a saturday and watch a board meet a study session right how do you ensure that the community knows the process and it's very transparent right so that's something to think about and some to work through and when we get to our protocols we'll get a little bit deeper into that but i wanted to call that out um i also want to call out about inclusiveness and this is something that i think is important we talk about you know how do we effectively recognize and respond
100to public concerns right to public comments and this is one that's kind of a hot topic for lots of boards around the nation so i want to give context as this is not just a san mateo foster city thing so a couple things i want you to think about with your norms of being inclusive and one is you have your protocol for public comment right like that's something that you're required to do in your board meetings um how you do that obviously you know presidents you know collaborate with the board agenda building process and obviously there are moments where how you build your agendas right you have multiple agenda items like you allow public comment right and then there's public comment about non-agent items so we talk about being inclusive right with an equity lens
101keep in mind that how that's perceived right has to be clearly created and understood by your community so that as you have voices that need to be heard no matter if it's voices that agree with our truth or not how do we ensure that we have an inclusive opportunity to be heard but then also recognize how we effectively respond okay so when we talk about inclusion right when you sit in your board meetings obviously like we don't respond to public comment like that's not really our role right is to respond it's not a dialogue it's a board meeting right the public just can come and watch right so i say that again it's a board meeting the public is invited to come watch right there's not necessarily a requirement for you to have a response
102however as you want to be inclusive right you want to make sure we have relationships that are collaborative with our community you do want to consider in our protocol being inclusive how does that response look right and what's appropriate what's not so remember we're five of us right obviously we have a board meeting so we want to have a collective voice in how we respond so the statements you make right those are things that need to be considered as how do we have a collective voice when we respond to anything it's not just individual responses um outside of our board meetings right we always want to be mindful of even though people reach out to us right individually how do we respond effectively so that we're still collectively sharing those shared voice vision and values
103as board members even though we individually were reached out to so i always think about things like all of you all of you have like social media for example right everybody's social media is just kind of the new way we communicate right which is an important platform but being mindful also of how do we ensure that we're effectively recognizing and responding to our community is something we're going to have to revisit because what happens often is that individually we may have a response but it doesn't reflect the whole board and so i want to say that because it goes into your other um norm around being unified right so we respect and support the board decisions so anytime we have a collective voice right a board decision is a final decision whether we have all
104five of us agree but we have our majority we make a decision we are collective board and we have to remember individually we don't want to always respond with just our individual view but we want to respond with a collective view from the board and that's a work in progress for all boards i want to say that but i want to call it out in your norms because you're going to go back to this is a living document you're going to have to wrestle with as a board family how are we doing with our norms around being transparent communicating responding effectively but also recognizing that our communication has to be from a shared voice okay so i want to just pause for a second and see what questions thoughts you have because i want to
105move from the norms into your uh actual protocols which is more about some of the details but for your norms just pause in there thoughts comments you have i think you have great norms by the way i think they're perfect but it's just kind of like chara you mentioned like we don't want to just close after this meeting and we never go back to these and not really look at what we agreed to is how we function together questions comments thoughts um i don't know trust your question were you about to say something or oh sorry i no this is this is helpful thank you nicole um there's one thing about this sort of the decisions you know i was thinking about sort of some of our recent votes um really i mean it's okay
106that we have a split vote you know i i think that there's this thought that we should all be you know all on the same page right and a lot of times we are i think we are but um but split votes are not something that that's going to sort of divide us in some ways i think we all have the the opportunity to vote uh which way we want but once we make that decision it is a unified unified board decision so i you know i know i made the statement before which is like you know in some ways you don't you don't necessarily want you know every every single boat to be five zero you don't want that i mean we do represent the whole community and everything else and you know i
107think it's okay to have split votes i think i think it's all right but once we make that vote it is the vote of the the board so i think we sort of all stick to it yeah um so i think that's that's sort of helpful the one the other thing about the um the public the comments um yeah i know that i don't know if anyone else has gotten slack but um i've gotten emails and sort of and sort of comments about you know sometimes we've had uh we have negative comments you know directed to either one of us or or dr rose's or staff members you know and because it's during public comment we just basically have to sit there and take it which which is what it is what we have to
108do but we also have like a regular board policy that actually says i mean it is freedom of speech that people can go ahead and comment and critique all they want so the reality of it is that you know people can get up and say whatever they want it is completely their right and we allow them to have space to do it um and so i i don't think and we have a board policy that allows for basically you know the critiquing of district staff employees so um i know that we've gotten comments about saying well why don't you stop this or once you do this and i said well one is not like a community meeting where it's back and forth this is the public's time to sort of provide their comment and they
109can basically say what they want so um about that but i just there there's a platform there's there's a reason why we have right there you know and and we just have to in some ways just take it so um because that's what looks great so yeah canon thank you for pulling that one out i think there's a lot of boards struggling with this i want to say it is not just you do not feel alone this is very normal you signed up for this role right and so when you sign up for leadership roles right you you kind of sign up for taking heat right because you have power and so i want to speak to that right when we talk about the role of power and so yes people can speak in their
110public comments i think what i always like to help boards understand is the tone and the culture that you're establishing as a board right the communication the relationships you have with your community it's always something to reflect on right like how do we create a space that is remember i go back to that safe space right so how you establish that and model that obviously is one piece but then what people do it is their prerogative they do what they want here's my thing that i want you all to consider is precove it because i want you to go back to pre-copy right a lot of this is right now because we're in virtual space so you have more opportunities for people to more easily engage but when you think about if someone speaks their
111truth and you don't agree with it or maybe you don't understand it you know what we used to do in person right is there opportunities for us to say you know thank you for your comments you know i'll follow up with you or let's get their information we'll follow up so we can learn more what's happened is there's been kind of this division right because we're not with each other anymore we don't see each other we can't do coffee with our community like we used to these are relationships that have been tarnished so i want you all not to be too much stuck in just the virtual world but i do want you to be mindful because the community is hurting you are the sounding board right you're the sounding board you may not always
112understand but you're the sounding board and as a as a board your job is to serve all community members right it's not about one area one school it is everyone so when you have moments in time where you have a i call them the hot topics that's where you hear people kind of speaking their truth and they're really sharing because it's something that's passionate to them and it's impacting their kids we want to think about are those the ones where maybe we need to pause and think like we might need a special opportunity just to hear these voices because there's a lot of people saying the same thing right which becomes again go back to now just the logistics of your board meeting you have board meetings that last until one in the morning is
113what people are having right now and so that's where you know what is the role of community listening sessions where you can have more of an opportunity for interaction it's designed around listening and having a dialogue versus board meeting structures are not designed for that so community doesn't understand that right they just know this is a place i can be heard so then when i get i get offended because i said something you didn't respond you didn't react you just ignored me that's what it feels like but that's because our community only has that platform so how do we think about the use of community listening sessions that are more ongoing so that it's not so much they just wait for the board meeting to share and then there's no way to have a response
114or a statement but then also how do we think about are there individual um or group stakeholders that we need to meet with like you used to do right i mean i hate saying that but you used to do that which made the culture of this work very different so i want to speak to that because um i often say the ones who are the pushing back the most we got to lean in the motion here because maybe they need to understand more about what you're about go back to your values what your values are right so i want to just speak to that because that's been hard for boards right now and i want to acknowledge how you know your people too so when you get attacked by people that doesn't feel good because
115sometimes they might not hear or they might not recognize like who you are as a person and where you're coming from but the reality is that once you hit that gavel right it's five of us we have our superintendent and now we're in we're in business mode and we don't personalize it but we do have to have effective ways to respond because our community even down to our body language and i just want to call that out i've watched many board meetings just lots of board meetings beyond yours and one of the things that happens is even our body language right people are speaking we're not looking we're not even in the presence so you know this virtual space kind of creates this oddness right sometimes we're like looking down i mean little things create
116a culture where people feel like we're not engaging with them so it's just those things that we have to just recognize as hard right now but we want to continue to create a culture where we are inclusive because that's what you said your values were on the page before right and that's a tough one so when we get to this next piece in our protocol i do want to speak to where this can fold into your agenda building okay because i think also there's a way to really help support the structures of meetings so that it's more it's more effective and impactful um and kind of a win-win for the community and for you because you got business to handle so i just want to you know say i understand it but public comment has
117created a space where it's really awkward right now and you know to be fair you know covet 19 has done a number on all communities so it's you know as the power structures you you it falls in your lap and and it's not fair no who who who signed up to to lead a district during a pandemic it's unprecedented so it's part of the work you just have to chalk it up to when people are hollering and screaming it's not personal but we do need to respond effectively and i think that's what's important and communication is going to be important ongoing communication key talking points and making sure the community is clear and it is okay to respond right it's just how you respond when you respond making sure the community understands that protocol is
118what's going to make a difference okay so that they don't feel ignored but they also recognize sometimes i'm not going to have an answer for the nastiness that comes across you know the diet is to us that that sometimes there's not going to be a response to things that are are going to be harmful and unhealthy as well so um i know we're kind of in the protocol so i want to make sure let's you know because we're going to run out of time and so i feel like the norms for your working norms you feel like those are um pretty good i have that language i think joan was taking notes so we can collaborate before we send it back to the board that's okay um let's get real quick to page four because
119you also have discussion norms so i just want to make sure we can include these because you all added these um around um keeping the focus on the best interest of students which was kind of your top norm earlier assuming positive intent being willing to push each other's thinking so this is more about how you all discuss being looking at every issue with multiple perspectives inviting and welcoming the contributions of every member and to listen to each other listen to understand agree to disagree be solutions oriented and support the team's decision so a lot of that you kind of covered in your norms but this is also really important to think about how these look in terms of your actual discussion with each other especially when you talked about making decisions and you all don't
120vote the same right even before voting i encourage boards if you don't feel like you have a good understanding of what you're voting on it's okay to table things and go back to discuss them right there that's a protocol right that's a norm as you can discuss so you can have better understanding but yes it's okay also like you said would support the team's decision in the end so thoughts um about discussion norms do you feel like these are working um are the things that we need to adjust before we jump into our protocols feel like norms discussion norms are we should keep them the same i'm okay with these i think that you know just based on the discussion you know it is because we get a lot of people who do attend our
121meetings like for the very first time they don't understand and it does um that this is like the only time that we get to actually deliberate right there you go so sometimes it looks like well why didn't we think about this before why didn't we talk to each other about this or something like that but yes i think that um i guess it's important to remind you know all of us you know that it is i mean it's okay that we look like we we have pauses you know that we are thinking about things because the reality is that and plus because of zoom like we can't all tell when we are all about to start talking absolutely you know before when we were in the board room you can kind of look at each
122other and then there could be kind of a signal yeah but here it's a little bit more difficult so yeah i think it's okay to have these pauses and and then also to remind people that you know this is the only time that we we can actually join me talk so yeah um i don't i'm not saying that there's something to be added there i'm just saying that it's an important piece to point out because yeah um i i know that we've gotten emails about that too where yeah people think that you know why does it look like we don't we're not prepared or something like that right right you know because we can't we can't talk to each other outside good point so yep good point questions thoughts about your discussion norms and again
123this is really speaking about how you interact with each other in your actual discussions when you make it before you make a decision right this is what how it looks so you feel like these are still good all right we don't need to add anything okay my only thing i would push you to do is just make sure you make the community aware of these are your norms right so that they understand what's happening sometimes it's just good to just when you adopt your your handbook besides just adopt it like actually speak to it so they understand this is how we operate all right so i'm going to go um very quickly through the roles i want to get really to the protocol but i'm on page five through page i believe it was nine
124um you have your roles um and responsibilities that you carved out i know i spoke to it in that slide and said you know with the the um looks like the little clock and you have the dotted blue line but i just want you to take a moment a few moments just um look through each bullet point um around responsibilities of the board which i know you kind of adopted from the csba guidelines and then a certain responsibilities and roles of the superintendent so i'm not going to go line by line but i want you just pause for a second okay just for a few moments i want to look through page five through nine and see if anything sticks out to you that you feel needs to be changed um i feel like you
125have your structure already in place and some of these are kind of basic guidelines so i don't think there's a lot you need to change but is there anything that sticks out so i'm going to give you a few moments page five through nine your roles and responsibilities and then we're gonna end with our protocols so i want to take a second just see if anyone wants to jump in anything that you feel based on roles and responsibilities may need to be changed or if you have a question about what you have already listed roles and responsibilities no no none can lisa anything from you no you're still absorbing it all uh joan jump in so nicole um the new superintendent will come in july 1. and um i know that um that person will
126probably want to review um what the superintendent needs um from the board because every superintendent is different in what they expect will you um once the i know that there was some talk that the search firm would do a bridging would you get back to this at that time so that they have yeah absolutely yeah i think that's a great part of when we do the performance objectives and goals right it's always like good to just revisit so this whole handbook will really come back up again because remember go back to like we said like it's your own culture you create with your superintendent your board so there are some things that would naturally change so absolutely right because they they may have certain needs so they sure will yep yep how yep yeah and
127i think in the protocols we'll kind of see that in a second um which is where i want to have you chime in for a couple of things that may um overlap with the next superintendent too so any thoughts questions about the roles do you all feel comfortable with leaving them as is and obviously knowing that with the new superintendent some of these may adjust a little bit but the core of it i think is is solid so i don't want to you know have you feel like there's a lot you need to change but your new superintendent will you know probably have some adjustment just based on their leadership style it works well for them um so do y'all feel comfortable with leaving your roles and responsibilities okay all right okay and so one
128thing i do want to do is um always remember that again this is a living document so as you're continuously going through your work during the year go back to this what is my role sometimes when you have those little moments of friction what is our role what do we agree to right very important piece of the work okay sometimes we get lost in those because of just the nuance of everything that's going on so this is always a great document to go back to what is my role what is the superintendent role let's make sure we discuss it if there's any conflict something's not working well let's talk about it right very very simple but you'll have your guideline here okay so the last piece i wanted to go to and i want to
129actually give joan an opportunity um um to speak a little bit about one nuance i'm kind of one of a technical kind of logistical issue um around not only the minutes but also board agenda building um i think it's important to just give a little bit of time for that but this last section um that i wanted to pull out for you is the protocols right so just looking at the way you all have listed it is kind of like what the issue is and what's the agreement right so you have board meetings you have the role of the president you have public comments so a lot of these things we just talked about but as you look at each of these sections i want you to think about what might be missing in these
130bullet points okay around your protocols around how you actually not only interact with each other but what does this look like in action okay and so as we get ready to go into this um i want to just take a moment for the sake of time to um talk about um a couple things the one i know board meeting minutes is a process that falls into um i'm going to jump to page number 13 around communication right with the community and so um and i may have missed what was my other spot that i had for meeting minutes but you know how we utilize meeting minutes to communicate but not just using them to communicate because this is the public forum but also like how you're collecting the meeting minutes right and what is useful
131um in terms of like every board is a little different in how they collect minutes so john i want to jump in just have you just speak a little bit about um one protocol around communication um obviously what happens at the board meetings afterwards is our meeting minute so if you want to jump in for a moment we can see what the board speaks about um different boards under um during my tenure have um had different desires related to minutes so there have been times when just the gist of the conversation has been captured and uh then of course if there's any action of course but then we move to having more detailed minutes really trying to capture more of what was said and now we have um board videos which are posted and we're
132writing the very um in-depth minutes now these minutes at this point in time uh are taking a tremendous amount of staff effort which means that the staff are not doing other things that need to be done so um i was wondering where are we now with our desire for minutes um you have a video do you want to go back to having just the gist of the conversation captured maybe the speaker's names and then the actions or do you do you appreciate reading them the um the minute summaries that are that are done i just i need more direction on where what you are really using and think is appropriate for our community good question i personally think you know we have they're recorded now and so to me it doesn't feel like it's a
133good use of staff time to be writing everything that people can watch and i mean it it's not something i utilize ever right like in real time so there's no need for it i feel like to me it makes sense to have kind of the bare minimum that would need to kind of so people could kind of follow maybe including my times when people could find that in the in the video like these this is the time frame i don't know how much time that would take right again like i'm cognizant of how much time it's taking and the fact that like i'm doubtful anybody's reading them in their entirety so it just to me doesn't like they're more important things for staff to be focusing on in my opinion it's something else i just
134wanted to throw out there um about and i don't know if this is for every time but i'm just going to say it because we have 10 minutes left um is i do so i brought this up with joan the other day because i was on a call with some board members from all over the country and i was sharing about our public comments and the length of our public comments and the length of our meetings and they were like floored like they were like we've never had public comment go that long we've never had meetings go that way and we spent a lot of time talking about like honestly the inequities that that sets up in terms of accessibility to people participating on a board when like you know you have to go to
135work the next day or like i think about i mean selfishly thinking a little bit about myself like when you have really little kids like staying up until 2 a.m just really it's very very hard to make it work and if we want to attract a diverse board i think it's important to take into consideration i asked joan about that she reached out to legal counsel and we actually do have a board policy that states that public comment per agenda item is limited to 20 minutes this is not to say that i do not value public comment i do not think that the public's opinion is important i do feel like we have to weigh pros and cons of like how much public comment we can take per agenda item and i do think it's
136worth revisiting that and reminding ourselves in our community that that is the limit per agenda item and the board president then would have discretion to extend its say to 30 minutes right um and then to let people know that they're welcome to email us with their concerns you know if they're not able to make a public comment at that time but i do think it's something to take into consideration um and i'd be interested to know what other people think about it but i i just i think it's an unsustainable way to continue moving through our board meetings um i know for me it is and i would anticipate for other people it probably is and um i think for our community it is right like to wait until 12 to get to an agenda
137item that you actually really want to be a part of but you can't because we've had four hours of public comment prior um so that's just something else i wanted to throw out there which i know is not the original question but it kind of is encompassed it's perfect it's it's amongst its protocol around communication with your community um so i think it could it easily fits in there so y'all jump in yeah no sure i'm glad you brought that up um because we also i mean one of the other notes that i had in preparation for today's meeting as well is what i've mentioned before sometimes we also have a board policy that has we have a time check you know that actually is codified and that we do a time check at 9
13830 and that we go ahead and say all right we also are supposed to try and keep our means three to maybe four hours max so um obviously the covert things that have sort of really messed things up um but i i am cognizant of that too and i don't necessarily know if we wanna i mean we can try it and say let's go ahead and and go to our board policy and be like you know 20 minutes per per item i mean we could do that um it's it definitely would it would be tough on the public comments at the moment but um but i agree i think that there is at the moment in terms of the length of our means is it's really tough i also think that you know i mentioned
139to joan that you know because we have so many items and we openly has taken such a big toll you know one of the other thoughts is maybe we need to go back to having you know meetings once a week again like we had in the summer so we can get some of the other stuff done and therefore our meetings are really you know are three four hours because they're just you know they're more frequent but you're short so i'm i'm open to how you guys want to pursue a public comment i think that there's there's going to be pushback if we limit it but um but i do know that it is an issue like we can't you know the most important part about um not the most important part but people want to
140hear our deliberations they want to hear what our decisions are and you know it's it's tough when we have to make a decision at 1 30 in the morning and we are really not fully functioning and not thinking right so i think that there is there is a point to that um that's a quick question ken do you how do you all use your written comment um protocol is it only verbal and any submissions in writing like how are you using that as a board it's yeah public comment during meetings are all just verbal i know that other there's other jurisdictions that actually go through and read the written stuff right right but we don't we don't do that okay that's really just verbal yep got it one quick one i'll stop talking i'm sorry
141go ahead noelia i already talked go ahead i just wanted to add real quick i think that something that has been pretty clear from our community is that i don't think they necessarily want to be giving public comment during our board meetings they want to be heard right and that's how you know the the need for more coffee chat came out and um and like you know i know that i committed to doing a a coffee chat or some type of um you know listening session with folks with the community and and i think like maybe if we as a board can commit to like once a month an hour you know like an hour or two um i think there are other ways to fill that need in the community um and still you
142know have it be um yeah you get what i'm saying sorry good stuff i i was just going to share really quick that i i mean i think that that's a great idea and i think that um i think there may be pushback but i also think this is where like communication and like the why is really important and i also think there are creative ways right like one thing i'm thinking about is if we're really clear with our community that like we're making this we're instituting a policy that's already been there right as a result of x y or z that we really value community input and potentially changing the process a little bit right like if you like is there a way for people to buy you know thursday morning at 10 submit
143all of like submit things and email to the board and to you know dr rosas and anna for example and then there's like some sort of and dr rose's you can let me know how like this may or may not be okay with you know first step but like i'm thinking about transitioning like the minutes to some sort of like brief synthesis of public comments that i've gotten that can be presented to the board or something at the beginning right like these are some of the the gist of some of the public comments that we've gotten and you know that we all commit to reading them and the board president commits to responding to all of them or something like that right so i don't know i think that there are other ways that we
144can think about process um outside of just like the public comment piece yes can i can i also um you know think because i'm i'm taking notes and i know joan is as well because there's all your protocols there's lots of different places where you're addressing these um i want to just you know make sure we speak to the agenda building piece because i think that also um impacts how this public comment looks right like they make comments about the agenda items so i think i heard you say sure like maybe we just rethink how we often we meet you know we have less agenda items on a meeting versus having so many and obviously reopen has taken you know a little bit more but the agenda building protocol can you just speak to that
145for a moment just to make sure that that's really clear um so that everyone is clear about what goes on the agenda right because sometimes there's like hey i want to talk about this i want to talk about let's just make sure we have that clear for the handbook piece before we end so there are agenda items that have to be done at certain times of the year yep so those are listed out on a year-long calendar that that we manage um then there are items that are added throughout um throughout the year because of initiatives or things that have come out come up and so those are then added now we had um i think this is an area that we really need to focus on particularly as a new superintendent comes on board
146right we've had a lot of transition and so this has changed over time but i really think that probably we need to establish a board agenda a court agenda builder that's pretty robust for the year um so that people can see the items and ken has uh committed to sitting down during spring break uh to looking at the next six months so that we get particularly through on the rest of this year and then into the new superintendent's year but then another question is how do items show up on the calendar like how do you all want to inform your president right that you would like those placed on the on the agenda so that we can still manage a reasonable agenda now i want to just go back to one thing before all the
147reopening and the covid we were actually had about the right amount of agenda items to get us through in our period of time that we were hoping to get our items through but then when we started out in the reopening that went up so i think that we once we're back to school it will be more normal and back to our more normal amount of time uh but i i did want to know more about how to place items on the agenda builder yeah and can i speak to one thing joan as the board considers that i know where we need to close out because you all are at your time um but remember the conversation about your four priorities that i've been pushing you to think about as a board part of your agenda
148building really should always be centered around what are our priorities right and i think that's going to help you when you build your agendas around like you know as an individual board member you may say hey you know can we want to put this on the agenda but you got to make sure it's aligned with your priorities so that you all aren't all over the place talking about everything that may just not be what needs to be in the board's kind of you know um view at that moment so i think priorities is always important you think about how do we get this these items on the agenda considering initiatives right because you had a lot of initiatives you all i want to remind you you have a lot of initiatives you have a lot
149going on but how do you prioritize too and i want to just throw that in and i'll go back to noelia when she was president she created a board agenda builder that basically did delineate the areas that we were we were really going to focus on in particular teaching them the key yeah good so we have really spent the majority on that i i want to give shower credit for that because it wasn't me okay so it was during the weekend's period of time it's the one we're still using so we do have that delineated but but it is how do like so if something comes up right then how does it end up on the agenda builder how do i know that that's an important point for all of you in like um because
150what's been happening is it says board requests for future agenda items and so one person will say they want something i'm not sure really if everyone is and then what staff to assign it to and how big is this project going to become yeah um so i'm just trying to for for the future managing expectations around work good point so um i know this came up so during the csba i attended csbn conference i attended the um the future prep board presidents workshop and this came out been in one of our small groups and the issue was you know how does two items get specifically on and in our small groups that represented six different other school districts uh in the california i thought it was sort of a standard this is how we do
151it and everything and this sound goes but it's surprising how wide and diverse uh this actually putting something on the agenda is when we're all in the boardroom you know it was pretty clear that when someone says oh you know hey i want something on the agenda i think we'd all look and i think joan looks at everybody and says when you see like a majority of people not in their heads it was like okay let's go ahead and do that we don't necessarily have that opportunity i think most times we're all visible but sometimes you don't necessarily have that opportunity but our policy right now is that it's just it's one board member can request something to be put on um and i think that's still the protocol i don't know if we want
152to change that the one thing that i think that there is that's important to note is that that items that we put on our agenda really should be going back towards sort of like our mission and values and then sort of uh you know why we're actually here uh you know at the board um there was one school district i forget what was who it was but they were further south than us they actually had some sort of process where if you had to put it on if you were making a request to put something on the agenda you had to actually go back and say go back to the mission statement or the vision statement said this is why it relates to what we're doing and so therefore um and and then there was
153there was a relevant reason to put it on um versus someone else and i heard all these stories about some people asking for like let's change the sky to to red or something i'll say that something like crazy and because one person asked for it technically it had to go on um but it wasn't related to what the actual work was there you go um so to me i i kind of feel like i'm okay with the way that you know it is right now in terms of our policy um just as long as we all remember that you know it has to be reflective of what we're actually doing um i think for the most part we are so um i'm okay with how it is but um i don't know if anybody else
154has any other comments about it i agree i think that that um i worry about like you know moving to something like a majority right because then you end up potentially silencing like divergent voices right like so that that sort of thing really makes me uncomfortable but i do i think just even requiring or requesting that we have the justification you know when we're requesting it and then trusting that the board president and superintendent are kind of you know taking that into consideration and adding um and then i have like in my mind this like vision for what this could look like so i can send it ken and joan to you if i can break together to like do because i feel like i like really i don't know i i feel like these
155kind of like systems and structures i i mean i i really enjoy them you guys know it's really important it's really important and i'd like to hear it because um we've changed over time i mean we've we've tried different things so i don't i think that we need to change again um because we need to get something really tight um that'll be easy for a person who's coming in brand new um because they they have a lot of work they're going to need to do just establishing relationships and knowing what the community needs not just worrying about what the next board agenda is so i would like to get this um really tight for folks but it does feel like there might need to be i mean we're past time for today but it feels
156like there needs to be more conversation about um um public comment um communication patterns and then and and then including this board agenda builder so so i don't know nicole if you are hearing that also and maybe can come back at another time to work further with the group yeah i mean i think it's ongoing you know when i go back to the four agreements the non-closure right when we in these there's never a a stop point right there's never a it's done because you're growing you're learning together and remember you're focused on equity and that in itself creates a sense of non-closure because there's so many new things that come out of this when we say something like building an agenda right with an equity lens requires a different way of doing business which
157we have to get used to so it's going to take time and so i think as long as you all are open to we're going to adjust and our adjustment is let's just go back over our handbook and we just go and follow what we said we're going to do that in itself is going to get you into a place of effective governance right that's going to then eventually now impact what you want to do which is close equity gaps right and when you close equity gaps you actually impact all kids right that's the great part about this work so i think joan to answer your question i think that you know of course you know we're obviously um you know i'm you know honored to be a part of you know supporting your superintendent
158search in itself and i know that you're gonna have to revisit this again with your new superintendent so part of me is like don't get too like down into the weeds because you may need to adjust again but your basic structure i think it's solid like i want to say that i think it's solid i think that i commend you on going through your handbook with an intentional lens right i've done this with boards where it was just a check mark like we're just doing this because we got to get it done and get it on the agenda check we got to get that done but i see you all really internalizing this and really seeing this as this is how we're going to do our work together that's a big deal that's a big
159deal and i'm super excited for you um i'm excited for you i want to commend you in front of your community that it takes a lot to do this work um publicly and to be you know in a space of learning together and to be vulnerable to say that we're growing we're learning we want to do the right thing we want to make those tough bold decisions as mentioned earlier but in the end um you know you all are in a place where your structure is going to make a difference when we talk about really going deep into equity work so i'm just excited for you on your journey and just appreciate you know what you've put into today for these just few hours um of work so ken yeah jump right in sorry i
160know i know one of our four pillars or not four pillars but our things are accepting non-closure there's just a couple there's just two things that i that i wanted to bring up that way i think that would be important to have some closure on this is that um because i do think that i mean this government's handbook stuff is is really important because this sets up how we talk about and how we function um throughout the year um one thing that i want to bring up and i know this would add time but um smita did request the opportunity to to provide some sort of additional public comment because they felt like their public comment time was really rough or shortened by the three minutes that we normally give them um i did talk
161to doctor to joan and there was a recommendation to look at the same time unified to see how they do it and see whether we can replicate it and per john john i'm just going to summarize is that um basically during our committee and our foundation reports um they actually have a section in there for you know labor union uh um comments as well or reports updates updates so um i was just i just wanted to get uh sort of consensus from the board whether or not that's okay for us to start doing because i think it would be really good for um to sort of respond to the requests from our unions um so how would function is basically just like during our committee reports we just have a line item as well that
162just says you know union union updates or reports is that does anybody have any questions or comments about that yeah i apologize i made an assumption you already were doing that um and so absolutely um i think that's a great practice um but with clarity yeah no there's there's a number of things that that we have been that have been brought up over the years that this is this is the time unfortunately that we have to talk about it so um but i don't know if anybody that's okay with everybody sorry i think they need to have a voice and they need to be heard i also think csca needs to be heard as well um i know that we speak a lot about smita and there it would be for both yeah we couldn't
163have a district without our teachers um beyond a doubt but we also can't have a district without our classified staff as well and you will be you have a representative group of um administrators yes so it would be just a line item for csca smita and smea okay yeah i mean if they want just like just like our committee updates is they have an opportunity so um the the second thing is is just um sort of the return to the boardroom i know that we have the issues with covet net joan i know you sent an email out about that um but i do feel like we should we do need to go back in some way we might have to pilot pilot it you know was in the boardroom the other day figuring out
164how to get the cameras up and running and potentially having each of us on a computer so that we could continue to zoom because we can't bring the people into the board room but we can be in the boardroom so um he's working on that okay yeah i know that if we need to i mean i have this setup which is just my ipad on my tripod and yeah and i could essentially bring that into the board room and you know still function as if i'm here so um i think we need to work think about that because we have asked a lot from our community and our teachers to go back and you know it is something we need to do so yeah he was in there this week working on getting us set
165up good to know so that we could return also yeah when you don't do your soup interviews just kind of a side item that will be needed too because you're going to need to open the meetings and then close and it is still it's public to open it right then you'll close so yeah having that because you will need to be in person too is important so good to know you're pry it out now right yeah yeah try it um so the other thing is d are we are we in some kind of an agreement about looking at the minutes should uh in doing uh more succinct minutes with maybe the time notation of where you could find the item on the video yeah i'm okay with that because i'm losing a lot of anna
166allman's time where she could be doing some other things in just doing transcription basically yeah i i think that the the like the agenda time and the action would be good and and like the names of the speakers maybe right just like like the basic okay we'll go into that kind of a mode and try it out and if it isn't doesn't seem to satisfy then we'll change it again all right so um i know you all are way over your time um and we uh definitely want to honor your weekend you need some rest i know you're all exhausted but i just want to thank you for allowing me to hang out with you again just to continue to just help you know facilitate a dialogue and let you reflect and and really um
167come up with um a foundation right for your effective governance practices that will create a legacy and a culture for boards to come in san mateo foster city so i hope you see the work you're doing is so instrumental not only for now but you know 10 years from now 20 years from now right you're setting a tone a foundation a culture which is a big deal so i just want to thank you for allowing me to hang out with you to do that and um thank you celia for interpreting for us and with my fast talking uh i always forget to pause but thank you all as always um and each of you ken and lisa shaw noelia allison i'm joan thank you for your time your energy because this is not easy work
168and i acknowledge that um so with that yes i will collaborate with you joan i'll follow up with my notes your notes so we make sure we send back to the board their revisions to their handbook um for now again and then when the new superintendent comes on you can revisit that again and i'll be more than happy to hang out with you to support that and um with that you know just my only next steps for you is just to continue to take your equity statement um and apply it as a lens to everything you do that's a huge piece now always have that statement so even at your board meetings have that printed out right next to you right go back to it anything you do that's your lens and that's a huge
169next step and then we'll talk about you know how with your new superintendent um what that looks like in terms of how to implement what adjustments need to be made and how do we start taking that work of the task force and looking at what they're going to suggest to you at the end of this year how you're not going to use that to drive your work too so lot's still coming right well thank you very much nicole for facilitating this conversation um lots of lots of important um pieces um here that we were able to discuss so um we would um collaborate on this and bring it back to the board um for your adoption again um at probably the march 25th board meeting and then we can continue to work on different aspects
170of it okay okay all right thank you thank you thank you yeah thank you nicole thank you um everybody um so we are we need a motion for adjournment um does anyone want to make a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn thank you trust your welcomes do we have a second thank you thank you trustee corzo roll call vote trustee porzo yeah trustee proctor yeah trusty warren yes and trusty watkins yes and i'll vote yes as well so we are joining at 3 16. um thank you all everybody thank you