022525 Special Board Meeting

001e e e [Music] okay it's 4:30 and I would like to call um to order the Board of Education um meeting tonight um seeing all current board members present um uh this this meeting is available in English and Spanish would the translator please give instructions on translation services good afternoon today's meeting will be interpreted via simultaneous interpretation once the host has activated the interpretation function all participants must choose their language of preference by clicking on the globe on the toolbar located in the bottom of the screen and clicking on the language of your choice thank you I will now repeat the instructions in Spanish thank you so much recording in progress great so uh again seeing all board members are here uh we can begin the meeting please join me uh in the Pledge of

002Allegiance Pledge of Alle the flag of the United States of America to the for stands Nation indivisible andice okay so I would like to invite um vice president Shen Brewster to read the living land acknowledgement tonight Sunnyville school district is located on the ancestral and unsated land of the moak alone tribe who have peacefully honored and cared for this land for thousands of years we recognize that every member of the Sunnyville Community continues to benefit from the use and occupation of this land we acknowledge our responsibility to learn from the wisdom of the lonely people and to consider how we might work to repair injustices and to do more forward together in honorable ways thank you okay we're on to item two the approval of the agenda um is there any member of the public

003that would like to speak on this item please raise your hand in person or use the raised hand of Feer on Zoom okay seeing none is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda I'm to approve the agenda is there a second second thank you okay um board any discussion okay see none let's vote all those in favor of tonight's agenda say I chair books I and the motion passes we are on to item three review and action uh item 3A is interviews of executive search firms and selection of firm to conduct executive search Dr gallager yes so um this is the process the beginning of the process the replacement of the superintendent which is an odd thing for me to be talking about um I think it is okay um so what we have here

004is two firms two that will be the board will be interviewing um for consideration to conduct or and or guide this the search for the new superintendent of the Sen school district thank you okay um and uh it looks like we have uh well actually first let me see if there's any public comment on this item there do we have any cards from the room no okay uh if there's anyone online who would like to comment on this item please use the raised hand feature now okay I see none um why don't we hear the presentations and then we'll discuss uh welcome thank you everyone um if we can start the slid deck that would be super helpful please so my name is Dr Candace Aurora and this is Vinnie Aurora we're representing the Aurora

005Collective as the first search firm and and it is our absolute honor and pleasure to be in your company today we've um part of the process today uh is to go through a um just talking a little bit about a mission and a vision and Alignment between our mission and District's Mission we'd left to go over the search process and approach discussed a timeline for recruitment with you all and of course answering questions that are burning for you all and so with that I wanted to just start off a little bit and and introduce myself first um because I think it's so important to get to know who's leading your search and and where their heart is for this work and so with that um as I said I uh named Candace have a Doctorate

006in Education leadership Administration I leave with that because I'm very humbled to have that um I've had over 20 years of experience in education I was in the classroom for 10 years taught English um at all grade levels except Elementary I was an elementary school principal a high school principal and a middle school principal my favorite years of teaching were in the Middle School um eighth grade especially and that's where I felt um this passion for really diving into social emotional learning um and also really you know getting higher degree in education so I I sought out and got a master's in education and then eventually a doctorate as I was building up my Acumen to go into Administration the focus for my research was social emotion learning specifically in adults that serve children um

007and then my research was focused around teachers administrators and principles with a little bit of background on myself I'm an immigrant I came here when I was 16 um so English was a second language as you can imagine the um culturation the culture shock and not knowing if an immigrant who barely spoke English could make it anywhere in life um it was Educators in my life that actually took me under their wings my high school college counselor um as well as my adviser who I'm still in touch with um taught me how to fill out a college application ESL how to pass a test how to test out so so I can get into different proper English classes at this said um and really it was because of them that I chose to go back

008into education um and recycle my success and be that one caring adult that's actually the title of my dissertation the one caring adult that could make that difference in a child's life and so the 20 years of my um heart of my work has been exactly that to be that one caring adult and now get to do that in a much larger capacity as a consultant um in providing professional development and coaching for principles and teachers and seal as well as other curriculum development areas leading searches for executive leaders and then helping a coach and train them and so it is quite big circle for me to be here and trying to Le a search for a superintendent um it's I'm really honored to be here um are there any questions about the background before

009I pass to V to share about his go ahead can you all hear me okay well yeah thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you all today and two things one Candace and I are business partners but we're also married so just everyone should know that uh sometimes you know remember not put my hand on your shoulder but just in case I don't think you know ahead of time and it's quite the gift to work with with Miss B and U build this movement around building capacity for districts and nonprofits together a bit about me just to understand kind of my background um this work as you heard from Candace is very personal us I am a child of immigrants who came here from India in the 70s and probably had to plan

010to be kind of on a trajectory to be middle- income Americans it didn't work out that way I grew up just a bit north from here on the peninsula and he City San Bruno and I am the receiver of incredible educational opportunities incredible teachers um and incredible nonprofits after school programs on school sites Library staff who sort of shephered me along and helped me not get completely lost and so I found the Aurora Collective about 7 years ago because I wanted to reinvest in the communities that raised me and it's almost like I was a beneficiary and so it's really important for me to reinvest and so seven years ago when we launched the collective it was it was also about doing things a little bit differently so you're going to hear from us and

011kind of our approach and were a little bit different than some of the um larger search firms you're probably looking at as esteemed as they are are um I want to pause and just also mention that I'm an educator too the for roots of actually running programs in Sunnyville on arus and wolf at the India Community seminar we work with sunville Community Services as well and I think one of the challenges and opportunities is is the diversity of the city and the um incredible sort of history and future you all have but also the disparities between students and families and how you continue to that to bring sunal promise forward and so with that I think I'll pass it back to Candace to bring you into our team and then we'll go into our approach

012and who we worked with um and how our search process is a little bit different and leave it open to you for questions of course afterwards thank you and and so with that just to reiterate I you find Educators who lived experience in the space both just being Educators but also members of sun well for a while and working with communities within Sun Well in different capacities many with has work with India Community Center for a really long time and now with s community services and so um I wanted to talk a little bit about our little team where're we're small But Mighty is what we say and um we're very different in in our search process in that um when we dive into this work Vinnie and I will be leading um the search

013specifically ourselves so we're not delegating to a third fourth fifth person um our team members specifically most likely hie that you see in the second picture there will help us with just compiling some data um but as far as screenings are concerned interview process is concerned meeting with board members and actually leading the search itself and all Communications that will happen with us directly um and so with that I want to jump a little bit into our mission and vision alignment there we go Okay so so what I found interesting in both of our mission statements I'm not going to read you are able to see that you know we're we're working on empowering organizations in different capacities um but what I found really unique was our both our calling to prepare you prepare students

014to be Global Learners and Global Citizens and both academic social emotional learning we're doing that same work but with adults in spaces and so that's leaders in uh nonprofits whether that's Educators in the class rooms but the same exact um alignment for Mission and that we're trying to create enduring Equitable communities that create that access and so I found that very interesting and definitely a mission alignment piece where we're able to develop um that global citizenship within both tiers of humans Centric work as we like to say um and so I I wanted to voice that and say that you know our missions align in that and so I'm going going to jump forward in um just handing over the mike to Vinnie to talk about some of our client successes and the value proposition

015of w thank you and some of the logos on the screen might look familiar if you're from from the area um you know with sunville Community Services we've helped them hire two executive leaders we're now on a journey with them to um build out a strategic plan and sustainability plan for the future and as such a important safety organization right here it's quite the privilege to work with them and support their mission also with folks like mro college which is of course highered and helping to hire out their um Dem of advancement and other uh advancement functions I think what's important to note is we're all around education and and in education with working with health connected which does sex sub work around the state and helping to find their CEO um who's been successful

016and and routined there for now four years uh and so on and I think um as we look at kind of our approach and I know you're curious most about that I'd love to go to the next slide candas and um talk a little bit about what's different about us um you have this incredible opportunity to um think through what happens next and who you partner with is is crucial um we are small and team but again as canas said we are deeply embedded and deeply involved in every part of this you work with us directly one of the early learnings for us was around inclusive hiring so I'll I'll tell you that when we first started doing search we understood that to find the right leader to represent the community we had to search

017differently and it wasn't about just the job posting and it wasn't just those are important but not just about that it was about rethinking the hiring process the interview process um how we Outreach to people so we do you we do post on on the various job Boards of course and and so on but most of our work is onetoone Outreach to amazing leaders who may not be looking um and that work happens and those conversations happen because we what the leaders were approaching and which gives us a space to have those conversations around Dei but not just Dei the belonging of what it is to be a leader at a district and to uh take in the community and represent the community in terms of other inclusive Hing practices we also challenge boys to

018Think Through how they approach that and I know you've got done some really important work around that and so we're impressed of course but bringing in someone who's going to represent your community means being ready for that so we don't just run the search we we kind of partner with you to kind of prepare for that next person um including looking at culture and change management and Community Readiness and most importantly listening to the diverse stakeholders when I created uh youth programs in sunville for the India Community Center I was a little bit younger definitely bridee more bridey perhaps and we had to build trust right we're taking care of our kids and we were totally new in 2005 and and so building trust with our stakeholders is listening to them showcasing our Excellence but

019following through on our Excellence was really critical and we bring those assets to you all today uh the other piece here is around sustainability and finding someone who's going to be the right fit and and who's going to do well here and so a lot of our followup work in cus will go into this is about how we retain someone and set them up for success and set you all up for Success so that our students and families are been set up for success and sustainability those are some of the unique things about our I'll pass it back to Candace thank you um so going into our actual search process can you all see that okay sorry it's so tiny I thought we were going to get a big screen somewhere sorry about that perfect

020okay and so it's broken down by various phases and in in three phases per particular right so phase one and really going into the discovery process um what we do is quite unique in that we become a part of the actual team um that's embedding ourselves and understanding the culture and um part of doing that is forming a transition hiring committee um that for us is very important to have an inclusive voice in that so you may have heard of other searches LED strategically by board members we would actually invite you all to think a little differently and start to involve community members in that conversation parents um even if you're if you're able to even involve students in some of those conversations our student leaders from middle school perhaps that can join some of

021those conversations and so the very first thing we would do is start to form the transition hiring committee thinking through who whose voices need to be incorporated into the search process part of that process then is also to create a survey with your input um on and the transition hiring committee input on the type of candidate profile the leadership profile that you would like to see in your leader what that will do is unveil all of the skills both social emotional skills both qualifications um technical hard soft skills that we will need to then incorporate into the job description the job description would be written from the lens off that inclusivity in that we you know we'll have a discussion about what should we include as do person in a doctorate do person in the

022Masters like what are the qualifications but more so even from the seal lens which is very different I know that one of your mission alignment pieces here is academic social and emotional learning and so what type of leader would you need to mirror those skills for your students that you're trying to see in your students so that's going to come through the profiling um so the first part transition hiring committee building the candidate profile um getting through and building the job description and of course you all would have to have severe input into that process and approve the job description we would then move into phase two which is launching the public search a lot of this for for us will happen yes we'll do the Ed join the indeed the you know the boards

023that we need to post on but for us what happen through networking um quite honestly a lot of our search is happen through networking because it's knowing the community and the communities you serve so we would tap into our networks um of educators of nonprofit leaders of other areas that are would be qualified and ask them for referrals um and through of course we'll also get applications through um the other edin and indeed and all the rest and begin the screening process what's different for us as well is that we actually are partnering with you throughout that whole process meaning we'll create the interview questions for you the rubrics that will go along with all of the phases of the interview process we also are communicating with candidates and providing coaching which is also a

024different unique model off our search process and then and that building that Equitable piece into search process you may have heard a lot of search firms we've heard these horror stories about recruiters um where they don't you know reach out to candidates and give them updates or don't give them feedback on how they perhaps may have done in their first um phases of interviews and if there is some areas that they need to do better on well we saw that in our own lives and thought that we should do this different thing as Vinnie was saying and and so in our search process we go back we gather whatever feedback that this transition hiring committee may have and if they have open in in questions we tell that we be very transparent with all of

025the candidates in the process as well as all of you in the transition hiring committee and letting them know here's areas where you need to do you know showcase a little bit better of your potential because interviewing for a big position like this can be so intimidating um and sometimes people are just not good interview inter viers right they may have skills the heart the passion but can't interview well um and that's an equity thing as well because people of color um are intimidated being public speakers and in this position and so providing them with that coaching that intense sort of onetoone support really helps create that access and that equity in the higher process for us and so that's part of the interview and interviewing phases and then of course we partner with you

026on the negotiation and onboarding um that's actually being an extension of your HR um and working with you all to figure out what is a margin for salary and doing an offer negotiation creating this um actual offer letter with HR getting your approval and your signatures on that offer letter negotiating benefits of salary if that's that's a need the other unique part of our search process um is creating a on on boarding plan a lot of other recruiters get to the candidates you hire them they're done um we've realized that that's not an effective model um in that staying on for the first uh 30 60 90 days and helping them on board and being part of that LE rning is so important we're already coaching the candidates doing the search process so we're already

027assessing their coachability and we'll bring that forward to you as part of our transparency and we continue that coaching over the next onboarding phases so we with you with your partnership develop an actual 30 60 90day Exel spreadsheet very detailed on what are the high priorities that you would like to focus on what is the training that this person needs to get up to speed what is the in between time between possibly Mike or someone else coming in if there's overlap what does that training look like and so for us that retention piece so important we've all been in positions and jobs that we've taken on and that first 90 days is so crucial to set up for a success or for failure um and we're invested in this and so we want to make

028sure that the leaders that we do bring on are are feeling successful um and often times we have some really tough conversations if that's not going too well and that's part of our role as well um in bringing this person on and if that if there's been issues where perhaps between a board member or a um executive director or a person that we' bought on we have leads on and mitigate those issues and figure out what's the root of problem and how can we mitigate that so all of that is part of our process and with that I'm going to pass it um just the very last sort of slide here to wrap it all up um we've got local Liv experience we are not running 20o many searches at one time for super tenants

029we are here in the community and we have a proven track record in this community for leading searches um we've already talked a lot about Equity being part of our work our lived experience um and our lens of social emotion learning and just hard for this work and so thank you so much for having us and we're open to taking any questions thank you um do we ask question comment already asked com we did ask okay great so um or do you have any clarifying questions or a time you can ask them questionsly yeah do anybody want to start down so during the process H how many meetings do you think we you're going to have during this two months and uh how many people well many parts like how how many people do you

030think you should need in these committees from the parents and you mentioned that you're going to buy from different stakeholders who are they going to be and how many people do you normally get during the process you can walk me through how you normally do there's a couple of different ways to look at it it depends on the community um so one is the transition and hiring committee which we hope is made up of several of you staff of course and stakeholders there's not a magic number but those committees usually end up in between five and nine people um for scheduling purposes the more people the challenging it is to schedule um and so if we're not able to engage every stakeholder group we want to in that committee we make space for those stakeholders

031through the interview process like for example once we get to finalists making sure we include those stakeholders or Representatives that are trusted in those stakeholder communities to certain interviews so that they can give their feedback is critical and there's no again there's a imag number but say typically over the course of a search um usually about 4 to nine meetings which I know that's a big range but it depends on how how much ramp up time we have with the existing superintendent it depends on how quickly we start and and uh push the search out publicly typically between 4 and N do you want to add to that um just a point of clarification the um transitioning hiring committee meetings and you asked the Rhythm the Rhythm sort of of those me meetings right and

032so um I would say that we need because the search is coming on and is coming on now we'd have to launch sort of immediately and meet at least on a weekly or a bi-weekly meet uh meetings um at least for an hour um and those can be done on Zoom or in person it's just preference of uh whoever we're working with um and to your point about the stakeholders we definitely would like to include um uh the The District staff here but also principles perhaps in the Community um as well as I you spoke about parents and um through the parents' lens not sure if it's appropriate to engage with um students but would be a recommendation to at least B on parents and throughout the interview process um there would be times where

033there would be phases as we call them in between the interview phases where you would get to meet different stakeholders so I can very well imagine us having with the finalist sort of a meet and greet with the community and just so we can assess how are they really caring themselves um in the community with a select key stakeholders that you all would help us identify does that help answer your question yes thank you um we can come back to I just want to go down the line make sure everybody has thank you so much for coming and um sharing and we appreciate it um I think a little bit of it's kind of connected to the Committees but maybe tangent so you have not committees so you have that committee but then if you

034could talk a little bit more about how you bring in other voices right like like I'm assuming you're not just talking to these five to n people to come up with everything so I'm just what is that like what is that very stakeholder community outreach space look like thank you for asking that question so that clarification will go back to the answer would go back to the candidate gr on survey um and so we know we can't engage with all of the families that are in the area but we can do is send out a survey to get some soft feedback from all the members of the community and then it's not just about getting that feedback but it's also about being transparent with parents with um staff with the district schools that are wondering

035what's going to happen we have a new leader coming in and so it's sending that survey out to different stakeholders to gather that input from them but then also providing them with an executive St report of hey here's what we found out through our survey analysis and based off of this survey analysis these are the skills that we're thinking of including in a job description and then of course when we launch a job description then sing that out to the community like and and really specifying what areas of their feedback did we take and incorporate into the job um description itself and what we also do in the process is write communication letters which would actually go up from the transition hiring committee to all the district stakeholders parents staff giving them updates um on

036a monthly basis of here's where we are with the process here's where we're going I think maintaining transparency through the whole communication process um eliminates a lot of that um or anxiety around Church change management and so for that reason it's very important to maintain transparency and communication with all stakeholders um and then that final process where we said we' probably do a meet and greet with folks in the district um that's our that's our last way to then make sure that the community Fe is involved as well and is part of the wedding process and just assessing how um the candidates are doing that help yeah me just want to also in some spaces focus groups can also be helpful with right stakeholders um uh especially you know when we do surveys when possible

037we do them in different um languages so that they're most accessible but uh also bringing certain groups together to get their feedback before we launch uh the public search to hear them we can facilitate those and have multile capabilities as well so that those stakeholders are heard early on in addition because some folks don't respond to a survey and some folks need their voices heard face to face or on Zoom at least so that can be an effective way to do that too great thank you and then my other question um is uh we'll connect it I guess kind of with your process in the space of confidentiality for the candidates right so I know a lot of times they are in a place that like is good and they don't want that place knowing

038that they might be looking elsewhere because they don't get it right just that tricky space so I'm just curious like I mean this this idea of this hiring committee like is intriguing interesting or like that Community stuff but then my brain is also thinking about the more people that are involved in those processes right the more this is then not confidential for K so I'm just curious if you kind of speak to that in your experience in that space yeah we typically don't do the meet and greets um you know when a candidate is is currently puted somewhere else and not looking and the timing isn't right um so those those happen differently depending on who we end up with but we do do orientation for the transition hiring committee about confidentiality so it's part

039of our training um especially because it's a very competitive environment um and you know we want someone for you all who really wants to be here we don't want someone to to be here as a stepping stone to get to a more Resource District we want someone who sees the opportunity and who's going to stick with us so uh while we can't guarantee confidentiality just because we can't anywhere um we do do enough work with the transition hiring committee we also have them sign documentation on confidentiality because the candidates really care about that and we promise them you know that we do our absolute best to hold that close until it's appropriate to share with M People yeah thank you and hence why we want to keep the the committee as small as possible possible

040between those five and seven individuals good questions thank you hi P many thank you so much for your thoughtful presentation um I appreciate your alignment with our vision and um this call for partnership and transparency um my question is around um your past experience and um I see that you have a wide range of types of nonprofits as well as educational space that you've done searches for I wonder um what other superintendent searches you've done in maybe um population similar to Sun B school districts so transparency we've never led a superintendent search for a district before um all of our searches have been for other executive leadership positions and nonprofits um as well as Academia for Menlo College but we've never led us to put a search before I follow yeah um well since you

041mentioned a lot of the candidate um like in spreading the information getting information out is through networking what's your personal networking um how confident are you that you'd be able to like bring in a wide range or you know find the right person for us yeah and and so let me back up as to why we chose Sunny um superintendent um position V talk a little bit about his heart for the community and he's worked in I see worked as a leader here and we've worked with s and um we chose to um send in this RFP knowing that we've not done any superintendent searches before um and the reason we did that is because we're we wouldn't have if we weren't 100% certain that we have the connections in the community as well as

042the lived experience and education to lead the searches I have a doctor I have friends who are looking for a superintendent position um you know and so I am I can say this 100% confidence that we have network of individuals and people and sunny that we know would be interested in job and would not have applied um to this extensive RFP if we weren't certain we would be able to help you um with the search just to briefly add on to that um prior to being consultant I was the CEO of a nonprofit called my digital tattoo SL organization helping young people learn how to be safe and kind online digital citizenship and antibullying and one of my jobs was to build an educational Advisory Board of Educators Statewide and leaders Statewide and we did

043that without actual contacts in La for example here we have contacts from from of course Kansas s state or our colleagues times state or Cal in those uh Dr programs but working in Los Angeles we have to build those networks and I think that it's a mix of really authentic relationship building with a little dose of tenacity um that helped us build those relationships and helped us create that and so that's the same approach we bring here there you know a lot of humility and and relationship building but also ambition and Stakes are high for you all and certainly the stakes are high for us too and so I can see us doing that and we do have the existing networks I also think that as you look at this um and and you're going

044to make the right decision for for your District which is the best thing for everyone when we look at our esteemed colleagues in the space who are larger than us they are much larger than us and all of their job descriptions look very similar um you know we're trying to set you all apart again so that you're not just another District looking for another superintendent and I think because of our backgrounds but also because of our our deep networks both locally but also in education Beyond just local we feel really comfortable and confident I'm sure there'll be challenges but that part isn't the the challenging part the challenging part for us will be to make sure we find someone with the right fit so far in all of our searches the canidate pool hasn't been

045the issue you know making sure we really hone in unfit an unconscious bias and the right candidate for the role is where we spend most of our our deep energy in well yeah again we all appreciate oh I don't even have to we all appreciate you being here and the proposal and and like you know your story um I really do love the coaching um aspect of it I think that's super important um and that appeals to me a lot I'm getting back to the formation of the transition hiring committee I'm I'm wondering where if that committee is meeting weekly with you um I'm just wondering where where that where the board comes in with the review of that like what what work is do you see happening in that transition hiring committee and what

046kind of work and feedback are you looping in and getting back from the board how how do you see those two tying together I'll start with just saying that um to us it's sort of a subcommittee of the board now it depends on your bylaws and what you all allow but a subcommittee and hopefully made up of several of you all so that you can report back and so um what we see happening is that committee meeting and guiding under under your umbrella though and so there are certain decisions in our mind that only the board can make outlining what those are ahead of time and figuring out whose role is what is like one of the first few steps I think where the transition hiring committee comes in that's a little bit different than

047you all is that we're looking for folks who don't serve on this board to have voice uh often times staff have a really important voice that isn't as heard as we'd like even with our best intentions and so I think we would sort of divide that up and let you know but also there's the way I want to describe this is um you all have so many other things you're doing and so delegating to this committee means you're also entrusting this committee to ensure that they're giving accurate feedback around uh what the district wants that they're when they're ring resumés they have the district's um best interest at heart and they know what you as a board want because we we would hope that you as a board know what your community wants and just

048to add to that certainly we' invite at least two or three members off this committee to be in the transition hiring committee and um to clarify the the board is the hiring governance and will make the final hiring decision um and so in throughout the process we mentioned having communication with the board with staff with um community members and so to clarify a little bit around that when we create the candidate profile um that presentation will come to the entire board the entire board will decide the job description and approve the job description ion certainly the transition hiring committee will get their edits um we'll draft things together first and then bring it to you all for final approval um so that's where the board comes in you are the governance board you get to

049make the final decisions on the job prescription who were hiring what salar is being given um all of the nitty-gritty decisions that are as I say governance are in Your Capacity the transition hiring committee is meant for inclusivity and making sure that that all voices are represented they do not have the final hiring um approval process but what they will do is a recommendation um and recommend to you which candidate what they wants to get hired thank you okay board any followup questions or further questions okay well um so I think we're um we've got everything we need and um we're ready for the next presentation and thank you so much for thank you guys you [Laughter] [Music] I welcome thank you so much for having us this evening we really are honored to have

050an opportunity to present our proposal as well as the functions of leadership Associates our role is to help with you build a governance team based on the new superintendent that's the goal and we will work with you um for however long you need in order to get there uh we believe that we know Sunny well we believe we know Santa CL County we know we believe we know California and we also have a n uh Nationwide Network as well and so as we go through this process we want you to be aware of that aspect of things that we truly believe that we are a good fit for Sunnyville this me [Music] or I'm Eric Andrew I am the retired superintendent of the Campbell Union School District u a district very similar to sunny in

051a lot of different ways uh I started off as an instructional assistant in a special ed classroom mve my way up through teaching I've been a teacher at most great levels a principal at most great levels and went up through the the cabinet level position was fortunate enough to become the superintendent of Cano for 7 and a half years retired eight years ago know eight years ago here's my Este steam colleague and Eric and I actually were superintendents in neighboring districts so um Union School District where I was superintendent for nine years is contiguous to Eric um although we aren't married just want to let you know but just just like Eric you know um I actually started teaching uh in Illinois and then went out to the east coast in Connecticut and taught at

052all grade levels was an administrator at all grade levels I actually even taught in France for two years when my family lived there so um I was very fortunate to when I came back to the the states work um in Morland School District as a principal I worked at the County office as the Director of instruction um I was was an assistant superintendent of ed services in bu and ended my career in Union School District as their superintendent I too have been retired for many years um and have been doing searches ever since so both Eric and I have a lot of experience doing superintendent searches thank you and I want to go back to the important aspect of this is your search and every search is different every search is different we will uh

053craft this search if we're the fortunate the group to be a part of your search process to meet the needs of Sunny Bel and that will be our our main focus next slide please one of the unique features of leadership Associates is that we have uh designated assistance executive assistance to work with your executive assistant they will work with your team in terms of what is the proper language to post information on your website to make sure you're meeting the brown act what are some of the upcoming dates what are some of the materials that you need and could get uh that will make it easier for you along the way as well and so we will have one of our assistants who will be assigned to this particular search solely working with your District

054you can go through with all of that slide one of the things I want you to look at is if you notice in every section we're talking about kids and this is what we're about we want to find leaders who are ready who are kid focused kid Centric who are ready to make sure all students are have uh a quality education very similar to your promise which I was I had to uh smile a bit because when I was superintendent I had a very similar one to to yours along the way in fact just three weeks ago I was looking at yours and made me go back to my district and thinking where is the one that we craft how similar they are but we really do believe in this work the other aspect of

055of the work that we do we are committed we're in the field Jackie's going to talk a little bit about how we stay relevant in terms of what's happening with current superintendent what's happening in the field so that as we bring you s uh candidates we know what is not only your background but what's on the horizon either at the state in our national level next slide please again tailor to you we want to make sure we have opportunities we have over um I think there almost 1200 current administrators who are part of our subscription and so if we are fortunate enough to get this Search We Will Blast that out to all of them immediately in addition to that we have about two 50 superintendents current superintendents who are part of our Network and

056our uh uh learning sessions that we meet with on a regular basis in addition to that we have about another 200 working um assistant superintendents who are part of our Network who we meet with at least monthly to have conversations with and that's how we stay grounded in the work of Education not only now but as we said looking down the Horizon so we believe the importance of building strong governance teams we believe in the fact that we know what's happening on the ground here in state of California and we are very close to what's going on here in sunny bille as well as Santa CL County here's what makes us somewhat unique Jackie and I are here as your lead search equ if we granted the search you will be working with Jackie and

057I however we are all Partners so everyone's name that you see up there is a partner leadership Associates and every two weeks in fact we had one this morning we all meet and talk about searches we talk about Trends in education we talk about professional development opportunities every two weeks and so if we are fortunate enough to get your search every two weeks Sunny Veil is going to come up and we're going to talk about here's what we have going on here we'll talk to about stages and phases that we're in we'll talk about possible candidates that fit and meet what sunnday FS says they want to see and in fact uh some of us have been intricately a part of Sunil I think you've had two of our people who uh have done workshops

058governance workshops here in in the past and uh so again we believe we have a pretty good field for what's going on in Sunny okay well one of the things that we do pride ourselves on is that we really um have a great deal of experience doing searches and I think you can see that I don't even know right now if that over 700 is right it's probably far too low because we have been doing so many searches so we really feel that we know the search business um as you can see we actually did the previous search where you uh had the Good Fortune to uh appoint Dr Gallagher as your superintendent but we've also o done a lot of other searches in the area these are just some of them Los alos hilroy

059M Valley Morgan Hill unified a number of others we're very very um committed to Santa clar County and to the districts um with whom we've have been working over the past years next slide please okay this is actually one of my favorite slides because I think it really captures the the big difference between us and and any other search firm okay why would you choose us well first of all we really do believe in our heart of hearts that we can give you the deepest pool of the most highly qualified people when you saw those Stars across the state all of those people are very very involved in superintendent searches working with boards we know people who know people we have a huge Network when we meet every other week we talk about here's what

060Sunny veale is looking for do you know any candidates that might be good um many of us do aspiring superintendent um workshops I did one just this last spring at uh Silicon Valley Education Foundation people that want to become superintendant are connected with us so we really feel that we can give you the broadest and deepest pool of candidates Eric talked about our 1500 subscribers see it was even higher than you thought um anybody that wants to be a superintendent is on our subscription list honestly um we're very committed to diversity and equity and inclusion and I think over 66% now of finalists were um either uh women or candidates of color this past year um again we're California based California Savvy I think all of you realize that California is a very unique State

061we do have a nationwide pool but a lot of times candidates who come from other states just aren't as familiar with the the laws that govern C particularly our financial structures so um you know that's certainly going to be something that's up to you to decide um being Partners in The Firm all of us are Partners we are owners in this company so the success of every one of the superintendant that we place is our success we are not failures and we don't want our superintendent that we place to be failures so it's a very important close close to us we really care very deeply about placing every single superintendent to be successful um Eric talked about us being engaged I'll show you on another slide we all are highly engaged we do coaching we

062do board workshops we're in professional organizations we're far too busy for retired people to be quite honest and one of the other things with actually two more one is that we provide the new superintendent walking in a 90-day entry plan that will be worked out with you working with that new super intendent on what are those highest priorities that that superintendent needs to work on prior to that though we also have a three-day workshop for new superintendant and sitting superintendant and we offer that to your new superintendent to attend for free it's in Southern California I think Dr Gallagher has been to many of them they're just very very powerful learning experiences good networking experiences so um this is why us next slide please yes so if you would yeah just kind of flip through

063those and I'll I'll walk you through those first and foremost the search starts and ends with you okay one of the very first things if we're lucky enough to be selected is we're going to schedule what we call the initial meeting during that initial meeting we actually nail down every single part of the search every date for the candidate selection all the stakeholder inputs we involve your stakeholders by having stakeholder input sessions with each and every group that you want us to speak with it was really interesting today in our um partner session the one of the fors that we have usually has 50 50 different stakeholder sessions that's just what the form is right uh most of us do somewhere somewhere between 30 and 50 stakeholder sessions one of our partners said oh my

064gosh we had to ask that that we enlarge the form because our board wants us to do at least another 25 so you have us for however many stakeholder sessions you want you want us to talk to the sheriff from three years ago we'll talk to the sheriff from three years ago however many stakeholders you want us to engage and that's how we Engage The stakeholders we feel that it's important to get as much input as possible and that input along with the survey helps helps us develop the position description I kind of took a little umage when I you know heard heard it said that some search firms I'm sure it's not ours have a boiler plate position description we do not we take all of that input from your stakeholders you take all

065of the input from your survey responses you get all the raw data you will get to see all the raw data but we take it we synthesize it we triangulate it we find the trends and we put that together in a position description that matches what your community is looking for we put that into the position description and we send it to you for your approval we also will give you an executive summary of all of that data and in addition you got all the raw data so if you have I'm sure you will 800 survey responses you get to stay up nights and read every single one of those comments like we do so it's a lot of information but we feel that we do an excellent job of gaining the community's input and

066also their assurance that we care about hearing their voices so once we're done with that of course we um do our recruiting and very important um because of our Network across the state we don't wait for people to just send their applications in we're always reaching out people that we know people that we've heard of people that our colleagues know so we really do get a deepo of candidates and then we have all of that candidate application material and it'll be available to you in a portal you'll be able to go online just you know click your computer and every one of the applicants materials will be available for you to preview before we have our meeting with you which we call the candidate selection so you'll have had time to review all of that

067information and during candidate selection we will be presenting to you what we feel are the top tiers and then the second tier and then the third tier which is the we don't recommend that that you have these because in our reference checking we found things out that other people do and for our reference checking because we know so many people across the state we don't just call the people that are on their papers come on if they put that person's name down let's face it that's not going to be real honest and if if they do even if they do we call that person and say can we have an offline conversation with you and we really get a sense of questions such as what were their admirers say about them what would their critics

068say about them and we look for that and we actually asked the candidates in their interview pre-screening those two questions as well to see is there some triangulation we're looking for self-awareness we're looking for honesty all those types of things so if in their pre interview they don't list some of the things that several of their um references say that tells us a little bit about their own self awareness as well and another thing that we do is we do a deep dive into their social media and of course all of the press or anything like that because the last thing any of us would want to see is that you have a Community member that says you know I was digging into social media and I saw you know the candidate dancing naked with

069a table no no no we don't want that to happen so anyway um we do a very deep dive um we also facilitate the whole interview process for you so we take those position description characteristics and we use them with you to develop interview questions because if this is what you're looking for then we need to help develop questions that are going to elicit the kinds of responses that'll see does that person have the skills and aptitude to to to uh meet the challenges that you face so we take care of all of that facilitate all the interviews um and again I don't think I can say enough about how important having a full-time assistant who will work with your um executive assistant is going to be for you because there are a lot of

070logistics and so she'll she'll walk you through every piece of it okay next slide please next slide please and our closing thoughts again this is your search this is the most important decision that you as a board are going to make and so however you want it to be done that's how we're going to do it we want to make sure that it's personalized broad-based high-tech anything that you would like one of the other things that I think is really important is that we believe our fee is reasonable and it's also all inclusive we don't we're not going to ding you for how many how many stakeholder input days we may have do we just U really feel that whatever it takes that's what we want to do I talked about the full-time administrative support

071that is the most important thing I honestly believe um we really believe in um hiring people who are going to represent your community I think that's very important we are experienced as we've said and most important we're all passionate about this work leadership matters and we believe that with our hearts so thank you do you have any questions sure we will thank you so much I appreciate the presentation um Isabelle do you want to are you ready to start have any clarifying questions or questions no really you canot point and answer the questions that we ask the other team to thank you Melle um thank you so much for um Coming and sharing with us um I think my only question I mean see asked I think you covered a lot of the stuff um

072I guess my one question would be the like I'm a little bit intrigued by the the committee remember the the yeah the hiring committee idea have you guys have you guys ever done things like that um is that like something you would be open to I'm just kind of curious that space a little bit yes we have done it it's rare but we have done it I think I've done two or three but going back to you said when the combo was made it will change your pool there will be superintendents who will not apply if they know there's a community group that's there and we absolutely have experienced that each time it doesn't mean you can't have some type of a hybrid but when super we have two types of searches basically we have

073a open search which means it's open you're going to have community members as a part of the process when and then there's the Clos searches which is the one where they board actually does the interviewing Etc each time I've done it with the open we've had superintendent back out and it's also one of the questions candidates ask us going in is it an open or is it a close because even in this case let's just say you guys decide if we're selected you decide it's going to be a closed process sitting superintendents are going to apply the very last day before of of the closing because they want no chances that so get out there ahead of time that they are a part of the process and I would also like to add one of

074the um things that uh can get in the way of having an open search is that um often times well I won't say oftentimes several times while I've been doing searches that have been open uh a community advisory type group likes one candidate but the board likes a different candidate and that really sets that person up for a lack of success that's you guys up yeah so you either picked the candidate you didn't really want or I so I mean there are just a lot of there maybe some pros for that but there's a lot of cons to it yeah um okay one followup when you mentioned the idea of a hybrid um I'm going to ask you like what you meant by that but when you said that one thought that I just had

075was right maybe you have this committee who does kind of the first stuff like helping with creating the sorry sure all my words today the superintend like job description right so maybe they're helping with that beginning stuff and then when it actually transitions to after right the candidates have turned and stuff then it's not that committee I don't know is that what you were thinking when you said hybrid or do you have other ideas typically what it means is that that group is not going to rank the candidates yeah at all because we don't we need to protect you as a board so that you have the final say on the candidate themselves and that you're not bucking against any other entity along the way so sometimes when we when we've done it the hybrid

076is if the candidate uh does interview with the uh group the panel the panel doesn't rank they just give strengths in uh areas of growth or questions is that um I think I heard about something like that where you had um the people who were on the panel were in the audience or something and they were making notes and then when the board was deliberating they received every they passed around the feedback or something Morgan Hill was talking to me about that yes typically what we've done is the candidate would go to chew room they would meet first of all with one group meeing either the board and next uh their next meeting would be with the group the panel itself and then all the candidates would go through that process we would do a

077a list of okay here's candidate one what are the strengths of this candidate what are the areas of growth the questions that you have about that same candidate and then the board can read that and decide if that influences and you could I'm not saying it wouldn't decisions um hi thank you for coming and presenting to us um my first question was is going to be about the 265 is that really all inclusive and Jackie you said we we have you as long as we you need us we need you toid of us um so I just in getting to know other trustees in the area I've heard about a lot of other searches that are also happening at this time yes um I'm wondering about the timeline the proposed timeline um does that seem

078realistic like what if we don't find the right person by then um I'm sure this has happened in the past like I'd love to hear um more about timeline and flexibility yeah we think the timeline works well you have an advantage and this is going to be pretentious but you're Sunny know people your destination District people are going to want to come here Etc so even the people are are in a couple of searches they're going to want to come here in terms of that so that shouldn't be an issue I gotot the second part of your question oh is it doable oh yeah absolutely doable absolutely doable and at the initial meeting if we were to be selected we would ask you all to bring your calendars because we want to really nail dates

079down so the timeline that you have is you know kind of General because a lot of it's going to depend on your calendar and addition to that just as another piece about every two weeks we will send you a message to say here's where we stand in the search and that's hopeful to you as a board because as you're out and people ask you so where are we in the search process you can say well it sounds like we have about 40 people who've requested applications we've got 13 who've submitted applications we're going to have our next meeting on this particular date so we want the board to be able to respond to the public as well as to each step along the way have talking points uh ahead of time as well and along

080with that sometimes um on your website you'll have a specific place that'll say superintendent search you can post some of the information that we'll be sending you on that bi-weekly basis again to keep your community apprised of where things are um so you talked about an onboarding period as well is that included as the search is part of the search is you said like a 90 days yes we have the 90day entry plan that we work with um your new superintendent and then that new superintendent will be hopefully will attend the summer Institute do you know what the dates are June 12th to 14th something like that yeah and so we work you know we work with the new superintendent group as well you know um get them to establish you know some networks with

081the other new superintendent and then your firm may continue to support the superintendent we usually do we usually make sure that that superintendent is you know got his or her feet on the ground well planted thank you so um do you do a site visits to finalists if they're like once they're like is the final yes or no it's up to you um I have to say that in the last well certainly since Co I haven't done any site visits um what we have done is have some Zoom visits with the team from other districts but I haven't done any actual site visits did you no yeah we'll we uh if that is the case we will do Zoom so that you can maybe have a zoom call with the the finalist board you may

082and here's another place where you could possibly have some of your stakeholders that's they can meet with maybe a live group yeah via Zoom Etc so that's another place to involved okay um and then just uh I have one more question that was about the um that Outreach I I think that some people don't well they might not know like just like they don't really know what the board does they might not know exactly what the superintendent does they might know he's the boss but they don't know they don't really understand what's involved with the role why it's important to give feedback how the person at the top can make a difference you know and working with by working with the board but also you know being a leader um and all the different responsibilities

083they have so I'm wondering like I would I really want to have a lot of you know one of my things would be I really want to have a lot of Outreach but I think to get people to participate how do you really educate them about what the role is that we're trying to get feedback on do you know what I mean yeah there's several ways in which we do that including not only an online survey but we're going to bring you up this that we had talked about with 15 or more it's your opportunity really to do an Outreach for the voices who aren't necessarily a part of your process it's really a chance to get them to be a part of it and we have found that they are if because as our

084other group mentioned personal uh Outreach is important and so if there's groups and community members that you really want to participate and did not partic participate in the P then having someone reach out to them and say here this is important for our work important to you and and that really does help we found that regardless of the community that people hear about the superintendent they may not know necessarily what they do but they know it's a big job and they want to have voice in terms of who who selected and what their opinions are so um I was just going to add um I had recently done some eighth graders and I was actually so pleasantly surprised when they came out with with comments like fiscally responsible so I mean I I don't short

085sell people I think you know people have a a a big enough understanding of the responsibility maybe not you know on the micro level but but I think they understand that there's a budgetary concern there's you know instructional concern like that then um my last question it's a clarifying question is um for these surveys I can't remember from uh the last time but because it was I think it was right during covid and it was just so crazy um as a pro like I was a blur I was you know still pretty new board member um how do you get um how do you support um staff members to get feedback without like to feel safe about giving feedback you know it's it's Anonymous so the survey is is 100% Anonymous and staff members really

086like to tell us their [Music] opinion yeah sure one more question um what other I I know like leadership Associates is doing lots of searches at the same time but you guys specifically are you currently doing any other searches that will overlap during our search I don't know about overlap I'm finishing up Los Lamas and Mountain View wisman in the next two weeks so I'd be started years so and now'll be finishing the county offices in next three weeks or so four weeks okay so it might be just slight overlap at the beginning but then you don't have other one no okay we're very selective we're very busy we are yes and we and we prank with we only uh put in bids for the places we want to work because we are retired we

087have that option and so on so we we really do are very selective in terms of where we want to go and work thank you um I have no further questions great so thank you so much for your presentation thank you okay um do we need to rather than discussing making to make ation to discuss or do you want to discuss a little first anyone like to I would say for discussion purposes I would make a motion to uh what the right word approve or Appo select thank you select leadership Associates as our consulting firm second thank you do you want to start sure um so I think I'm grateful for like both of the groups I I really appreciate the feedback and their ideas um there was a lot of pieces of Aurora collector

088that I find intriguing and interesting um but I do think I think the two reasons I'm leaning more towards leadership Associates is one the cost is significantly less and then to the specific experience with superintendent searches would be my two reasons the yeah I'd like to uh speak to those same reasons as well and I kind of wish the rora collection was still here because I I am very impressed by their proposal and the way that they um their partnership model and the focus on seal and that really speaks to me like I want wanting to give someone a chance but maybe not the first superintendent search with our district because it's such a pral ro um so I feel very confident especially with your price point the difference there such a big difference so

089um yes looking at what say like even if it's a ton of money it looks like a real bargain a b higher anything else say we are tuned today all probably understand yeah yeah so I I also agree um with that but I I just want to also say that um I was a little con little concerned about the proposal of kind of advocating the Authority or like um The decisionmaking Authority or reading the resumés when they I think when they said that group reads the resumés I I just kind of like that was startling for me because one of the things even as a relatively new board member that I really appreciated about the process last time around was that even you know all of us on the board were able to really I

090remember reading those resumés um you know uh kind of digging into like those people's why how they would be effit and um and just processing and having like a really great discussion with the with the rest of the board about it and um and so I I do want inclusivity and I do want to have like as much input and information and Outreach as possible but you know it's our responsibility and I just I really feel like um I did have a board member from another District say to me that I start sharing with Mike and feggy or was Michelle the other day that um they said to me oh you know I think it was Michelle who said uh they they said to me um yeah you know and if you get if you

091get it wrong you'll never forgive yourself like oh my God I'm already feeling the stress so um you know no pressure but I I really do take the responsibility seriously and um and I'm excited to learn about like what our priorities are and what our District's priorities are what everybody's priorities are so um I'm I'm also in agreement so I think I think it sounds like we're ready to vote can I share one thing this L will be more when we have the discussion with our search firm I just want to say now hopefully I don't forget others don't like I think we want we're probably end up wanting the closed session but maybe we have a stakeholder group who helps make the questions right so maybe it's a bigger stakeholder group especially that includes

092teachers and principes that they then maybe create a list of however many questions and and then the boards decides in the end like okay we're going to do these five questions I would love I would love to discuss that ler because I really the way I understood the conversation was that the questions would come out of all the feedback we're g to get so it would be they would be a part of the question generation and rather than like the board have we have our questions we want to ask it's we might have some questions we want to ask but it sounded to me maybe we could yeah we'll dive into it later CL we could clarify but I I really don't I'm really not interested in having another committee like um an additional committee

093yeah so um on at that level so um but yes so are you ready to vote before we just real quick um I think we talked about next Tuesday another special board meeting y um and then maybe leadership that Associates could talk about like what would be involved in that first meeting do do you want to come back to the well once you vote then like you go on to the next agenda have a minute to tell us what we would do if you're available come on well they're present because as soon as we vot so before we vot once you vote then the next agenda yeah so before we vote uh we would love to understand better um what we could be discussing next Tuesday as a special board meeting on this topic so

094as uh I mentioned before you're going to need to bring your calendar ERS so one of the first things that we're going to do is we're going to outline the whole search process and agree on what dates that we're going to have our candidate selection and our interview as well as well as when we want the online survey to go out when we want the stakeholder groups uh identified when we're going to have this the inperson or the uh virtual stakeholder inputs we'll go through all those calendar events initially that's because those are things really need to get locked in and as Eric kind of mentioned really digging down into which of the stakeholder groups that you want us to schedule input sessions with so you know obviously your labor Partners you know your classified

095uh your your uh executive uh officers for those labor groups your teachers um your parents which parents your SSC people your you know home school club or PTA you're we will provide you with a list of sample kinds of groups that you might be interested in but you'll let us know which ones you want us to meet with and then we'll proceed with scheduling those on the dates that we have already decided that we're going to me meet with those groups on so it's go ahead yeah and in addition to that your uh external facing groups you may have city council you may have other organizations who you want us to reach out and be a part of the process as well so we I can start to identify that group because as soon as

096that the groups are identified then we're going to be able to schedule blocks in terms of and deciding who is going to be in person how many days are Jackie and I going to be sitting in the room as people come through uh who are we going to do versus uh some Zoom calls and so on based on their schedules too because we want to be available as well to the groups and then we're also going to talk to you about advertising what dates uh will'll be doing the advert in um we are going to go through all of that and then we are going to meet with you in close session for a very brief amount of time and just talk to you about some uh some Personnel questions we have for you oh

097and the main thing we're going to do remember we've talked about the online survey we've talked about the input sessions Etc we ask everybody the same three questions and that's how we try ulate first question is going to be uh what are the characteristics do you want to see in the next superintendent so it doesn't we're going to ask you that in a public meeting and so you'll get a chance to give us feedback here are the characteristics we like to see then we're we're going Tuesday this is Tuesday and then we're going to ask you what are the strengths of the district and this willo you get a chance to brag about Sunny Bell and then we'll follow up with where are the areas of growth what are the challenges that you see in

098the district that the new superintendent needs to be aware of we're going to ask every single person we interview those same three questions there may be a few others but those we were going to use to create the executive summary as well as the position description okay thank you anything further anything further you want to add no great I think we're ready to vote then uh thank you so much thanks for coming back and do we have that after you vote and if you select us do we have that date is it going to be next Tuesday Tuesday next Tuesday what time six o'cl o' okay board um all those in favor please say I I shes ious Z thank you okay great yeah um so do we need well why don't we start right

099at 6 o'clock so if it's um instead of 10 minutes so why don't we come back right at 6 o' that's 8 minutes from now so the board will just take a short break uh for a few minutes and um I'm whatook [Music] always [Music] well that [Music] I know [Music] nor [Music] not e e e [Music] um think [Music] she's there [Music] did you see oh my go no because question [Music] that's [Music] great okay welcome back uh it's 6:05 and we are back at Sunny School District Board of Education meeting um welcome we are now on a agenda item um 3B the interviews of board candidates and the selection of a new board member um I will let Dr gallager introduce this yes so um so on January 16th the Board of Education

100approved a resolution um to um for the matter of establishing a procedure to fill a board vacancy um that vacancy was created when um Eileen Le was um it says because she resigned from the board which is technically what happened but really it's because she um Wanted election to the um representative on city council we're really proud of her for that but that did create a a vacancy for us um and so with that resolution we then created a public notice I'm really if I can editorialize here I'm really proud of the board for the Outreach that they did um to find board candidates you know um when we moved to by trustee area elections one of the concerns was that we wouldn't have enough people to fill board um positions and um what we

101found is it's just the opposite um that um people are interested in representing their immediate Comm Community they're interested in being on our school board hopefully they're not um deterred by having to run an election for the whole school board um so anyway um I'm really proud that we have four fantastic candidates here as a result of the Outreach of the board and so um what we're doing tonight is we we need to go through a pretty scripted process of interviews leading to um discussion among the board and then finally a selection of a provisional appointment to the board of education and it starts right away with u as soon as two days from now so um with that I'm GNA hand it over to Bridget who has um script follow through script from the

102lawyer it's wonderful okay so um all right so the board currently has a vacancy following e Le's resignation to Ser C cancel the board has scheduled tonight's special meeting to give it an opportunity to hear from all applicants and ultimately select one to fill the seat the district and the board appreciate the interests of all applicants in serving the district as part of the board and expect that the board will have a difficult decision here tonight we want to thank all of the applicants for coming forward as part of this process while the board May only select one applicant to fill the seat tonight we want to let you know that there are many ways besides filling the vacancy that you can support the district and we hope you will take advantage of those opportunities

103many of you already do so thank you before we get started I wanted to let everyone know how the board plans to make this decision tonight the board has reviewed all of the applications and looks forward to hearing from the applicants following public comment the board will be asking the applicants to provide their two minutes statement and then to answer didn't change it on here eight questions each applicant will have between one and three minutes to respond per question as noted we will go by alphabetical order in the order of last name to determine the order of applicants we will ask that the applicants wait in the McKinley conference room until it is their turn and we'll have someone show you where that is don't worry after the all of the applicants answer the questions

104each board member will have an opportunity to discuss what they are looking for in an applicant to fill the vacancy and identify the top two applicants um after each board member identifies their top two applicants the board may consider a motion to make the appointment or they may ask all identified applicants to answer a second round of two questions in reverse order from the first round each applicant will have two minutes to respond her question for this round after the second round of questions the board will begin its deliberations again focusing on what they are looking for in an applicant to fill the vacancy and may if they wish identify the applicant they believe should join the board following board discussion the board will entertain a motion to make the appointment it will take an

105affirmative vote of at least three board members to make the provisional appointment the successful applicant will then be administered the oath of office we do have a placeholder for a ceremonial oath of office on the on the meeting agenda for this week February 27th but if the new board member prefers we can arrange a cere ceremonial oath of office on another date that works for the new board memb family and friends to attend or after the 30-day provisional period okay so before we move to the interviews uh the board would like to call for any public comments on the appointment each member of the public will have two minutes to provide public comment on this topic up to a total of 20 minutes um and if there's anyone in the room who who would like

106to make a comment on the application um on this process you can fill out a blue card in the back of the room we will also take um questions or comments public comment online do we have any cards okay um so if you're online please use raise your electronic hand now okay so looks like we have one public comment okay thank you go ahead thank you um Dr gager thank you uh Dr Dean and respected Board of Trustees I do want to uh speak in favor of uh uh Miss cotney Johnson's uh application uh I witnessed her commitment um to the community by engaging the community for many um initiatives that uh she believed in and uh she also has shown uh proven leadership skills and Coalition building um throughout several uh areas of work

107that she has been involved in from San Miguel PTA TOA SEL Education Foundation through sustainability commission and also other initiatives that she's involved in like Lakewood Village Association that she has uh been a vice president of um I love her meaningful and effective advocacy uh because she has uh um shown not only her intent to work with uh uh different stakeholders but also has shown her ability to find a common ground to expand you know field trip uh assembly uh catalog or right now she's also thinking about after school assembly catalog uh round tables working with the school district um and also with the sustainability commission some of the other initiatives such as working with um I found her to be one of the um few parents who has attended uh the board meetings and

108has shown interest in the both board agenda items has uh wanted to know more uh show shown the Curiosity and also um on top of it she has shown genuine commitment to the district success she genuinely wants uh better outcomes for all students and she has been a perfect advocate for uh um uh for all students uh especially from an equity lens so I think um given these uh qualities I think she can immediately start contributing and will be a a wonderful Choice thank you thank you very much okay um see no other public comment uh we are going to um make a little one more announcement so before we ask the applicants to wait in the McKinley conference room we have a request for you because this meeting is being broadcast live we hope

109that the candidates will respect the process so that the questions remain confidential to each candidate until it's asked by the board so we humbly request that the candidates not correspond or interact with viewers or other candidates who have been interviewed before them about the questions that we ask in this um open public meeting so that it's fair for all candidates uh we also want to remind all applicants that the board will be asking you to start with your two-minute statement and then you will have one to three minutes to answer each of the eight questions um Mr rero and uh Miss Wilson will be our timekeepers and they will make sure that you can see the timer on the screen uh a hard copy of the question questions and and eventually some not paper uh

110will be available at the podium for use uh for you if it's desired when you're answering the questions we invite you to be as specific as possible by using details or examples with that um we would like to ask all the applicants um to please just wait a few minutes in the McKinley room just for about five minutes so that the board can get ourselves organized and review the questions and who's saying what um so if you don't mind stepping out just for a few minutes Mr Amo will show you where the niny conference room is thank [Music] you okay so we still here okay no problem yeah bring take those cookies with you don't leave them here thank you okay so Bo um we have eight questions you can see um they range from

111uh one to three one to three minutes we assigned it so everyone is um saying two questions so um hopefully the order is okay um the main thing to remember is that we cannot ask follow-up questions we cannot deviate from the script at all because this process is for provisional appointments we want to keep it as clean as we can so that there's no perceived barriers or preferences anything else you want to add Michelle just I mean so what she's saying right is you just read your question exactly as it don't adjust don't it just you just read the question and then uh like where it says you know so you can either at the beginning of the question in the question say you'll have so I make it do the game and say you

112have three minutes for this question and then read it and then remind them again maybe you have or if it's a question it says like I want one minute or less I'll say minut yeah and then the two questions on the back um are just for in case we have a runoff and then we will just ask those two questions of the candidates they won't be leaving the room the idea is to have them stay in but alternate who gets to go first in reverse order um and then at the end we're going to decide who our top two are we're not going to rank them one and two we're just going to say who we're top individually individually and then we're gonna hand them either to Mike or to Jus I think in the

113script it say like but we we can it's okay with you and we're GNA try to we're trying to get to two could be our goal if not one but um the idea would be if there was somebody who was if it ends up being like a 332 and one of those two is somebody who's your number one really um we could invite we could have three people in the final round if we we needed to but we would have that discussion based on how the numbers are hopefully we'll get it down to two yeah and then do those follow questions and then have a more lengthly discussion at that point for theion I get down to one yeah yeah okay so um you have questions yeah okay thank you okay so I think we're

114ready how are we calling people or getting them here in Cas goes and grabs them okay so I think that we are ready I believe our first person would be um Miss alus for [Music] flash hi [Music] welcome thank you um so welcome Miss Alvarez um whenever you're ready please give us your two-minute statement briefly stating while you are interested in serving on the Sunnyville School District Board of Education and what skills you bring to the position yes thank you so much it is lovely to be here nice to meet I think I've actually met all of you but it's lovely to be here um I never in a million years think I would run for this position honestly um I was presented this opportunity at leadership Sunnyville when we came here so that was

115really exciting um yeah I I will say that I've gone to two of the schools how I mentioned my application so I think this is a great way to like give back to my community um as well as just kind of honoring the district that served me as a kid um some of the things that I would bring to the table would be teamwork I'm a very good communicator too um I'd say um I also feel like I'm a pretty good team player I feel like we're all here to serve the kids and that's that's the best way I think us being here is the best way that we can you know support them in in their environment and just in their Endeavors as well as I will say that advocating for diversity and inclusion

116is a big thing for me um I think that's something that I feel like I would bring to the table as well I think being a first generation college student I kind of have a different lens um and also having gone to these schools I feel like I do have a different lens compared to all of you yeah so those are some of the things that I've bring thank you so much we're a little late on the I believe we at time so thank you okay um okay what do you see as strengths of the sunal school district and what do you see as the area most in need of improvement and you have three minutes for this thank you excuse me so um this question is uh three okay thank you so one of

117the strengths that I see in St Wells is really the diversity of all different kinds of students as well as the different schools bring different things to each student which I think is really nice um being at school I remember field trips were always a good thing um the teachers were always very lovely I have some amazing teachers that I had um some of the weaknesses I maybe would say is and this is kind of referring back to when I went um would be kind of like Transportation issues um being in middle school I would have to take the bus I think kind of it's in a way it's kind of the school's responsibility on how kids get to school and I think buses would be amazing but I think that's one of the weaknesses

118of the district all right um you'll have three minutes you'll have three minutes for this question as well um on average the board meets twice a month there's reading and preparation before the meeting additionally there are weekly updates and email corresponden you are committing to additional training and board development to become a more effective trustee we know you're active in the community and what are some of the Challen what challenges do you anticipate in sorry what challenges do you anticipate if any in meeting these expectations I think for me the the biggest challenge is I am a community college student so kind of just navigating schoolwork um I am also part of student government at school so I do have meetings to attend there and things like that um but I think really it's just

119the key is uh finding out those times that work best and really communicating if uh yes this does work no this doesn't work yeah I think it's just finding that good um like organizational skills as well as yeah just calendars calendars are a big thing now I unfortunately have a couple of calendars to look after yeah calendars is a big thing thank you um and then a related question and you'll just have one minute for this because it's shorter um please uh take less than one minute to respond given that we are setting out to hire a new superintendent what is your flexibility to add a few additional board meetings including one all day interview to your schedule this spring yes um I will say that for the most part I'm kind of busy in

120the mornings U Monday through Thursday but in the afternoons is um when I'm not busy as well as Fridays I'm open all day yeah I'm willing to commit a day or two to this hello um so this will be a three minute question as a board member you'll be asked to make decisions where you must put aside what's best for you your family and your friends to do what's best for all students in the district what does this mean to you for me this really goes to thinking about the students kind of putting myself in there situation um again kind of looking back at I know it says not to think of you but in a way it's kind of like thinking back to when I used to be in school um something like that

121um yeah I think it's just thinking about the students the teachers kind of what they go through as well as I know sometimes you guys get information on like you take surveys and things like that just looking at those different types of things um if it's ever possible maybe like speaking to different classes or like just getting feedback I think is a really big thing thank you okay so um this next question is another three minute question uh our board consists of five people who work towards consensus on sometimes difficult decisions describe your communication style in this type of scenario also describe how you would respond if the majority decision was counter to your vote I think sometimes um different viewpoints is a good thing um you know sometimes we may all think the same

122thing but sometimes challenging that is a good thing it brings out different ideas different viewpoints um I think it's really just all talking it over really seeing why you think this where you're coming from is a big one um I also think kind of feel like the the part where it's like with both of our votes are different I think yes just going back to why do you think this and really just talking it out and seeing where both parties are coming from thank you okay this is a one minute question and uh this term is up to is up in Fall of 2026 all things being equal will you expect to run or continue your service on the board yes so I did briefly talk to One board member about this um since I

123am a community college student I am planning to transfer out next year of fall of 2026 so that would mean around August I would be transferring out to college and I am looking at potentially going to like Southern California or a different part of California so I think that would be a conflict that I would have okay so this is the last question uh it's 2 minutes for this one uh what's the question you wished you would have been asked actually the seventh question was the one that I wish that would have been asked that's the one that I had in mind so I don't have one great well thank you so much um Alvarez and um if you don't mind waiting in the McKinny room we'll we'll be calling you back out later thank

124you thank you and if my alphabetization is correct I believe Courtney J is next thank you there's an instinct of wanting to ask questions to follow up it's so difficult um Mike answer a question about like flashbacks I would say like this time around way less nervous but way more Awkward right it's more nervous in my mind it's more nervous being right there but at the end it's way more Awkward to welcome so welcome ston the uh the first question is uh two minutes as you know uh please give us your twom minute statement briefly stating why you are interested in serving on the Sunnyville School District Board of Education and what skills you bring to the position and that's my timer that is correct that is your timer okay perfect okay um I guess

125I'll bend down okay so as we all know the northal community has been historically neglected and underserved just in general right we don't have access to a good grocery store we don't have a public high school our residents tend to be lower income speak English as a second language and often work multiple jobs and so in the last few years I've been working to impact change for our community uh things like addressing Transportation issues for North high school students trying to get to Fremont um looking at advocating for the high school district to move to trusty area elections and thank you to everyone who was working on that project bringing information to our community through our monthly neighborhood association newsletter bringing the mayor and city manager to our neighborhood meeting so that our residents could

126ask questions directly and supporting F Tech project and other things for stud stud Education Foundation and Etc and so I have really centered my work on bringing more equity and attention to our neighborhood and I want to save on the Bo because frankly it feels like a natural Next Step I'm excited to serve to support the district as it implements the Strategic plan the alap and other things and to continue to build on the amazing existing work that has already been done in terms of skills that I bring I'm just going to list them I'm very organized I'm able to focus on the details and the bigger picture at the same time I'm really good at bringing people from different departments and different backgrounds together so that they can work on the same project align

127on goals and priorities and collab that's basically my day job I like to connect people um I like to Lise across different teams bring people together with similar interests and find Partnerships and relationships that will allow us to leverage each other's strengths and interests I like to thank I really good at listening my kids May disagree occasionally but I think I'm a pretty good listener and I like to ask a lot of questions and finally I will bring the perspective of a s Miguel parent to the board yes erh what do you see as the strengths of the sunel ER the sunal school district and what do you see as the areas most in need of improvement in okay um I'll transy SP it half and half so um strengths of the district so obviously

128I'm a fan of the district right both my kids are here they've been here they're in s Mel hus as you know and they will be here through many more years to come um I really like how the district has tried to look at the different areas of the community and give people different options you I think the programs of choice obviously particular Liv program and F programs have been successful um it's been interesting listening to all of you talk about what has made a program of choice School successful and how we can build on that to continue success at our other schools um we have amazing teachers you know obviously I'm most familiar with s Miguel but I have heard very few if any bad things about teachers in our district are teachers they're

129passionate they work really hard they do everything they can and that Echoes as well to um you know staff at the schools to principles and principles I've just been amazed with everyone I like the collaboration um you know it's not just samel on its own or Fairwood on its own there's a lot of cross conversations both within parents and community members but even at you guys I hear you often taking well this work to this school how can we leverage and where do we thing and so I know that the schools do operate very independently but I see a lot of great lessons and learnings um and it's clear that everyone is very passionate you know everyone here is looking for how do we make our school is better how do we make our students

130successful you've got the Strategic plan which I love I think it highlights four wonderful places to go it gives a great outline of where do you go and how you prioritize your work moving forward um and it's clear that you know District staff at all levels and all the way down through schools really have our kids Hearts um at interest um things that I think are in need of improvement um H so I think well obviously you shouldn't have any artificial turf anywhere so I'll just get that one um you know that I've advocated a lot for additional after school activities I do think that's true it is hard to be a family with two working working parents and send our kids to public school um and I think that we can do more after

131school enrichment so that kids learn not just so in the academic stud through a variety of different things that they can have um I love that those options are available at many schools for parents for I like a sliding scale kind of thing but I think we can do more there um the communication has really improved since I've been a parent and I'm really impressed with the work that you guys have been doing I think that there can continue to be more improvements um as a parent I get lost I have the peach Dr things I have the school bulletins I have Facebook I have ADD distri website there are so many ways to get information that I often forget and so it would be good to see how can we not necessarily stream on

132but make sure that all that information is accessing to parents as we go um and then I think this is a really small one but I would love to see the board minutes say or repard agenda say that like the Clos session starts at 6:00 and Open Session will not start before 7:00 so that parents don't have to get here at like 6:30 in case the closed session and early thank you all right this will be a three minute question on average the board meets twice a month there is reading and preparation before the meeting additional there are weekly updates and email correspondence you are committing to additional training and board development to become a more effective trustee we know you're active in the community what challenges do you anticipate if any in meeting these

133expectations um yes so basically the reason I almost didn't apply was because I wanted to make sure that I could make the commitment I didn't want to apply to something that I couldn't fulfill you know I do have a full-time job I've got two young kids and I'm involved in a lot of other activities and so I've spent the last few months thinking about where I can cut and I have to cut back you know it was in my application I cut back um I stepped out of the neighborhood association work I would step down from the sunny sustainability commission um if I get the appointment and I would end up reducing the PTA work which sort of was done anyhow because of the way the schedule works but anyhow so I have really looked

134at where I can cut things back and my husband and I have talked about this and can we do it and so the short answer is um you know we're I'm committed to this um you know the every other week meetings we can fit into the schedules that will be fine we can go there even my kids are excited about having time with Dad um the potential challenge that I would find would probably be the well I can't remember what it is but the thing in the first week of December that you all go to um and taking multiple days off work to attend that particular of year would be hard but you know the governance meetings that are like in the mornings I think that's fine I can schedule that around work and so

135I really see that one week conference in December as being pretty much the Big Challenge um emails I read emails that's fine I have plenty of time to do all stuff so the rest of it doesn't worry me so I will stop there um and then a related question um please take less than a minute to respond given that we are setting out to hire a new superintendent what is your flexibility to add a few additional board meetings including one all day interview to your schedule this spring um so I knew that was going to be part of the job so the short answer is I will make any accommodations that I can I prefer nothing on weekends just because we tend to have plans and we're taking a couple of trips evenings work really

136well for me in terms of during the workday for the most part I have flexibility to move things around and you know if my boss knows it's happening and say look I have to make this commitment for the uh superintendent I heard them say bring your calendar so I will bring my calendar but I would say my goal is to be as flexible as possible the schedule's busy but especially if I know ahead of time there's a fair amount of movement and ability to move things around Courtney you'll have three minutes for this question as a board member you'll be asked to make decisions where you must put aside what's best for you your family and your friends to do what's best for all students in the district what does this mean to you so

137it means a lot um so I think right so I know one of the concerns in the high school in moving to uh trusty area election was that people in the trustee area would only care about kids in that area and we all know that that's not actually what happens and same thing here and so the first thing a board member has to remember of course is that yes I may be in this trustee area but I'm a board member for all students in the community or in the district um and I think I like to think that a lot of times what works best for me and my friends and my family it will be similar right we all want similar objectives across the team but I think it requires a balance and so

138for example if there were something like an after school activ program and it turned out that the hours were great for many other families but they weren't great for my family if my family is in the minority like I will deal with that and figure something out you know the thing should not be chosen just to make it work for me particularly because we do have a lot of resources that I know that many families in the community do not have um and so when I look at that I will be making my decisions based mostly on what can we do and what do we need to do not just for the kids who are uh lower from lower income families or struggling in school we need to think think about the kids who are

139doing well in school and we want to make sure that we're providing things that work for both of them um in cases where that's a conflict and you have to choose one group or the other I would rely a lot on staff input and feedback right they're the experts they work here every day to figure out what to do but I think it's always a question of how do you make the decision that is best for the most number of people um and then if you make a decision that's not good for you you can go home and cry about it and then move on okay um so for this question you'll also have three minutes um our board consists of five people who work towards consensus on sometimes difficult decisions describe your communication style

140in this type of scenario also describe how you would respond if the majority decision was countered to your vote uh I will answer this backwards so um if the majority decision was counter to my vote uh first and foremost we all part of a board right and it's okay if I disagree and in fact I've been in board situations where people like please someone desent just so that we know that it doesn't always have to be unanimous um and I can go home and complain to my husband about how I think the wrong decision was made but in public the important thing is to say you know this is the board's decision here is the reasoning that was chosen to get there people will know that I disagree because I didn't vote that way and

141then if people have concerns to say you know okay go talk to the board president go talk to staff go talk to those people and voice your concerns um my job is not to to just start complaining with other people you we need to be professional I need to support the board and part of working in a group of more than one person is that you are going to find things that you disagree with and that's just part of doing that um my communication style in this type of scenario mentioned I like to listen so I try to get a sense of where people are coming from I do ask a lot of questions I want to make sure that I understand implications of things um you know that the data that I'm seeing and

142I'm interpreting it that I'm interpreting correctly I will try to you know so for example I heard you know pegy you saying this do I have it correctly so I want to make sure that I actually understand what people are saying I try to look for common ground um and also when things where there's not common ground TR and say well we don't have common ground in this area so how can we maybe find a compromise that will work and trying for compromises that will work for everyone um I do I mean I spend most of my day working with people who have various different opinions and it's all about how do we align and sometimes that allows means letting people complain about the things that are not going well again that comes back to

143listening and that's okay but I think it's really towards trying to make it so that if everyone isn't a winner at least no one feels like they were completely ignored that they were um neglected and just like that their opinions didn't count because everyone's opinions matter even if your opinion doesn't end up being the majority at the end of the day thank you so this one is for one minute and these terms ER is up in Fall of 2026 and all things been equal would you expect to run or continue your service on the board after that uh yes um we have no plans to move we will be here um the only reason I can think why I would not continue service is if for some reason there was some major project at work

144or something um that came up and I said I needed to switch gears for that but I really don't foresee that happening so um as long as I'm enjoying it and I feel like I'm making a contribution then yes I would expect to continue to run I guess to continue my service last minute uh last last question two minutes uh what's a question you wish uh you would have been asked um so when I interview people I usually ask them what their hobbies are but I figured you might want something a little bit more detailed so I won't tell you about that um instead the question is uh let's see tell me tell you about a time when I was on a team where people were not working together well and what I did about

145it and so I was on a team with two other people and so I guess here's my answer I'm supposed to answer that soon um two other people who are not collaborating at all uh one person was supposed to build a device and the other person was supposed to use the device and it wasn't working the person who needed the device to work was not getting the devices when they need them to I tried to be like come talk to each other and it just didn't work at all I tried to help with like let me figure out forecasting so I know we'll need three next month and I can give a heads up to the person who's building it that didn't work either I offered to build the boxes repeatedly and that didn't work

146at all and so I finally just sat down with the person who's building the boxes in a one-on-one meeting and I said basically like what's going on and I let that person talk for 45 minutes about all the things that were going wrong and why that person was not feeling appreciated Etc and so forth um I listened asked a few clarifying questions but I really just let them make sure that they were heard and then at the end and I said okay what can I do to help make your life easier and so we had a little bit of conversation for there um we worked out a plan and we were able to implement that plan and within like 3 days I had gotten all the information to build the boxes and the person who

147needed them got them and the person who was building them was able to gradually work off the project um and so my takeway for that was listening is super important um again finding common grounds understanding where everyone is coming from and then figuring out okay how do we get to a common goal that will let us all forward thank you thank you so much and um we will call you in a little bit from the back from the room um and Mr I believe if my alphabetizing is correct I get very nervous I believe we're at for miss it is really high stakes you know it's being recorded here can she alphabetize so good at other things that's what I have to hang on to I just messed that up there was a study and

148fin most adults they don't want to confess that every time they need to alphabetizing they listen to the song in their head absolutely [Music] great okay okay hi welcome right here the table so welcome M petaa um so uh here is your timer right there front and center and uh please now is time for you to give us your two minute statement briefly stating why you are interested in serving on the Sunnyville School District Board of Education and what skills you bring to the position Hi I'm Evelyn um I um I have volunteered um for so many years at um Fairwood columia um and Fremont High School I have my four daughters here and it started when Ma my eldest was she's 21 now and it started when she was in Kinder at Fairwood before

149Fairwood became an Explorer Program um and at that time um um when she was in elementary the other two Leia and Mia um started at Fairwood um it was full Explorer and we had to do um two hours a week per child and so I volunteered six hours a week um at Fairwood um and there um I I helped um um in the classrooms um I was active um with project Cornerstone and all three um girls classrooms as well um I was um I'm the president right now so malila my youngest she's at Fairwood now and so she's in fourth grade and so I've been active since she was there um when she started kindergarten Zoom um she it was on zoom and so I helped Miss RNA Swami with the um um the class

150um and helping parents and stuff um and so um since then I've been the president for Alliance for the past year um I was BP last year and I was the president at the PTSA at Columbia Middle School for several years and also um at uh um the music booster president as well and so um skills that I have um I am compassionate I'm caring I'm helpful and I like to advocate for students and families um I'm very organized I'm good with time management and I'm and I'm a a team player thank you and what do you see as a strength of the sunal district and what do you see as the areas most in need of improvement and this is a three minute um strengths of the senal school district um I like how

151the board has their board meetings and um it looks like everyone's um open-minded and they you all collaborate with your ideas and come together and make decisions or help make decisions um for the district and uh what do I see is the in need of improvment well right now you need um one more um board member and um I think um as far as Improvement there's always room for improvement um and if we could or uh the board members could discuss um um things that can be improved with the school with all schools um and the whole entire District um and have um Community you know events to have the families come together I think um that would be a good Improvement sorry other strength um I think um that the board going to school

152events and Gathering um um um listening to parents and families to see what um the district needs or what their school needs and then coming together and talking to each other about it and and um finding out um what um what we can do what you can do um to to provide um for the parents um and Families and how to um have positive outcomes um for the concerns that they have um I think that's a strength that you have um feel no you [Laughter] don't all right so this one you'll have up to three minutes on average the the board meets twice a month there is reading and preparation before the meeting additionally there are weekly updates and email correspondence you are committing to additional training and board development to become a more effective

153trustee we know you are active in the community what challenges do you anticipate if any in meeting these expectations um first of all before I applied I asked my boss if I could take off early because I work in Pleasanton on Thursdays um um and your meetings are at 6 pm and we've made arrangements where I could leave early and I am the only provider there so for him to tell me that I could leave early and even um you know be able to pick up my child from K to make it here at 6 o'clock um that was um a big um challenge for me to um figure out if I should apply and so um when he said yes um that I could so I figured I would apply and um and so

154here I am um at the interview um and I know that um you had mentioned that before the board meeting on Thursdays you get a packet of the agenda um and we would go over it um and so I I am um confident that I could make time because um that is something that I need to do um to help the board board and to help myself to understand what's going on um with the issues that's going to be um um at the board meeting and a related question and um please take less than one minute to respond given that we are setting out to hire a new superintendent what is your flexibility to add a few additional board meetings including one all day interview to your schedule this spring although I'm very busy I

155would make it um a point to make it to the board meetings um in the um application packet I did um s say though that I can't um come to that governance meeting um in May um because that's my daughter's um digging day um overnight field trip and I wouldn't miss it for the world um because when she was in infant Leia went on the day and my husband went to the overnight field trip and I couldn't because I had a new born and so I would love to go to her um because that means a lot to me and I know it means a lot to her so that are the those are the two days that I know I cannot make it to your board meeting um and hopefully um you guys could

156give some consideration but if not I totally understand um but I am U flexible and I am willing to make the time to um uh be at your board meetings your extra ones um in the spring or before the spring thank you hello uh this is a three minute question as a board member you'll be asked to make decisions where you must put aside what's best for you your family and your friends to do what's best for all students in the district what does this mean to you so yes so again going back to being open-minded um and I know that not always um you you don't get what you get and you don't make a fit um and so um I understand that um um what's best for all students and if we all

157collaborate with each other one person might not feel the same as the rest of the group but um uh we should you know learn to just um go with it um and and um make sure that um we do what's best for all the students you um so this next question is also up to three minutes our board consists of five people who work towards consensus on sometimes difficult decisions describe your communication style in this type of scenario also describe how you would respond if the majority decision was C to your vote so it kind of goes back to what I um just said about um if um five of us um was coming to to a consensus but one of us maybe I didn't like your your decision I would still go with what

158you all choose and go with that because that's probably the best thing um and um maybe I didn't know it at that time but it is the best thing and um I wouldn't um hold a grunge or be upset um I would just work with um the board and do the best that I can thank you okay H this is a one minute question this term ends up in Fall of 2026 all things being equal would you expect to run or Contin your service on the board I'd love to say that I would love to run but I'd like to see what I'm um stepping um into also um but I do um I I do have um um um I mean I follow through so I I'm sure that if I love it that

159I would run um for that election with the support of my family they're always very supportive last question for up to two minutes what's a question you wish you would have been asked so um the question that I wish I would have I wish I would be asked um is um would you like to accept this [Music] [Laughter] position um but let's see here okay so um I have my notes here so um what I would have wanted to been asked is um what idea or event you would like to see happen in the district that's you guys asking me um I would like to see the whole school district get together um for some kind of event um maybe like an annual um Carnival or something hosted um you know each School having um

160a host the event um every year like every school um um host it every year um and then um but not the school just hosting it but then the whole entire District helped planning and getting it together and that way families can come together um you know um people who have friends go and then um make new friends as well and I think that would bring our community um and to um uh bring our community together and have um a stronger um relationship with each other and um and I think that would be important to um um so we all um you know meet each other and not just say oh you know that person goes to um Cherry Chase or that one goes to Fairwood I think it would be nice if everyone just

161got together and not um and and just um make friends make friends and have fun thank you okay so um I think that that's all of our questions for now and um if you don't mind going back to the McKinley room uh we're going to interview the last candidate and then after that we'll call you thank you thank you please see please ready like oh my gosh this is this paper is for us to write our top two not in any order and then we'll pass it over to Mike and he'll let us know welcome please have a seat thank you welcome hi so um your timer will be right up there and um now it's time for um to please give us your twom minute statement briefly stating why you are interested in serving

162on the Sunnyville School District Board of Education and what skills you bring to the [Music] position um thank you first of all thank you very much for this opportunity um and uh and I would like to start saying that um I appreciate the beauty of the diversity that our community has and um and that's and that's one of the things that I would like to continue to add to the board um as being a bilingual Brazilian American immigrant and an educator I have experienced uh firsthand the power of Education shaping opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds so my passion lies in advocating for all children regardless of their background um and uh and language and socioeconomic status to have access to high quality education that prepares them for success and um I believe that my

163Multicultural perspective um experiencing early childhood education and deep understanding of immigrant experience will bring valuable insights to the board um I'm particularly motivated to address educational Equity inclusion and the importance of early learning and interventions ensuring that no child falls behind due to system systemic barriers um I can I will bring I continue to bring uh advocacy for families and students expertise in early childhood education and continue with the culture uh cultural um and and inclusion and recognize uh the importance of multilingual and Multicultural education um and I we work to support English Learners bilingual education programs and culturally responsive teaching practice to meet the needless the needs of all students but um but in all I'm here for all of our students and everyone in all thank you yes uh what do you see

164as the strengths of the sunel school district and what do you see as the areas most needed of improvement and you have to me sorry sorry two minutes sorry three minutes three minutes three okay sorry I didn't hear so the question was if what areas I see what are the strains of the sunal school district and what do you see as the areas of most most need of improvement and other questions are also right there oh okay thank you okay thank you um I I I believe that our sanary district brings the B dist Str is the diversity um I find it beautiful that um we we're able to include different um different celebrations of different diversities of different cultural diversity um into our curriculum I find that beautiful and particularly I can say for

165Fairwood and beautiful for as well as in um at seigel with the hus program the bilingualism there exists um and um and I believe if there is an area that needs Improvement it could be it's a very good question um it could be maybe the way we communicate with our parents with our families um the relationship and understanding what your child does at school and what the school um is and and what the school brings I think that could be improved uh here and there because as a parent I've already exp I experienced a little bit of it so that's why it's something that for me could have it could have been improved um um we have three minutes for this question on average the board meets twice a month there is reading and preparation

166before the meeting additionally there are weekly updates and email correspondant you are committing to additional training and board development to become a more effective trustee we know you are active in the community what challenges do you anticipate if any in meeting these expectations yeah that has been a subject I've been talking to my family about as a stayhome parent and uh and I just went back to school to finish my associate degree in Early childood Education and I have my family and I my family first of all supports gives me full support in pursuing um this position and um and I've already and if if you if were the case that I that I were to commit to this my life has been we have adjusted every piece of it to be able to for

167me to to create space for me to be able to be available so I don't see any problem or any difficulty um preparing for this new role in the new new Journey thank you um and then a related question and please take um less than a minute to respond given that we are setting out to hire a new superintendent what is your flexibility to add a few additional board meetings including one all day interview to your schedule this spring I like I mentioned before I'm very flexible um there is a lot of support in my family and um also my teachers at school are also very flexible they understand that I um I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm also a mom and I and I also have to attend to my kids um we do have

168babysitters that are available for me in case or available for us in case we need anything and I'm a type of person that when something needs to be done I will make sure that my whatever is around me will work towards it and taking one step at a time for things to work so I think I would be able to um have flexibility in my schedule to be part of this one all day interview thank hello um you'll have up to three minutes for this question as a board member you'll be asked to make decisions where you must put aside what's best for you your family and your friends to do what's best for all students in the district what does this mean to you I think that's a very good question first of all

169but uh but I believe um I believe that I that we are all here to support everyone not just it's not for myself it's for everyone it's for every family and we're advocating for the benefit to support a community so and we are making decisions as a group as a community as a board so it's not of of course it's not it's not easy but I feel it's an understandable path to take for this for uh to to make decisions that will look that to benefit the whole community at large so I think it's it's a giv it's it comes with the the the role comes with the job so yeah I think you be fine thank you okay um so as a board our board consists of five people who work towards consensus on

170sometimes difficult decisions describe your communication style in this type of scenario also describe how you would respond if the majority decision was counter to your vote um that's also a very good question um the way I communicate um I like to hear everybody's perspectives because when I hear people people's perspectives it helps me broaden my thinking so I don't like to go first on anything actually I like to hear people's ideas people's perspectives so and that's how I communicate and and um you know even in my home I things don't go my way and that's okay that's fine it's part of life and um but I do like to understand the reason I like to understand the why the why you think about things the why uh why things are the way they are and

171that's one of the reasons why I also I'm also here because I like to understand why things happen the way they happen so I think you be I be fine if uh if if I understand the reason behind it thank you and please answer this question in a minute or less these terms is up in Fall of 2026 and all things been equal will you expect to run or continue your service on the board yeah um yes I remember this was one of the questions I also asked during the info session um yeah I believe that this would be a long-term um role that I would like to take especially because I have kids in the district this is the last question um what's a question you wish you would have been asked um I

172prepared two questions for that oh sorry two minutes I'm just sing because I I was about to say I prepare two questions and then one of them I kind of mentioned before uh you you asked me a little bit but um but I have I brought this because I forget about everything and um yes um the question would be um how can we Ure that parents are well informed about their their children's um standardized testing in including its purpose format and impact in their academic progress um standardized tting is something very important to me I care about and I I believe that we're actually doing a very good job I think the district is doing over time is doing actually a very good job in informing parents I know Fairwood is doing a very good

173job Columbia is also Mr Po is also um he's about to do a workshop about the nwaa test um a a a info session about it with parents but I believe um this is is an area that has has room for improvement thank you great well um so I need to look at my script I think what happens is um now or do do we want to take a a like a five minute break before we come back in and talk to people are you ready to go for the rest we're okay okay um so well we just need to bring all the other applicants back yeah and then you can sit wherever you like yeah thank you thank you so much so we're doing this part right now right no we're gonna talk first

174I can give you the paper now iess up I messed up okay I'm just trying to clarify like is the counting okay first first we're gonna talk okay so and then and then we're GNA we don't have to put them in order like one two it's just your top two it'll be after we have a discussion okay she has a little script I have a script yeah I have a script we're waiting until they come back correct sorry when they're back in it's really open right we just [Laughter] have okay all right well seeing everybody back uh thank you so much um so I just I do want to thank all the applicants for their responses for the to the board's questions um before we decide whether or not we need a second round of

175questions I'd like to provide an opportunity for my fellow board members to identify what they're looking for and an applicant to fill the vacancy um and then we'll Poll for our top two uh candidates to fill the criteria so this will allow us to begin to narrow down the field as we move towards a decision if there appears to be a consensus around an applicant uh we may find we may entertain a motion to a point but if not um we'll ask that the applicants identified which um which may be a clear top two or maybe like a 3 32 split by any of the board members to participate in a second round of interviews um but uh as I was speaking with Dr Gallagher before the meeting the the effort here is to try

176to move it towards two to try if we can okay um so um would anyone like to begin discussion about what you're looking for in an applicant to fill the vacancy we could just start with Isabelle and move down and then we can have a conversation to I sure um so when you had asked that question earlier I was like good question I like so I was writing down some of the things this is before the interviews I was kind of thinking about so the four that I wrote down of what I'm looking for an applicant is someone who's open and willing to learn um someone who represents the trustee area someone who brings diversity to our board um and someone who strongly values equity in anti-racism work um so those were the four that

177I put what was number three again sorry someone who brings diversity to our board oh sorry okay so open and willing to learn represents the trustee area brings diversity to our board and then strongly values equity and anti-racism so those were kind of the four and um I mean Think It's tricky because mean some like all four of them have those things right like I think some have some of those better than others but like I think that's one of the things that I love is that any of the four of you would be great on our board right it would be a great thing it makes it harder for us to make the choice but I'm great F that we have such a great poll of candidates to p i I did make my

178little voting thing and yeah I was actually writing for myself that like the diversity diversity represents the community is willing to to learn pretty much which is you know between you know what already know or is a team slave with both of them in both ways they really to to commit and to learn um I'm I'm interested in somebody who can be a partner and um collaborator um somebody who can communicate well um and is thoughtful and um somebody who represents the community specifically um a title in school such as but not wait a minute wrong yeah and for me you know um I'm so excited about all the people who applied because I sort of felt like well you know if anybody and if you any of you were running for board like I'd

179be honored to serve with any and all of you right um so for me you know um I feel like there's there is a level of um service that I'm I'm interested in in the community so like um I think that there are a couple of candidates who even but all the answers were good right all of the conversation was good all the responses were like for me like in my evaluation were like oh this is great let's work together um but I think there were a couple of candidates who had like a depth of um service to the district already that really impressed me and so I think I think that that kind of like long-term commitment and service like within that within their Community um for me that that weighs in because because

180other people could be getting there they're just not they just haven't done that yet right so I am interested in people who have that kind of um you know and there what I really like about when I was looking at it um what I realized was a little was important to me was the candidates who have some experience across multiple schools so they all have some sort of experience across multiple schools but but I think just that kind of cross-pollination uh of ideas and experiences of like what happens as like for example as they age up through the system or if they're going school to school or like you know um so I think for me the the Cross School conversations or cross District conversations that's that's important for me um as a lens right

181so I think in a couple of the board members that might be a little bit stronger right now than um like on the as far as their um service so far right um I do want to say that I loved reading all the letters of recommendation because it was like the you know when I when I was teaching um second and third grade my very favorite part was writing report cards because you write like what you're writing like you get into the data but you're writing like you're looking at growth and you're like oh my gosh they've grown so much and you know you're you're communicating uh to the parents like all these like things that you're seeing develop and grow so I loved reading the um the reference letters because they just are they're

182just like a tribute to like all the all the development all the service that's happened so far um and so I think I think that's important to me is like those Community connections and crosscultural cross District perspective um anyone else want to add anything or talking broadly Broly or more specifically or um I just want to um recognize how difficult this process is and um really commend all of you for um for stepping up and and um as Bridget was chusty Watson was saying like reading um the applications is really kind of giving me a a whole picture sense of who this person is and then furthering that with these interviews um so thank you for applying just everybody and thank you for service to our community it means so much yeah and as you

183say it would be great if we have seven but yeah why can't we just have seven a little easier then nine yeah nine sounds good um yeah so um love kn what bigger table um you know also I really appreciated like in the conversation the community connections you know like the the discussion about like um connecting back to the students um I heard a lot of that so I'm I'm just really happy about the candidate pool in general [Music] um I did want to say I I'm wondering um how much like of my one question was I'm wondering how much flexibility we have with the um you know uh because I think the new board member I would really want them to be at the governance development meetings right and so um we have we

184have one candidate who mentioned they're just not available for that so I don't know if there's we're talking about a lot of other meetings with superintendent and um you know on like there's a lot going on in the spring anyway um we were talking about adding a couple extra meetings that is like my only uh wondering is if like that is flexible for a move for moving the the later governance team meeting not the one that's in I don't have a vote obviously it seems like we set that schedule based on the schedules of the people here and I think we need to be accommodating to whoever's Jo excellent I think we could be flexible and also the context of around that same time period might also be when we're doing interviews for superintendent and

185so if we want that two-day training to be with the new superintendent maybe we be pushing that back I don't right yeah and it's important that that meeting will be also to to share with the new board member well with the new two board members so we could we should be flexible and and adust I just want to be clear about that okay anything further before we write the names on the paper um something that I want to mention is just the um knowledge of the school district across the district not just the school at um where the kids attend you know and I think that's really important to be able to see the district in that wider with that wider lens and to have understanding of like the Strategic plan our promise our the

186LC cap what that means it's already been a very it's been a challenging like um onboarding just for me as a new board member and I feel like very intimately connected in education in general and so I feel like we want somebody that has some base knowledge that has been um parts of these conversations that has been Partnerships with the district already I feel like that would be um that would serve us well especially at now that we're moving into like the superintendent um hiring a new superintendent um there's just a lot and having two board members new board members um can be challenging but also having people some you know some of the candidates were more I think ready to go than others just in terms of um background knowledge that was my sense

187can I share yes please um so I'm going to like agree with you but then I'll Al push back on it too so I don't disagree with anything that you said like that all is true and would be helpful on their shoard members right so I don't like yes that is all true but I'm just going to push back that like there's pros and C lots of things so yes there are lots of Pros like what you just said to that but I also just and I hate that I'm like not looking at you but like It's Tricky when we're I just ha this right like like come I here and then I'm not by the mic so I'm not meaning to like it's just funny yeah um thought oh what I say is I

188think right so so when I came on right like I was I think Al bridet said earlier right someone who was connect lot stuff like I wasn't connected to a lot of stuff right I I guess like in the sense that I grew up here so I gone to other schools I had only been to Ellis my kids were only in Ellis I only had done things there right so I came into this position not aware of District I mean granted I have uh my spouse works in the government position so I think I dat had that piece right but I just I don't want to limit us while that is definitely a pro I also want to be mindful like I don't think we have to have that if it's like someone else is

189a good it's just kind of so yeah so um are we are we ready to write down our top two remember they're not in order we're just writing a couple names I I really I really am having a difficult time just for the [Music] record we have to put our names on this no we do actually we actually do it actually is a public record so that but then you're just going to tally and just say the top two are right M yes or if there's a 332 yeah uh I'll just make a random comment while do that instead of Jeremy doing the Jeopardy music I'm saying instead of your music I'm gonna make a com I thought he was GNA after my com for those who aren familiar when we have a pause for

190different things the joke is Jeremy will start the je U what I just was going to say is for those of you who aren't aware I did a similar thing right so there was an opening on the board someone had moved out of the district um and so uh Mike in between one of the two Mike had kind of said like oh is this bringing back memories or whatever um and so on the next break what I just shared was like it's a very different experience right so I think what I said was when I was in that position that you guys are in that was a much scarier experience but then as a board member it is a much more Awkward experience it hasn't gotone awkward yet but when we get into the actual

191discussing you um I remember sitting there and like I was done with all my talking so I wasn't I mean nervous anxious of if I was going to get picked or not but I was no longer like my job was done and I just had to watch the board having some really awkward conversations so anyway that was my thought that was the comment I made earlier was that's the scarier job this is the more awkward in this specific you know appointing somebody okay so um for we have a um we have a we have eight votes right so um we have we don't know who's was like a top or a second but we have um four votes for Evelyn foretta we have two votes for c s Santos and two votes for courton Jen

192so um that is that is a tricky that is a tricky place because um you know we don't because we don't have a one and two so the option is is you want to have every those remaining three answer the two questions and then discuss again do you want to discuss more or do you want to entertain a motion I I think four and two so you're leaning towards just going the route of a motion well you can make the motion and see if there's a second okay I make a motion to vote for Ely profeta as a new I'll second okay so then we can discuss disc about it okay yeah so now um we're gonna discuss who would' like to open who would like to open because again I like the four of

193them but I just had to choose do yeah M um I mean I was I was expecting us to get to two so I wasn't like ready to make a decision right now was a little like oh wait like I thought I thought we would hear from more people and hear more stuff um but right there clearly all four of us put her as one of our top two um so I would be okay just moving forward with that right my brain's just like wrapping up I was just expecting more more discussion but I think I would be I think at this point I'm not sure I think I'd be okay moving forward with that you're not sure or you sure no I'm not sure I'm not sure okay if I would be ready to

194just vote on that right now without I'd like to can can we have the round two questions or we is could we could absolutely invite them back for the round two questions um I don't know then just the motion just stick around through the conversation because I guess so if we decide that we just pull the motion we just withdraw the motion so if we decide want to do that she just I think maybe I don't want this helps makes it first but like my wondering is um I wonder if everyone and this is so awkward because you're all there I wonder if everyone establish that they're all wonderful they're all wonderful I wonder if everyone put Evelyn first if everyone put Evelyn second or if it was split right if everyone put Evelyn first

195that would be I don't I don't know if that makes helps or makes it worse so I can if you feel free I'm ready I'd like to say something when okay so I I definitely put Evelyn first for me because of her long-term service in the community and working cross districts um it was extremely difficult for me because um I had I actually like my my other candidate who I also really love and um but Evelyn um you know because she's so many years in the district and also like across multiple schools and she's someone who's like always extended herself from day one like you know she's she was volunteering at that school when it was a title one school before it was Fairwood Explorer she volunteered in a program where if I remember correctly

196the PTO covered things that the Fairwood Alliance didn't the Fairwood Alliance when it started was kind of like strong armed into doing things for the whole school and the PTO was very much all about being for the whole school and um you know part of me is a little biased because I I had one of her kids in my classroom but and she made me curtains for my thing but aside from that like when I really think about it just because she has that like depth and breath and we got you know um uh so I was not a band mom personally but um I have talked to like uh I'm a volleyball mom and I'm like I've gone to so many things and like the band moms were my people on the volleyball team

197like the mom band moms in the because the amount of time and energy that you put in to like to that and like just supporting the kids like what do you need what can we do what how can we support a teacher what can we do to like make it happen and I just think that like um from my memory of working with her like a while ago now um she was just a person who was like um extremely would go about things very quietly but would like bring people together you know and um I love it that she would represent a under represented group right like um in in that area like in the neighborhood and in um from Fairwood so I just I really I think she has a lot of lot to

198say and a lot to offer now granted I really believe that other people have a lot to say and a lot to offer as well um my concern was a little bit about the schedule honestly and um I think uh I think um with I think on boarding her I think we're going to have I think we'll have to support her in having her own voice and like feeling much more confident to speak in the room at the mic um but I feel like she can do it because she can run the PTA meetings at CMS Fairwood and anywhere and and manage the large groups of students and adults um I think she could do the job so I I really feel like not it's not just oh she's put in the time I feel

199like she's very representative of the community for a long time and it's not that other people are not um I also really appreciate uh Courtney's service on the Community Association um I loved uh you know I loved uh Cam's um you know passionate about serving students and like um English Learners I just I so want to hear more from that and jelle like running for this at you know as a community college student and like just your passion for like getting back I think is just phenomenal so like that's that's how I that's what I feel so I I would be comfortable voting for Evelyn but if you want to go to a second round if you feel like another round of questions we'll help you make a decision or if you really want to

200like advocate for someone else I am absolutely comfortable with that conversation so I've just said a lot sorry I would like to advocate foring um the questions made a big difference um in for me the way that I um I was imagining like each of you on here like in Partnership and um Courtney is very articulate she has a wide breath of knowledge um I really think this the title one school currently s the San Miguel um that is important to me as a representative Bishop I know e as representing Lakewood having students there that that is a big deal for me um and we do have Fairwood representation right having Tau their kids going going through and it is a very different um student experience and um I think if we're really Equity minded

201student centered um that's who I'd want to see and I also recognize that yes I also want diversity on the board and Courtney's a white woman right I mean that's not more diversity here but I do think that she's uniquely qualified at this point um so that's why I'd like to go to a second round of questions yeah okay but is isn't CMS a title one scho it essentially is it isn't technically but it's just as title one yeah or more okay um yeah I'm not oppos I'm just I'm just like the um Elementary experience is very right right I mean the population the opportunities okay uh I can see your point but I do I I remember a little bit although she didn't have kids on on the same slate as I had Evelyn

202that she was I think she was what we used to call the founder mothers like was kind of funny thing of of Fairwood Explorer and I remember her that a very hard person very hardworking person which I admire a lot and still having time for equity in the community and she was there talking about the the the non Explorer kids they were they were talk you know like somehow dismissive the neighborhood kids and she was an advocate for them and and I admire that since then and I felt even though we never were because her kids were older or younger we never were friends or share activities the few times I remember having a conversation maybe once or twice a short conversation and I remember the name I I felt that she was that Advocate

203and it wasn't like oh she's my friend and I remember her dearly no I I just remember the name because it's a unique name and I remember her role and her work her the things that she did and I I I I used to admire that a lot and and appreciate that and I do feel that and doesn't matter what we do courney is going to be here helping us and doing a lot of things and she's going to be an asset to the community even if she's not here at the board she's already doing tons of things for the neighborhood and she's going to keep knowing me so I think um well I appreciated what uh Peggy said right that space of right there's lots of ways you can like say diversity and representation

204right and so like that example of like someone from s m gal I was like oh that would be your reason right so I appreciate that reminder right that there will be a little bit higher on Fairwood representation um going this route but I do think after hearing everyone's comments I don't think a round two would change my opinion I think I'm I think I'm ready to vote for okay so um so I think that's three I think the majority of the board would like to vote so we're going to take a V okay um can mention something yeah how awkward would it be right now if I said no like I wasn't going to vote for Evelyn because I'm would be also very thrilled to be working with you and that's you know but

205I don't Welcome to our world I know I know this like one of your questions one of your questions ask you what is the question doesn't believe then you know yes yes and and I and I want to say that know your number two yes yeah um I want to say that um in the interest of knowing why I'm going to vote Yes for Evelyn as well so may I make the motion no I think the Motions all right yeah so we're ready to vote so um all those in favor of appointing as our new trustee um please say I I sure's I it's unanimous welcome to the [Applause] board so I I wanted to say um you know thank you to everyone for participating and um it is just I was like so great

206to um you know meet some of you and and um learn more from all of you and um I wish we could have a larger board right now um but I I can't wait to see what you're going to do next um so uh we're going to move on we're gonna um can I one add two I think just right so yeah I mean we all said it we think any of you could Ser that would have been super happy so I just hope the three of you who didn't get it right that like there could be opportunities to be on the board later there are opportunities to serve in other ways and so like I know like you didn't get it so it feels like you didn't win I mean I hate that term

207but like we value you and appreciate all three of you and like it's like like what Bridget said kind of the posit each of you like we could like make a person with different things the four of you brought that would be like literally the perfect board member like better than any of us so we just I think like just thank you so much and we really do value and appreciate what you've done and hopefully this will like get you even more engaged in our district and in the community you know generally too so thank you I'd like to mention that there is a s Education Foundation um position open for a Fairwood representative at this point and I would welcome new leadership coming in there and that's been a great way to serve the

208community and the school district yes so um yeah again you know I'd like to congratulate our new board member um and thank all the applicants for speaking with us tonight um we're going to administer the oath of office tonight on advice of our lawyer but again um we can do a ceremonial swearing in with like your friends and family if you want to like invite people we can do it at the 30-day Mark we could do it at another board meeting we can work out a time with you for a for a ceremonial out of the office but like just so that we can communicate with you and you're a fully appointed board member we're gonna um we're gonna swear you in tonight that's just like to get that done and then when you take

209ear your family here we'll definitely give you like a picture worthy board meeting moment uh in the future um and I I do also um I do also before we do that I do also want to say that like one of our other questions that we had for the future board members was what can we do to support you like what will you need from us to support you and I I really want you to know that like we're we're here for you and we're we're ready to to make you part of the team okay okay so um with that uh we are going to move on to the next agenda item which is our superintendent Dr Gallagher is going to administer the oath of office to our new trustee this is [Music] happening you're

210right from work okay so I'm going to read this and you just looked at this before okay so I Evelyn propeta I Evelyn propeta do solemly swear or affirm to solemly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States then I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California and the con right hand should be up right now against all enemies foreign and domestic against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California and the constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation

211freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and Faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter and that I will well and Faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter congratulations [Applause] congratulations congratulations to you should they all okay work together first stay up there lot pictures or should we wait like I we can do do now it's a moment and you know Evelyn one thing is sometimes your your face is GNA hurt from smiling so [Laughter] much one two [Music] thank let's get the family [Laughter] [Music] in right here or um courney thank you everybody ready one two three one more one two three one two three [Music] congratulations

212[Music] meeting all right okay so um we we are on to item four which is um future meetings our next meeting will be Thursday February 27th at 6: PM it'll be a regular board meeting uh here at the cville school district thank you uh meeting is a journ at 7:52 p.m. thanks good job thank you thank you Angel appreciate e