001trusty chin we're ready to go okay great uh thank you everybody for attending our Saturday afternoon uh studies special meeting uh we are going to start this meeting now at 107 uh PM with uh roll call um oh and here's actually president Coro just came on so um why don't we I'll pass the Baton back to president Coro sorry about that and president Coro translation has been set up I know she was having computer issues so um I'll start with the roll call so um trusty uh Proctor here uh trusty Hitchcock yes here trusty Watkins yes here H I am here as well I know president Coro was having some technical difficulties but she is here as well so um roll call uh statements we're moving on to statements um or I'm sorry approval of
002agenda uh we need a motion to approve this agenda motion to approve today's agenda thank you thank you trusty Watkins for the first motion and trusty Hitchcock for the second uh roll call vote trusty Hitchcock yes trusty Proctor yes trusty Watkins yes um president Coro are you here to vote for the agenda I'm here and I think I'm all good now sorry I've been having lots of I issues here um but uh yeah do you do you want to just vote Yes on the approval of the agenda and then once we do this I will pass it back to you yes so I will vote as well yes so the approval of the agenda is um approved and we're on statements um president Coro you can go ahead and take over Yes actually could we
003pause a moment and president Coro would you mind announcing that translation services are available by using the interpretation icon at the bottom of the screen sure um inter thank you okay um moving on to public statements public statements related to agenda item persons will be called on can you all hear me yeah sorry persons will be called on wait please limit statements to three minutes I'm sorry I lost my screen again so um do we have any hello um to our attendees if you'd like to make public comment on an agenda item please uh use the raise your hand functionality in Zoom at this time uh president Coro there's no uh sorry there's no uh raised hands at this time okay thank you moving on to our proposed consent agenda all items on the consent
004agenda are considered by the board to be routined and will be enacted by the board in one Motion in the form listed below there will be no discussion on these items prior to the time the board votes on the motion unless members of the board staff or public request specific items be removed and discussed from the consent agenda the superintendent and staff recommend approval of all consent items movement of any recommended consent item is appropriate at this time absent any public member requesting to pull the item I'll make the motion to approve the consent agenda thank you do I have a second one second thank you roll call vote trusty chin yes trusty Hitchcock yes trusty Proctor yes trusty Watkin yes and a yes for me the motion carries moving on to our effective governance
005with Equity lens study session all right well thank you for coming together this afternoon um this is our opportunity to continue um our work from last study session to learn together to discuss Equity work in our district and consider next steps so we are very pleased to have Nicole Anderson here to work with us through this uh process today and um I I would invite her to go ahead and get us started all right good afternoon everybody good to see you again everybody doing okay yes yes am I in the right Zoom room are we here to talk about equity and education am I do I have the right link okay had to make sure I know you all are uh still um basking in your uh break you had a week ago right and
006you're like wow thank you it's another weekend is what I'm sure you're thinking and also thinking like wow how did we magically plan this study session on this weekend because I'm sure if you're feeling like I'm feeling you have some level of um fatigue maybe in your body but also even mentally um because there's a lot going on um I mean face it we're we're battling a couple things um that are historical just two pandemics right like covid-19 and this thing called racism which has been around for quite some time and um it's exhausting I don't know about you but it's exhausting and um sometimes we actually need days like today um on a Saturday um where we can have some what that costs good study session time to collaborate together um and to be
007able to plan and although it's a formal board meeting I still want you all to consider this time a little less formal but more time to collaborate as a team um so that you can really prioritize your work because this is going to be longstanding work Beyond just this year this is work you'll be doing and creating a legacy and a culture in the district for years to come so having today is really critical so that you can just kind of bring in some of the things that you've been doing because you've been doing a lot and just really bring them in and focus so you can be good at a few things and uh and and excellent at even one thing like let's close an equity Gap and T Foster City for good eliminated
008and that requires a lot of hard work so with that um I'm going to jump right in um you all received your packet yes and some of it um are documents that you actually have seen before um and I'm going to refer back to them because I think it's important to go back to it um so I will refer to the water system change article today I'll refer to the racial Equity detours article by Dr Paul Gorski and then also your uh board assessment document which is just the one pager about the eight uh characteristics of affected boards so I'll refer to those three documents and then of course um Joan will have some time on the agenda as well for us to um look at some resources around um prioritizing the work of the
009district um and around all your initiatives your Equity Focus work and also the role of Staff in this process so before we jump in um I'm going to be following what I call the detailed agenda so you also should have received that version um which kind of helps you see kind of the flow we're going to go today and we're going to do our best to stay in those time frames but again this is your time so I want to make sure that you know that we can kind of move um um as needed based on what the the need of the group is but um what I'm going to do is I'm going to reference um the um slides and I am not sure if Anna saw these in the um in the um
010folder or not so I apologize but what I'm going to do is just share this link now just so you all can have it um if I even can have access to the chat which I don't think I see it there so um Joan just so you know it's in the folder um if you all want to have access to that in terms of the slides I'm going to share right now okay it won't allow me to share all right so sit back try to relax a little bit get comfortable talk a little bit about prioritizing our work and um I want you to really be um encouraged by all that you've been doing um you know it's been tough you all been beat up a little bit right by the community there's been some
011things that people are serious about and they're concerned about um people want the schools reopen others are freaking out like me as a parent like I don't know if I'm sending my kids back to school you know the whole new wave of this thing called covid um there's a lot going on and I want to say you know be encouraged by the fact that sometimes what we call these storms that happen in education actually are ways just like um in this particular quote goes back ways storms do make trees take deeper Roots so what I want you to think about is this is an opportunity anytime you have challenges around Equity word think about it as an opportunity for growth and to take deeper root into the work that you want to do and sometimes
012those opportunities are actually come in the form of challenges so we don't want to ever waste any challenges uh we want to use them as opportunities to grow um in our work I want to remind you of our Four Agreements um again I can't reiterate this enough at this time time of um I would say um moment in education I'm noticing that after George Floyd's um murder um months back that there was a lot of energy to address racism um specifically um around uh school police around just policing and communities and there's been that energy where now organizations have really taking efforts even like your District you know really do some intentional work but what I'm finding about now is that now that people are starting to unpack the layers of depression and all these
013different Equity issues there's becoming um what I call a little bit of confusion and the confusion is the difference between safety and comfort in doing this work like that's the confusion and I want y'all to be mindful of that even as you work together that this work is going to require discomfort okay it's G to require discomfort because you're interrupting a system remember and I want to remind you that in interrupting any system somebody's going to feel uncomfortable but we always want to make sure that safety is intact so people in this work should not feel that they're being attacked or feel that they're being judged or feel that they don't have a place in this work and that's a really hard one because sometimes we're all in different Journeys right and some are going
014faster than others some have more awareness than others and we have to make sure as Equity leaders that we recognize if we're going to lead this work we have to create safety for our stakeholders to move along with this so as a governance team I want you to be thinking about that that um this work may not feel safe to everyone some people who have less power just because we're a governance team right we have power in itself people may actually not feel they have a place to even come and say hey I have a concern or I feel inequitable um of these inequitable outcomes for my kids even though as a board we're like hey we want to reach out to diverse stakeholders right we want to hear your voices we did these listening
015sessions right but you'd be amazed that still there are people who are still trying to figure this out like where do I fit in all this so it's always going to be important to recognize people have to feel safe in order to move forward in this work and so the confusion will be though that some will feel that they're uncomfortable therefore they're unsafe and you're going to have to be mindful of that as a governance team because there are going to be moments you're going to have to push back to the community and say are you unsafe or are you uncomfortable because this work interrupts privilege and interrupts all kinds of things that have been set in place for a long time so The Four Agreements is again a great way to think about again
016as a governance team is you're working together think about how do we agree to stay engaged how do we encourage our community to stay engaged even when it gets uncomfortable and we agree to be okay with a little discomfort how do we agree to speak Our Truth knowing that our truth may be different from someone else's those are going to be things that have to be constantly reiterated but most critically the hardest part of this work is the non-closure right like you're going to leave this board meeting today and you're going to be like God we still have so much work to do um your community is going to feel this at times like wait I need this taken care of or we feel a certain way your kids are going to feel like this
017they're going to say Hey you had a listening session and then you're going to do another one okay now you heard our voices now what are you gonna do about it right there's all these different versions of non-closure so it's important that we recognize that these Four Agreements are really great way to come back to over and over and don't skip this step in your work because if there's not Foundation of safety this work won't last very long and I I I'm seeing that right now as we speak with lots of folks who are this work there's like this am I safe or am I comfortable and it's like let's talk about and sometimes the for agreements is a great way to regroup folks I just want to share that um and see if there
018are any questions or thoughts about your for Agreements are y all still good with these questions thoughts about these because I want to make sure you're you're reminded of the moment in time that people are really starting to get stuck right now um and they're starting to be this like uncomfortable unsafe little bit of confusion so we got to keep wrestling with it this is a great way to revisit questions or thoughts on this good good good all right all right cool let's keep it moving all right so I want to ask you all this is a little bit of board discussion so I want to open this up for you to think about this one of the things is really important um that I want you all to think about is I've worked with
019you this last year and a half or so um whether individually or collectively one of the things I want you to reflect on today is your common Vision like do we have common Vision together together um as you recall one of the eight characteristics of effective boards is having a common shared vision and like beliefs about the work that you want to do around Equity so in leading for educational Equity I want you to be thinking about okay yes we all are on the same page right some of you may think of it that way some of you may think of this common vision of like yeah we we're all about this particular um resolution or this decision we voted five Zer like you might think of common Vision in that way okay but however
020it sits for you I want you to look at these three images for a minute and I'm just going to ask you to think about which one of the three resonates with you the most when you think about our governance team leading for equity and how it connects to our common Vision around this work so just which one resonates with you the most okay so I want you to think about it I just want to open up for a little discussion a little reflective discussion kind of centering our work around our common vision for leading friend Bo but each of you individually I want you to pick one that resonates with you the most so go ahead and unmute yourself once you're ready share and just share which one resonates the most with regards to
021sh okay the one that resonates the most for me is the quote by John Lewis I think because I haven't actually read it before um and I think it's something that can easily be forgotten like we think sometimes that like you know the work is just like that we just need our allies and we just need to push and push and push but in reality like I do think you know it takes a lot of forgiveness and and moving forward and moving past it and you know we we believe in education and that means that we believe that people can learn and then act accordingly or change you know their future decisions with the new information they have powerful okay appreciate that noise that's powerful anyone El want to jump in which one resonated go
022ahead Ken jump in uh yeah actually I chose the same one um you know just going off of the change the idea that you know um people and like John Lewis you know maybe they might have done something early on when they were their 20s or 30s and then as they're Chang and as they're educated as they experienced different things you know you can't in some ways hold back to what they might have said or did way back when when they might have actually changed and so when we think about sort of everything that we talk about you know the idea is that we are all evolving and we're all changing and so just because we might have said something or maybe because a public member might have said something or whatever it is you
023know the idea is that we can all change and we can all move on and we can all sort of have to have that ability to sort of forgive and and just and say like okay what is it right now you know yeah powerful wow I love that example thank you thank you all right so Keno you feel like the middle image really resonates quote resonates jump in Rebecca Allison sha any one of we jump in I don't like to choose just one because I like all of them for different reasons so choosing one is like the hardest thing for me to do I'm sorry um so I'll just start with the first one um one stands out to me because um I think as a board even though at the bottom it says who
024wants to lead the change and there's no one there I think our board is there um and I think that's pretty powerful because usually there's nobody there that's interesting yeah that's a a great reflection okay I chose the same the same one I think for a little bit of different reasons um yeah I think the one just resonates for me because I think um you know and actually the example you know kind of what you were sharing about at the beginning Nicole around just you know there was like all this energy around um the work around policing um and then it really fizzled right and like we had a really hard time getting people to attend listening sessions and you know so I think it's like there's a burnout factor or uh like we want
025these things to happen but we don't have the time or the space or whatever to to be able to do it and so I think this work often ends up falling um to uh just defaults to kind of core people and I think a lot of times I found this both in our work um you know in our district and just personal life my own job you know day job um often Falls to people of color to engage in this work because of the direct implications and ramifications on our personal lives um in a way so yeah I think this one um as someone that takes on a lot of a lot of things as we all do it definitely resonated for me powerful I like that connection I I I didn't always make the
026connections that way in terms of people of color leading the work um in that perspective so I just appreciate that um and it connection to Paul gorsky's article which we'll talk about in a little bit but thank you for that and for Rebecca so Allison what about you yeah I picked the first one too and it what resonated with me is that it's really I think it's really easy to kind of stand up and say yeah I want to I want to see change and I want that to happen but you kind of see it figle out as you get to the next stage where you're you're asking okay who's so then who's going to change and people kind of okay yeah and then once you get to the point of like who's going to
027lead the change you really see where people's true colors are kind of and um I think that um not only do we need to lead the change but we need to kind of get other people on board and I you know it's just kind of a I don't know you see it often where it's like yeah I'm ready I'm into this and then it tapers out yeah powerful and Joan I'm not sure if you're there I know Joan had her dogs running around uh getting in the way Joan are you still there there you are did you want to jump in and share which one I'm absolutely with all of you I've been listening very carefully um I I also like the one um that's the Ruth Bader Ginsburg just because it says fight for
028the things you care about um but obviously you have to do it in a way that others um understand and uh care about it too and um that you create a force together so um you know I I appreciated hearing what everybody had to say and just think that one is powerful too yeah yeah powerful powerful thank you all for sharing um what's interesting and did I get everyone yeah no yeah I got you went first yeah yeah and so what's interesting is um how each of you have your own individual perspective um but yet collectively you all said something very similar right and um and it's all in the spirit of like our vision is really common right which I'm excited about for your board in particular um because you all have this sense
029of urgency to lead for Equity to focus on what is right um in particular educational Equity because that's the context you're working in but obviously even as Char mentioned there's this personal intersection that happens as well and so as you think about moving forward I want you to think about how do we remain in this space of having a common Vision about equity and SEL Foster City understanding that we have have to lead the work so the vision is we're leading this work right and that's what's going to be um you know really important as we move into our next piece about the role of the board because leading for Equity has to be a common space first and when I think about um just kind of a connection to um the characteristics of effective
030boards I want to give you a reminder about um you know what does that look like for you to take your common vision and actually think about like how do we govern with this Equity lens right when we have this common Equity lens which is really important and so I want to remind you of this fish analogy remember in the the water system change because this is a constant process of unpacking like what's water right because what Shara said was very powerful which someone else may not understand because they're not leading from the same space as Sha and then what each of you kind of said in terms of okay I like Jan said I I really like the Ruth Bader uh G um quote because it's really about fighting for the things you care
031about right it's about my personal passion right and um but yet I have to be reflective of how do I bring other people along who may not be on the same Journey as me right or maybe they do agree um and let me go back for a second maybe they do agree with me but they don't quite understand just yet how that looks right and even that maybe someone may have evolved in their Journey right and so we talk about like how do we Focus as a governance team to govern with an equity lens I want you to be thinking today about how as leaders in this work you're going to constantly have to be in a space of recognizing there's some things I still don't know there's a perspective I still understand because each
032of you have positions of power right so I want to call that out because when we have positions of power what that does is that means we have the power and I call it even privilege to Define what Equity is in education for other people so just that power alone means that when I'm leading that means I have the privilege to set the tone and set the vision for this work which is a good thing right that's a good thing but then the struggle is how do I bring people along knowing that if I have power that that may create some space going back to the safety and comfort piece right that may create a lack of safety or even discomfort for people who don't have power so I always want us to remember that
033because when we start talking about our role as governance team um and some of the barriers to this work you got to remember we still have a lot we're still wanting to learn as a team so when you think about your um you remember we did our board assessment I want to say back in August if I'm not mistaken it's all kind of blur now right way back we did our board assessment and you went through each of these um actually this was in June and uh we went through this and we went through each one and you all talked about like where we think we are as a board and I want to just remind us this I'm doing this really quick so I'm not going to go deep into this but I want
034to remind us that with Equity driven work we have to ensure that we have effective governance practices first that is the foundation so one that I want to pull out which I appreciate you all participating in is that second question about our board is has strong shared beliefs and values about equity for students that was the second one and many of you I think all of you actually that was the one where you all chose that you're somewhat effective in that as a board and so how powerful that is because that means you're growing on your journey but all of you agree like this is where we're at on our journey of having a common shared belief so as you continue to evolve your work I want you to be thinking about all of these
035eight characteristics and when you all are having your study sessions or when you're having a moment in time where there's a challenge go back to this board assessment and just check yourselves on where are we at because remember we're wan to lead for equity and we know that leading this work is going to have some challenges to it so I want to just make that connection to it's important to recognize the effectiveness of governance teams has to be established constantly going back to that so that you can effectively lead for equity in the long run um one other reminder you all remember this slide so this was a really good reminder right where we talk about the role of the board the role of superintendent and obviously superintendent and designes right the staff is what
036we call it and so just remember and sometimes when we get stuck as well go back to your uh reminder about what is our role in this especially with Equity work because again this is passionate work work right this is people work and sometimes we're going to want to do the work and so this is the hard part for board members who leave for Equity right so it's it's not a San Matel Foster City thing this is lots of boards who are super passionate about this work and I have to remind the board members like Time Out Your Role is just to operate above that blue dotted line right so you set the vision right you set policy obviously right and then you even evaluate like how those policies are creating outcomes but that dotted
037line is where that blurred space comes because you do have to collaborate with your superintendent and staff right and so this is where sometimes the work get really messy and that we have to be okay with the messiness but also again remind each other okay your role is here and my role is there and so let's make sure that we establish those and revisit them so that you don't get into a space where effective governance gets in the way of equity work and that's really important as your work evolves in your um district from years to come so this is always a good one to go back to and recognizing and we'll actually cover some of this in a moment about what the role of the staff is in regards to even your policies and
038your priorities you have but recognizing that there is a clear distinction between governance teams in terms of the board trustees right even if you've been an educator even if you're super passionate about education but there's still that very clear line that is existing but it's dotted for a reason right and it's because we want to have a collaborative process and what works for one board may not work for another I just want to say that so you create your own culture right of how you communicate with each other right your processes and procedures which we're going to go through in a little bit but I want to just remind you it's important to go back to this to remember effective governance is super important when we're leaving for Equity uh questions or thoughts about this
039I just kind of quick recap so I didn't want to go too deep all right Perfect all right so you all remember this slide I've shared this quite a bit with the equity task force because one of the things that's important is we um take some time to really talk about um what it means to um to um address equity and education and some of it is just okay let's keep unpacking like what are we aware of how deep can we go so today I want to um go a little bit deeper into not just what Equity means I think you all have that pretty uh down pat right like I don't have to it's like preaching to the choir you know what Equity means um and I think the one thing want to reiterate
040to you is that what Equity means is now you're going to have to teach others right so when I say what does equity mean um how are you going to take that Equity statement you have and actually apply it to some of the language you're using and teaching others what Equity okay so I know you know what Equity means but what we also got to understand is that middle column is what are the barriers to this work okay so what are the barriers to your Equity work is something we're going to have to unpack in a second and then of course the last column is about what are actions and that's what we're going to talk about prioritizing our work looking at our policies and also creating a plan of action which is part of
041what your Equity task force is working on now so that's the good piece about this work okay but what I want to unpack is the first couple of columns with you okay what does equity mean so this is a lot of times we like to share with the community I like using this particular visual for our community members who are watching because community members are still trying to figure out what is equity ACC mean and what it looks like in one um person's family based on one person experience could be very different from another and so as a governance team I want to remind you the whole elephant and blind man piece okay is while you have adopted a statement right and the statement is kind of like it's the elephant right the reality is
042that everybody has a different perspective based on their experiences and what you feel may be equity and focusing on something like race or like special education right or uh language it could be very different depending on who your stakeholders are and so just know that this process of doing Equity work is kind of like the elephant and blindman process and one of the recommendations I'm going to make to the board is using your Equity statement um you may want to continue to get input from your community about what Equity means to them and what your statement means to them because you've already adopted a statement and so be open to knowing that once you get more feedback you may actually want to um to amend your statement you may want to adjust it to make
043it really fit your community if that makes sense okay so and I have your statement here actually on the screen um so the community is reminded too so um this is always a really good one I actually use this your statement quite a bit I know it's adopted by the national Equity project out of Oakland and one of the things that's powerful about your statement is it not only calls out what Equity is but it also calls out kind of actions associated with it right um and what that outcome might look like if Equity exists so I always like to revisit it and I want you to make sure you remember what e what you said Equity was is a board because when your community is asking or when they're pushing back right or they're
044unsure of what it is we say Equity this is what we mean now I'm going to ask you a question when you think about your Equity statement how have you applied it to your governance work thus far so maybe give me an example because I think it's important to think about if we say this is equity then this is our lens and how do we apply this lens to our government's work so does anyone have an example of how you may have applied this Equity statement to your governance work anyone jump in give me an example um for the interrupting inequitable practices um we had sorry um fee based preschool and um subsidized preschool and and the fee based preschool um I think the teachers got paid more and something about um I'm so sorry
045I'm brain farting it's Saturday but it was something where the the Fe the um subsidized preschool whether it was curriculum or child teacher ratio and definitely teacher salary was um you know didn't receive the same um as the febas got it got itca is correct so it sounds like you're calling out um where we have interrupted an inequitable practice and that's based on um income levels that those who needed it the most um got that particular uh barrier removed so great example excellent example anyone else have an example of how you've applied your Equity statement to your work I think one of the big pieces of work that's been done has been the um work around English Learners and um it's not necessarily an interruption it's uh making sure that the the um graphic that
046you show with the fence that the kids have the right level of boxes so that they can see um so that they can could participate so it's been a a multi-year project that's a big one for our district okay go ahead immediately go ahead Oh I thought I heard noia but go ahead jump in uh sh I wasn't sure if I heard Noelia or Char so apologies if I missed it go ahead Noelia okay I was going to say um yeah like the I think you know the creation of the tth force is that we have created um um off to like the the sanctuary Task Force and and you know the Deep dive into like our enrollment process and and um the the way in which you know there barriers there for people um
047also um you know we did update our mission and vision and uh had that centered around equity and then um shared with our entire District got it I was going to say those exact same two so you gotta give me another one give me another one oh man I don't I got baby bra you gotta cut me a little bit of slack you gotta cut me a little bit of slack no I'm totally joking with it no those are great examples of and I just I appreciate it because one of the reasons why I asked this question is as y'all continue to work together this lens right um AKA your Equity statement is what you should always be using to make decisions any decision right and that's powerful go ahead Joe I do think that
048if David would want to jump in here he would want to say something about um just the work that's been going on throughout the entire organization yeah to improve Core Curriculum and instruction okay because um I don't think we've ever been as on point uh together by grade level across the district about what we're doing and that's been a tremendous amount of work um bringing in new materials new instructional strategies the addition of tosas the addition of the counselors a counselor at every single school um I mean there's Untold work I mean throughout the organization that everyone's been involved in every single person so um I mean everybody holds a different piece of it yeah yeah David do you have something to add how we applied this amazing Equity statement to the work um yeah
049I appreciate the opportunity well I do think I mean the board's support for um our effort to to say uh to say that you know um Equity out more Equitable outcomes begin um in uh first instruction uh with the tier one work that we do and making sure that we have um we have the right resources that we have well-trained teachers um that all of that work is is where we um where we do make important uh um Equity differences um I would also add that the board has um at least over the last few years as as I've been in the district has been approving um sipsa budgets which reflect um an equitable approach to uh budgeting um and Staffing for example our um our Title One schools have uh frankly uh more FTE
050around um language and literacy tosas and math tosas and additional um additional counseling staff so that pushing of you know uh different and additional resources out to sites where uh we know that needs uh the equity needs are great um would be another another point that I would add to J Jones points excellent yeah David thank you for that and um each of you you know for adding to like how do you apply this Equity statement one of the things that um we just did even in front of the community is you just got through communic the work you're doing and I think just what you did was just really a little over five to six minutes long right and what you did is you actually communicated your vision which is common right you're all
051on the same page this is what we say Equity is as a district and this is how we're applying that L and that in itself as a community member if I heard that from my board right of my kids school that would give me a sense of okay I see where the work is happening I see why this is you know um such a challenge in this area I'm starting to understand it right the more I hear you talk about this outwardly the more I start to believe the work as well the more I start to understand the work the more that water piece we were talking about right the what's water because there's some community members who are like I don't understand what that Equity thing means what do you mean you're removing the
052predictability of success or failure of kids they're people don't don't not necessarily I don't say believe they just don't understand because it's not a reality for them so the more you communicate in the way you just did and being reflective even amongst yourselves to feel more comfortable with like yeah that's Equity that's where I saw Equity that's where we're applying this work that's how this work continues to move forward where it doesn't fizzle away because of some other priority that comes up right or some other crisis that comes up but as a board how do you keep this I call it equity on the agenda what you just did very short process but it helps us stay really focused on what the work is and communicating to your uh your stakeholders I just I want
053you to appreciate that but also recognize where that can be valuable so here's what I want to do as well um in our last piece of just kind of thinking about this thing called Equity I want you to reflect a little bit on some of the um barriers to this work so many of you are super excited you have common vision for this work like this is the right work you can do this is the work of Education this is our moral imperative um however there are some barriers to the work right and I know in our last session together um several of you uh talked about um how this particular article resonated with you around addressing some of the work specifically because we've recently talked about racial Equity so again going back to that
054elephant Blind Men poem right is that some people would say Equity work and stel Foster City is about language and we have to honor and respect that right and value that perspective but also there will there will be a part of the community that will say you know this is about race this is about that divider right this is about that piece where we say people are different based on their skin color based on their ethnicity based on all these different things that our students by the way spoke so well about in those Comm uh student forums um but this particular article calls out a couple of things and I want to um just kind of go back to this particular article um and ask you to I don't if y'all have it in front
055of you do y'all have it right in front of you handy okay I didn't want to pull it up on the screen because it's as you know too wordy but I want to um have you go to um there were particularly four detours that Dr Paul Gorski talked about and detours if you think about it um I call them uh distractions sometimes I'll call them um convenient excuses on why we're going to stop the work right because you all for those of you been in education for a while you've seen initiatives come and go and this not one of those that we want to allow that to go but this is the one that's the easiest to stop because again race and even the work of equity is something that is we've been taught it's
056very uncomfortable and it's not the natural flow of work so um in a in a school district or in any organization so I want to um bring you to a particular one um that really um has resonated with me recently um and it's actually on page let's see we'll just go to the second page it's actually page 57 I don't think there's a 57 on it and the first racial Equity detour where it talks about pacing for privilege so I just want to call something out and in particular um this uh particular one I want to go to the second paragraph where it says professional development in these schools appears designated to accommodate the feelings and fears of white Educators and difficult conversations about race rather to to advance equity for students of color I
057want to just pause because that particular statement is pretty tough to unpack when we just out the gate let's talk about the barriers but here's why I say it because what do I do for a living I do professional development and it just happens to be around equity and then people want to magically talk about race and race is one of many things under the umbrella of equity by the way but I want to ask you about this because professional development is one of the recommendations right that um you're given as a board to prioritize your um resources your time you've obviously prioritized it by having my team work with you but I want you to think about what detours may come or you may have seen when you think about this concept of professional
058development accommodating the fears or feelings and this goes back to our Four Agreements right that safety and discomfort in particular it calls out white Educators and I want to give context to White means okay remember we talked about this before is that when we talk about the census data right people who don't Mark the Box white or um I think it says Caucasian but remember we're talking about race not cultural identity so I want to just be very clear race versus culture identity ethnicity because there are many Educators who may Mark the Box white but identify based on their European ancestry or their different ancestry that may be we call Multicultural multiethnic okay so in this concept of white it's referring to whiteness meaning power structures right privileged to have access to um to uh
059services and experiences that may benef provide benefits versus disadvantages okay so I want to be clear about that piece so I want to just open it up a little bit about what resonates with you about that particular detour because that is one that's happening right now in lots of districts lots of organizations and I'm a living witness of it based on being a consultant where I have been asked to kind of adjust what content I share adjust what um information is shared because of um feelings of fear maybe lack of safety lack of dis or lack of comfort so tell me a little more about what resonates with you about that particular detour this one is one that like stood out to me immediately and that in the context of this um article is actually
060something I shared again like um because I I feel like it it talks about in the context of professional development but it's much more expansive than that right and I think about that actually a lot in terms of companies that are working on you know Dei kind of initiative um and how what you want to address or how quickly you want to go or um and and then who that means kind of you're prioritizing in terms of comfort and um um prioritization and just it makes me think about um the quote um around like if you're silent you've chosen the side of the oppressor like you actually have to kind of prioritize certain voices and C certain Comfort because the default is to prioritize um is not to prioritize that right and to move at
061a pace and to do things in a way that makes it comfortable for the majority or comfortable for kind of the systemic um just the way the systems always function and that's in education and that's outside of education and um so I think it's a really important thing to consider as as you approach yeah variety of initiatives yeah yeah thank you for that powerful anyone want to add to what sh shared go ahead I can add one thing Yes actually what sh said it like when I was reading this section was actually reminding me of my own um work that I like the company that I work for and things that we're doing but I wrote down um a note where I a quote from this where it said students families and Educators experiencing racism
062cannot afford to wait for us to saunter towards a more serious racial Equity vision and so to me this paragraph is or this section is just saying that we can't just wait till everybody feels comfortable and um really we need to cater to um the actual issue at hand and not making sure that everyone in the room is feeling feeling good before they can dive into this work M yeah that's a tough one that's a tough one way to call that one out too yeah other thoughts about this particular one I was gonna comment that it it's sort of like just checking the Box yeah you know it's basically the organizations to saying oh yeah we're doing this we're just checking the box right and it's not really necessarily maybe moving the needle um it
063kind of reminds me of actually the the other example um it's in I think it's number four which was that cultural diversity and the high school example of of the um diversity day yeah and the thought is well really it's not it's not just for um to really sort of improve diversity or educate diversity is making people comfortable in some ways and so um that's where I thoughts yeah yeah powerful when to call out divver diversity is definitely the detour um what diversity means even unpacking that word um I'm keep keep going keep going I think for me um this this um I'm just thinking about like actual situations that we have faced in our work where you know as a board we have um you know we have shared our vision we have made
064statement we have made decisions and um you know they're not always taken super well um and I think that's like just a natural part of the process right like like we're like this is what we need to do and and yet I don't know I just think about like I I sorry I'm like struggling struggling with my words but so I'm thinking about like the moments where we've done that and where there's been conflict yet like we still moveed forward and then I also think about the moments where like where where we kind of maybe have paused a bit and and I think that I think like in a way um like it's really important to know the difference between like okay we can pause just for a little bit because it won't it won't
065like like this like this thing needs to change now this thing we can wait a little bit and like that balance but yeah it's it's a hard line to to walk yeah sure is yeah I will just say one other thing that um it kind of based on that and just some of the other things that are said I think it can be hard and I know for me sometimes I struggle with kind of um how that intersects with kind of like the safety discomfort piece right like there is this kind of fine line there um and so just um I that's just something to I don't know I guess acknowledge right that when you're pushing these things forward as you mentioned inevitably there's discomfort and so when does that become like when when does
066that enter into territory where it's unproductive and but when do you move for I don't know when do you move forward anyways because you need to because we're thinking about kids first and foremost right so I think that those are things that I mean it it's why this work is challenging and gets a little bit messy but I do think these things sometimes seem to not that they contradict one another but they are I don't know just need to Grapple with them like they can both be true in certain situations yeah I appreciate that anyone else want to share that I was trying to find the words because you know I'm just so good at them um but Allison pretty much said my thoughts which were um the comfortability level and like it we shouldn't
067have to wait for people to be comfortable with making um some pretty intense um topic um to discuss and CH make changes um and then I shz with um uncomfortable versus unsafe and kind of like we that line how how uncomfortable does one have to be before maybe yeah you know and just where that line is yeah yeah any other thoughts anyone wants to share okay yeah this this one um this article really um between this and the water system change um I use these two often to create um a dialogue about this work and so one of the things if you go back to even page 58 there's this large quote at the top about um and because I use these words sometimes um that this piece about the hard truth is that racial
068Equity cannot be achieved with an obsessive commitment to meeting people where they are um and I say that often when where they are is fraught with racial bias and privilege right and so this is important because even as a facilitator of this work as a woman of color um I um going back to that quote of um from John Lewis right like often I will find myself in that space of recognizing that I do have to meet people where they are if I want to leave this work right then I have to recognize that some people just aren't where I am and that's hard because for you you all are a governance team right and there's five people have who have to collaborate with superintendent staff to bring all these people along when I say
069these people meaning the community who has never really deeply engaged with intention in this type of work right like we've grown up in societies where the the narrative is this is just how we do school right and so why would we do anything different we're talking about changing mindsets of people like teachers right who this is how we've always taught why would I do anything differently and by the way if I have benefited from this system what you're telling me is you're trying to change it and take it away from me now I'm saying that that is a very real experience for lots of people who may not even just identify by marking a box white or Caucasian or any box outside of those boxes that we traditionally call diversity we call people of color
070okay I want you to recognize that even people of color and even people who have not ex who have experienced inequities will also push back on this because they have been taught the same Concepts so this is where if any of you notice there's communities that may not be in support of even the movement that's for them right that's the part that's so tricky about is that I want to help you but remember what's water what do you mean there's an inequity this is how life has always been you mean to tell me you want to interrupt microaggressions on my campus that I've heard from other kids who have made comments about my hair my skin tone and you want to come and interrupt those things right but if you interrupt them that means you're
071putting me on the spot and now that means you're going to have me now have to defend myself based on what you're interrupting or I'm a parent right and I'm on a a transfer and I'm in your district and I don't want you to bring up anything because I just want to be here and fly under the radar but you want to create like the space where you want to interrupt the inequities that have been burdening my family for a long time which is part of why even want to be in your District right on a transfer versus the district that's in my neighborhood that's the hard part of this work when I go back to that quote meeting people where they are it's not always just about people who have privilege and who may
072benefit from racism and benefit from inequity in the system it it could actually be people have been marginalized and oppressed right and that's the part that's so hard about this work so when I say meet people where they are what I mean is that if I'm going to leave for Equity wherever someone is whether I'm asking them to leave with me or I'm actually trying to advocate for them and I want to empower them with information I have to start with figuring out where they are so there's this Readiness piece that we have to think about right like although we have a common Vision we want to do this work in SEL Foster City is our community ready and that's where you have to con you have to think about doing an ongoing assessment of
073what Equity again even means to your community and so when you look at these detours what happens a lot of times is those detours sometimes are because our own levels of lack of safety or lack of uh Comfort or lack of Readiness to do the work so one of the things that I share with folks as a way to think about how to avoid some of these things is uh oh do that almost hung up on you all one way to do so is to think about okay so I know these barriers exist right there's this deficit ideology Dr Gorski talks about right around stereotypes around these narratives that have been taught and we think more negatively about kids who might be English Learners where we think okay you don't speak the dominant English culture
074I mean English language so therefore there's a deficit thinking we have which create it's within our psyche around implicit bias about who doesn't speak English but then there's also this piece around like we don't have more of an asset-based thinking first so some of the detours in themselves are that we have this mindset that kids have less so we start to feel bad for them we start to have this um maybe a a level of empathy but then we lower our expectations so this is also something that could be a detour in our classrooms we start to say okay oh I recognize kids have needs but we think of it as they have needs so they're less than right and that has to be really really addressed in our professional learning it's not kids or
075less than they just have different needs than others so we don't want to lower expectations which is what we often have seen in education too where now we start to teach differently in our classrooms right we start to address needs in a whole different way because we have a mindset and we haven't quite understood what this work actually is about because we haven't learned people's cool story one of the pieces that I wanted to bring back when I brought up the part about um the fear um and feelings of white Educators some of you may have been familiar with a very popular book um from Robin D'Angelo about the uh White fragility um you may have heard that come up quite a bit um and lots of different terminologies one of the ways that I
076would really recommend that um Educators think about this and for any of our community members who are teachers and staff that are trying to like figure out how to Le this work is we have to spend more time addressing people's culture identity the one thing that I realize is the biggest detour to this work is that we have not been taught very clearly that racism has harmed everybody I say that again racism has harmed everybody and so what we don't want to do is play what we call oppression Olympics right like who got oppress the most based on racism like if we played that game I'm sure there's some people who would lose there's some people who would win right but that's not it either but racism is a tool that was used to divide
077a group of people so if we don't do things like even unpack the words we're using like white people of color right when we say Asian American students like what does that actually mean because all kids aren't the same they're not monolithic and so we have to make sure that in our professional development that whoever you hire to do your professional develop work whether it's for curriculum adoption um it's through um PBIS work whether it's the equity work whatever it is that you're very clear as a board that look I want to make sure you understand that we're going to have to unpack some of these barriers to the work that we're doing where racism has paralyzed our Educators which therefore paralyzes now what the work can be done with that we're actually trying to
078do as a as a board okay so it's important for people to be able to unpack who people are what is their identity um and not just kind of stick with some of those uh those key words that just make people stay at the surface right so let's talk about what people's ethnicity is let's start to be more comfortable with that I've actually with clients have started to do introductions where we actually have asked people to not only share their name and how they pronounce it based on how um it should accurately be pronounced but also share your ethnicity or your cultural identity that's uncomfortable why because racism has harmed everybody because we've been taught that we have to identify a certain way some people are so uncomfortable that I'm not sure what I am
079I don't even have a culture like those kind of things hurt me because we all have a beautiful identity that we have to know who we are first so here's what I want to go with this because we're going to go into our prioritizing of our work but I want to make sure we have some context on the equ the concept of what Equity is in education and some of the barriers and one way to address it is remember your article water system change the purpose of that article to really highlight how you are going to help people really change not only practices and policies and also shifting resources which is all that structural stuff that boards focus on which is super important but again just like when we did our history of public education
080right remember some of those great policies that changed right so we have a we have opportunities now we didn't have before I want you to remember that some of those policies did no good because at the bottom of that um system change um inverted triangle is mental models the belief system my mindset my narrative if I don't believe that every kid should have access to free preschool then how does that actually play out in implementation and that was what governance teams have to figure out is how do we address this as a systems approach versus just let's change a policy and voila Equity is going to happen in the district so we have to remember in our action step steps we're going to have to address other parts of the system which what I was
081excited about is you all had mentioned um some of the ways you've applied your Equity statement and you'd mention like we've empowered task force right you got your Sanctuary task force your Equity task force um you have another task force you just lost me you're um is special education cedc the special education yeah yep and those are ways you've empowered your community to come together to in on some of this work having your teacher Union be at the table to talk about how are we going to advance Equity moving forward is very important right I got to give a shout out to our teachers and our principles you know who has to do this work talk about implementation and go back to that the blue line right you know has to do this work your
082principes and your teachers governance team you sit really in that space right and even as superintendent and designes at the district level the work really happens with the kids so that's why we have to ensure that we recognize where they fit in this too that they have to be a part of this work as well so giving them time to wrestle with what does this mean and how are they going to lead is important I want to give you that piece to remind you about that concept of how are we going to avoid some of these racial DET Equity detours is we got to approach it with a systems length and then the last piece is uh let me see something it skip the slide ah there it is the last piece is um a
083tool and this is this is just a quick overview um in terms of what we are going to be doing with your principal um your site leaders your District leaders around professional learning is to make sure that there's a um a jumping off point from the work that you did a couple years back with Dr Trudy araga you may remember I'm an amazing keynote speaker um who's one of my mentors and colleagues and she talked about that concept of opening doors right and so that was around the concept of cultural proficiency and being a able to respond effectively to a variety of cultural settings that means people's belief systems right and there's issues that come up when you have diversity right diversity is a fancy word for differences so being culturally proficient is where we
084want to provide that content to help our um leaders Who You're Expecting as a board you're expecting them to lead for Equity so this is actually the content we're going to utilize and what I really love about it is it's a safe approach to opening the door for this work which is what Dr AR talked about and one of the things that we'll do with them is we'll show them a couple of tools and here's one of the tools when you talk about readiness to advance this work this is the Continuum and we're going to share this with them to help them understand how do we assess where we are on this journey right how do we meet people where they are we have incidents or we have just kind of a system that represents
085these six spaces on the Continuum um and this Continuum really represents like how do we recognize and then respond to differences right when cultural conflict happens because that's what differences are cultural conflict and so what's amazing about this tool is that we actually have a chance to assess where we are now where do we want to be okay so I'm not going to go deep into this but in a future study session we um can definitely continue to go deeper into the work that the uh administrators going be going through and so as we get ready to transition into our prioritization um some of you are wondering like where do we go from here right like that's a lot in Nicole in a short period of time you know racial Equity Det article is pretty
086deep actually um but one of the things that I want to always remind you of in leading this work is although you are individuals leading right you're five people on a board but you lead as one but the one thing we always remind people with this type of work is you always start with self first it's an inside out approach right so we always look at oursel first before we try to change other people sometimes we call it looking in the mirror before we look out the window right and then what I always love when I used to fly is um reminding every time got on the airplane about the work I was doing when the flight attendant would talk about when the oxygen pressure uh left the cabin and she they they would always
087say put your mask on first before you help somebody else I tell you it's one of the most profound things I've heard when I take um connect make connections to Leading this work is at all times I have to remember that I still am always unpacking what's in the water what I don't I may not know something but I got to make sure I'm good and I'm healthy before I can help other people so that's the work we're doing as a board which is what you're doing today right you're doing your own study session time and the community has to know this is your way of putting your oxygen mask on first before you expect somebody else to do so that's why I really appreciate so here's what I'd like to do um I want
088to ask do you need a quick stretch break because we have um about 45 minutes and we are going to spend the last part prioritizing our amazing work as a board um your superintendant has some things she's going to share around what's the work of the staff how they're prioritizing the vision of the board and uh talk about some next steps do y'all need like five minute stretch break no Rebecca's like I'm good keep going okay let me check with Mommy to be do you need to uh relieve yourself at all or just go and just stretch or something do a back get a back massage real quick you good I can always just hop off for a second okay that's fair so whatever works I got to check in because after three children I
089know that this is an interesting time in your life so we just want to honor that and excited for you more than anything all right so let's keep moving on um what I'm going to do is I'm going to share a few slides and this again if you can just kind of switch your brain from okay we have our effective governance lens we know we have common Vision we know what Equity is we know there's going to be some barriers to this work and we reflected on like how we're going to be a part of this work who am I now let's talk about the technical stuff which is really important let's talk about prioritizing our work as a team and so so um in particular um I'm going to share a couple of slides
090to um kind of revisit what we did in the past but also to help you um see kind of where I would recommend you go moving forward okay and so what that entails is first um there's kind of three things we want to talk about so one is what is the board and staff priorities and I have kind of four that I want you to kind of think about so I'm going to push you to kind of narrow that Focus I'm also wanting to push you to think about how do you make decisions and then what are the those timelines that you have with regards to this type of work that's going to be really important your decision making process moving forward and then also how do you communicate in Outreach specifically to your diverse
091Community um where you need to hear their voices and really ensure that people know the work that's happening how do you communicate more effectively so those are kind of the three things we're going to do now and so specifically um what I want to do is share um how your Equity govern equity-driven governance really should be looking like now some of the things that I recognize in working with you all so one is your practices so again reminder like these are kind of the three big things you oversee the budget you have to be fiscally responsible you obviously create policy you're the board right you create monitor those policies and then of course you work together as a board so those are your practices right but most specifically what I want you to think about
092is your policy you are policy makers and I'm going to push you to think about your policies in four what I call buckets right four buckets so teaching and learning Human Resources budget and climate and these are ones that based on effective governance are the things that should rise to the top when you talk about your governance work and you prioritizing your time okay these are very important the community needs to know that these are very important and that anything that comes to the board is really in the lens of prioritizing our policy what should always come to the top is what's happening in those classrooms teaching and learning Human Resources is your Staffing right and then of of course your budget you have to be fiscally responsible and then of course the climate really
093Falls around what we call School climate um discipline safety that's what that piece refers to now one thing that's interesting for you all which is the case for many boards I don't want to pick on my samon Tel Foster City Board but you have you have a lot of hot topics right you have a lot of priorities and so some of those I listed here ethnic studies because I remember you shared that with me that that one it's one that that's kind of what I call a Hot Topic it's happening in the moment right um your safety s s piece I know that that's one the College Park um um concern around some of the dialogue from some of the community members um that came up reopening of schools I know janah is like please
094don't say that word again out loud right reopening schools like every District right now superintendent particular they are pulling their hair out with everything that's going on so I just want to say that is a Hot Topic and then the other one is of course institutional racis which we talked about earlier right lots of districts um in particular and I know it's a hot topic for you all as well now what does all this mean well you all have a lot more on your agenda right now and you remember this Slide the last time we met in October so I shared this with you before and this was just kind of a list of things that um that you have on your list on your plate and and we could add to this list I'm
095sure Joan is like there's more we can add more slides but these are the things that really Rose to the board level okay so what I want you to think about today is how are we going to take these items and really focus them into what I call four lanes or four buckets four ways to think of this work okay and the way that um I shared earlier was here's how the four buckets look and I'm G giving you a couple of examples when you think about your work and when you're doing your next study sessions that your study sessions are really narrowly focus on do things fall in these areas these four priority areas when things come across our board death how do we ensure that they are part of our priorities so priorities
096for human resources again recruitment very important the board is um is oversees the um Personnel uh policy so it is important you have a hiring framework you don't necessarily do the hiring process but you set the vision and kind of um you know obviously you approve hires but thinking about what is that look like recruitment hiring retention those are all important things that the board recognizes under human resources teaching and learning just giving you a couple of examples right curric culturally relevant instruction very important um you may even say curriculum adoption could show up on that um the ethnic studies piece definitely could show up in that piece around teaching learning rigor I know that's a big deal to make sure we have rigorous instruction grading may come up staff student relationships those are all
097things that come up your budget obviously salaries right you have 85 90% of your Sal uh your budget goes to salaries definitely that's a priority for you your school facilities probably will show up on this space your professional development where you allocate your funding so when you think about what is that last 15 10 15% of your budget is it focused on Equitable allocation to the kids who need it the most so that's really when you think about how do we prioritize our budget the last part School climate safety so your sro's the police in schools disproportionate discipline your school to prison pipeline conversation this is all where Falls in this particular space okay so what I want to do is ask um you to think about um some of the questions that as a
098board you may think about okay in our role um as a board how do we collaborate with our staff to really monitor and measure our priorities so here's a couple of questions which I've shared even last time like what are those questions board members should ask right of the staff right so that the staff is prepared and ready to address the needs of the board and also so that the board does again I have that picture of that clock at the top again right right reminding you that this is where you monitor the outcomes you ask questions based on how that policy has um really impacted your particular um um outcomes for kids and so any questions that you have for your staff right really should be aligned with your priorities is what the spirit
099of this is and this in itself for many boards find that this is where your board meetings start to be a little shorter your board meetings start to be more concrete when you're doing your agenda Builder right like these things should be kept in mind how do you prioritize your work based on those areas okay and so last piece is um I want to allow um Joan and maybe before we jump to this Joan maybe allow the board to ask questions about those priorities but um I want to have Joan really share a little bit about where the staff has kind of prioritized its work and where it really aligns with the priorities that I'm recommended your board so before Joan jumps in and I'll um you know stop sharing my screen but um for
100the governance team want to just see what questions or thoughts might you have around prioritizing your work in these four areas tell me a little bit more about what you're thinking or what questions you may have I can go back to other slides as well this one may be a little bit helpful too questions thoughts before Joan jumps in um just going back to the previous slide of things that we should be asking oh got it I think if we are all in in alignment with yeah these are the things we should be asking then the staff can expect you know like what they need to present or what they need to be always thinking about as well just to help absolutely yeah that's part of you know and I put that clock at the
101top leftand corner for a reason to remind us about creating a culture right for the board where it works well for the board and the staff so board members might say hey I read the packet right I um I understand kind of what's going on but I have all these questions right and in some cases I even say some board members don't always read your packet so then they have more questions right for staff and so this is one where I always say board members read your packet right but these questions are really more centered around equity-driven work right so this is what helps staff be able to be prepared and also the best use for staff time right I mean the reality is that everything that board members are asking and you all have
102a lot of prior ities that means the staff is going to have a lot to have to do so you want to make sure that they can expect to be presenting in ways that um inform the board right based on priorities and that's going to be really important as well which really helps them to prepare um but also not to feel as overwhelmed um and it creates a culture of trust a culture culture of just like transparency like it's pretty powerful so that's absolutely Rebecca you hit it spot on other thoughts about this or questions you have about priorities maybe about even the four priorities go ahead Ken jump in um you know it's sort of like I mean I I think that this is all really good in terms of where we're going and
103and what we want to do I feel like the it's there's like the biggest elephant in the room which is one of the Hot Topics which is the reopening in schools and and a lot of ways it's you know a lot of things that we think about you know when we think about like reopening and like having PPE do we have the budget for this so how is human resources you know all these things that fits Within These categories yeah but it's it's also very difficult to think about like almost anything else but like how are we going to get you know our kids back in school and I and it's it's been a really tough year and I and it's it's sort of hard to sort of like like we just add more things
104and I and um and I want to I mean I I feel like according to like um nome's press conference and everything else and our our our County conference or calls it's like there is a light at the end of the tunnel um but we're not there yet and so like I I know we're I'm gonna talk about these questions but I still like it's like big room is reopening schools and and I think that's it's hard right now yeah well Ken can I offer this and I really appreciate you saying this because I didn't share this earlier one of the reasons why um when training boards we provide this context of prioritizing the work is that there's always going to be hot topics right there's always going to be hot topics that's the nature
105of humans right and so there's always going to be something there's never a smooth moment where you can just you know focus on something and it never be an interruption so the point of this is actually to help you stay laser focused on the big picture right because what'll happen is with covid-19 you know and in a school shooting there's all these different things that come up for schools right that are tragic but what happens is if we if we kind of move with wherever the wind blows what I call it right the wind blows here we focus on that the wind blows there we focus on that um then what happens is our work as an equity driven Board gets lost so I do want to say one caveat covid-19 is an unprecedented moment
106in education right so I do want to acknowledge what you're saying is that this is different but I also want to say your four priorities if this is how you want to look at this as a board it actually coincides well with reopening schools because guess what your staff and you'll see Joan will probably show in a moment guess what your staff has to consider budget with reopening schools right you got to consider um your Human Resources right how FTE looks you know who has to I mean there's all these adjustments the teaching and learning piece what that looks like school safety you know even though it's online like there's all of these things fall into these priorities so hopefully that helps a little bit with that context good good okay so you all ready
107to let Joan kind of jump in and give a little more context of kind of how the staff has really prioritized its work I think um the spirit of this in the last session was to really understand a little bit more about what the staff kind of does right and because you have this laundry list of of what I call initiatives um which lots of districts do it's important to get context of what the staff does so you can better Vision how do you create the vision for the work in your District so Joan I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing and let you uh have access to that screen actually it's Diane's going to take over oh show the and show the presentation and while she's queuing that up I just want to
108say that I am pleased to bring you this update on strategic initiatives in the district for the um 2020 2021 school year these initiatives are um H have been determined to move our district forward they're Progressive they're Equity based um I'm going to show the initiatives in the same four categories that Nicole Anderson just presented in teaching and learning climate Staffing and fiscal we're going to go through a slide presentation and then Diane created a an Excel spreadsheet the Excel spreadsheet is going to be much easier for you to read as far as Who's involved with each of the different items um before we begin I do want to recognize that these strategic initiatives would move more easily and more quickly if we were not in contending with covid-19 and that is just as Ken
109mentioned in his presentation um to that point I would' like to focus your attention on covid-19 um that's the next slide and um I'm going to hope that someone can help me with this dog so that you don't have to listen to it barking CRA crazily um let's see if I can get a grandkid coming pick him up okay so the it the overriding situation has been the Emergency Management of covid-19 and it has required um Su sustained high levels of attention capacity throughout the entire organization in order to recreate education in distance learning and then hybrid learning to a full return and so I just gave you some of the buckets just to give an example of what's going on through the organization when this first happened of course we had Tech distribution and
110the ongoing management and support just related to being able to connect Child Nutrition had to change their their um manner of producing uh meals we we did keep preschool going we got Annex started up we did summer school then of course we had distance learning we knew from Spring that we had to do a lot of work around distance learning because it wasn't as successful as we expect of ourselves so we had new curriculum new lessons all the PD all the work that site staff had to do to really Implement distance learning and then now we're monitoring that the student progress that's requiring all different kinds of ways to assess we wrote and implemented the one-year learning continuity and attendence plan we're prepping for the hybrid return we're doing Health protocols we have staff and
111student choices have been made now for distance learning or return and we're making class lists we've negotiated four M us um still in process there's budget management of all of this there's been enormous amount of communication through variety of channels and then just ongoing forms and reports and updates that have been due literally every other week we're sending in other reports or new ways we have to account for things so you know this is not where we would normally spend our time but if we don't spend our time on this we're going to lose our kids so we are working on this to do the very best we possibly can under the circumstances now the real at work that we had intended to move forward with um are the next Focus areas and initiatives with
112an asterisk those things need to be completed within this school year so despite all that's going on these things have to be completed now if the focus area does not if the initiative does not have an asterisk it could continue into the new year so into the next school year now our District staff takes the perspective that all of these initiatives have a direct or indirect Equity focus and we have identified items with a plus that we feel have a very direct Equity Focus so um this is not an exhaustive list um it I I'm giving you buckets of of work um and uh I also want to tell you that we've identified who leads the work and who's involved so e is Ed Services SS Student Services HR HR Human Resources B for Business
113site staff that that means the organization it's a lot on the site principles and the teachers to implement these different actions so in the teaching and learning we have to implement the actions that we have stated in the 2020 2021 learning continuity and attendance plan you've seen it you approved it you know it's it's um rigorous that uh goes throughout the whole organization ed services holds that we have to write another one this spring another one has to be written for the 20 20 2023 so it has to go on uh through it has to incorporate what was done this year um there's quite um an elaborate format for it we have to continue to support the the efforts of our Sanctuary task force and support the needs of English Learners throughout the district this
114is a mandate this has to be done this has to continue now the work of the equity task force it doesn't have to be done this year it's work that we want to do this year that can continue into next year very direct Equity focus and our social studies materials we want to do something this spring but it will move into next year that's the social studies materials the ethnic studies now we also this there's two slides to teaching and learning we have to work on our our special education program we have a cceis project you're going to hear about it um at the next meeting we've um uh presented the in the um plan it's been accepted um and now we have a 27 month rollout we have a program Improvement um audit that
115came in that we're working on um and that uh needs to happen this this year uh we are doing contract reviews and budget tracking those things all have to happen this year and as you know these are some of our most vulnerable Learners now we won't be building the new school in north central this year but we do need to determine the um design options so you just approved the consultant agreement with Pedro noera he's an outstanding leader in the education field he will helping us with that design uh that part needs to happen or we can't move forward we also have have made commitments to work with College Park in the immersion program we have now made commit we have also made commitments with Parks sides monor for the middle years the middle year
116starts next year so we made those commitments those things have to happen this year now our preschool structure that we mentioned we've put it in place we want to continue to review the progress that can happen now and into next year the magnet programs that can happen now and into next year um let's look at climate climate managing the stress of covid-19 we have a lot of of work we're doing through cell programming and the counselors we have new counselors in all of our schools we have counselors but we have a lot of new counselors so we're working to ensure their support and make sure that they can support others we're continuing to now that has to happen now now working with the education I'm sorry the equity task force on implementing strategies on lgbtq
117those some of those things can happen now but it can continue working with Nicole and the equity task force we can uh begin working on our SRO um resolution and move it into next year also um we've done the listening sessions uh we are going we've seen the the some of the information where we have a staff listening session planned but we do not have sro's on campus right now um we're not implementing discipline the way that we do in an a brick and mortar sense so we have some time now we do need to continue to develop our communication program as you know communication has been intense over this past um year and we need to continue to work on that and ensure that we are success ful reaching all of our of our
118um families and I do know that part of that that's why it has a Plus on there is that we need to continue to look at how we're uh reaching out to those of our families who don't as easily connect um and um how do we ensure that they're receiving the information that they need and I know that's some work that the sanctuary task force is doing with Diane and others so we will continue to work on that now climate is also facil ities and we have made commitments we have commitments to finish the last two of the three gyms we made a commitment to finish the new school Beach Park Elementary in Foster city they're supposed to move in in the new year and then we do have other work that will continue into
119next year the New School uh in north central Sano the mprs at George Hall and sunny Bray design work has started but it won't be completed at this uh this year bage updates they'll start and then we do have our measure te which we're very very thankful for and I do have a star by health and safety health and safety we're starting now and then of course you do have to hold cboc and parcel tax meetings as required so um there is no choice about that Staffing I put LMI under this um it's really an opportunity for us to talk with um all of our constituents across our district you know our our mission uh was to uh communicate collaborate and engage in shared decision making and that is um an important structure that over
120the years has become stronger and stronger and we need to continue to work on that uh we need to continue to work with our labor leaders on reopening plans uh we need to negotiate the calendar for next year I mean we've uh because of all of the other things we haven't had a chance to do that that has to happen we need to support our new teachers it's hard to be a new teacher in this venue so we really have we always do we have an induction program but we're really pushing this to make sure that they are supported in this very strange year year now um again with Equity task force strategies they can be done this year and move on there are three that have basically come out of the conversations uh that
121the equity Task Force Staffing subcommittee have engaged in and those things are starting so those are the three listed below uh engaging with aler to support the recruitment hire special ed teachers with a focus on diversity engaging with San Jose State University to support the Recruitment and hire bilingual teachers and speech and language Pathologists focus on diversity and again another engagement with San Jose State on supporting classified staff to um move to degree completion so those are things that we are doing now and then budget we have to manage a very complicated budget we have to produce a first interim second interim and estimated actuals we have to finalize and report on the covid expenditures we have donations we have grants we have state funding Federal funding and supplemental funds those have to be accounted
122for we have used reserves to ensure the ongoing programming of our preschool and Annex programs in order to um support our most vulnerable students and because of that we have to plan for the deficits that will be um uh evident in those programs in the ne upcoming year again um Child Nutrition has taken a hit also we have to monitor their funding to ensure stability we have now not not as urgent but important track the facilities expenditures related to LX andt and the paral tax expenditures related to V in summary staff have prior prioritize the work related to the Emergency Management of educating students and supporting the staff during this situation covid-19 we've also prioritized work that must continue during this school year these are strategic initiatives they were delineated with that asterisk now without
123an asterisk those are things that are in process and expected to continue into the next school year so um before we go into questions I just wanted to show it to you on an Excel spreadsheet because it'll be easier for you to track and then um I do have I did ask executive cabinet to come uh these are held by their different divisions um and they can respond to questions so Diane can you show that that Excel sheet and we will make this available to you you see it okay yes I do see it just fine do you want to explain Diane did this for me um I really appreciate the time you spent taking all of those pieces and putting it in um do you want to explain how it how it's laid out
124sure it um everyone it essentially takes every um bullet point on um Dr Rosa's slides and gives you just a visual way to see who's involved and those ex's with um bold are those who are primarily responsible or accountable um you'll see some teams that work together jointly to share responsibility and I've you know identified those with um you know you'll see bold under different departments um but it essentially just takes all of that and gives you one visual way to look at it and also you'll see the current year asterisk as well as those that Dr Rosa and the team felt had a direct Equity focus and so um it's just laid out in one more visual way to look at it and as you um as you like please let me know Dr
125roses and I'll Advance it so um sure why don't you um go ahead and just um slowly show how you took each of those pieces and um and um laid it out and then we can uh make it available so so here's you know you can see the Emergency Management of covid-19 and the um engagement through you know um pretty much every Department although not every department has primary responsibility for every area there's a lot of collaboration and teamwork there's a significant number of meetings each week to advance the process and um you you know get a visual from there um as I move to teaching and learning you can see there's you know very heavy CL collaboration between Education Services and student services with support by human resources and business um climate uh student
126services Bears a very heavy load on um this part as well as you know business and their responsibilities for facilities and the development of the of the new facilities uh Staffing um obviously Falls significantly to Human Resources with again a lot of Co collaboration um I think that's really the name of the game right now is collaboration and support for one another um but then again a budget is primarily business with um teamwork through ed services student services and HR okay so um I'll turn it back to um Nicole and and any questions the staff is here to answer yeah thanks Joan I think it's powerful um and just appreciate uh um you know taking the time to really help the governance team recognize how their priorities if you know looking at these four buckets
127like how does this look for staff when you go back to the role of the staff and and superintendent role of the board um and so um I can see some next steps that will really help the board and I'll share those in a little bit but I think it's uh great for them to ask questions um especially having your um prestigious executive cabinet here on a Saturday I think this would be a great opportunity for the board to engage with the staff on questions you have around the priorities of your equity-driven governance work and actually Nicole they the our board knows all of these things inside and out I mean these are these are all it's nothing nothing new to them right it's all work that they know is going on and um but
128you may have questions about where we are with certain things so um you know happy yeah I I think the board yeah I want to let the board kind of win because I think there's a lot to keep there a lot while they've been exposed to that seeing it all in one space actually it's pretty powerful but I think this is a great opportunity to ask any clarifying questions about the work um and again I want to keep in mind the lens of your Equity work right as a governance team is really important but questions to the staff um about the prioritization of the work would you like um Diane to put the Excel up um I don't know Kenneth go ahead and jump in what questions do you might may you have sure so
129just one clarifying question from the equity task force Alder what is Alder versus San Jose State is that a um you may have mentioned it before in a different meeting but I'm not sure who Alder is so um Alder is a graduate um school program for credentialing um and we are working with them they're a little bit different because they we are working with them on a teacher Residency program so typically when teachers get their credentials they will go to a teacher credential program and then they have student teaching which is often short-term but in a teacher Residency program um the candidate really is um in the classroom they'll be in the class four days a week yeah um and they'll be working very very closely um a lot of co- teing with the mentor
130teacher we're being very selective about who those mentors are but it's our first um partnership with the teacher Residency program and we just feel that they it just provides Superior training and preparation for a teacher versus doing your typical teacher credential program with a few weeks of student teaching so we're super excited we had um our first interviews and so what the district is doing is they are working Alder is working in partnership with Sano County Office of Ed and the district is participating in that program and so we had the opportunity to interview um candidates um and you know surprisingly and unsurprisingly many of them want to work in our district which is fantastic um and they you know were focused on educators of color um in our special ed program and we are
131hoping to have um five or more start in our schools um next year as teacher residents and we um we are going getting ready to meet with our principls but we would like to Cluster our candidates so they have support from one another um and that our principals can work together and so we are looking to have our candidates placed in our um inclusion schools um which are George Hall um Meadow Heights Laurel and then also Foster City because one of our um one one of our par Educators um wanted to be in the program and um he's working in Foster City so we're really excited about the opportunity for this um it really meets two of our needs one is around special education instructors and secondly our goal to really diversify our Workforce great
132no thank you I just um I was not familiar with with the program or or the the I wasn't sure if it was a term of art or something else like that so um so uh thank you for the presentation um I remember the last time we we had these sort of priorities discussion um you know I I remember asking about like wait I'd love to see a breakdown of each department and so showing where you know aligned with what the topic is so we know who's actually taking the lead and where um who's working on what so I think the the Excel chart is actually very helpful um for us um I'm just wondering I'm a little unclear in terms of the sort of the hot topics and items that uh was in Nicole's
133slides um in terms of priorities and then the priorities that are shown in the Excel chart are we sort of determining this next year's priorities right now or is this more of a confirmation I'm I'm just a little sort of unclear on that so I'm not sure that Nicole and I were completely um on in sync on this but it it was surprising to me to see that you had written the same Hot Topics that are involved in our strategic initiative so we had not talked about this so um the ethnic studies as you saw was under the social studies adoption safety and SRO that's in the uh there's a there's a line item for that the College Park there's a line item for that reopening of schools well there's a slide on that now
134institutional racism as far as that goes I mean that has to be unpacked and I think that part of what we've been talking about is um you're doing learnings um we're going we're going to need to talk about well we're bringing our administrators into more learning um there is some site work that's going on um we have work going on you know throughout the organization I think we need to get much more strategic about what the that mean in this District so um I would think that the all of the initiatives do address issues of equity throughout our organization but if you want to hit that particular topic institutional racism there's probably a great deal of work that needs to go into that piece and the communication around that so that might be something that
135Nicole would like to pick back up yeah absolutely Joan um it's funny you said you know we didn't really talk about it but what's interesting is I have um you know I've been with you all for a little while and I've listened to the Hot Topics the things that continue to come up and the whole purpose of that was really just to highlight like the things that are in your face right now right um and that you do have to address because they're in the moment but the purpose of the priorities was to help move you all in a direction and push you to think about how you narrow your focus as a board so you can really effectively address the needs of kids kids based on Equity right and that that's the spirit of
136this so while Joan shared that priorities um based on how the staff you know is doing the work specifically I think that is very helpful for you to see like here's how it looks on the ground level my um recommendation as the next step um and I'm going to use Sue's um response to your question Kim because I think it was a perfect example right is is how did you see equity in the work that the staff is doing right because remember I'm here talking about governance with an equity lend so for example when Sue shared that piece about Alder what a great example right and I got all excited because I know Alder I'm actually got to work with them and one of my really close friends and colleagues is an associate Bean there
137and because so I know that their role in PRI your priority is huge because I know what they do in that teacher prep program they are very specific about addressing teachers um around not only um recruitment of teachers of color but also teachers who are culturally proficient and that's really important when you talk about that Staffing bucket right which then goes into your priority and let me just put it back on the screen um and also goes into the teaching learning um priorities right so it actually kind of fits too and so the Alder one is a great example and so as a board when you think about the question that should come up for you is how does this you know how does Alder align right this practice of using Alder and partnering how
138does it align with our Equity work it totally aligns right and so so that's where you should feel like okay this is our role as a board to really unpack our district is doing great work but how do we know that right without one you hearing that presentation from Joan and from Sue but also asking the question to make sure is this aligning with our Equity work and that particular example absolutely right and so that's where I want you to all see yourselves going moving forward Ken to your um point about so are we prioritizing everything now in terms of strategies for next year and so today no that's not your official like you know study session for that but what I do recommend is you all think about how do you take these four
139priorities and actually utilize study sessions to unpack each of these because there's a lot in each bucket right so your study session should always be focused on your priorities right and obviously hot topics are going to create needs for for study sessions which is fine you you need that time but I want you all to just think about if we're going to be an effective governance team to address Equity we're going to have to very laser focused on a systemic change in these areas that affect education which happen to be your budget which is a big deal right your your Staffing is a big part of it you're teaching and learning what happens in those classrooms at the school huge and obviously the climate of your school is huge and if you really stay focused
140on these you can see all the work Joan shared the work is happening right so when you start feeling like I got to pick up another priority if it's not part of this priority we're saying we we're not going to put a lot of energy into it because here's what'll happen again the wind is going to blow and so you got to recognize is this a Hot Topic or is this one of our priorities and that's what's going to help you stay focused and effective it'll help the staff feel like they can continue to focus on what they want to do um based on the vision that you set as the board I hope that helps a little bit about that work and just again thank you Joan for giving a little context um so
141any other questions or thoughts um I want to you know make sure we end with um just a quick quick quick um retouch of I don't want to reiterate your last board meeting where uh Carla and I got to present about the community listening sessions but I do want to just make sure you had an opportunity to regroup on that and um had a couple of reminders about next steps for the SRO resolution but before we go to that questions are uh any other questions for the staff for Joan before we go to I don't have a question I just kind of have a comment and it kind of builds off of what you were just saying I think in addition to the study sessions I think just thinking about how we can clarify or
142um structure kind of these um all these initiatives and kind of presentations in in board meetings too like H H and in communication right both to the board and to the community right so knowing that this is a through line just being really intentional about how it shows up in our agendas how we're categorizing it how we're communicating it um um and being really because I think it not only does that help to just communicate this work in a consistent way but it also just helps to keep it really systematic and structured um so that it feels as aligned as it actually is right because I think when you when we talk about it like over here and over here and over here it doesn't necessarily always feel cohesive and I actually feel like it
143is in a lot of ways I mean there's of course ways that we can continue to streamline and all of that but um there is a lot of work that's happening focused around you know the vision setting and so we just need to be really clear around how we talk about that um and how our agenda's prioritize that and how our communication um reemphasizes that so yeah Shar you were reading my mind um in kind of transitioning to our last uh conversations um one of the things that I wanted to share um is there is also a need I think in your future study sessions not only to um focus on like use a study session just for one of these priorities but also to um use these priorities to do your agenda building process
144right um so that it is very streamlined with the work you're doing so I think that's important but also um the piece about communication um and Outreach is important right so how is this communicated to the people you want to hear these messages right um and the board meetings are one way it's a huge platform for you so absolutely using your agenda it is a form of communication right so you do want to make sure it's very streamlined inine but the other piece is um really spinning additional time in future study sessions just talking about how are we going to make decisions moving forward how what how are we going to prioritize our work um what is that timeline um that is going to exist um in terms of okay we make a decision and
145I want to use kind of this transition of like the SRO resolution right so we make a decision we um come up with a resolution we come up with um this particular decision we vote and then there's a timeline that kicks in right so having the opportunities to really wrestle with what is going to be a good timeline and feasible for everyone knowing the priorities right that they're aligning with the priorities but also recognizing that are we ready for whatever decision we make are we ready to go into implementation and that's going to be really important as well and so I know you all have a consensus building process I'm not going going through all the logistics of that but just really being thoughtful about what decisions you make moving forward so that they're very
146thoughtful that all five of you on the same page right and even if go back to the Readiness let's say that there's three of you are like you know what I really like this and there's two of you like I'm not sure maybe it's okay to table things go back to it discuss it more and then let's bring it back for Action later and I have to remind Boards of that a lot because remember the energy to do certain work right now is like super urgent but sometimes if it's urgent it's based on like a passion it's based on emotions but it's not necessarily based on we have enough information and sometimes we'll it'll push our timeline to go even faster and we're not really ready and so I'm saying that to a lot of
147boards more recently because again the energy around institution racism um obviously even around covid you know and around all of the Hot Topics sometimes pushes us to make quick decisions so how you make decisions just be reminded of that and I think a future study session would recommended right that you think about how do we create um how do we come up with our decisions right and if some of if we aren't all and and this goes back to consensus right it's about I always push boards you want everybody to be on the same page down to who you hire as a superintendent down to the smallest decision you make is a Bo you want everybody to be on the same page but there are times when everyone's not and that's okay but at least
148we know that we have an understanding of what we're doing together moving forward and there's a lot of great examples that you all have experienced that other boards have experienced where sometimes like we made a decision and went a little bit quick so then the timeline kind of put gotten away so now it gets a little messy moving forward or we haven't wrestle with like our complete readiness as a board to move so what I want to do is give you a couple of recommendations um there was started self-care slide don't it was way in take a deep breath that's one recommendation right self-care is huge but um I want to remind you of how can you effectively leverage the task force so remember your priority the great news is your task force has the
149same priorities right there's three focus groups I shouldn't even say focus groups there are three task force subcommittees who are focused on safety Staffing as well as um teaching and learning right and their titles for it you know kind of vary but they all have the same priorities they just don't have the budget piece which is really not their responsibility anyway so the great news is you can leverage the task force to actually continue to unpack some of these priorities where you may um as a board go okay I need a little bit more understanding of this work right my job is not to do the work it's set the vision so again leveraging the task force but and I say effectively because remember what we don't want to do is go outside of our
150priorities and because a Hot Topic comes up then the equity task force now becomes what we call a um focus group right and so that's something that also is happening a lot with groups like that right is there's a Hot Topic so then we want to get input from the task force or that people have Equity committees you name it so it becomes a focus group versus let's stay focused on what the task force work is which is longterm let's create a plan of action around your three priority areas which is Staffing School climate and um academics um teaching and learning right they are in that space so I want to just encourage you all to just continue to support them and allow them to to um continue to unpack some of those challenges which
151is where they're at now they're starting to unpack gather data start to look a little bit more at how do we create cre action that we can bring to the board at the end of the school year so I want to remind you of that group and then remind you of some of the things with regards to your SRO resolution um and this was all stuff that was shared with you at that last board meeting um I think Noelia I think that was the meeting you were not able to attend and so um I really wanted to make sure that I just put this in here so that you were able to see and and that slide I think that slide deck hopefully you have access to yeah but this is just kind of a
152recap and so the main thing I want to bring you to is not the purpose and process you all know that but the next steps and recommendations so I want to make sure you continue to think about more listening sessions um I know there's another one on December 16th which will be the staff um so that's going to be helpful um also Outreach to diverse stakeholders so that's something that was very um that was expressed when we gave that presentation but also something that I want to reiterate is that we have to continue to do better Outreach um to again diverse means multiple perspectives um so that we can really get good data um continue to provide professional development excited that you know we're going to be working with your site and District leadership I'm
153excited to also hear that you have Dr Pedro noera another mentor and colleague that I look up to who's going to support um the opening of your um the program programmatic piece of your new school um but also continue as a as a board to examine your data your policies your practices so continue to do that okay with your Equity statement in mind um again leverage the task force I just mentioned that um again redefining the relationship with the police so although the SRO resolution is kind of like it what it is they have been terminated right there's no SRO on campus but keep in mind when you do reopen schools we don't know what's going to come forward moving so you you want to revisit like okay what does that relationship mean what does
154it look like to have safety on our campuses and then of course there's going to be that piece around revising um a revisiting the uh discipline Matrix which I can see the task force supporting some of that work but I also the school sites are going to have to be a huge part of that because they are the ones that actually live in that um kind of discipline Matrix work work and the safety plan um so I wanted to just give that last piece um around the uh the resolution and see if there's any additional questions after that board meeting um like I said I don't want to rehash this again because you're at the end of your your study session time but I do want to make sure that if there were any additional
155things that came up around your next steps for your SRO resolution this would be a an amazing opportunity to share um before we go into our next um work with the uh task force subcommittee who's going to continue the work by the way so any questions thoughts now we're good okay no questions no thoughts about it okay you're like the board meeting was enough right although the best part of your board meeting was our students speaking up I tell you like if they were a little older I would hire them in a heartbeat to work with me I tell you no offense to you Joan or anyone run the district but I tell you those kids can run a district they can do it they they had some profound things to say I would just
156always get excited working with kids so definitely more study sessions with kids I'm sorry listening sessions all right last but not least oh Hi Ka cutie pie she's like who's this lady making all this noise if I knew how to sing I would start singing to her but that wouldn't work so last but not least next steps where are we going from here is one continue to to um conduct your study sessions together again this is the gift that board members have to give to themselves outside of your normal like governance meetings like you need this time to just study ask questions get more information so continue to create your study session okay I know you don't want to add more to your calendar but you should at least be having one a month focused
157on your priorities right like keep unpacking those priorities and those will actually help in your board meetings your regular board meetings where your agendas won't be so long because you have done a lot of that studying together in the study session so I would highly recommend that those um board uh study sessions be around your priorities um I would also um recommend that you think about um when I say Equity policy and also Equity impact plan that your four priorities that we kind of talked about today and that I'm recommending that you create a plan around those priorities right so that the board really can continue as you as you have more um people coming on you have new board member coming on soon um you'll have you know future board members coming so you
158want to set like kind of a blueprint for what the board is doing okay not the LC cap right it's an alignment with lcap the lcap is not the board's plan okay so how are you going to create steps as a board to ensure that your Equity work happen okay our next study session um I would highly recommend um on our agenda that an application of your Equity statement continue to be a part of this so how are you actually imp uh applying your statement to the work how are you applying your lens to the work and that really should come out as some of the questions that you're asking um the staff as you continue to practice um what is equity actually mean as a governance team um um sha mentioned communication Outreach I
159want to reiterate that again that you probably want to spend some time really fleshing out what is our communication plan specifically around Outreach to your diverse stakeholders I think that's important one and then um also the mentioning of your agendas as you're building your agendas just remember to use your priorities to try to build that agenda so you all can stay really focused and align with the work and I think everyone will then have kind of a common understanding of where we're moving forward there's no surprises right and and really have what we call an effective governance team that's leading for every so with that being said I'm GNA leave um just for the community our information um Kevin and uh Shelly um are my other teammates who um who uh get to um work
160with you all and um Kevin's going to be working with the site and District staff um you all have met Shelley who's worked with us with the task force and also the community listening session um they both wish you all well and uh think of you all often because um this is so such important work and we see such an intentionality so um you know as a community those that are um listening and we'll watch this reporting we just again want to acknowledge the community the work that's been done we want to acknowledge the the pain the heartache the challenge of this um but I'm so excited um to be working with a board a governance team who's serious about this work and I'm really encouraged about the kids in the future for your District
161so just you know give yourselves kind of what I call a hand and a praise because you're doing some amazing work and I know it feels hard and tough but this is the work of Educators to really interrupt in equities in the system so I'm just honored to lock arms with you and uh with that I'm going to close um and pass the mic back over to uh Joan and uh just want to thank you all for um hanging out with me a couple hours on a Saturday so I'd like to thank you Nicole because you help us um focus on this work um I do want to take a moment and thank my my board because uh the time that they've spent since March not only on managing covid but on really maintaining a
162focus on equity and moving these different initiatives forward has been um very involved and I have to um thank my cabinet and all the staff throughout our organization because there is an alignment there is an alignment between what we're saying at our board meetings and our actions and what our kids are receiving we are not perfect but we're definitely moving in the right direction and people have put in a tremendous amount of additional extra effort this year and I I just have to appreciate what they've done to really keep our um students in the Forefront so thank you to Nicole for helping us our board cabinet site staff the entire organization we really appreciate it so with that I turn it back over to Noelia thank you Joan um yeah I just wanted to say
163real quick also that um you know I do think that our board we we you know we started to have really explicit conversations about equity and disrupting um you know practices that that weren't s weren't as Equitable as they should be but I really think that like you know our our staff like once that conversation those conversations began like they they have sorry my dog's ping out they have taken those opportunities um and led the work in in you know in their dayto day and so um I I think as a board we do recognize that and um we're just you know we're excited for the work to continue so um thank you everyone I'm gonna motion to ad to deal with his dog unless anybody else wants to say anything I just want to
164say thank you Nicole it's always a pleasure working with you thank you okay do I have a second on the adment did you second sh okay um roll call vote trusty K yes trusty Hitchcock yes trusty P yes trusty Watkins and the yes for me thank you everyone bye Ka