001Good morning and welcome to the Elkrove Unified School District board meeting. Uh, I'd like to call this meeting to order at 9:01 a.m. Live streaming of full in-person board meetings is available to the public by using the link located on the district's website. Today's meeting is being v video recorded and will be available on the district's YouTube channel. Some information about public comment. During special board meetings, the public may make public comment on items that are on the agenda. Individuals with comments on general school district issues may address those at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. For purposes of this special meeting, requests for public comment will be accepted regarding the superintendent search firm up until the the search firm candidate present. N Oh N Oh N Oh N Oh N Oh N Oh N
002Oh N Oh N Oh N Oh Nope. No no these are that is old instruction. Generally members of the public will be given three minutes to address the board. If there are 15 or more comments on a specific item, the board will reduce individual comment time to 2 minutes each. If there are 30 or more comments on a specific item, the board will reduce individual comments to one minute each. Individuals may not defer their time to another individual speaker to increase their total speaking time. Please be mindful that district students may be watching. You are encouraged to address the board and the public in a respectful manner such that all those observing from children to adults are made to feel welcome, safe, and valued. The board shall not permit any disturbance or willful interruption of
003board meetings. Persistent disruption by an individual or group shall be grounds for the board president to provide a warning and then to terminate the individual's privilege of addressing the board. All right. Next up, our land acknowledgement. Miss Albiani. We acknowledge that the Elkrove Unified School District administrative facilities and schools occupy the unsucceeded territory of the Miwok, the original people of the skies, land, and waters where we work and learn. The Miwok have cared for these lands since time immemorial. They continue to teach their traditional knowledge that comes from and responds to the needs of the land and the people who share it. May our daily lives and work, teaching, learning, leadership, and community engagement support the evolving vision of the Miwok for the community and these lands. May we strive to acknowledge the past for
004the betterment of our future generations. May we look to our tribal partners, the Wilton Rancheria, the descendants of the original people of this land to assist with the successful education of our community. Thank you very much. And Miss Ballerini, would you lead us in the pledge? All right, please stand. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. All right, Mr. Superintendent, would you give us an overview of the day? Uh, for sure. Thank you very much. Uh so um really important day and um appreciate I'll say thank you to the board um for committing to the the long term. We will uh we will take care of you
005today but it's going to be um it's going to be a long one but a lot of um important topics uh today. We'll start off with our uh our twice a year uh reducing exclusionary discipline uh presentation. Uh great work continues. Um still have uh plenty of work to do. uh but the team will uh share not only the data but also the the actual day-to-day work um that we're doing uh to to address the issue. So we we appreciate everybody's time on that. Uh the uh managing growth uh presentation could be a three-day long presentation. Um and we are uh our goal is to keep it within 90 minutes today. It's a um it will not be uh we will not get every everything covered today, but really a great opportunity for the new
006board as as you come together uh to really understand the tools that we have um at our disposal in addressing growth. Um unlike many districts in the state who are dealing with declining enrollment and which brings a whole bunch of challenges along with it. Um growth is not easy either and so there's a there's a lot of work that goes along with that. So a great opportunity to understand um the board's role in this process and we'll also highlight a few of the major projects that will be coming forward soon and you know over the next u 12 to 24 months there will be um a number of projects um and decisions brought to the board you know as we work uh work through this process. So u I know it's exciting and it's really
007interesting but a lot to do today. So the 90m minute window is our is our goal. Um consent agenda is uh pretty straightforward. Uh this is the other other opportunity. I'm really excited to have Mike Merchant from the Arbinger Institute join us for a board u development um session. Um really working on the idea of the outward mindset as we enter into the work we have ahead of us. And there will also be um at the end of that session an opportunity to discuss uh potential edits and updates to the governance handbook as uh one of the things we'll do is we'll actually put the new board's name on it since your your names will be on it since it this will actually be yours now um instead of working from the previous um handbook.
008So good opportunity there. And then we'll wrap up the day with uh not my favorite topic but topic we got to work work our way through and that's the uh the search for uh for the new superintendent. So we'll have the uh uh the search firm will be here uh to walk us through uh that process. So again I appreciate uh the commitment of the board to be here for the long haul today um and look forward to a productive day. Thanks. Thank you very much. Then let's start with our uh reducing exclusionary discipline. Thank Mr. Seruti. Vargas, members of the board, Superintendent Hoffman and my good friend, Ms. Avalos. Um, I just want to take a moment and set up um the presentation. There'll be a number of people that will be coming uh
009up here this morning, and I'll be turning it over in just a second to my colleague, Miss Ay. But as Superintendent Hoffman referenced in alignment with uh board policy 5144.31 which is entitled roles and responsibilities of school administrators and law enforcement. We do these presentations twice a year. This is the uh summitative uh report from last year and then we'll be back in late January, early February with a midyear report. Um just a couple of of uh of points to set the stage. First of all, and you'll see this um Miss Ay will cover this in just a second, so don't mean to steal her thunder. Um but it's important for as a board for you to realize, and I believe you do, um but also the community that discipline, uh we view discipline as
010an opportunity, as an educational opportunity. We don't view it as a punitive consequence to behavior. And it it may sound like semantics, but it's very very different. We're here to educate. And when students related to student behavior is at times as abhorrent as potentially that behavior is, our attempts to educate never stop and we view it as such. Um the removal of a student from a classroom and from a school is as serious as it can get. The most important thing for all of our kids, and we say it over and over again, is we want every one of our kids in our classrooms every single day. I used to tell um as I had been teaching for a while and was an administrator for a principal for about 19 years and after a few
011years and gaining a bit of experience at the beginning of each school year when I was meeting with the staff I would tell them and say and it I tell you when it I've only been to one high school high school reunion of my own. And it was a 10-year reunion and I was in education at the time. And so I'm hearing the conversations and frequently the conversations were we reverted right back to as if we were still in high school. But when the conversations were regarding teachers, they were more often negative than they were positive. It is do you remember dot dot dot? And that stuck with me because I would tell my staff and in particular teachers, but everyone on our campus, you never know what you're going to say on any given
012day or what you're going to do that is going to remain with a student for the rest of their lives. So that's a powerful thing to understand. It's incredible power and responsibility that you have. So, it's a really good idea to make sure that you leave a good mark with them instead of being the one that they're talking about at their 10-year reunion. So, I would share that with them. So, we take it very, very seriously in terms of removing kids from class. And the people who really take it seriously is our teachers. And I just want to sh give a shout out to our teachers who do incredible work every single day to work with our kids to provide engaging classroom opportunities and to deal with a lot of behavioral issues in those classrooms
013that they manage and control even when at times they're needing support. But there's tremendous work being done by our teachers in our classrooms to keep our kids in classrooms. Then there's the balance because it can be easy. Oh, you're reducing suspensions, but all hell's breaking loose. Excuse the hoop, but um is breaking loose in your schools. It's like, well, that's not the case. And that's evidenced by the feedback that we get by our staff and our students and our parents. And there is some variability in terms of of the safety on our campuses. But overall, our campuses are viewed as being very safe as our classrooms are. And the last thing that I would mention is that our administrators under the leadership of Jen and Chad uh and directors Richard and Martin are examples of
014those are school directors and ED service directors. Our folks are working extremely hard to calibrate practice to talk about consequence of how long if if a suspension is mandated how many days all those things that have been going on. And last but not least, and that is the work being done with restorative practices. Restorative I sometimes I talk about the the use of that term. It can mean it can sound like after something has taken place, but the model that we're using has considerable proactive components to it. But it's also the re-entry and what we're doing with kids that did have to be removed. and our folks will be talking about certain ED code violations that we don't have an option. But what do we do when the kids come back? And so I just
015wanted to set the stage of the seriousness of this topic, how important it is to have our kids in class every day, but also our responsibility to educate our kids behaviorally and also ensure that our classrooms and our schools are physically and emotionally safe for every single one of our kids. With that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague and friend, Miss Ay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Seruti. And good morning, everyone. So, our presentation format today is we're going to go over our guiding principles, which are really belief statements that we have as a district. We're going to talk about the connection of MTSS, multi-tered systems of support to reducing exclusionary discipline. We're going to go over data. Director Henshaw is going to come up and talk about some of the vocabulary
016so that we have the same perspective on it. And then Mr. Gutierrez and Mr. Fine will share some of the data and where we we are at some like what we call in elementary glows and grows. And then Mr. um Switzer will come up and end the presentation with some best practices that we're doing to support tier one, what everyone is doing across the district. So we have the big unveil. Oo. Ah. Um, can I hear it? Ah. Um, so the same strategic goals and the same learning vision but a new approach to looking at them. So we thought with the new year we'd have a new refresh of that. And even more wonderful is the fact that when we're talking about the topic that we're that we're discussing today, without that particular learning vision
017about what we believe about students and the four goals that we have, we wouldn't be able to reduce exclusionary discipline. We have to have highquality instruction and assessments. We have to have targeted supports to be able to fill some gaps. There has to be wellness around safety and emotional well-being. And we couldn't do it without our family and our community. So our guiding principles, if you'll just take a moment to read those over again, belief statements. Mr. Surudi already mentioned that the way we look at behavioral incidents is about being restorative versus punitive. It's the most important time in a student's life, elementary and secondary, where they can learn from their mistakes prior to becoming legal adults. We believe that eliminating disproportionality and the application of exclusionary discipline is a necessity. It's not something it'd
018be nice to have. It's a necessity. Uh the reductions in exclusionary discipline have a positive relationship with increased student connectedness to school and student achievement which is what our organization is about and ensuring that classroom behavior is conducive to learning. So we have to have the systems in place so that our amazing teachers continue doing the good work that they're doing. So with this portion of the presentation, one thing I want to point out is I'm not going to go into MTSS. That could be another hour or twohour presentation. There are going to be upcoming spotlight sessions that the team is going to do to further deepen the knowledge of the board to understand how this is integrated into really everything we do within the organization. But there's two particular functions of MTSS. you have
019MTSS as a framework and so if you look to the right we're all very familiar with that we have clearly defined so that we have a common language in Elkrove of how we're looking at academics social emotional learning and behavior and we've done that through the instructional framework castle which is a national approach to looking at social emotional learning and PBIS which has been around in our district for over 15 ers and within that framework, what we're looking at are policies, practices, and structures. So the policy at a school site might be their behavior policy. It might be an anti-bullying policy. So those are like the rules and the guidelines. The practices are actually what the staff is doing. Those are the methods, the strategies they're doing. And the structures are looking at the system
020within the school. That could be the roles and responsibilities of principles, vice principles, counselors, teachers, grade level leads, custodians, everybody who is there. And part of our ongoing work is to make sure our policies, practices, and structures are aligned. Then we also have within that framework MTSS as a process. And I think this is the part that most people are most familiar with and that's the process that we get receive and seek support for students. So if the system at a school site is clearly defined, the process for seeking support starts with classroom teachers doing the day-to-day work and then having the opportunity to do what we call is a request for assistance. Not to be confused with a request for assessment. And that's really what starts the process. And what I want to be
021able to share on here is when we do our spotlight, teams will come through and go through uh that process with you in detail. What we're more focused on right now with this presentation today is to talk about some of the work and I'm going to mention that and then Mr. Schwitzer will end with it that we're doing districtwide to support tier 1, which is what all students in the organization receive. So, some tier one examples that we're quite proud of and then we're continuing to work on is we've established a district goal which is part of our LCAP for participation in student assessments. It's 95% for reasons of student attendance. Some students aren't qualified to take the assessment. We are ma meeting that particular goal. We have defined and trained three modules of the
022instructional framework which equates to almost 8 hours of training. 87% of staff has been completed. That's a a moving target because we have people retiring and new people coming into the system. We have defined castle how we're design defining social emotional learning through a focus at three years of pre-ervice time period. PBIS again has been around for many many years. We had 66 uh schools recognized last year. We will have all schools recognized for their achievement. This year the ed equity team has done an amazing job with restorative practices. Um, all schools have been trained with a variety of other staff within the district from campus supervisors to district personnel on tier 1 restorative practices. And then we also have done a hour training on deescalation that has been done for all certificated staff uh
023at all of our sites which is just a basic approach to how to deescalate a situation with a student. So examples that we're proud of, you can note at the bottom there that we have MTSS meetings at all school sites and we also have developed a universal student study team process which is a a way to look more deeply with a family uh on a student need. So that's our connection to uh MTSS for our presentation today. And then I'd like to invite up uh Director Henshaw who's going to go over some definitions with you. Thanks, Jen. Good morning. Over the next few slides, you're going to be presented with suspension data that's communicated a variety of ways. So, I wanted to take a few moments to talk through each and why we share them
024these different ways. The first set of slides will present you with the number of students who have been suspended one or more times, along with the percentage of all enrolled students who have been suspended one or more times. These metrics are aligned to how suspension rates are reported via the California school dashboard for accountability each fall. So as such, we consider this lens to be the primary approach for examining exclusionary discipline. While the number of suspended students will give you a good concrete sense of the uh size and scope of students impacted by exclusionary discipline, we place the greater emphasis on the percentage of students who are suspended one or more times as it accounts for differences in population size, allowing for a more meaningful comparison than the raw numbers of students who are suspended
025at least once. However, in the interest of full transparency, we supplement metrics related to suspended students with information about the number of suspension incidents and suspension incident rates per 100 students. We add this as an additional information because the percentage of suspended students while approachable and informative can mask the total volume of exclusion that can happen when individual students are suspended more than once. Consider two students. The first student is suspended only once while the second student is suspended five times during the year. In this example, when we look at the percentage of suspended students, they're both counted once. In the suspension incident rate, they're counted differently. The second student is counted five more times than the first student. So, this supplementary approach adds an additional dimension to help inform a comp a comprehensive picture
026of the total state of exclusionary discipline in the district. And now I'll pass it over to Martin Fine and Richard Gutierrez. Thank you. Good morning and thank you for this opportunity to u share our end of the year discipline data with all of you for this past school year. We're pleased to report that the overall number of students suspended last year continues to uh decline. And a as Jeremy just gave you great um um definitions of what we're going to do. Uh first we're going to look at the number of suspended students and this is the number of students who receive one or more suspension for an ed code violation. And then we will look at the numbers of suspensions themselves where we count every suspension incident that occurs. So one is a student count
027as he said the other is an incident count. So to provide some structure uh our first table shows the end of the year number and percentage of students suspended. There's two years of data and for each year there are three data points enrollment number of suspended students and percentage of suspended students. Down the left side, uh you see that we have listed the district and the three segments of schooling, elementary, middle school, and high school. And our three target subgroups within each one are African-American students, foster youth, and students with disabilities. So, please note that for this slide, students are counted one time in the overall total, even if they have been suspended more than once. But some students may fit into one or more subcategory. So an example would be we could have a
028student with a disability that was also in foster youth. That student would show in both of those totals. So starting with the district uh in 2324 our overall enrollment was 66,442 students of which 2692 were suspended equaling 4.1%. Going right across the top in 2425 our enrollment was 67,079 students of which 2497 were suspended equaling 3.7%. So the total of suspended students decreased by 195 to 3.7%. For our African-American subgroup, 779 students or 11.1% were suspended in 2324 compared to 72 or 10% last year, a reduction of 72 students. Foster youth and students with disabilities showed reductions, foster youth by 4/10en of a percent and students with disability reducing by eight students to 6.8%. In elementary, uh, we with the growth of almost 700 students throughout the school year, we reduced the number of suspended
029students by 26, equaling 1.1% of our enrollment. Our three subgroups also showed reductions. African-American uh, subgroup reducing 24 students from 4% down to 3%. Foster youth going from 7.3% down to 5.2% equaling three students. And finally, our students with disabilities group showing a reduction of 10 students down to 2.2%. Uh, Richard's going to continue to present secondary data. Thank you, Mr. Fine. Good morning, everybody. Um, first I want to also uh make a statement that the reason why we only look at two years uh we could definitely look we do track uh over time in regards to the our discipline numbers and data. But for the purpose of this presentation, we only focus on two years because yes, we can make it fit on uh the presentation and just compare year to year. But we
030do look at uh the trend in regards to the last 10 years that that we keep track. I'm proud to say that we have seen um a substantial reduction in regards to over time and uh with other reasons that Mr. A and Mrs. talked about everything that we do to make sure that our students are supported in the classroom. Um, so continue with the same data that Mr. Fine was going over for district and elementary, we also see for our middle schools, we had an increase of 219 students um for 2425 in comparison at 23 24. So that we also see kind of that trend of increasing with our middle schools. Um that bringing us to a reduction of suspensions as well minus 1.1% that is equals to minus 88 students. uh the suspended students
031uh overall for middle school. Um for our African-American students, we did had an increase of 24 students of enrollment. Um that uh brought us to um in comp to compare the number the percentage of suspended students between 23 and 24 a minus 4.7% that equaling to a minus 46 less students suspended. Uh for our foster youth, uh we see that there was an increase of enrollment as well, plus 11 students more for foster youth. Um that data in in regards to the number of suspended students maintained the same 17 in comparison to 17 from 2324. But nonetheless, we did see a reduction of the percentage of suspended students that is a minus 9.2%. with our students with disability we had in 100 about 106 108 students more student with disabilities uh from 23 24 um
032that um in comparison to that year we did saw also a reduction of the suspension and the percent of suspension students by minus 1.7% that's an equivalent of four students in comparison now to the high school we did see a not an increase of enrollment but a decrease of enrollment moment uh at the high school level. Uh from 2324 to 2425, there were minus 43 students less. Um if you compare the number of suspended students between one year and the other, there were uh a reduction of minus 51 students, that given us a minus.3%. Um if we look our African-American students um we did see also a minus 6 students uh of enrollment reduction that in comparation to the number of suspended students we did had an increase plus 11 students that given us a
033plus.5% of of increase of number percent of students suspended for our foster youth. Uh we did had also a plus um uh decrease of enrollment a minus three but we had plus one um uh number of suspended students that given us a plus 2.9% increase but that's just one student but again we had a reduction of enrollment and then that kind of bring us the plus uh uh percentage with our student with disabilities at the high school we did had a plus 29 students um increase of of of enrollment. Uh but we see also kind of incorporation of 23 24. We had a plus 8 uh uh number of students suspended that given us a 2% increase between 23 24 to 2425. the next page. Uh basically what it is is just a visual representation
034in regards to kind of like the data that we just um uh witness and saw went over. Um if you see the here we have a three-year uh comparation uh 22 23 23 2425 you see that you may notice that there was an increase between 2223 and almost all um of our student groups foster went up by.7% from 23 uh 2223 to 23 24 uh with our African-American as a.5 increase with our student with disabilities was a 02 2 increase and with um districtwide was a.3 increase. But then if we go from 23 24 to 24 25 we see a decrease of an percentage of suspended students a minus 4% a point4% with foster minus 1.1% with African-American students a minus.4% with our student with disabilities and a minus.4% districtwide. Now this next I notice
035it looks very busy right you see we have all of our ethnicity groups here um that we can see here what we're going to do here for the suspended students ethnicity for the purpose of this site I'm going to share three groups where a percentage either increase or decrease in the last three years starting from the top and moving down um very top we can see our African-American students uh it's a 0.5 increase from 22 23 3 to 232 24 and a 1.1% decrease from 2324 to 2425. Um and then we see moving down to our Hispanic students uh where we can see an increase from 2223 to 2324 of a.3% but a decrease of a.5 between 23 24 to 2425. One more example is a district percentage of suspended students. We can see that
036a in 22 23 there were 3.8% of suspended students. we had an increase of.3% in 23-24 and a decrease of 4% in 2425 and then we can see that uh other groups uh and for 2425 um are making American Indian it was an increase of.3 and then identify as a two and more it was an increase of a.1%. Um, Pacific Islander students was an increase of 2%. White students, it was a decrease of a point4%. And our Asian students, it was an increase of a one point of a.1%. This is a percentage of suspended students by student groups. Um as you can see also kind of like the same trend as the previous one from 23 22 23 to 24 23 24 it was an increase slight increase and then we also had we can
037note that from 2324 to 2425 there was a decrease um in regards to all of our student groups uh in exception with our EL students that have a.1% increase in all uh in in the last three years from 22 23 to 24 Five. This next table uh shows the end ofear number of and rate of suspension incidents. As Jeremy mentioned, this is different from the number of actual students. This illustrates the number of incidents and rates that the students from the first table were suspended for. meaning some students have been suspended multiple times for different incidents. So overall as a district we saw a reduction of 266 total suspension incidents from 2324 to the end of last year uh and a a change in our incident rate from 6.6 down to 6.1. In our African-American
038subgroup, we saw a rate change from 19.7 down to 18 or 123 suspensions. Foster youth saw a small increase in the rate from 33.2 to 37.1 or 11 suspension incidents. And finally, our students with disabilities subgroup saw a decrease in their incident rate from 13.9 down to 13.7. In elementary, we saw a reduction of 40 suspensions, which is a rate change of 1.7 to 1.6. Suspensions for our African-American students decreased by 59 from a rate of 60, excuse me, 6.7 down to 4.9. Our foster youth subgroup went from a suspension rate of 8.1 down to 7.8. And our students with disabilities went from a rate of 5.1 down to 3.9, a reduction of 47 suspensions for our middle school. Um, happy to say that we also sought uh 193 less suspension incidents uh in 2425
039in comparison of 2324. That given us a minus 2.3 uh of the rate uh for our African-American students. It was also a minus 83 number of incidents um in regards to the rate. Uh and then we bringing us to a minus 8.6 of the rate for our foster youth. Uh we do have again a reduction of minus 12 uh number of incidents that given us a rate of a minus 2.4. And uh finally with our student with stability for the middle schools uh again we we had an increase of enrollment there but we also had a plus 14 number of um suspension incidents but that still brought us the rate down to a minus 2.4%. at our high schools. Uh we also saw a reduction u um again in enrollment but of the number of
040suspender incidents it was a plus five uh but that maintain the same in regression to the rate at the same 0.9 for 23 24 25 our African-American students there was a plus 40 uh number of incidents um given us an increase of a plus 1.9% in regards to the rate where our foster youth uh there was a minus2 uh number of incidents, suspension incidents uh and also bringing us a minus1 um percent there. And then with the student with disabilities, we had a plus 86 suspension incidents and and that brought us to a plus 3.1% of the rate for our um high school student with disabilities. Uh the next slide is again a visual representation of the rate. Uh this is the suspension incidents. You can see that uh for our far youth uh we
041had a slight decrease uh from 22 23 but 24 23 24 to 24 25 we had an increase. Um uh again this is up to point now something to point out is that far only talking about 40 students um in 2425 and then 41 students in 23 24 with our African-American you can see a decline uh from u of rate um from 22 23 to 24 25 and then with student disabilities also uh a a minus two uh minus point 2% between 23 24 And overall at the district office uh district um not office but the district is a minus.5 uh from 2324 to 2425. So now to share with you some of the responses to behavior incidents um that occur. 8% uh received a suspension last year. 91% received an alternative to suspension. Of
042that 91%, 52% received some type of teacher managed classroom response. 20% received uh an administrator student conference, definitely parent uh contact. 11% received a detention. Uh that's a big decrease from 26% and 2324 largely due to SB291 the the recess bill allowing make sure that kids have recess and then 7% received a mediated response such as uh some type of restorative conversation conflict mediation or a contract. Some additional examples of responses as to how behavior incidents are responded to. Um on the left side we have um what we would call minors and the teacher managed behaviors and on the right u where things would escalate perhaps a little more and become a major our admin teams would uh address in another means of correction. Our teachers rely heavily on their relationships and connections with their
043students and families creating a sense of belonging in the classroom and at school. So they can handle so many situations with just a conference because of those relationships. So, you know, hats off to the teachers as as Mark was saying earlier. Um they're really doing a great job um working with their kids and keeping them engaged and wanting to be at school. Um so, some of the other things to to look at, teacher manage, they may have that student conference. Um they can utilize a timeout in a buddy room, a parent conference, different types of referrals as as um Jennifer said earlier to MCS MTSS team or to a counselor. Um admin on the right side using other means of correction would also have a student conference with definitely followed by a parent phone call.
044They're restorative conversations, conflict mediation, uh and definitely supporting that MTSS process as well. Our next slide um shows our responses to different types of violations and it's a mix of minors and majors, but it gives you a great visual. It's also a test of your eyeglasses to see if they are properly diagnosed. Um but it gives you a great visual. On the right side, uh are the violations by category. On the left side are the ways we respond to those violations. And so looking at the very top the the bar um on the top for defiance, disrespect, non-compliance, there was a little over 13,000 violations in that category. And on the left side, you can see that the teal color uh I believe it's 62% um were handled by teachers. They managed that behavior in
045their classroom. Some of those students escalated up to the admin team, 36% of them, but they were provided an alternative means of correction, not a suspension. Uh but leaving about 1% or so that were met with a suspension. So about um 130 students. Just beneath that on the right side is disruption. Just another example, 8663 violations and 64% were handled by the teacher in the classroom, 34% uh by admin using other means of correction and then about one one and a half% um were met with a suspension. So to let your eyes drift to the exclusionary discipline, the orange, if you come about a quarter of the way down from the top and you see fighting, you'll see that 75% of those violations were met with a suspension becomes much more serious. Sometimes you know
046there's ED code violations there, fighting um and they are students are suspended. 25% were still dealt with uh other means of correction depending. But you'll notice that the the teacher managed they're doing the right thing by referring those to admin. If you go down even further about twothirds of the way down, you'll see um use possession of drugs. 88% of those violations were met with a suspension. A couple down from there, use possession of weapons, use possession of alcohol, both in the mid to high 80s, uh, met with a a suspension. So, next we have Chad to share our district and school level trainings. Thank you. Uh, so we'll talk a few more slides here about what supports and trainings that are being offered to our sites. So, here you can see a long list
047of the trainings that are still ongoing. um continuing to calibrate our practices. We spend a lot of time with administrators reviewing incidents and what those responses are according to our discipline guidelines. Um all of our schools have been trained on the first two modules or workshops of the restorative practices. Um continuing the work on our instructional framework. This year's focus is on universal access with training continuing on mindfulness and social emotional learning. Um all of our schools have been trained in deescalation techniques. Uh most recently, I believe board member uh Davis joined us on our campus supervisors last week. We had all of our campus supervisors in here getting deescalation techniques. And then lastly, with crisis prevention and intervention, while predominantly um with our special ed staff, that is being opened up and more and
048more general ed teachers and staff are taking advantage of that training to work with students. And then continuing with our current practices, um so we definitely want to use our discipline guidelines with fidelity. We want to make sure that um incidents are being responded to very similarly across our sites and working with staff on a regular basis um to make sure that um they're using the guidelines when it comes to specific incidences. So we don't want one site suspending somebody for 5 days and another one only doing one as an example. We want to make sure we have uh fidelity with that implementation across the across the district. Um definitely always working with our staff on providing interventions and alternatives to suspension, many of which Martin and Richard just spoke about. Um we monitor data
049on a weekly basis. Now that information is sent out to principles every week so that we can see and track how stu how um staff are doing u with discipline data. Um always wanting to improve instruction and implementation of our social emotional learning. Um students who are engaged in campus typically aren't getting into trouble. So we're able to track that student engagement um especially at the secondary level. And then um definitely wanting to continue our opportunities for student voice. So we have a wide a wide variety of examples there with student equity council, black student unions. Um superintendent has student advisory meeting and then our own student board member is very active um with providing student voice as well. And then lastly, we want to have positive relationships with our our family so that they
050can understand what we're doing at our school, what our culture and expectations are. And this is our last slide. And as always, um all of our school data will be presented to the board uh in a board communication, and you'll have that information. And with that, we welcome uh any comments and questions. Thank you very much. Uh Miss Alani, are there any blue cards on this item? There are no blue cards on this item. Thank you. Then we'll start with board member questions and comments. U Miss Bowling. Sure. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. It's very helpful. Um this is an area that's always I think sensitive to all of us. Um because we want to be really mindful. Um I think it's really valuable um that we have this presentation and that the
051public understand that um the things that you highlighted particularly that piece around the MTSS process around focusing on requesting assistance and not just the assessment going straight to what's wrong with the child. Um and I think uh it takes a village right and this is the village this is the um the foundation that supports the village and I think it's so valuable. I do have some questions. Um, Miss Ay, you did mention um that this process is helpful to identify the glows and the grows. Um, is it possible that you guys can give us a few examples of where we need to grow and what are our glows that we're we're proud of? So what I'll go back to to start off about process that would support the data that we look at is really
052going back to policies and practices. It's really ensuring that at all of our elementary sites, including secondary sites, that what we put out for expectations that our methods, our strategies on how we're supporting that is actually taking place. So I see that as a a grow area. The glows that we have for elementary, I think the data speaks for itself. The team has been working really hard to come up with alternative uh reasons for uh discipline, but also using restorative and building relationships. Uh the work that the ed equity team has done, again Mr. already referred to it. It's called restorative practices, but actually it's foundational building when you're using it as community circles to build connections, relationships, understanding of where people are coming from. So, I would say that that is really our largest
053grow. We're we're proud of that. We're proud of the data. Um, I would also note that I don't know if we'll ever be where we don't have any suspensions. I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation is you know when children are young that is their opportunity to make mistakes and our job in the school system and parents do the same thing at home is to help them learn from their mistakes and I think that's a job we're doing better as a district is really understanding how we can uh look at not punishing kids but helping them understand the mistake and learn from it. I think a great example is the explanation the difference between um suspension percentage and then the suspension rate. So as our suspension rate continues to decrease uh half a half
054a um half an incident rate this year if you will for the district um to me that shows that our interventions are getting better and better and working for students so that they're not getting suspended again. If our incident rate continues to rise, that means a student is being suspended more than once so that they're not responding to that intervention. So once a student's suspended, what restorative practices, how are we bringing them back into the classroom? How are we bringing back into school? All of those interventions are getting better better with being implemented and providing benefits to students so that they don't repeat and get suspended again. Thank you. Uh let's see. Can we go back? I think you probably mentioned this. Um, how long has the district been implementing castle and restorative practices? Um,
055I'm going to throw out some dates and they may not be exact. Uh, PBIS, I believe this is year 16 or 17. Mr. Serudi is kind of at the root of it. Castle we came into kind of pandemic 2019 2020 and then the instructional framework has in theory was developed around 2016 and really brought into the current state it is in the last three years. One more time, instructional framework when the theory of it kind of started in 2016, but actually the delivery and development of what we've presented to teachers is in the last three years. Okay. And I'll just I'll just add one and thank you, Jen. She was she was spot on. One way to look at this is we didn't have and I don't know too many districts that would have the
056capacity if you were building this model to deal with whether you look at it as a triangle or sometimes the three legs of the of the stool of MTSS. um PBIS was the original and part of our reason for doing that is because the PBIS model has been established and around for decades and also we had an opportunity to partner with Placer County and it was um it was very coste effective for us to do that. So over a three-year period we rotated a third of the district was in here bringing full teams. That was the first leg of the stool that we were um that we were developing. The second was our instructional framework. Um, and then the third. So, if you look at it, sometimes I describe it and say I view our,
057it's not perfect and we don't claim that it's perfect, but PBIS, if we look at it in terms of are you starting as a kindergartener, are you a 12th grader, we're probably about a a 9th to 10th grader with with uh PBIS, I'd say probably a solid 10th grader. Um, and with room to grow. um our instructional framework, we're probably at fourth to fifth and heading towards sixth grade as we're really moving it into classrooms across the district. And with our SEAL, we're probably about a third to third to fourth grader with the purchase to curriculum, but we're really focusing on accessing and utilizing that curriculum. Awesome. Thanks. I think that's really great context particularly because you know change like this doesn't happen overnight and it takes time and I'm um PBIS like 15 years
058that sounds about right when I remember it coming out and everybody thinking yeah right this is not going to work um and being really resistant and I think this clearly this is um our district has done a great job of implementing it and sticking to it um and giving it time for our students to catch on families to catch on and us to have shared values around um really the great characteristics that make our schools safe and awesome. So, thank you so much for that. Um I do have a question. Um I think I'm still grappling with um the caveat that was provided to us about the data that there's um it, if I understand correctly, maybe it's a bit not skewed, but it's accounting for rate. So could be multiple suspensions by the same
059student. Um so are we do we have a potential chronic suspension issue with like the same group of students? And if we do, what are the top like what are some pretty I imagine this would be the top of the tier of the interventions that need to take place to support those students to decrease um the continued suspensions. Yeah. So those are the those are the interventions. So when students get suspended you know then we start looking for the first time which is the percentage then we look at what type of interventions are being provided. Um you know is there counseling opportunities? Is there um something going on with the teacher in the class that they got suspended from the class. Um it's kind of I can I can kind of picture our Lozano friends
060going it depends on what the incident was right or or what if. So um a wide variety of interventions can go can go in there. It could be something as counseling. It could be a referral to um an agency outside of school if there's wellness providers going on. Um could be an interactive meeting with the teacher um in the classroom to bring some sort of you know a circle back together so that they can be reintegrated into the classroom. Um so just a wide variety. But then there's also referrals for um assistance through the MTSS. You might progress from um tier one to tier two and get more intensive types of interventions if there's if that need arises. if you're not responding to those lower levels. Yeah. Um and then from slide 11, it appears
061that um we have increases in suspensions in our high school. Um what what's our um like reflection around how are we going to support the high schools with the assistance needed to address those increases that have happened in 2425? Yeah. One of the one of the Sorry, did I cut you off? One of the best um things that we're doing is reviewing data on a weekly basis. So when those reports come out um to our administrators, our directors are supporting the admin teams in reviewing their data um so that they can have those conversations with their staff. Um oftentimes that leads to conferences, meetings with your campus supervisors. Are we noticing things happening on campus? Is there a hot spot? For example, we're noticing an area um behind one of the buildings. Okay, do we
062need to get some supervision out there if that's where things are taking place? but being able to monitor that on a weekly basis and then bring teams of administrators together um to review incidents that are actually happening and having uh staff come in and share those incidents that we're seeing suspensions coming on and how are we calibrating and working with them to be able to do that. Okay. Can I add um along with that with what chat said um to our schools practice gradual uh you know discipline right in regards to the you know the of the behavior of the student and and then we equip them with uh services right support counseling at our schools they do the MTSS right and then for the behavior as well so we have the universal that we
063provide to our schools you know to our students and then tier two so they meet uh their groups meet depends on what level they are so universally they meet once a month uh team kind of look at those behaviors and then we have uh another team the same team but meet by weekly to meet those students who are in tier two to kind of uh equip them with more support with more services u so that's one of the things that we kind of practice in regards to kind of calibrating with the data when we have our vice meetings as well we calibrate with them we have we we bring scenarios we have them kind of work together with the scenario and make sure that they are calibrated in regards to what would you do in
064this case because we want to make sure that it's equitable around across the you know all of our schools in regards to the behavior they're going to get based on on the incident. Thank you. And just one last question on slide 13. What are we doing to address the disparity of our African-American students? um they seem to be at the top um here on this chart for suspensions. And then taking a look at American Indian, there was a dra drastic decrease. Is there any lessons learned from that decrease that we could apply across other subgroups that are experiencing um higher rates of suspension? Um I think the um not knowing what the N number is on American Indian that is a typically a smaller a smaller group. So if you have a smaller group and
065then one or two less suspensions could be a drastic increase. Um we can definitely research that and provide that information just on what their enrollment numbers are. Um I think specifically with African-American um students um when they are being suspended there's calibration amongst their team. um conversations on campus, is this a suspendable offense, conversations with the director, um having conversations about are there are there alternatives that we can do? um instead of suspension in lie of suspension. And um as I kind of think through um this slide right here, I really like this slide because it does show um you know all of the other means of corrections, teacher managed alternatives to suspension and you can really kind of see um short of fights, possession of drugs, possession of weapons, um we are doing everything
066we can to not suspend students um in lie of those kind of big four, big five when they when those incidents do happen. um typically they do result in a suspension. I was going to add to that as well. Part of the focus that uh CPL and actually the whole ed services team did this year with universal design for learning. It really is looking at uh being culturally responsive how lessons are designed. So it is also bringing back we recognize there's a gap and recognize that we need to continue to dig into uh the day-to-day work that we do with our students not just in instruction but how classrooms and schools are set up. So I think that is one of the pieces uh that we're looking at. I also would add that uh we
067predict to see reductions with restorative practices work that are going on because the emphasis is on relationships and understanding families and students. And um I would also add that the work that was done that you can have more comprehensive training the deescalation training it has this really simple approach of Q-Tip which is quit taking it personally. So it's really about the adults. It's not about the students, about how adults are interacting with kids. But we recognize that and I believe those strategies of what we're looking at right now are some ways that we will mitigate that. I need to use that my kids. My own kids. I need to do that with my own kids. All right. Thank you so much for your questions or for my answers. Thank you, Miss Moore. Uh, good morning.
068and thank you for the presentation. Um I appreciate that in the beginning of the presentation you recognize that we need um adequate supports for our teachers because it um you know with this as we're doing implementing these process processes um we it seems that there's definitely an added burden to our teachers. um you know as you mentioned on page 19 if if a lot of these um like a lot of those interventions were teacher managed and that is putting a heavy responsibility on them when their primary focus is instruction and managing their classroom. So if we're going to put that kind of burden on them I just want to ensure that we are adequately supporting them. Um and um on slide five um it says that we uh the last bullet point says ensuring classroom
069behavior is conducive to learning and maintaining school safety um is a foundational exception. And I just want to point out that that is really important um that we maintain school safety and in our efforts to um reduce exclusionary discipline. Um, we need to make sure that we, you know, you talk about how we're moving away from punitive punishments, but we need to ensure that we are not in our efforts to do that, we're not punishing all students. And I say that because some feedback that I hear from staff, students and um community members is that sometimes there are disruption in classes um when you know teachers are trying to manage um behaviors um student safety as I mentioned previously. um if we are not properly addressing issues um at that need to be addressed then
070later that can cause um student safety issues. Um and then another issue is that restrooms are being closed for all students um instead of addressing the behaviors that are causing the restrooms to be closed. Um and so for a minute I wanted to go back to again page 19 where it addresses the individual behaviors. Um, I noticed that for vandalism and damage, uh, property damage, we had, um, 1,137 incidents, I believe. Um, can you tell us where most of those incidents happened? Like where, like, is there a specific location on campus? Do we have more data on that? Yeah, that's um, we don't have that readily available. That's data that we can um identify where it took place um as long as that's being logged in synergy when the incidents are happening. It could be
071on the bathroom. It could be damage in an office. Something along those lines. But we can look that up and and find out specifically where if it's listed for us. Okay. Because from what I hear is that when we are often shutting restrooms is that and the two primary reasons are that it is because of vandalism or vaping. um sometimes um other misbehaviors, but and then um you know, instead of addressing those issues, we're shutting the restrooms, which punishes all of our students. And I don't I don't think that's acceptable. So, I really would like to get to the bottom of um how we're dealing with those issues. It seems like it's a I mean that's quite a few incidents of um you know vandalism, property damage and I've I've heard you know what what
072some of the things happening in the in the bathrooms are and so if we're not addressing those issues um that that's a concern to me. And then um I mean we also had students come from Sheldon High School talking about their concerns um with vaping in in the restrooms and how they would you know they didn't even want to use the restrooms because it was so bad. Um so when we have our own students coming to board meetings saying that's an issue. We that's something we really need to look into. Um again we need to make sure all of our students are safe. they all need to have a restroom to use where they feel safe and like it's available and accessible to them. So, um I would like us to continue to look into
073that issue and how we're dealing with those particular incidents. Um yes, more we can uh the report was just run for me. So, a majority of those incidents about just under 500 491 occurred in the classroom while there were 82 listed in the um bathroom restrooms. Okay. And then down from there, playground, library, common areas, etc. So, majority of those are happening in the classroom. Um, was it about a thousand or so total? So, just about half of them, um, happened in the classroom and then 82 bathroom. Okay. And then um just to close out kind of that concern or topic, I would just like to say again that going along with supports for our teachers and our staff, we should um it is a priority that we have adequate campus supervisors because again, if
074we're going to have alternate means of um of of the way of means of correction, then we need to we need to make sure we have those supports not just for our teachers but also around campus. Um so that maybe you were saying that maybe um you might look into how like the location on campus that certain things are happening if we don't have adequate support around campus um then I think you know that's a concern. So I really hope that we can address that. Um and then my last question on page 18 please. Um we you talk about the various responses that are used and I would just like to know do we communicate with families um as these responses are implemented? Yeah. Depending on which one teacher managed for example teacher would contact
075the the parents let them know that those interventions are taking place in class. Um oftentimes ask for suggestions anything you might do at home for example um that I might be able to try in the classroom. And then when it comes into other means of correction that get into administrator um or referrals, we definitely share with with parents, you know, the steps that have taken prior to leading up to a suspension, for example. Okay. I just think that's important that we um do that as much as possible to give families opportunity to be um part of the solution and also to be aware so they can support as needed. Um so I just wanted to know that. So thank you for the presentation. And that's all my questions. Thank you, Miss Ballerini. First off, I
076want to thank you guys for being so good about explaining all of this because I went through it at home, but it just doesn't hit nearly as well until you guys talk us through it. I really appreciate that. Um, and I do have a couple of qu quick questions. Um, and I'm not sure, it's definitely before page 19, but where would they talk about a student contract as an option for how to deal with it? What What does that mean, student contract? At the elementary level, um, it could be a simple behavior contract where the teacher and the student spell out specifics of, you know, what's okay, what's not. Okay. Uh it could be between two students where you have a no contact contract they call it where you sit down with both students and
077say you know Martin if you're on the the field then Jennifer you need to be on the playground you know when you keeping kids um apart depending on the nature of it that's at the elementary level very similar sorry very similar of the high school um however with the high school we we do focus to do restorative practices our our main main focus is to make sure that our students mediate their conflict. There's times that we recognize that that that they're not ready at that moment for them to resolve their conflict that they have. So we do a no contact contract where they uh we write some you know some key points in regards to you know avoid each other um make sure don't look at each other make sure that they um don't use
078the same restroom in the same lunch you know just some parameters in regards to for them just to make sure that they respect each other until they're ready to come back to resorted practice and make sure that they resolve the issue that they have at hand. Those are all good things in dealing with people in general. Actually, thank you for that. All right. Um, on page 19, I noticed use possession alcohol 9% no action. What does that mean? No action was taken. So, it um, and Jeremy might be able to answer this better. Sometimes it it's a there's an error on the entry of the violation within Synergy and um there's reports that go out as Chad was saying weekly to admin to let them know their um um validation error list. So they go
079in and fix those. And I'm assuming that's what that is. Oh, Jeremy's there. Hi there. Um so if you look at the end on this there are 50 use of possession of alcohol incidents where that was the category of the violation. So that 9% represents two incidents. Um another factor that's that's at play here is just sometimes people make mistakes when they're doing the data entry. Um they enter the violation codes themselves independently of the category. And so you can get incidents where they might put like out of bounds as the um like minor out-of-bounds as the like specific violation and accidentally misclick something else as the category. So I have a feeling that might be something that could be occurring here. But this is the data as as it is in the system. Perfect.
080It was it stuck out to me. So I was like that's really weird. We did nothing and they had alcohol on campus. Uh oh. All right. Um, and and this is, I guess, kind of a theoretical question. We do have a uh quite a few of our schools that are overcrowded at this point, hence the reason we're building more schools. Um, and I know we don't keep data specifically and share it with us on the schools individually. Do are we finding that schools that have overcrowding are having more incidents because the like there's no way to separate the two people that are having problems or that kind of thing. Have we have we seen any of that coming coming on the more students we get? Obviously we've grown in students too. Is is that a
081problem? and and that seems more of an elementary piece. And um I would I really say that varies from school to school. As I think of the school sites that we have right now that are more crowded, they're not standing out. Um but when that does happen, we go back to look at what their tier one practices are, not their tier 2 or tier three. We examine with the school what they have in place to eliminate some of those situations. It may be adding another recess. It may be adding another lunchtime and expanding the time so there's less students in the lunchroom, less students out on the yard or just the passage, you know, between recess and lunchtime. Um, but that is definitely not something that jumps out immediately as something that we have dealt
082with in the last year. Okay, great. that it's good to know if somebody's looking at that and seeing if it's an issue because I I know when I went to pick up the kids on Monday, oh my goodness, all the kids at once. It was like, ah, so it it can be overwhelming for the kids as well. All right, that's it. And again, thank you guys for explaining this so well to us. I appreciate it. Thank you, Miss Albiani. Um, thank you very much for the presentation. I think I'm very proud of the fact that we've never tried to hide our numbers or or misrepresent our numbers and I've been sitting up here when the report was much more dire and and had to sit through that. So, um it is improved 100%. we we
083are headed in the right direction and I believe as um Miss Baldwin said these programs take time to take effect and I think one of the encouraging things to me is to see the incredibly low numbers at elementary schools because it might shock some people those were not there 10 years ago those were not there seven years ago um they've made a huge change and I also feel these things happen in waves so as we teach these children our culture You just I just keep thinking, God, it's got to happen. It's got to get better. And it was it's middle school had been just a nightmare about incidents in the past and and high school is the highest this year, which is which is disappointing. I mean, but but it's nice to see this. I
084feel like we're seeing a bit of a wave of this work that we've done as these kids grow into these programs. So, um, yeah, I just really feel like that was a positive in my mind looking at it historically. I'm not discrediting any of the thing the work we have to do. I think slide 14, can we show that real quick? Um, tells us some of the work we're doing. It It's got to be reinforcing. We have we have dedicated people to homeless students and I don't know what happened last year, but something seems to be working now. and and the fact these things are starting to take effect and and work over time. Um it's a support for programs supporting the our students shows up everywhere. It shows up on their grades. It shows
085up in their behavior. We know it's a whole thing. So, and I have high hopes for um restorative practices. We we did we had some very disappointing numbers and I think we looked real hard and started programs to include people. We've started programs to build people back in. We've changed a focus from no tolerance and punishment to inclusion and learning institute. Um the whole feeling of this in the last 10 years has has really taken a shift and I think it's showing in our numbers. So I don't know if we can throw in a graph that is old like a graph is easy. I mean, you can't put all those numbers up here, but if you could do a graph that shows possibly postcoid in our in our second of the year. And here's the
086other thing I want to point out to everybody. We we take this seriously enough. We put this on our agenda two times a year. We we don't ignore this. We don't do it once a year. We say, "How did we do last year?" They're using these numbers right now to kick off the school year. We get halfway into the school year and we say, "How are we doing again?" And so, it's not something we're running from. It's something we're leaning into as a board and we have in the past and we're leaning into what programs make it work. Um I think um slide 11. Did we look at 14? That shows the support 16. It's teeny but there's gap closure on 16. I'm not not showing I'm not passing that up. Like there is gap
087closure on 16 for our African-American black students. So I'm it is little but it is the right direction and we've been waiting to see that. So I'm very excited about that. Um is people um sitting on the board can see the end of 2324. We did not have we were we were saying some very different things on the dis and so it's exciting to see this change. Um, and we did uh a whole change in discipline programming. Um, how we discipline children and the discipline graph. I don't know. Do have you guys had that? Have you seen it? I think that's something to share. And I think um, Miss Moore will appreciate. It says this happens. Call parent. like when something happens, our administrators pull out a piece of paper that we can get a
088copy of and it says this happens. Call parent, do this, do this, do this. And it it shows you and I'm not sure it's not even in the handbook, but it it is it is a framework of how we handle these things. And then if you go to a principal's meeting, they pull up an incident and then all the principles talk about how that's handled and they they talk about this, right? um cor correlation, what do we call it? Calibration. Yeah, calibration. The cal calibrating behavior. And and they've been doing it for years. And it's just very impressive because that is one of our challenges. We're so large. One of our challenges is to be to be fair. And fair is not equal, but fair is fair. And and so what are we doing? We've
089changed that. And I think it's really it's really drilled into our administration through that practice. That's one of my favorite practices. as I've seen us do. So, congratulations. Thank you for the hard work. And I think as it was mentioned before, our focus does need to be um repeat append offenders. What are we doing that brings that number down and then and then what other services do they need? Thank you. This is great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Davis. Once again, thank you for the presentation. Um, on page nine, you stated that the deescalation training had been provided to all certificated staff and I know the campus supervisors by attending their training the other day. Um, but is there any plans to include front office yard supervisors, PAR educators who are also in
090these situations with these children and would benefit from that training also? Um, you Susan had actually brought that up at previous board meetings. So for we're looking at our secretary and S SOA meetings to be able to do the training and then I believe um I'm I was restorative practices that was a piece that we're looking at for like elementary campus supervisors. Their jobs are a little bit different than what the secondary folks do but is that is something we've heard and we are planning for. Okay. Thank you. Um, just being in that situation, I know how important it is to have some of that training instead of just relying on your mom knowledge. Um, that's good knowledge. That's good knowledge. Um, in the middle schools, it was on several slides, but they account for
091close to half of the disciplinary um, with only two grade levels. Are we focusing on them to try to find what can we do for I I know they're a different breed. Um it's a whole different world in middle school, but it keeps standing out that maybe they need a little bit more support. Um well that these kids go through that transition into maturity. Um and also do we share these practices with parents prior to there being incidents? Are are we educating our parents on the PBIS and the restorative practices? We do uh to an extent. We always encourage our schools to make sure that they when they have staff when they have parent meetings when they come for example when they students just return to school they they do this with all the students
092right and then and then when they invite the parents and then they we go um a very clear uh review of the handbook regards to kind of you know things to look for uh things to pay attention to. uh we so we try to calibrate for all the middle schools to make sure we do that as much as we can um and whenever we have incidents uh we obviously encourage our rice principles and counselors administration to kind of contact the parent and talk about the matrix that u Miss Albanian was talking about because we really want to calibrate with a matrix and you can see for our middle schools there has been a reduction in suspensions and so it was the period of time like M alb Alani mentioned middle school was like a very
093high point high school was a low point And this year we see a little bit of the opposite. So, but we do try to calibrate to make sure that our our administrators are following the matrix uh to make sure that we gradually support and in talk to our parents about what does that look like utilizing the matrix. Okay. Just a note on the um the matrixes that's come up a couple of times. One of the things that we're doing this year, now we we constantly go back and take a look to see if it's um still meeting the needs, but we're actually taking the restorative practices lens through it this year uh with our partners that are helping us with the restorative work and actually uh making adjustments to it um through a new lens.
094So, I think it'll be even um even more um helpful to our um school leaders when they're working through some of these situations. Thank you. Um, and just wanted to say, you know, working at a school, um, I watched when PBIS came in and some of the skepticism, but was able to watch the student buy in and the changes over the year. And if anyone has never sat and watched third graders or fourth graders sit down and work through the restorative practice and some of the writings that they share, sometimes they're all grown uping as grown-ups. So, so thank you for the education you're providing them. Great. Thank you very much for the presentation. Um I don't have any additional questions, but I do have um some some things I wanted to point out. Um
095so I am I'm I'm a data nerd. Um I I look forward to these presentations in part because they're just there's so much here to look at and dissect. And um I did I think what uh Miss Albiani was talking about and I went back and looked at all of our previous ones and you know cuz more data sets means more fun. Um so one thing that's worth I think pointing out is that these the graphs and the charts and the information presented shows a snapshot of the past couple of years. But when you go back and you look at the data and you add in um you know previous years I think you see the magnitude of the change. Um, so, uh, you know, I went back to 2018 and, you know, just looking
096at, you know, for our for our foster youth, we went from 22.9% to 15.2%, which is a drop of 34%. Right? For our African-American students, we went from 16.8 to 10%, which is a 41% drop. And so these are these are significant numbers when you look at them over a long period of time. Um and you know you can the biggest drop is right when we started to implement a lot of these things uh started to pay a lot of attention to exclusionary discipline um but it's continuing postcoid right it's not like it you know it slowed a little bit um which is natural um but you're we're continuing to see change um you know so just in the past four years right for African-American students we've seen a drop of 13% uh in exclusionary
097discipline and That's not nothing, right? That's that's important. Um, and I think, you know, it's important to continually say that that we're working on this, that we're doing this, that we're paying attention. Uh, you know, like my colleague Miss Alviani said, right? Um, this is this is val, incredibly valuable work. Uh, and so I I appreciate it and I think it's worth pointing out again and again and again that this change is happening. Um, it's slow. You don't always see it. Um, our community certainly occasionally comes in and gets mad and you know like it's 2018 and that is fine. Um, it is a constant reminder that we need need to continue to do better. Um, but for us, right, remembering we're doing it, right? This is this is good baby steps along the way.
098Um, one thing I do want to point out there is that disproportionality for African-American students is still a problem. Um, if you look at TW in 2018, um, the the challenge here is that the numbers are falling, but they're falling for everyone. And so, which is great. I don't want to say it's not. That's that is a fantastic thing, but if you look in 2018, uh, an African-American student was about 2.7 times more likely than the district average uh, to be part of, uh, or to experience exclusionary discipline. In 2024, it was still 2.7 times. And so this is an area where we can continue to focus, like you said, continue to grow. Um is that disproportionality is still something we need to focus on. It's clearly still something that's a bit of an issue.
099Um it's great that exclusionary discipline is falling for everyone, but let's make sure we're starting to close those gaps um you know, between our student populations. Um, another thing that jumped out at me was that um, a along that along those lines is that our African-American students make up about 31% of all of our incidents. Um, which is again that disproportionality. It's a, you know, our African-American students are only about 10% of our population. So, if they're making about 31% of our disciplinary incidents, that's a bit of an issue. So let's let's keep an eye on those numbers and maybe start thinking about you know how we can really make an impact in that area. Um let's see. So in the categories uh so slide 19 um I went back and compared these numbers to
100some of the previous years and a couple of things jumped out at me. The um first one was that physical contact and aggression we have we're doing less exclusion now than we used to. Um I think that's I think that's probably a good thing. As I go to campuses, as I talk to people, I have heard some grumbling about that. Um there is some frustration, some feelings um you know from people that we're not doing enough that these that there needs to be more um you know consequences for things with word that we use consequences for things like that. um you know so let's think about I I would say I just want to point it out so we're thinking about it um the other one that jumped out at me that I thought was
101a little odd was abusive language we are doing more exclusion for um so just wanted to kind of float that to the top to for you all to think about this year um and then two other things that jumped out at me is that there are um that we're seeing we saw a pretty significant jump in the number of fights uh last year. So years before like for the past couple of years um the number has been around uh 1400 and this year it was over 1900 and so something you know something I wanted to point out and flag as a bit of an issue. Um we're doing less exclusion on that which I think is important. Um you know we want to try and you keep keep kids in the classroom as much as
102possible. Um, but that number jumped out at me. Uh, the other one is, um, we're seeing a pretty regular increase over the past couple of years in, uh, harassment and bullying. Our response to it has been consistent consistent, which I think is good, but the fact that we're seeing those numbers continually tick up um, something to keep an eye on. Uh, and then that is really it for me. The la the last thing I will point out is the same observation as some of my colleagues have had, which is this we're seeing that I I love seeing that decrease at the elementary and middle school level. Keep an eye on what's going on at the high school level. Clearly, there's a bit of an uptick there. Um, but otherwise, you know, fantastic work, fantastic presentation,
103and we really, really appreciate everything you guys are doing. So, thank you. All right. Uh let's everybody take a brief 5m minute break and then we will be back at uh 10:32. Thank you. [Music] That off my list. I'm going to try [Music] How are you? He hasn't got the fine art of you just put on one smell. He's got the hair smell. Oh yeah. Body washing smell. Yeah. As I've gotten older, I've become a more sensitive to it. I think just this season is probably for me the worst. Yeah. So it's just like hurts here, you know? Well, we've done pretty much Yeah. Yeah. Ever had one so into smells as this one? And it's a boy. I know. Oh, thank you. Yeah, he he makes us proud. We tried to push him towards
104because you see how well he talks with grown-ups and stuff. He's so well spoken. He's like a little mini adult. So, we're trying to push him hang out with the kids a little bit more. Too much like grandma. Otherwise, I don't think Oh, goodness. That's why these are so important. All right, let's bring it back to order at 10:35. Uh, and we are on to managing growth in the district. Dr. Coats. Right. Well, good morning, President Vargas, members of the board, Superintendent Hoffman, Miss Avalos, staff, and community that are joining us. Uh, I have been looking forward to doing this presentation for a long time now. Uh it's there's a lot going on and uh it needless to say if you've already reviewed the report uh there is a lot here and I think Chris
105set it up that um certainly this could be multiple days worth of presentation. So uh the goal here is to provide some overall context and give some updates on where we are with uh particular projects. So, it's structured with enrollment trends, general strategies on how we manage fluctuating enrollment trends, and then of course the specific projects uh that we're working on. We do have the facilities and planning team here. Um they like to remain a little anonymous, but um you will likely see them as we um as we go. It's it really is a a robust team and so I'm excited to highlight a lot of their work. Uh we've also been partnering very closely with school leadership. So this is certainly something that doesn't just live in the realm of facilities. Uh facilities we
106can get really focused on numbers, but when it comes into practice, it it really is about creating those conditions in a in a school for teaching and learning. And so as a former principal, just knowing how impactful it is to have that information early uh with tools for our uh school leadership team to um help support the principal in the community. So let's take a look at enrollment over time. Uh this chart shows our historical ro enrollment uh 10-year look and these are seabeds numbers. So um what that means is it includes charter schools and um so they're a little higher than what we would typically report and there are official seabeds. So if you were to pull a report from the state of California this is what you would see. Uh and so we
107have steady growth. You can see a slight dip in 2122 22 23 really is a result of the pandemic and over time we've been moderately growing again. What you see on the far right is our 2526 projections and we won't get final numbers until the beginning of October. But um certainly it's been noted that we have moved into the fourth largest district in the state of California. Uh and and this is why and I think this presentation will kind of explains what's going on. So unique to Elk Grove, we are growing and and growing rapidly in particular areas, but we also have areas of um no growth or even some decline. So where most districts in the state of California are managing declining enrollment only and which comes with its own challenges, we're balancing both
108of those. So, why are we growing and why are why do we have areas of decline? Well, sometimes it's legislation. Uh sometimes it's new program. Uh El Grove is a highly desirable place to live. And so, we get a lot of people that are coming in from the Bay Area that's that are moving into uh our neighborhoods. um certainly transitional kindergarten where we're we'll talk more at length um about how TK has uh impacted schools and growth. Uh we have new developments that are increasing uh student enrollment in particular areas of the district. We have legacy neighborhoods where um folks are not moving out of their their homes. They've they've grown up there. They've raised their kids there. they're staying there. I do think that over time though those houses will begin to sell and
109we'll start to see growth in those areas as well. So um just just a look at what we are working with um within Elkrove. So how do we plan for these fluctuations uh when we have them at the same time? So everything is really built on enrollment projections which start as soon as we get those seabeds numbers. So as soon as um we verified and certified those the planning team in the facilities department gets gets started and they do different modeling. Um we look at kindergarten enrollment trends. We look at changes in grade level cohort students as they move across the years. And of course we're looking at housing development, the um residential neighborhoods that are growing within the district. I've already alluded to this, but sometimes legislation uh can impact us um certainly in
110a in a positive way when we think about programs and services for for our parents and our students. Um but they impact the facilities as well. So when you take a look at transitional kindergarten expansion, as just as a reminder, we've been growing transitional kindergarten over the past four years. So in 2526, this is the full year of implementation. Um meaning anyone that's four is now eligible for TK. So when we talk about how do we project for transitional kindergarten students, it's more challenging than every other grade level because for the past four years, we've been adding two months to the calendar year. So then we have to get it um when was the child born? How many birth rates did how many births did we have between January and April of a particular year?
111So uh it gets pretty scientific. We won't go into too much of that, but just trying to help understand the complexity of trying to predict how many four and fivey olds we're going to have in our schools. So, over the last three years, we've added 79 new transitional kindergarten classes. And in El Grove, those are half-day classes and we offset them with the expanded learning opportunities program. So, students get really a full day. There's a lot of impact when we think about facilities, uh, parking, restrooms, um, both for staff and for students when we're adding these types of programs. So, um, just as a just some additional context, what we wanted to do is show where do our students live. Um, and this shows student density across the district. You can see that in the
112in the north and in the south, those green circles is where we're experiencing our most rapid growth. And you don't need the heat map. You could just drive the district and you can you can see it with your own eyes. Um, but it is helpful to um see and we don't have a whole lot of when I say decline, it's not like people are leaving those areas. So you can see that there is a lot of density still within the interior of the district boundary. Um but but what we're really focused on with our um uh growth is those that north area and the south area. So importantly, as we're thinking about enrollment projections and where students are coming from, the planning team is constantly monitoring new development. And so over the next 10 plus
113years, and this is this is where facilities and budget are very similar, we we make assumptions or we make uh projections based on the best assumptions we have at the time. So so many things can change in uh in a plan in a that we have no control over. And so what the team is doing is they're constantly looking at the data. They're outreaching to developers. Are you still are you still on the track to to build these homes or not? And um lots of things the economy can can change and impact um builders decisions that we have no control over. So you can see anything in red on this map, they are actively building. And so the projected time frame that those homes would be uh here in the next one to four years
114with um families living them in them and potential students. And so I I'm just going to go right to the orange. These are projected, but they're future. Those are going to be 10 plus years. Whether those are 30 years or they never manifest, we don't really know. But we have those on the docket and we check that constantly to see what could come. What we do believe based on the current residential development that's going on is that over the next 10 10 plus years, we could have another 18,000 students um as part of the Elkrove Unified School District. Just let that sink in for a second. Because of the growth, the team for years has been planning on new potential school sites. When Superintendent Hoffman is out, he'll say, "We've got 60 schools and we're
115going to need 60 more." And this is this is why is because we have so much residential growth. So, we have reserved school sites in the areas and you can see where they're really concentrated. It's in those green circles where we have most of the growth happening. And so, um, we're going to talk about some of those those school sites today when we get into specific projects, but we have 11 reserved elementary sites and then um a a middle high school site as well. And um and I would say that what we're showing today is pretty conservative. There's many more, but um that we haven't like fully released publicly. So I don't want to spend a whole lot of time, but I guess I what I want to share with this slide is to show
116that um that with all of the schools that we have in the system, some are experiencing growth in more impactfully than others. And so these are the schools that um have five or more 5% or more enrollment growth in the next five years that as we go into the tools on how we manage growth and different um different strategies in our tool belt. Um we need to consider um these are the schools that we're really focusing on. On the converse, we have schools in decline and so working through the same um you know through the same some of the same strategies. And what I'll say is um when we have a 320 square mile boundary, we may have capacity in our schools, but they're not in the right location. And so so when we know
117that we know that we have to use other avenues to uh address the need. And so we know that um that we can look at our numbers and make decisions just based on data. But any decision that we make has a real impact to our students, our families, the staff that are in our schools that are really trying to just create great learning environments. So when we think about the impact of growth and going through our tools, we're really thinking about, okay, what is this going to do to a family? And we really try to take it from our own lens. Many of us are parents like what is this going to do to family scheduling? Um how is this alignment? Um what does it mean? what's the impact for district staffing? Um what does
118that mean for ratios um for parking? How does how do board policies play into that? So there's a lot of different perspectives we need to take into consideration and we do um as best as we can knowing that there's not one perfect solution at any time. It's there's always going to be something that isn't uh great. So, as we've talked about TK and um expanded learning opportunities program, we've also seen an increase of special education classes. And one of the priorities has been to make sure that we have continuity for students in our buildings and so our most vulnerable students aren't moving yeartoear to another specialized program. And so that has an impact as well. And when we are when we're doing it right, which we like to do all the time, uh, or strive
119towards it, maybe I should say, is we need larger TK classrooms. We need smaller toilets. We need more inclusive playgrounds and play structures. And because of the wraparound services that we have with um uh for our students and our families, we have more staff than we've ever had coming into campuses offering those types of services. Uh which means that we not only need um we need office space for those that are working with confidential information. We need expanded parking and so we need um we need restrooms both for the grown-ups on campus and we need it for the students on campus. And so as as these impacts change and we build new schools, we're really trying to factor in and create as much flexibility as possible so we can eb and flow with the change
120that we don't we don't know what it's going to look like in in 5 to 10 years, but we want to be as flexible as possible with our design to try to um accommodate um all all sorts of scenarios. So when we have this growth and we're managing overcrowding um we use a continuum of strategies um probably the first and most simple is just offloading or redirecting. We're going to talk about each one of them separately kind of generally and then we'll talk about some of the strategies with the projects. Um we can add learning spaces by expanding our current classrooms or installing relocatables. Um, also would that would be the other term for portables. Um, I've been told we don't use that anymore. So, I'm I'm just honoring the team. Um, we can make
121boundary adjustments, which we're going to talk about today. We typically do that with new schools, but when you look at the list of schools that are potentially in decline and capacity, could it make sense to reconsider some boundary changes to utilize this the schools that we currently have? We can we can and do and have for years made calendar adjustments. Um using the year- round elementary calendar is um not something that we rush into, but it can accommodate additional students. Um uh and we can build new schools. It's the most expensive option and and what I hope today is to show all of these different options and the kind of the cost analysis with them. So offloading or redirecting uh is um probably the the first approach when we have it. And so if a
122school reaches capacity, whether it's elementary or secondary, uh we do what's called an offload or redirect where um we let families know that um because we're a growing district that um we ideally like to have everyone in their home school, but that's not always an option. And if for some reason a student can't attend the school in their bound in their home boundary then we would provide the transportation at no cost to the family. So um we do that quite a bit and then we have these added learning spaces. And so what I want to do is spend a little time here and um look at this table all across because there's a lot of information and I I think um Chad and Jen got you warmed up with a lot of data on one
123um particular information. So when we're adding learning spaces um we consider different factors. um we consider how much capacity do we need to add? What is the implementation timeline that we're talking about? So you think about like the residential growth that's going on. Is this like a 10 plus year buildout? Is this just a short um is it shortterm? So we look at that. Um what's the cost? There's always some cost analysis that we're doing. Uh what and then we have to keep in mind um what's the instructional quality of a an environment that we bring in to accommodate growth and then the flexibility and we have some examples. So when we'll start from the left to the right. So when we're adding a new school which we're doing we're going to talk about a
124few of them. Um, this is probably the widest. We're looking at regional development growth. And when a site reaches 85 to 95% capacity um on a year round calendar, those year- round calendars really become a factor in this. Um, and we've got multiple sites impacted. That's when we start to say, okay, we need a new school. We've got Grant Line Elementary School that we'll talk about soon in a as as an example of that or Arbor Ranch um as an example. When we build a new school, depending on whether it's an elementary school or a high school, we're really looking at adding between 850 to 2400 students. Uh the implementation timeline on any of this is 3 to six years. And depending on the what type of school it is, it's anywhere from 70 million
125to 400 million plus. So obviously the 70 million is more uh what uh the going rate for elementary schools are right now with secondary schools costing much much more with the specialized facilities. Um when we talk about program and we say it's purpose-built, it's built for the programs that are needed. So, if we're talking about a secondary school and we need um a a particular career technical education programs, that's purpose-built. That's based on programs that we want to be able to offer to our students. It's a long-term investment building a new school. And so, I've already shared some of the examples. Uh when we look at adding permanent buildings, um these are sightspecific. Typically they're based on educational need and steady increase. The capacity added is between 100 and 200 students and implementation is about
126two to four years. Um this can cost anywhere from 2 million to 40 million depending on the size of the building. Just one story if you do a a double uh twotory building. We saw some of those at Elkrove High School as a good example. um or CTE buildings that we've put into place over the um over the last few years. Um we can also modernize permanent learning environments and bring them up to code when we do these um building additions. And so they're they're not as flexible as a relocatable, which we'll talk about, but a little more flexible than a new school because it's a new building and it it can be adjusted to program. Relocatables are the most flexible. um they are short-term uh temporary capacity um and sometimes like they're for unexpected
127growth. So depending on how many uh relocatables we land it could be anywhere from 25 to 100 students thinking about approximately 25 students per classroom. Uh that can be done in 6 to 12 months. All of these projects have to go through the division of state architects and you know we have to meet building code when we do it. So nothing is real fast in facilities. Estimated costs could be a million dollars just um landing, making sure we have the right utilities and and um and so a cheaper option, but certainly uh uh more temporary. When we think about instructional uh quality, um these are limited amenities and lifespan. So we um we don't see these as ideal learning environments in the long term. They can have they can be a quick fix. Um we
128see that at Miwok we have growth right now in South Elk Grove. Um the team was able to um to place uh five or six portables um for this year to accommodate the immediate growth as Arbor Ranch is fully um built out and minimize um some of the offloading that had to be done. Um those portables will be lifted and removed once Arbor Ranch is um is fully built and operational. So they're highly flexible because of that. Um and we have some different examples. So a lot of time on this table, but really these are how we weigh the different types of options. And each school is um is like a case byase analysis of those things. Boundary adjustments. Uh we've alluded to that. So, uh, typically we do this when we have growth or
129new school construction. We're going to have an example of this this, um, uh, in a a bit later in the presentation. Uh, and we'll take a look at current boundary schools that are affected. Um and and when we do that, we try to align those boundaries with housing growth um and um things that provide us uh sustainable feeder patterns into our middle schools and high schools. We haven't done as much of this, but it is an option for consideration perhaps in the future is when we have declining enrollment, we can consider boundary changes to better utilize capacity at schools where there might be some some decline. So, so we have a lot of schools. Are there are there little boundary changes that we could make to fill those schools? When schools uh are really working
130at 85% of their capacity, typically you have um more staff to address need, more programs, more inclusive environments. When schools get too small, some of those things start to go away. Um, so when we're looking at boundary adjustments, we're looking at enrollment trends, school capacity, equity, um, walkability and transportation, and certainly community feedback and, um, and we do it to make sure that we have equitable access to programs and we're efficiently using district resources. Calendar considerations is another tool that we have. Um, a year- round calendar can increase capacity at elementary schools um by rotate rotating students through different tracks, allowing more students uh than the building was originally designed for. So, when we do a track model, it typically increases the capacity of a school site by about 25% um without having to add
131a new building or or land portables. um it really eliminates that need for additional classrooms. We've historically used those year- round calendars and um it allows us to avoid the need for the new construction um especially when growth can outpace the funding or the land availability. So, we'll talk more. We've got two examples today in the presentation. Regardless of what strategy that we use, they all take planning, monitoring, uh, and a lot of time for, uh, for adequate communication, uh, for feedback. Um, they're governed by board policies. We don't we don't make stuff up. We we go based on, um, what our policies, what education code says that we need to do. Um but we understand the massive impact any one of these um strategies can have on a family and so we want to
132make sure that um that we're thoughtful and that we are hearing all voices before decisions are made. Okay. So now we're going to move into um specific projects that we've focused on. So last year we were looking at Franklin Elementary School. Um I'm not going to read this entire summary, but what you have is a summary of information that the team has been monitoring um regularly as we were making those decisions. So, we were considering uh making the recommendation to move Franklin Elementary School to a year- round calendar. Since the time of that recommendation, which was almost a year ago, was November of 24, we have received new information. This is the importance of the monitoring. And so, we um we look across multiple years. uh we put our data scientist hat on and say
133okay are we trending in that uh in what direction for Franklin Elementary in particular um there was some development that was in there that we thought was going to come faster than that's now anticipated and so what that did is it really slowed down what we thought was going to happen when the team identified that we brought it up and really For Franklin, we are saying keep them on a traditional calendar. There's no need right now to move them to a year round. Wanted to use Franklin as a as an example where we might have information we're going to bring to you and then we're going to we're going to keep monitoring that and should the the recommendation change, we're going to make sure that um you understand why we make those adjustments. Adriani Elementary
134School is uh the other elementary school we've been monitoring for several years. We're currently offloading approximately 80 students because of the impact of the growth. That means as a reminder that when we're offloading a student, students that live in that home boundary aren't able to attend their home school. So last year we started the engagement process um and we want to hear from uh multiple perspectives. So, um we we understand that um for the parents whose students are offloading, that's upsetting because they're not going to the school that um they're homeschooled. And that's often what we want as parents is, you know, you purchase a home in a neighborhood and you expect to go to a school uh that's close, walkable, or just within within um your little cohort of neighbors that you have. On
135the other hand, we have um you know, should we go into a year- round calendar, we have the impact of schedule adjustments. And when you are you have a a child in an ele I have a child in an elementary school and I have a child in a junior high and that becomes really difficult to manage as well. And so those become the what we have to weigh in the recommendation that we have knowing that both perspectives are valid. Um uh th those are things that we consider and try to hear when we are out engaging with the community. So when we look at the data and we continue to look at and and hear what we heard through the community feedback which was both of those things. I want to I want my child
136to attend the home school and I don't want my school to go to a year- round calendar. It's just too difficult because I have kids across our system. So the planning team we took a step back and we said okay and if you go back to that table we said what could we do? So could we land relocatables? Yes we can land relocatables. What we've learned about landing relocatables at Adriani is we could get approximately three. it would be costly because it's not the utilities aren't quite there. And with new enrollment and residential development if we were to land um uh our portables, that would maybe be 80ish students, which is approximately where we're how many we're offloading right now. We would be back having this conversation in about five years with the growth that's
137coming. So if we land relocatables, it's an option, but it's not a long-term solution. So then we looked at potential boundary changes. We said, okay, could we do this in a different way? And so the team crafted different scenarios which I'm not even I'm not even going to bring except just to tell you that um it would be carving out a bit of the southern part of Adriani boundary and the northern part which would mitigate the overcrowding at Adriani itself but it would impact Pleasant Grove Elementary School and Sunrise Enterprise. And so both of those would be now um facing the same type of growth situations that Adriani is. Um so that did not feel or seem like a viable situation to um plus students who are currently attending Adriani would no longer be in
138that school boundary which also has an impact. Um so with the information and discovery uh we are still standing here making a recommendation for a yearround conversion. Uh there's more work to to be done certainly and what we would um what we would do is work with the principal, our school leadership partners, the community um explaining really what we're explaining here, the different options and and outweighing the cost benefit and um you know, should you move in that direction, we would work through that for an implement mentation in 2728. So we'd have another year of planning and what we would work on the facilities team with school leadership is um the similar to Miwok where we have a few portables that can manage the offloads so more of those students could stay at their home
139school as we work to do a calendar conversion. So, um there's no action today, but um discussion. We want some feedback, see if we need to, um continue to understand things that we might not that we might not be seeing or we might be missing. Um but right now, that's what we're um we're still recommending. Okay, boundary adjustments. So shifting gears slightly uh I think we get to go through every single one of the tools that I have brought up. So boundary adjustments. So very exciting. Um we are in the process of building a new school grant line um which will not be grant line um soon. Uh and we need to have a boundary adjustment as we go through that. And so, as a reminder, grant line opens July of 2026. And so, um,
140what you've been provided, what we'll have out here and what we'll be sharing with the community are the boundary studies that, um, we did. And so, what we'll be doing is looking to split the Sunrise Elementary boundary. Um and it will be add the new grant line school will be added to the um Albiani Middle School and the Pleasant Grove High School feeder pattern. And so we have been studying solutions governed by our board policies trying to balance the enrollment between the two schools. We're looking at the new housing development, the neighborhood's proximity to schools and the other we also look at um geographical markers. So, um, large roadways, wetlands areas, those sorts of things that help us create natural boundaries. And so, when we look at the the studies, um, what you can see
141on your far left is the current boundary that we have. So, we've got, um, on the map in yellow, we have Begarvey Elementary's boundary., we have Sunris's boundary in the light blue. And um what you'll see so Sunrise and MacGarvey are the red stars. That's where our schools currently are. You can see Grant Line to the far east of the blue portion. And then you can see the Sun Creek Middle School High School approximate location. And so that that's what we're looking at. And so we did two studies really trying to think through the long-term changes uh geographic boundaries. And so um grant line um the study a you can see how sunrise um starts to shrink and um that taking the enrollment for sunrise if we were to go forward with study A um
142uh to 91 and and so you can see it stays at like a study just below um a thousand students. grant line um would be a much smaller school in the 600s and you can see kind of where they would go long term. The study option B um you can see that the blue boundary has been extended closer um to um uh to the to the grant line. So the g the gray shade in that in those and all of them are the wetlands area. So there's no development that can be done there. I say I think that's a important thing to to note that we're not going to get new residential growth in that particular area. It's protected. And so as we looked at balancing the school and m making sure that we didn't
143have too much impact, um we're going to likely recommend uh study B for the boundary change. What's going to happen is next week we'll be um uh having our community meeting um getting feedback um wondering concerns. There's about 3,600 homes that would be impacted by um any of these changes and they're getting information uh and an invite for a session so they can um weigh in. We'll record that session and um and make it available on our website for anyone that can't make that meeting. Uh we presented this information initially uh to cabinet back in July. We're here today um with the first blush. Um we've got our um virtual community meetings to present the boundary option and then um we'll provide an update at September on September 9th and then should we be ready
144to finalize that recommendation um we would come at the end of September. If we need more time then we'll take the time that we need. There are more boundary studies coming, but not for today. Arbor Ranch is planning an opening in July of 27. Um we'll be looking at Miwok um village boundary and then Arbor Ranch will be added into the Pinkerton Casumnus Oaks high school feeding feeder system. And then we have the Sun Creek Middle High School projected to open in 2029 and that will be formed by changing the Albiani Middle School and the PG um school boundary and so that will be a much bigger one but something to look forward to. Okay, other upcoming projects um for consideration. So, Sierra Enterprise H is um one of our older schools and uh has
145a lot of facility need. it is eligible for um state facility funding dollars and uh the team has really run through different approaches to what's the best path forward for Sierra Enterprising Enterprise knowing um the amount of work that we have uh to do. So we can take a look at modernizing the current Sierra building. Um, we've got matching funds available by the state of about $3 million. Or we can look at new construction. Um, and if we did new construction, we would be eligible for approximately $42 million from the state. So, just to give you an idea of um how we try to leverage other funding sources, not just ours, to do this facility work. Um so whether we modernize or whether we do new construction, both projects have similar costs. Um but when
146we start to really look at the needs at Sierra and the where the uh where the students live, we're really kind of leaning towards a new school option. And I'll explain more. So, um, when we look at Sierra, Sierra is, um, uh, north and, um, really there's not a whole lot of residential right around, uh, Sierra Enterprise, meaning we transport a lot of students, uh, to Sierra. Um we do own a site already called Vineyard Point um in that neighborhood and it is in the same boundary as Sierra Elementary School. So when we started to really analyze who's attending Sierra, where do they live? And I'll show you in momentarily. Um most of them are in and around the site that we own that's not developed yet, but um we call it Vineyard Point. So
147um and it's here. So you can see Sierra Enterprise in a in the green in the north and then the site that we own is the blue circle towards the south boundary and um where our where the students live in Sierra. Um the yellow shows the high density and you know of course there's kind of scattered throughout the entire boundary but most of the students that we serve at Sierra live right in that Vineyard Point neighborhood. And so something that has been a model in Elk Grove is um when we have schools similar to Sierra that need a lot of work through modernization, we've been able to either on that site or on another site build the school again. And so that is something that we are um looking to um get feedback and make
148a recommendation is to rebuild Sierra Enterprise onto the Vineyard um onto the Vineyard Point site to one address all of the um like serious facility needs that exist over at Sierra, but also um operate um So, so more students can walk to school. They're really more in their neighborhood. Um, it would ease transportation. Um and Sierra would be reutilized perhaps as an operational hub that can help um help with facilities especially for those um departments that can serve the east side of the district without having to traverse the entire um distance of the of the school district. So, nothing totally there on the operational side, but um certainly looking very soon to to bring forward a formal recommendation to rebuild Sierra at the Vineyard Elementary site. Always want to give an update on where we
149are with the new um middle school high school. Um so we are on track to open in the phased approach July of 2029. Typically we open uh our our high school middle schools and high schools uh 7th through 10th grade. Uh right now we're currently um working on engagement with design. Um we have met with cabinet we met with the subarchitect committee back in July to get an update. um currently uh scheduling and having appointments with department leads and sites to get their feedback on what we need for um a school and then um the the next step is to take that information and work get out with the community. Um so those are the activities currently scheduled uh July through October. We met as a team yesterday afternoon working on a communication plan. So
150at the same time, we're working on the facilities planning. We're also trying to do better about making sure that we have a communication plan that is running simultaneously so everyone knows where we are at what step. We know there's a lot of interest um and a lot of questions that come with not just with this project but really all of our facilities projects and um so working hard to make sure that we're we're as intentional with the communication plan as we are with the building design. So, as um Superintendent Hoffman said, at the top of the day, there is a lot of um work over the next I would say um 1 to 24 months in um facilities and planning and certainly um our school leadership team is like deeply embedded into this work. But
151I I want to just call out um some of the asks that are going to be coming in the future. um grant line 208. Um we didn't talk about school names. It was just one more thing we couldn't fit in today. Um but we'll be talking about a school boundary. We'll bring for back information about how the community meeting went on the boundary adjustment. Um those will be coming September, October. For Arbor Ranch Elementary Schools, we have site acquisition that we're working on and finalizing. We're also working on school name and the boundary um work will come shortly thereafter again by September October. For the Sun Creek Middle School High School, we're working on site acquisition and engagement sessions and those um we hope to have completed by October. For Arnold Adriani Elementary School, um
152bring forward a formal recommendation for the 2728 school year. Um we need to have that u by November. Sierra Enterprise and Vineyard Point um rebuild um bringing forward a project recommendation by November. And then um we haven't even talked about Measure N, but just as a reminder, we do have a a bond um that will be bringing information forward um looking for uh an initial sale the spring of 2026. And with that, I invite any questions. I'm sure there are no questions. Can't imagine this group wouldn't have questions. Yeah. Um, Miss Alani, are there any blue cards on this item? We do have two blue cards on this item. We'll start with Mark. We'll follow with um Mr. Rendent Richard. Uh, good morning. My name is Mark. I'm an alumni of the Elkrove Unified School
153District and have been a resident of Elkrove for over 30 years. Before starting, I just want to acknowledge acknowledge the district's proactive steps in addressing the growth in our Elkrove schools. This is an important subject that needs discussion, evaluation, and decisive action. All three of my kids should be attending Arnold Adriani Elementary School. However, my twin daughters were selected to be offloaded and now go to Pleasant Grove Elementary School. The district policy to allow siblings to be split between two different elementary schools negatively impacts families by limiting parent capacity and increasing family hardship and stress. There are many other families who are in the same position as us but cannot make it today to voice their thoughts and experience. I can confidently state we as parents absolutely do not want this to happen to our
154children again next school year. Especially since some of the families including myself with offloaded children we live literally live across the street from the school from Adriani or some of them live within the Wall Hawk residential community. In addition, there are now new homes and apartments being built within the Adriani school boundary, which will only compound the student enrollment problem. Therefore, um as we come today, we should implement one of those following options that we have been discussing. Um as option one would be building portables or relocatables um classrooms to meet current and future enrollment demand. This investment is less costly than building a new elementary school as you can see or adding permanent structures to Adriani. Option two would be adjusting the school boundary. This option can improve and balance capacity between Adriani and
155nearby elementary schools without a significant fiscal impact. Option three is the yearround calendar conversion which is least popular with Adriani parents. However, I see it, it's the most feasible, cost-effective, and fastest implementation option. As a parent, I would highly prefer uh portables or relocatables. Um, but I'm open to adjusting the school boundary or even year- round calendar versions. At the end of the day, a course of action needs to be implemented sooner rather than than later because randomly selecting offloading 60 plus kids to another school simply must be avoided next school year. We want what's best for our children and we want them to return to their return to their home school of Adriani Elementary. I want to just thank you for your time, consideration, and commitment to our Adriani offloaded kids. Thanks. My name
156is Richard Art. I'm here to express my concern regarding the current school zoning boundaries for the branch of Verie neighborhood next to the intersection of Willard Parkway in Bilby Road. Under the current school assignments for middle and high school, students are required to attend schools that are much farther from our homes despite the fact there are closer schools within a much more reasonable distance. My family lives in a ranch of neighborhood and my daughter is a student at Franklin Elementary. She began sixth grade two weeks ago. When my daughter enters the seventh grade in August of 2026, the current school boundaries will require her to attend Elizabeth Pinkerton Middle School, which is farther from our home than Toby Johnson Middle School. Likewise, when she reaches high school, she'll be assigned to Cassumnus Oaks High School
157instead of Franklin High School, even though Franklin High School is closer to where we live. Back in 2014, my son was required to attend Cassumnus High School. For several years, I drove him to school each morning from our home in Rancho Verie. His commute each day was much longer than it would have been had he attended Franklin High School. It is now 2025 and the current boundaries for Rancho Verdie neighborhood still remains the same. It is unfair that children are required to travel farther from their homes to attend school, especially when schools closer to our neighborhood are available. Also, given there has been extensive growth of new neighborhoods built off Bruceville Road, there will be a large influx of new students attending schools. Rancherverted children are currently zoned to attend. My daughter has been a
158part of Franklin Elementary community since kindergarten, growing and forming friendships over the years. Next school year, she'll be required to attend a new school surrounded by unfamiliar faces due to the current zoning boundaries for Vverde. I believe this is unfair and I'm afraid it would negatively impact her. She can't walk to school. It is not equitable. On a more personal level, the increased distance my daughter would need to travel to school to attend school farther from her home presents a sign significant challenge for our family. It would require both her mother and me to adjust our daily work schedule, extend commute times for drop offs and pickups, and manage transportation logistics. These added demands risk impacting our jobs and could lead to unintended consequences at work, placing additional stress on our family. I respectfully urge
159the board to consider revising the current school zoning boundaries for ranchover neighborhood. Allowing students to attend schools closer to home would not only ease the burden of longer commutes for families, but also help ensure that children are allowed to learn alongside friends they have grown up with. It is only fair and right that children, families, and taxpayers of Ranchie neighborhood to have the opportunity to attend schools that are closer to home. As we know, Elkrove is expanding a growing and a change to school zoning bound needs to happen now for Ranch of Vvery. Thank you. Thank you both. Excellent. Thank you very much. Uh, all right. We will move to board member questions and comments. We'll start on this side this time. Miss Davis. Well, thank you for the thorough presentation. I don't have any
160questions right now. Thank you, Miss Albiani. Um, this is why I I I I so appreciate a workshop because you can really dig into some stuff. So, thank you. Thank you for the great presentation. I think you made it clear. Um, I do have a question on Sorry, I can't find what slide it is. Um, you talk about students coming into Adriani and students going out of Adriani. Are we bringing in um is that have to do with our sped classes and our special things to be able to keep neighborhood children there? Is that talking about TK having to be started there? I'm I'm trying to understand what that is. It's largely our special education programs. Adriani is a site where we're able to offer continuity in program for our students. And so um many
161of those students that are coming in are um in our levels classes that we have all levels classes. Okay. Um that was my biggest question. Thank you. Miss Ballerini. Okay. I have a few questions. Um I'm going to piggyback on Mr. Art for a quick second. Um, if you go to page 10 and you're you can look at the schools that are experienced decline versus um versus growth. Um you can see that Johnson Middle School current well not currently it was last year um were at 82% and it's predicted to go lower down to 69% by 2930 and Franklin's on that list as well. Um I I know boundary changes is something we can look at as we go along and I brought this up. I can't even remember um last year sometime myself because
162that is where my grandchildren live as well. They're friends with Gabby over there. It's a little tiny area that if we just included that into the Franklin area, there are I believe it's it's either 234 or 243 homes in that area, which um those poor students last year. I knew I know a sixth grade student, Sophia, who was the only student at Franklin Elementary that had to go all the way to Cassundus Oaks and Pinkerton. And that really at that time in their lives, it's very difficult for them to do that. Um, I think that's something we need to look at in addition to all of these other things we've got. It wouldn't take much to make that change and I would definitely appreciate it as well as all of the other people in that
163neighborhood. That I'm just putting that out there. Thank you. All right. Um do you have an estimate of cost um for year round versus traditional? I don't. Yes, I don't have that right here. It is slightly more expensive to operate a year round just with staffing cost. Um it's there are so there are drawbacks. Um uh the um the staff um receive higher salaries because of the nature of the year round schedule. uh it can be more difficult to maintain uh and so um on an annual basis there is a slight slightly higher cost per year to operate a year round calendar. We did that analysis that was based on feedback from the community when we were out there. Um and so we weigh that with a new building or all of those things. So
164okay, that's what I was thinking. And just I'm just putting this out there also since I've been with the district for 31 years working and then now um year- round calendars are not just for elementary schools. When I was working in 96 at Harriet Eddie all of the middle schools were on a year round calendar at the time. So that is something that we've done before if we need to do that for overcrowding out there. Just throwing that out there. Um, okay. And Miss Albiani asked the questions. I was trying to figure out that why are they receiving students if there's no room at Adriani as well? Um, I believe that's it I've got. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Moore. Yes. Thank you. I am very appreciative that we are having this presentation
165and these conversations because I get many emails from parents. Um many of these schools and um issues that we discussed today are in my area and so I'm glad that we um are addressing this issue. I would like to say I mean I know that we have to go into this item in depth and it's time consuming but I do the feedback that I get from the community is that they feel that it is hard for them to be involved and participate when we have to have um when we have these facility discussions during the daytime and so um in the future when we're having these presentations I think it might be nice to consider having them um in the evening time when more people can attend. And um that being said, I do have
166some questions and comments. Um on um let's see, on slide 12, you you uh I'll just go in order. Slide 12, you discussed parking. Um, I just want to point out that I have previously advocated specifically at PGHs that that is a huge um, issue and we're still, let's see, four years out from a new school that will alleviate, you know, the overcrowding there. So, I would like us to continue to look at what we can do for to address parking needs because currently all sophomores are not eligible for a parking pass at that school and some junior for the juniors it's a lottery system and when we look at the demographic of the students attending that school it's um Rancho Marietta Wilton Rancho Cordova Vineyard um areas that are not walkable bikable areas. Um,
167and so I know that for a lot of parents when their kids are about to turn 16, that's something they look forward to for a long time because it's one less stress. Uh, you know, oh, my child can um drive themselves to school, potentially drive their siblings to school if they have middle school students and things like that. Um, and some sophomores are turning 16 at the beginning of their school year. And so that's, you know, I just want to point that out again that that is a frustration that the community has um and that we need, if we're going to overload these schools, we need to look at those needs, especially for schools where um with this type of demographic. Um and then um on page um 15 um I I just had a
168question. What is the lifespan of most portables? I think we're eligible for modernization 20 years. 20 years. So they they last 20 years before they need to be modernized. Okay. Yeah. We we are very if it's not moved in between sometimes because being relocatable we don't sometimes wait the full 20 years if there's a need someplace else. Okay. And one thing I did learn since I've been on the board is that and we can re use refurbished portables which is much more uh affordable. Uh, so I I think that's a good option because we do want to be um fiscally responsible, but sometimes that is a good option and um to use the refurbished um to save money but also meet a need. Um um on slide 17, I just have a few comments about
169year round. Um because I just want to point out that it is more challenging to convert um an existing school in an established community to year round versus um opening a school year round because it really does change. um that is really difficult for parents and especially when they've moved into a community and that um thinking or knowing that that was their um you know that their child would be attending a year round school. Um and I think that we need to be honest with parents about the challenges and some of the negative realities of the track calendar and that is not in my observations that has not been um the uh what what we have done. Um like previously the superintendent said, "Oh, you know, you can go to Disneyland in February and then
170um I attended the Adriani community meeting when they were discussing this um when the the district staff was discussing this with the parents and they said, "Oh, you can go skiing in January." And that upset a lot of parents um because you can't go skiing in January if you have kids in middle school. uh if you have some children, yeah, maybe you have some children in elementary, but if you have kids in middle school and high school or job constraints, it's not like you can just take off and go skiing in January. And so, we need to be honest. Yes, that for some people that might be an option um that they have flexibility in family vacation, but that's not really the case if they have older children or job constraints and things like that.
171So we I think we need to be honest um because I don't I don't think sugar coating things um is helping um you know it's make that doesn't that just upsets people um and and also if if children are put on C or B track they basically don't have any summer um summertime off with older siblings. So, it it really is um a big concern for for families that have um children on traditional schedule, older children on traditional schedules. So, we just need to be honest about that. Um, and I have been asking also for a long time about attendance rate, attendant rates, um, daily attendance rates in traditional versus calendar schools, and I've still not received that because I know personally many families who do take off um, summertime, like if their child goes
172back to school on track system and their older children are still on the traditional schedule, they will pull their child, younger child out of school for a week or more um at times to you know to go on vacation. So I would just like to know if that is something I you know I would like to know what the the numbers are for that. Um on slide 18 um can you tell us a little bit about how we are seeking the parent input? Yeah. So um for I'll I'll use the year-round um conversion conversation that we started back last November with both Franklin and um Adriani. And you can see the the timeline that's actually from the November board presentation um last last year. But we present an initial recommendation to the board and then
173we um we go and we meet with the site staff and then we meet with the community. Uh I believe we did a survey. And so that's how we're really garnering and trying to get the community and the site feedback because it impacts the staff at each at at the site as well. And then we boil that information, triangulate the data, and then just like I explained with the feedback that was coming from Adriani in particular, we wanted to go back and and see was were there other options that we could consider? And so the the relocatables, portables, that is a short-term viable solution, but but we will be back here in 5 years having the exact same conversation and the blueprint. So the makeup of Adriani as a site is not going to be
174conducive for that long term both with for lots of reasons, parking, pickup, um we don't have the space for um playgrounds or um or or the restroom space. So we can do that short term, but we do need a longer term solution for Adriani. The boundary changes would have been incredibly disruptive and impactful. And so um so I don't need to go through all of that. I had already done that. But I guess what I'd like to share is that when we get the feedback from the site and we get the survey feedback and the community feedback, we do go back and go through all of our list of strategies and okay, did we not did we miss something? Is there a better option knowing that every single one of those strategies has its drawbacks.
175Okay. Thank you. And um I would I would like to thank the gentleman who came today and shared his concerns about his younger children being offloaded. And that is a common concern I've heard um from many parents. And it's very difficult for them because um they are having their child their younger child offloaded to a completely different school. Um and some some of them are even saying they don't have um they're not being provided or there's not room for the afterchool programs for that younger child. So then what do working parents do when their younger child is at Pleasant Grove Elementary and their older children are at Adriani? Um and then you reference we reference in this slide board policies um 5116 6117 and ED code 37611. I would just like to point out that
176in board policy 5116 um we say when possible siblings will be allowed to attend the same school. But ED code 37617 states um the governing board of any school district operating pursuant to the provisions of this chapter shall divide the students of each selected school into as many groups as necessary to adequately accommodate a continuous school program. So established and conduct and conducted students of the same family shall be placed in the same group unless one or more of such students is enrolled in special education class or unless the parent or guardian of such students requests that students be placed in different groups. Um so our current policy um 5116 is not in line with ED code and furthermore it's not even cohesive with um our board policy 6117 because 6117 says students of the
177same family shall be placed in the same group or track unless one or more of such students are enrolled in a special education class or unless the parent guardian requests that the students be placed in different groups. So board policy 6117 um is in line with egg code 37617 referencing that siblings should be kept together. Board policy 5116 is not. So um we I I have questioned why we're offloading these younger siblings. Younger siblings who have students uh older siblings who are established at a school should not be put in a lottery with other students. they need to be prioritized because according to ED code, families should be kept together. So, we really need to look at this and I feel really bad um for the families who have been put in this situation and
178I hope that this is not happen again. Um so, moving on to slide 21. Um on page 20, it said that we had placed a portable at Franklin Elementary School. Um and then that you you mentioned that that helped alleviate the situation. Um well in in part that that helped to alleviate the you know the situation there that um it's no longer um recommended to go to the year round but for Adriani um we have not implemented any portables. I know you said that we could only um potentially implement three, but I would like to see that we consider that um before we we go to year round or um uh you know, I know many schools where we've implemented portables and I know that parents Adriani are questioning why that has not been done
179there before looking to going year round. So, I just would like to point that out. I did have a question on slide 24 um regarding the boundary changes or the boundary alignment. Um, so I I understand that um you were looking at or we're looking at the, you know, the natural like the wetlands um border, but I I was just looking at the numbers at the bottom of that page and there's and Sunrise either option Sunrise has a significantly higher student population and um the projection only goes out to 2829, but are you projecting that further down the road those numbers will that um for example that grant line 208 will continue to increase and that sunrise will continue to decrease because it just seems like a really big discrepancy like either way. Yeah, I
180think we are projecting that sunrise will remain stable but grant line will continue to increase with the new growth and development. Yeah, it's just a matter of whether you would start um the new school at a even smaller number than you might otherwise because of that natural boundary knowing well all of that green fills in that if you go down Douglas and that whole area that's that's where a significant amount of the um development is happening right now. So, it will fill in, but it's just a matter of do you want to try to balance them more at the very beginning, but then Sunrise long term would be smaller. And that group of folks that's there in that that green space on the other side of the um the wetlands, while they've done a nice
181job, there's walkways and there there's there's ways to get there. Um it would make sense I think to keep all of them from the um to the east of the uh wetlands that it's more cohesive than having a carved out spot on the other, you know, that's really connected to the other neighborhood. But that's the conversation we'll have with the board and the board can give us direction which way they'd want to go. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that it because that makes more sense if if you're predicting that Sunrise area will stabilize um and that the Grant Line 208 area will continue to grow. So that makes more sense. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Um and then uh slides 28 through 30. I I really want to say thank you
182for addressing Sierra Enterprise. I've visited that school a couple times. Um, and I know that the principal and the staff are really concerned um that you know the site just hasn't been updated in years um overall and there's a lot of issues as you you know you um validated that. So I appreciate that and I I'm really excited that we're considering either a modernization or um the new build. And another huge issue there as you mentioned is the accessibility and it really just doesn't feel like a community school. like it's not walkable like all the things that you mentioned. Um and so I'm really excited that we're considering this. To me, it makes sense um to if we have to make those modernizations anyway. Um you know, costwise, it looks like it's going to be
183comparable if not more affordable um to build the to build the new school and that it makes sense with the the density and everything that you were sharing and the accessibility. Um, so I'm really excited that we're doing that or, you know, considering that. Um, I I know that that would be amazing for for the staff and the students and the community. I'm really excited about that. Um, and if I did have a question, maybe you said this and I'm sorry if I missed it, but if that was if we did that, what would be the opt or what would be the timeline predicted timeline for that if if we move that forward? um knowing that in the next few months we would um bring that forward for a project um for appro consideration and
184approval that we would anticipate to have um either the modernized or the new school um ready to go July of 2028. That's very exciting. Okay. Um, and I appreciate the emphasis that you shared about communication. And I do think that is really important because um a lot of these um like I said I've been contacted by many constituents in like the in these various areas Adriani Sarah Enterprise and Rancho Cordova area and they just feel that their areas are not uh are forgotten or the schools aren't being built or their their voices you know their concerns about growth aren't um heard or you know various situations. And so I'm glad that we had this um presentation to let the community know that we are we are addressing these needs and I you know a lot
185of exciting um exciting news and so I'm glad that we are communicating that to the to everyone. Um, and one last thing I'd like to advocate for is that I previously said this, but I would like to see that we consider implementing exit surveys when people leave the leave a school. Uh, or I mean I guess our district just so that we can understand what if it, you know, if they moved, if they decided to homeschool, if they it was an interdist transfer, things like that. so we can understand maybe why why people are leaving and um so and that's all my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Miss Bowwin. Just want to say thank you for the um presentation. This is really helpful. Um and it is very dense. Um I do appreciate
186um just kind of giving us like an expectation of what's to come and what we really need to be considering. Um, I hope that the public knows that we take um the impacts to families seriously. Um, I know personally what it's like to have your child offloaded and have your children um, you know, on two different buses in three different schools in a school year. It is extremely hard. It is extremely hard. Um, however, I say that knowing that it's also our way as a district to be fiscally responsible and also to really um consider how we grow and develop and being a sustainable, thriving district. Um, we you don't see schools that close in our community. you don't see um drastic um depletions of enrollment in areas and and not and not in others
187um because the district is putting these efforts together to do the research to collect the data to analyze it and to make decisions that will keep us uh a thriving district and maintain where we're at. It is a Elk Grove is a sought-after place to live. Um, which makes it a great place to be and unfortunately it requires us to make some really hard choices that do impact all our families. Um, and some more than others. So, please, I hope that the community knows that we do feel for you and empathize and we will do our best to make sound choices for our district that um hopefully have the least impact on our families and the community. But thank you for this. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Um I have a couple of questions. uh
188you know obviously these I completely agree with my colleagues these are growing pains. One of the challenges of being a growing district is that we have to make tough decisions like this. Um just regarding uh so starting with Adriani um how how many schools in our district are year round right now? 19. So that's almost half of our elementary schools are year round. So we have some experience doing this. Um, it's it's a tough position because I look at the different options we have, you know, for Adriani and I'm not a fan of portables. Every everywhere I've seen them on in our schools, they, you know, in some of our schools, they were sitting on, you know, um, playgrounds and courts and taking those opportunities away from kids. They are not f, you know, they're
189not wonderful places. They're not the places to learn that we, you know, that we want for our students. And so I'm really not a huge fan of those. If they're appropriate in a given instance, then let's do it and we need them. Um, you know, great. Um, obviously changing boundaries is, you know, fine if we can do it. But as this, you know, as this points out, part of the challenge we're having in that particular area is that all of those schools are going to are going to see growth in the next couple of years. And so adding moving u some of the students into Sierra Enterprise just creates problems for Sierra Enterprise. It doesn't actually alleviate anything in the grand scheme uh of the district. And you can see that in uh you know
190the the slide where you show the schools that are growing um you know fight Sierra Enterprise Adriani um Floren Elementary right those are all within a little halo of you know you go back to another uh slide here and you see there's a bunch of development in that particular area right between Floren and Gerber um and so if you go back if you go one slide forward yeah so you see right around Floren Road and Gerber right? Um there's that big chunk of uh you know of growth happening and that's those schools right that that are going to see growth in the future and a bunch of that is yellow and green and so you know we're the growth on uh you know the growth in the chart you were showing us was only about
1913 years out but a lot of this growth is going to happen 3 to 10 years from now and so you're going to continue to see that growth in that area which highlights how important it is to address these issues now which is why you know we're looking at Sierra White you're looking at Adriani and you know but one of the challenges of that that I also want to point out here and and and ask a little bit about is changing to a um year round gives us about you said 25% capacity there's a lot of growth here are we still just kicking the can we're kicking it further by changing to yearround at Adriani but are We going to need a new school here at some point. Yes, we've got the short answer is
192we've got we've got some space reserved. But um yeah, I kind of what I'm trying to get at here is um you know, this is a growth area regardless. It's not growing quite fast enough at this moment for us to build a school. Um, you know, but I guess my broader question is how are we managing this, right? You know, because this is we're kicking the can a little bit, right? We're kicking it as far as we can by switching to a year round. Um, but how are we managing that long-term growth in that area because it does seem like there's quite a bit of growth. I think the what the year round does um and and we've said this a lot is if we didn't have 19 schools on a year round we'd need
193anywhere from five to if and we did nothing we would need five to seven more elementary schools and it's 70 million right in current day that's unsustainable and so uh it really is a combination of the tools so the year round becomes a really important one because it will mitigate the need for the the quantity of new schools that we'll have. And so, um, I don't mean to not answer your question, but it the the year round conversion does become part of the long-term most costefficient solution where we might only need two more schools rather than an additional five. Yeah. The other piece, Michael, on that in that particular spot, so the yearround um conversion definitely gives us space. um we rebuild Sierra um and in that design we could we could increase the capacity
194of that school versus what Sierra currently is. Um and then scheduling around that school. But you know the the three schools that you see um on the screen that was up there on slide eight. I mean we we showed the two green spots cuz that's where you see the crazy growth. But there's no doubt that in that that center area if we were if we had a third um circle that's where it would be. So um it's definitely on the radar. Yeah. And so I'm wondering, you know, at what point do we need to start and I I feel like I'm just going to throw us into a brier patch here. Um at what point do we need to start having conversations if we're talking about Sierra and we're talking about, you know, Adriani, at
195what point do we need to start having conversations about, you know, fight and Floren Elementary and those because those are growth areas. Those are schools that are going to grow as well. They're already on. They're already in the in the conversation. We just didn't want to add two more. They thought it was in the immediate piece. Yeah, but Floren Floren is definitely on the on the radar on what we do uh with that and it's another school that has significant need from a from a site facility and without getting too far ahead that one might be a situation where we rebuild on the existing campus because there might actually be physical room to do it cuz then it really is a neighborhood school and if you move if you relocated that school um I think
196we get significant push back. So that might be something like we did at Dillard or where where we actually did a a rebuild on the um the update at PG where we did a a rebuild basically on the same campus but that's it's on the radar too. Um so uh but again how many things we could actually bring to you um in this presentation? Yeah, it it was reduced but we do have property over in the Floren area similar to where like Sierra and Vineyard Point. So um so at a future meeting we'll bring that project forward as well. Yeah. And I think I just, you know, part of why I'm asking these questions is I feel like, you know, I know for families, it's their school. That's their focus and it's incredibly important for
197them. And I think that we as, you know, as a district have a responsibility to mitigate, ameliorate a lot of the issues that are created. um you know but I also want to float up the fact that this entire area is you know a a focal point you know and how we are managing each of these elementary schools and um the growth in that area is going to be a continuous conversation and it you know I don't want to lose sight of that sort of um not just districtwide but regionwide you know lens that we need to look at it um you know as a school board Um a quick question on Sierra Enterprise. Um so the numbers on slide 28. Um so that's a the available matching funds is a big difference between the
198two. And so part of what I'm curious about is we have other schools um that we're building other schools and we're going to be building other schools for a little while. If we request and receive 42 million to rebuild a school, does that impact our eligibility to get that funding, matching funding for new schools down the line? Each school has eligibility itself. So, it shouldn't impact the district as a whole. It's just what we put in for the application process. And certainly when you look at these numbers, uh it definitely makes a lot more sense to go for new construction just because of the the funding that we would be entitled for. I think uh entitled to rather we don't get that money right away. That's the other thing, right? It takes it takes several
199years um to get the money on return, but it's it's actually how we continue to do good facilities work. And I mean, it's been a long-standing practice in Elgroveve where um you queue in, you do this type of analysis. Exactly. You put your application in. Um we're able to maybe front some of the funds and then years later when we're reimbursed by the state, we're able to continue to do um the work on um for other facilities that we have. Yeah. And the other the other factor in there that um can slow things up is whether there's existing capacity in a state level bond. So we do so there is capacity currently but there was a point in time where we frontloaded I believe the building of three schools and we were we were behind
200in getting um getting reimbured and I think we're caught up on all the all the actual um builds um but it there was a long period of time where we were having to frontload but right now there is there are there is a bond at the state level which is helpful and that's really like that's kind of what I'm getting at here is um you know if if if this if get going for this 42 million doesn't impact, you know, doesn't impact our eligibility for other schools going forward, right? Other new schools that we need to build because it it looks like there's going to be a bunch of them, right? Then like that seems like a great idea. Um, but if we're going to ask for this two 42 million and then the state
201is going to say no to, you know, the next elementary school we need to build in Rancho, right? That's a different calculus because I would rather have we more I would rather we have more schools and more capacity than you know rebuilding as using that to rebuild a school because then we're less we have less capacity in growing areas. Um you know so that's kind of what I'm curious about. It sounds like that's not an issue. It's not an Yeah, fortunately it's not an issue. Um, and what we're going to do, so something might make perfect sense to us, but what we want to do is make sure that you're armed with all of the information so you can make the best recommendation or we can make the recommendation and you can give us direction
202the best way you see fit. Okay, sweet. Then that makes sense to me. Um, last question is looking at the Rancho Cordova area. Um there is I'm looking at that on slide seven. That big chunk of green. And so my thought process here is how fast do we much as I hate to say it, how fast do we need to start thinking about another elementary school down there because we're just we're about to finish one. um you know uh the grant line's cool um and we're worrying about all these things and which is great but if we've got 5,000 more homes in that southern chunk which is going to be attached to grant line um right one of which going to be attached to one of our schools McGarvey um you know suddenly we're going
203to have to be splitting that off again and creating a new elementary school and it depends on how fast that happens right we're talking 5 to 10 years out here but at what point do we need to start having that conversation. I can tell you the planning team is Yeah. Well, they're they're in it and um so they they often are um they well they they are they're the folks behind the scenes, but they are constantly reaching out and like reaching out to developers and monitoring and we work really closely um in particular with the city of Rancho um the assistant city manager to say, "Hey, what's going on on your end?" And so we're in constant communication not just on the projects that we currently have active but you know what are you noticing
204so we one have infrastructure because that's also a challenge and um where there hasn't been that develop that development but the the planning we're we're doing it now is what I would say and then what what we're trying to do because we have we have to pace ourselves is um kind of like the Floren conversation we're we're ready to have that conversation, but um uh we have to make sure that we're um you know honoring a process that allows for input and direction both from the community and from the board so we're not moving so fast that we're getting ahead of ourselves. And so as we as we tackle these next uh 3 to four months with um big decisions and not always easy decisions then the next batch is going to come um as
205we move into you know January through through June and part of that is going to be measure N which we didn't talk about really at all. Okay comment. Yes please Miss Alani. Um, I also want to give credit to the department because um, a a few years back, many years back, we got ahead of ourselves and then we ended up with a school that didn't have students in it because we had an unexpected dip in the economy and we didn't grow and and so now these we're fronting tens of millions of dollars. And so it can be frustrating, I think, for the public and people to see it should be built. You should have it there ready. It should always be ready. But we are living in a period of uncertainty which we have to
206be so fiscally careful. I am so proud of this district that we are not in headlines. We there I'm getting things about people in trouble right now all over the the state. And we we have systems in place that we don't go there. And so as frustrating as it can seem, it's kind of a process like we get big, we go year round, then we're bursting, then we move on. And it's just kind of a process we followed. But I think we followed it successfully. And when we broke from it, it didn't go well. Like we ended up with a high school that was pretty empty for a while. And then then we're busting kids into it. Then they love that high school and then we have to tell them, "Oh, the growth happened. So
207now you all have to go back home." and then they're not happy about that. So, you just get yourself in pickles. So, um I just think there's a lot of great work done in the planning department and I and I think you have great questions. I'm not putting that down, but there's just that history, too. Mhm. So, they've learned. Y and we appreciate it. So, that is all the questions I have. Um and I think we are Gosh, I think we are ready for lunch. No, misspoke. All right. Consent agenda. Miss Alviani, are there any blue cards on the consent agenda? There are no blue cards. Excellent. Then I will entertain a motion unless somebody would like to pull an item from the consent agenda. Then I will entertain a motion to approve items one
208through three on the consent agenda. So moved. Moved by Miss Alani. Second. Seconded by Miss Bowwin. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. We are now on to lunch. Uh board members, this is going to be a quick lunch. This is an opportunity to grab food and then come back to the deis. Um and then we will start our next item. So please take 15 minutes and then be back here. Okay. Especially right Oh, there was many times we got snowed in and we always had way of life. self-sufficient and just well we were just up there I was just up there you know door shut down at 5:' you know it's restaurants by seven you know haven't eaten or done Great. Who planet had things at
209the But like our liquor stores were even if you didn't buy your alcohol. [Music] All right, folks. Let's slowly make our way back. That'll be good. So sense cabinets here. Oh, hey All right, Mr. Superintendent, do you want to introduce this one? I will. So, thank you very much. Uh, so very excited uh to have the opportunity today uh to really going to do a um a team development um session. Uh we have Mike Merchant uh longtime friend of the district and uh and working with the uh the Arbager Institute uh with regards to the uh the outward mindset work. So this will be a combination piece opportunity for some board development piece. I know Mike will get you up and out of your seats and engaged down with each each other for part of
210the session. And then towards the end of it, we will also kind of build in a conversation around the um the handbook and be able to take a look at some ideas that the uh the members have shared as thoughts u with regards to potential edits so we can have that conversation um as well. So, super excited to have uh Mike here. Um friend, friend friend of the district, friend of mine. Um and has made a huge impact on uh who the who the team is and who we are as a district and opportunity kind of um re-engage and so looking forward to the work, Mike. So, thank you for being here. Thank you. No, super glad to be here and I just in awe as I walked into this room and it's the first
211time I've seen it in person. So all I remember from being here last time was moving those 50 lb folding chairs around to do different things and so this is beautiful and and uh what a great gathering place for all of you as a board and those will come and interact with all of you. So yeah, so we wanted to do just a bit of a refresh and for those who have been through the who have participated previously some of the outward mindset training and for those of you who are new to that work, we'll give you a chance to be introduced to some of the core ideas and concepts and so but what we're going to do first to kind of kick things off and by the way is there a clicker I know
212there was going to be or oh it's on this side. Perfect. You know I can find it. Perfect. I'm one of those folks at Rome. So, thank you. But, um, let's see if we can get to move. There we go. So, we're going to kick it off with just a very simple tool. Those of you who've been with us um when we've done some of our virtual events, we've done this previously, which is just a meet tolearn because we don't get an opportunity very often as board members just to get to know each other and to learn about each other. And so we're going to have you, I know you're in the middle of eating, but we'll have you maybe pick up and move somewhere to where you're with somebody that maybe you don't sit
213by as much, maybe you don't spend quite as much time with. And we're going to do a meet tolearn. You should have a copy of the meet tolearn tool right there in front of you. And your only objective when you do a meet tolearn, and you guys can do a meet tolearn, too, if you'd like to, but your only objective is just to get curious. Just get curious. So you take a minute, sit with a board member that maybe you don't spend as much time with other that that you do as much with others and just get curious about their objectives, their ideas, their uh aspirations for the district, some of their headaches, challenges. Just learn all you can and write some notes. So we'll take just about 15 minutes to do that. You'll have
214seven and a half minutes each. So you got seven and a half minutes to interview somebody and they have seven and a half minutes to interview you. Yeah. Just find a find a board member you don't spend quite as much time with. All right. And Beth, who are you sitting? Who you going to be with? Oh, there you go. Perfect. Perfect. You guys, I know you guys hang out together all the time. So, I know you guys hang out together all the time. That's why it's good. Yeah. Just two more minutes. Two more minutes and then we'll chair out. Okay. So, what we're going to do real quickly and and I'll just go around and have you tell me who you met with and then just something you learned that you were either didn't know
215before today or you were just reminded of today that helped you see the other person as a person. Okay, I'll start on this since you guys are wrapping it up. All right, we'll just start. Who'd you meet with and what did you learn? Uh, I met with Susan and um I learned that she has um a lot of life experiences um that um seem valuable to her. Um, but also she mentioned just challenges like generational challenges. Um, and I learned that her family is very important to her. She has many many roles outside of being a school board member. Um, and let's see that she something I learned about her is that one of her needs is that she needs to see that she's making a difference. Um, so Oh, awesome. Great. It is. Well,
216I met with Heidi and um I learned the biggest thing about Heidi is she's an advocate for many different things. Um patients, community, kids, family, um her church. Um also, I I learned that some of her challenges were similar. Balancing life and finding time for herself. Seems like she's so busy taking care of other people. She needs to find time for herself in her schedule. Um, one thing that that we both needed um was surprising was affirmation from people close to us that we're doing well. We're doing okay. We're doing okay. Awesome. Awesome. That was awesome. Awesome. Okay. Great. Okay. I met with Michael and let's see, he has many, many, many different roles as, you know, family roles and he he volunteers in the community quite a bit. He's also an attorney and a
217professor and a gunk. And that's evidently very important. Ale. It's a very specific kind of uncle. Yeah. You got to tell me about this. What is a gungle? I don't know what they call. Yeah. It's a gay uncle. Oh, a gay uncle. Gungle. Simple as that. Apparently a very specific kind of uncle. Well, I I have Yeah. Well, that's awesome. There you go. I had to put it in quotes on my paper so I didn't screw it up. Um, let's see. some challenges. We kind of had very similar challenges. We need more time, more money, always. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Um and communication is very important to both of us. Um some of his headaches, dishonesty, unreliability, and inconsistency, which we all deal with every day. So, I'm trying to think if if that's
218anything new. What what new? Um yeah, those are those are pretty much it. There we go. There we go. Okay. Yeah. Um, I met with Jennifer. Um, and I feel like a lot of the, you know, roles are built around family right now, which makes sense. You're in that point. um you know uh mother, grandmother, wife, uh sister, aunts, great aunt um you know all of those uh important family roles but also I can tell al you know still in the community um you know still uh volunteering at schools uh you know for her own kids and grandkids and um so that's big part of her life. um you know some of uh one thing that I thought was interesting was um one of the challenges uh that she brought up was um trying to
219figure out what she can control still and I think that that is um it's a big big part of you know what we do is try and the the learning process here um is figuring out okay what are the what are the little pieces that you can control and in the world and um yeah awesome Awesome. Great. Awesome. Great. You too. All right. So, I just so fascinated. We didn't follow the rules. I didn't I never heard switch when we were talking. Oh, so you just learned about that was a need. More clear direction. I said seven and a half minutes each, but it's all good. I just kind of So, I met Dia. She's named after her dad's mom and there's some other people in her family also with the same name which makes
220it interesting. Um her roles in I didn't hear your directions to be honest. What are we doing? Do I run it down? Yeah, just anything you learned anything you learned that was new to you or that she's a mother, educator, an advocate, a partner and uh kind of an if not me then who person likes to take action. Awesome. Um her objectives are to raise good humans and be a good school board member and um her challenge is the work life balance. She's um got a job as well and that I think everybody in this room can agree to that. No offense, but often even more so for women. Um um her needs, she needs to pritor some self-wellness. make sure she's taking care of herself because you can't serve others if you are not
221well. And her her kind of love language is acts of service and that gives her strength and she appreciates when they're done and it gives her motivation and strength. Um she wants to be careful. She's at a point of privilege and she wants to make sure she's treating this opportunity and this this privilege correctly and using the powers for good. Mhm. That's me, not her. That is um awesome. Her aspirations are to make a difference. And I pointed out I I believe she's a bridgeuer between communities and people and bringing them here. And um and she really believes education gives you the power to change the projection of a a whole family and a whole generation. And I think what I really appreciate myself because I'm very biased is she loves the school district very
222much and is ready to to do what it takes to make other people know what it is and to build bring them in and to continue to make it better for the people we serve. Does that sound fair? Okay. Awesome. Great. That is so sweet. And so did you get to learn a little bit about that? I did. I did. I consider Beth a big sister. Um Beth as roles. She's a mother. She's patient partner partner. Um we have partners in crime at home. Um um and a community member. Uh Beth is um her objectives is to help all kids do better and have a healthy family and self. Uh challenges include balance. Um where to go deeper with her focus but and takeaways. Um, I think Beth is definitely someone that I have looked
223up to because um, she's someone that just like lays it out honestly. Um, and I and she's very um, I think concise and clear and it's something I've always appreciated about Beth um, her needs success um, in her nonprofit. So, she's doing some great work in the community um, with in literacy and bringing books to kids that need them. um and also has a need for community and at home and at work. Uh for her headaches, time limitations, it is hard to get everything in right. Um and then her family is spread out, so they've um all grown. I'm not looking forward to that part. Um but she's handling it so well. I love hearing the stories about how um you know her kids are off doing great things and how Beth handles it at
224home cuz I'm like that's going to be me. Um and then just aspirations balance serve um serve out her role and will um when she does um end up leaving the board. It's going to be in a better place. And then nonprofit um is some other items um she wants to give as many books away for free as possible. Awesome. Awesome. Great. Well, look, um, we don't get a chance to get to know each other as well as we could. So, just taking a few minutes to learn about each other. Just we'll we won't we'll won't sit in these chairs the same again, right? We'll come together. We'll see each other. We can ask the second question like, "Hey, how are things going with your grandson or your granddaughter or, you know, how's it going
225with that niece or nephew?" And and you can follow up with them and uh and because we can see each other as people. So, that's where we're headed today. And given the challenges some of you wrote down and you're sharing with each other around your headaches. Um, you all have challenges. You all have headaches. And so, I listed a couple here and I'd love to hear any more that you want to share with me, but specific to being board members. Um, I wrote one down that came up many times with all of you and that is just that work life balance, right? Making sure because this takes a lot of time, a lot more time than you probably anticipated when you became a board member. I was like, "Wow, that was a huge commitment." And
226uh so the the work life balance, what other challenges come to mind for you when you think about serving as a board member? Work life balance. What else? Tell me more about that one. So the control, but tell me more about the challenge for you around that. I think it's hard because I worked for the district for 31 years, retired, and so I the reason I came back is because I have all that knowledge and I want to use it um for good, not evil. Exactly. But what what as a board member do I have control over? What what can I do? And it it's and Susan and I both had this issue and I think we still do is Superintendent Hoffman used to be our boss, our big boss, and now we're his boss.
227That's right. And it's it's you'd think it would be really easy to switch, but it it's not as easy as it is as you think it is. That makes better sense. It's not. So, it's not. So, look, you all have responsibility and you have um you have control as and as a board, right? as a board together. But yes, thinking about reporting to him and now he reports to the board as a whole and what that means for you. So that's helpful. So okay, workplace balance control. I heard from you, Michael, a little bit around just um authenticity, honesty, communication, any of that. You want to tell me more about that a little bit? Um I mean getting into communication, right? We we serve so many roles um not just within the district but within
228the community and learning how to communicate with each different party that we are talking to. Whether you know because how we communicate with constituents is different with than how we communicate with teachers which is different than how we communicate with students which is different than how we communicate with each other or the superintendent or cabinet. um learning, you know, I think one of the biggest challenges that takes a little while is learning how best to communicate and how to communicate most effectively with the many different constituency groups that we have. Okay, good, good point. Okay, great. Other challenges as a board members. Yeah, but I think um I'd gotten very comfortable with the board and I felt like I knew my the board and and I think a big part I felt very frustrated when
229I started on the school board with the same thing like I have these great ideas and why aren't we doing all my great ideas? And so that idea of how to accept you're one of seven. Yeah. And you um you only have power sitting here as a vote of one of seven. That's right. And then so how do you get your ideas and you have these passions so part of it is through through your example and it's part of building relationships. And so now a new challenge is that we need to build a relationship and get back to a team that you trust and you you believe and you can respect even if you don't agree. And and that's um I think that's the challenge. Not a bad one. It's just no Oh, no. But
230that totally makes sense. Especially since all of your lives you have these huge obligations outside of just your board work. So the time you're here is so precious and you've got so many commitments and things on your agenda and things you're pushing through to take time to build a relationship is not easy. Not easy at all. So plus with the Brown Act call them all and talk to them about things to not allowed to. That's exactly right. You're welcome, Karen. I brought it up. So, I I hear workforce balance, control, one of seven, that whole piece. Um, really learning how to communicate with all the different constituents that we're involved in and then certainly building relationships. And so, that feel like a good group kind of start with. Okay. And then look, as we move
231through this, I hope you feel this is interactive and we can have some conversations. So given those challenges, there's two ways to approach. Now, those of you that have obviously had a chance to spend a little time with me, you'll know that we'll talk about kind of two ways to approach any challenge, any opportunity. So, communication, um, building relationships with each other. One is with what we call an inward mindset. And with an inward mindset really, um, I'm thinking about me, like I want to build a relationship so that I can get my agenda or I can get my things. um up on up in front of everybody else or I can control the situation a little better. So, I'm only thinking about me. How do I get ahead? How do I look good? How
232do I show up here? Um how do I, you know, get the things I want to get out of this? Or I can show up with what we call an outward mindset where I'm focused on the mission. I'm thinking about the children we serve and all the employees that we have responsibility towards and and the community that we serve. So our our with an outward mindset, we're taking into account more than just ourselves. And what I'll talk about in just a minute is that we don't forget ourselves. Ourselves are a very important part of this. But with an inward mindset, others are not in the equation. So we're just thinking about ourselves as we move forward. So, and it turns out that really leading as a board member and uh or cabinet member, the most
233important thing is is is that we actually do take others into account because the biggest impediment to achieving results is going to be an inward mindset because with an inward mindset, we end we end up inviting others to resist even our good ideas. Um because others aren't people to us when our mindset's inward. So, let's unpack this idea of two mindsets for a minute. And when I just I'm so I'm so sorry to interrupt. Um, are we going to continue to do things in our groups or should we invite board members to go back to their seats? I'd like to invite board members to go back to their seats so they very comfortable. Didn't want to keep you all in the They've worked. Thank you, Michael. No, no, thank you. I like you sitting down
234here. Yeah. So, and you guys can just turn your chairs around, look at the screen if you want as we go through it, but Oh, you got to Oh, you have a monitor. Oh, that's right. Wow. I know. Wow. I should just come up there and sit with you guys and do this. So, but with an inward mindset, other people don't count like we count. They don't matter like we matter. Other people, we only see them in terms of what we're trying to accomplish. Right? So, we have an agenda. We have something we want to control. we have, you know, an idea that we want to push forward. We only see others in terms of how they're going to help or hinder us in what we're trying to accomplish. So, they're not people to us.
235They're just objects to us. When I see others as objects, I see them as vehicles, obstacles, or relevancies. So, a vehicle that are going to help me get there or an obstacle that are in the way of what I want to achieve or irrelevant to what I want to accomplish. But yet, when our mindset's outward, people count like we count. They matter like we matter. They have ideas, thoughts, feeling, perspective. And it counts. It matters. And I live and work in a way that takes others into account. Now, we all live our lives in a combination of these two mindsets. Sometimes inward, sometimes we're outward. Moment to moment. One moment I might be outward, one moment I might be inward. But really the quest for us to go on where we're going to have the
236greatest influence as a board is really going to be the more we can live and work with an outward mindset where we're taking others into account because mindset determines our influence as a leader because what other people are responding to is how they're being seen. How they're being seen. So now, one common question that comes up when you think about mindset is people often think, well, does inward mindset mean that I'm behaviorally hard and outward mindset mean that I'm behaviorally soft? What's your thoughts about that? Does inward mindset just mean that I'm hard, behaviorally hard, and outward mindset mean that I'm behaviorally soft? How many of you have had somebody say hard things to you and yet you knew they really cared about you? Ever had that happen? I know I've had that happen. And
237uh and yet how many of you have had somebody say soft, sweet things to you and yet you knew they were up to something, right? And so that's the idea is that what we're responding to is not the actual behavior. We're responding to how we're being seen in the behavior. The distinction between hard and soft is actually a distinction of behavior, not mindset. I can do hard or soft behavior with either mindset. Being an outward is seeing people's people, which sometimes might require hard behavior. Might require us to say no. Might require us to speak up. Might require us to make a course correction. Um, but I do it still seeing others as people. They're into account. In fact, I'm influenced by them and who they are. Whereas when I'm inward, I'm not. So, let's
238play that out for just a minute. Let's we'll take a hard behavior like correction and we're going to play it out with an inward mindset, outward mindset. Let's see what that works, how that works. So, somebody corrects you with an inward mindset where you're just an object to them. Somebody corrects you with an outward mindset where you're a person to them. Do they feel the same? Now, what's it feel like to be corrected by somebody who sees you as an object? Who has an inward mindset? Even if the corrections needed, what does it feel like? Feels harsh. Yeah. Feels like a put down. And yet, what does it feel like to be corrected by somebody who sees you as a person where you count and matter? Even if it's hard, even if it's hard correction,
239what's it feel like? Yeah. they care enough about you to actually have the conversation with you to correct you and uh and so it feels like help even though it might be hard and maybe be hard to receive but it's much easier to receive when you know they see you as a person. So again, what we're responding to is not the correction itself as much as we're responding to how we're being seen in the correction. So let's take a soft behavior like complimenting. Somebody compliments you with an inward mindset. Somebody compliments you with an outward mindset. Do they feel the same? And what's it feel like to be complimented by somebody who has an inward mindset? Even if the words are nice and sweet. Yeah. Like what do you want? Yeah. Yeah. Feels patronizing. It's
240not authentic. What do you want? And yet, what does it feel like to be complimented by somebody who has an outward mindset? Even if they're fumbling through the words, what's that feel like? Yeah, it feels affirming, feels great, right? You're like, "Thank you." Why does it feel different? Because again, what we're responding to is how we're being seen more than the words we we say. And so, when somebody's walking away from you with furrowed brows, darkened countenances, resisting you in some way, resisting your good idea, pretty good chance they don't feel seen, heard, or valued. they feel as if they're just a vehicle obstacle or irrelevancy. And now as as uh you know your superintendent may have mentioned for many years I had the opportunity to run a behavioral healthcare organization for 27 years. I
241was executive director of Anastasia Foundation and what I learned and I can share this with you with all the confidence in the world and that is that it doesn't matter what learning challenge a child has or even what a mental health issue that they might have. They still sense how they're being seen. See them as an object. Their symptoms will escalate. See them as a person. They may still have symptoms, but they come way down. Even Even a child under the influence, a kid Young people I've taken to detox over the years, they still sense how they're being seen. Still sense it. And so mindset matters. And why does it matter so much? Because it matters to others how they're being seen. Now, some of you were here at this period of time, but I
242know Beth was and I know but during co um I will and I've shared the story all over the country. So you guys are famous here because I work with districts all over. But I actually was in a district in LA. um watching um the board interact with the public around face masks during CO and uh and I was down it was in LA I spent that evening watching it and the board would sit up here somebody would come up get on a microphone and you know they would read their case even though the board couldn't really do a lot about it they would share their you know their concerns or challenges with it and the board member or board chair would say okay next you know three minutes Next. Next. And the more they
243said next, the more they said next, that you could feel the temperature in the room just going up. The more angry people got, the more. And then next night, I happened to be here. I actually happened to be here. And u I remember as people came to the microphone, it wasn't just next. It was, "Thank you for sharing that. I know that's hard. And uh look, we can't do anything, but we appreciate your perspective. Thank you for sharing that." people were seen here and when they were seen here pretty soon the night went on people gradually started leaving going home and so but it wasn't the same experiences the night before. Now you may have had some of those nights but it was a very different experience. It was such a contrast for me to
244see one board who saw people as people and another board who saw people as a problem, as an object of getting home and doing whatever they needed to do. And just people's response. Again, what people responded to is how they're being seen. Mindset determines our influence. See people as people. We invite their cooperation. See them as objects. We provoke their resistance. Resistance, we're now going to have to spend time and energy and effort into managing, right? So that's why this work is so important if that helps. So any questions about that simple idea. Now I want to bring up since somebody brought up work life balance and caring for ourselves. You'll notice in that diagram up there that there is an inside triangle and an outside triangle um with the outward mindset. In other words,
245there is a self. That inside triangle represents our objectives. Every one of you has a role or responsibility outside of work at outside of the board um and here at the board work that you do you have responsibilities obligations of your own responsibilities and a self to care for the difference is that when my mindset's inward I care for myself but in behalf of myself when my mindset's outward I care for myself but I also realize others need to care for themselves as well and the way in which I um interact and work with them is helping or hindering them and what they need to do and what they need to accomplish. Terry Warner, the founder of Arbinger many years ago said there really are no silos. We are always either helping or hindering each
246other. And sometimes the way that we hinder each other is not helping when we can. Right? So we're always either helping or hindering each other by how we interact, how we regard, how we see each other. So it's not that being outward means that I forget myself. It's just that when I'm being outward, I'm taking care of myself in behalf of others. And in the recovery community, there's actually research behind that says, you know, any sustainable sobriety done on behalf of self won't last. Just won't. But in behalf of others actually is much more sustainable. Okay. All right. Any questions again about that idea? Okay. So, we're going to have just a a really quick, we'll a little more time at the cabinet tomorrow around some of these ideas, but you guys just a really
247simple idea and that is that people are people and because they are people, the only way I can see them any other way than a person is I have to make that okay in my brain. I have to justify that because you are a person, Beth. The only way I can see you any other way than that is I have to make that okay. I have to justify in some way. I have to say something about me and something about you that makes it okay for me not to treat you as a person who counts and matters like I matter. So we have to justify it. So and one way that we justify that is we see ourselves as above or beneath others. When we're outward other people count like we count. They matter like
248we matter. But when I am inward my mindset's inward. In order to justify seeing myself seeing others as objects, I have to see myself as above them or beneath them. Okay? So, see myself as above them. I'll adopt what we call an inward style that's called um better than just better than you. I'm smarter than you. I have more years experience than you. Um I'm a lawyer. I went to school. Right? I mean like I I see myself as above you. I see you're less than me. Okay? That's one way that we can justify not treating people as people. Another way that we can justify not treating people as people is that we we feel entitled or deserving of being of better treatment. Right? We we feel entitled to be seen as better than others,
249smarter than and better. So we still see ourselves as above others. Okay? Now can I justify myself and seeing myself as beneath others? Well, absolutely. So if I see myself as beneath others, I will adopt an inward style that we call worse than. I wish I was as smart as they are, right? I wish I could do the things that they do. And uh and so we feel worse than others. And we look they're above us in some way. Stay there very long and we'll adopt an inward style of I deserve. I mean, I need to be seen as other words, we need to be seen as anything but worse than. So we try and make up for it and so we try and compensate it. That's that's where perfectionism comes in. That's where doing
250everything for everyone else comes in is in this need to be seen as Edward style way of justifying ourselves. And so now um over a lifetime of justifying ourselves, we we adopt kind of a style, a go-to place when we're seeing others as objects. kind of a place we go to um and and we pick up a self-justifying image of ourselves. And how do we know that we might have one of these? Well, look, when things don't go our way, something gets shattered for us. I had a coach at Arbinger for a year. Her name was Nancy Smith and she would pick up the phone once a month and she would call me and we would talk through things and she had this wonderful way of navigating through my life and finding where I was
251inward, right? Or in the box. And we use that metaphor a lot at Arbinger in the box. And so, but I was inward. And then then she would ask this question. At first I hated this question, but the more I began to ask answer this question, the more I love the question. She'd say, "Mike, what image about you is now being shattered or threatened?" I'm like, "You're not going to ask that question again, are you?" Right. Really? And uh but the more I I tried to answer that question, the more I learned that every time there was an eruption for me, every time I was getting triggered in some way, every time I was getting defensive, that there was a corresponding view of myself that was now getting shattered or threatened, that I saw myself
252as better than or deserving, worse than or need to be seen as something other than worse than. Now, um, we're going to unpack these a bit because what I learned in that year's period of time is I learned that I had a dominant kind of inward style at work and I had a dominant one at home. So, we're going to have a little fun today and kind of find out what's our dominant one as a board member and what might be our dominant one at home. Um, because the first step to turning outward is actually noticing when we're inward. And so this will heighten our awareness to want our mindset's inward. Okay. So I'm going to unpack them. As I unpack these with you, I want you to ask ourselves just thinking about each one
253of them. Look, which ones of these may have you have set up camp, right? You spend more time in that one. When you're inward, you're not always inward, but sometimes you are. And when you are, which ones of these do you identify with the most? Okay. So if it's better then your self view is that you're superior, you're important, you're virtuous. And how do you feel when you're with other people and different with other people? You might feel disdainful of other people. You might feel impatient with other people. And so that that's a better than inward style. If you have a I deserve inward style, you feel meritorious. You feel unappreciated, right? You feel mistreated in some way by others and what's your view? Just give me that's how you're that's your view. How do
254you feel? Will you feel like entitled, deprived and resentful at other people who get things that you don't get? Right? If you have a worse than inward style, your self view is that you're broken. You're you you you can't do this, right? You're you're powerless. And and how do you how do you feel? You feel discouraged and envious and resigned like I can't do this anymore. And yet if you have a need to be seen as, in other words, you're trying to make up for being feeling worse than you are trying to portray something you're not. You're going to feel yourself feel that you're being judged. You're at risk all the time and uh and that you're being watched by others. And how do you feel? Well, stressed and overwhelmed and anxious. Okay. So, now
255let me give you a couple of simple examples of this. And I know some of you heard mine, but a couple of simple examples. I grew up in a on a farm. My dad was a school teacher and and we were broke all the time. I mean that I heard the word broke a thousand times growing up. And so I never forget going to college when I was 18, leaving to go go to college, telling myself I was never going to be like my mom and dad. I was never going to have problems like they do with money ever. What do you think my undergraduate degree is in? Yeah, finance, right? Finance. And as a freshman in college, I remember I was starving to death. My and my dad knew it. And he sent me
256a check for 250 bucks, which is a lot of money back then. But I didn't cash that check. I carried it around my wallet for two years till I was so afraid the bank would have never taken it. Why? Because I wasn't going to take money from them. I was going to do this without them, right? And uh and I was going to make it without them. and I wasn't going to be like them. So when you think about which inward style I might be dragging around with me, how do you suppose I see myself as it relates to my parents? I'm better than I see myself as above them in some way. Okay. So I meet this beautiful redheaded girl and senior in college and we get married and and after a couple years
257we start having problems with money. Well, whose problem? I mean, whose fault is that going to be? If I'm the sort of person who's never going to be like his mom and dad, never going to promise us money, whose fault is it going to be? Earth. So, there's an eruption for us in our marriage, that severe eruption in our marriage because I have an image about myself that's now getting shattered or threatened. And it's my way of justifying not seeing my mom and dad as people counting matter like I matter, who have battles and struggles like us and like anyone. And so, okay, now here's another one for you. Um, I was hired by the founder of Arbinger in 1990. So, four years out of college, that's how old I am. I got I he
258hired me to run Anastasia. I was it was way beyond my capabilities at that time, but he he felt like I could do this. And uh and I jumped in two feet and and started marching forward. And Terry Warner, the founder of Arbinger, was a philosopher, really smart man, a pretty good businessman. And I wanted him to like me. I wanted him to see that I could do this, that I was capable of doing this. So I was always managing information to make sure it got back to him in the best light of me, right? And I was super needy for feedback, always wanting feedback from him and uh and and worried about somebody saying that I did something that, you know, he he didn't agree with or didn't like. Which one of these do
259you think I'm dragging around with me as a new leader and need to be seen as this competent likable leader? Now, nothing wrong with being a competent, likable leader. It's only wrong when I have to have other people see it in a way that justifies me not treating others as people, right? And he was above me in some way. So, I have this need to be seen as that I dug around with me. So what I've learned in my experience is that look in my home life I'm not always inward but when I am inward in my home life my most dominant inward style my go-to is better than I go to that better than place at work my dominant inward style is need to be seen as I go there right when my mindset's
260inward and and that's how I justify not treating people as people now I don't always do that but I do but that awareness of my most dominant or styles. So, it's super helpful to me. Okay. So, what we're going to do, we're have a little fun. I'm going to invite you down um down here on the floor. We're going to do a little exercise activity together where we're going to actually think about some different situations. We'll actually throw in a few board situations and we'll have us think about our own inward styles. So, come on down. And we'd love to have cabinet. If you guys want to join us, come join us. Just come join us. We'll have a little fun with this. So, Okay. So, yeah, take some notes. So, what I'll do is
261I want you just to imagine this is this beautiful room as a box, right? So, we're all inward. We're in a box. I'm going to share with you a situation. And as I share the situation with you, I just want you to go to the inward style that that you would go to if you were in the box. Okay? Not always in the box, but if you were, which one would be yours? Which one would you identify with? So you'll notice better than is right there on that corner. And then I deserve. So those two are right there. And then if you scoot back, that door has worse than and this wall here has need to be seen as. Okay? So we're just have a little fun with it. And you just move to whichever
262one. And if you can't decide which one just say just use your imagination just go to the one you think might be the most dominant. We'll see where it goes. Okay. So the first one is and this will relate to cabinet as well. So one of your colleagues either a board member or cabinet member uh excuse me you're with your board or cabinet members you make what you think is a really important point and the other board members just blow you off or you know other cabinet members blow you off. you make what you think is a really important point and they just blow you off. Okay. So, if you were inward, which would be your inward style? Which one would you go to? And I'll just follow you. I'm going to go to the
263one that I would go to. It's right over here. [Laughter] All right. So, look, we're gonna go. We're gonna No, they you guys will have you guys share. So, from the better than place, what's going through your mind? What are you thinking about these people who just blew you off? Your cabinet members or board members? Yeah. Like, hey, they're not paying attention. I've got this. What else? What's going through your brain? It's easy. This Makes a lot more sense, right? They were just as smart as I was. So, any other thoughts? That's right. Yeah. You see myself see yourself as better than Okay, good, good, good. Over here, what are you thinking about? Those people who just blew you off if you're in this I deserve inward style. Yeah, I deserve to be heard, right?
264After given my experience, my background, my perspective, all that I've given to this district, I deserve to be heard, right? What else? Any other thoughts? Always not. Yeah. Still important needs to be said. And you guys, I deserve to have you listen to what I'm going to share with you right now. We may not ever say those words, but that's what we're thinking. Yeah, that's what we're thinking. Right. Okay. Now, um over here, worse then, we just have one. So, in the worst than place, what are you thinking when everybody blows you off? I have no value. I have no value. Right. I have no value. I wish I was as smart as they are. And uh and yeah, and occasionally when I'm in this space, I'm thinking there's a conspiracy theory here. They're all
265like, right, I'm being judged a bit, you know, and about that. Yeah, maybe you don't go that far with it, but I do occasionally. I'm like, look, they all blew me off, right? So, okay. And then need to be seen as we're feeling worse then and we're trying to make up for it. So, Lisa, what what what are you thinking about? Feeling judged. But here we feel judged. We feel judged because we're going to try and make up for this. we're feeling worse then like we're feeling like you know wish we were smart wish we could do what they could do and so over here we're we're feeling a little judgment at risk and we're going to when somebody blows us off we're still going to be really nice about it right just oh I
266probably shouldn't have made that comment then you know maybe you know maybe it wasn't the timing wasn't good or whatever else but we're thinking about ourselves and we're feeling at risk with everyone okay okay here's another one just for all of you and uh and that is somebody complains about somebody in the district complains about you behind your back. Somebody in the district that you know complains about you behind your back. If you were you had an inward mindset. We're not always inward, but if we were, which one of these would you go to? Got a little movement. Mostly the same. Okay. All right. So, better than what are you thinking about those people who are complaining about you? I have no idea. They're just idiots, right? I have no idea all that I do.
267What about I deserve? Yeah. Being resentful. I don't deserve that kind of treatment. Yeah. kind of back to you have no idea all I'm doing for you. Yeah, exactly. And so we have a worse then. What what are you thinking of the worst then? Yeah. Discouraged and and why didn't they come to me and what is it about me that makes that hard? Right. And so and then over here need to be seen as what are we thinking? Yeah. Our image just got shattered in a big way. Then we'd be super stressed out about it. Yeah. Yeah. And exactly. Okay. So, here's another one for all of us, just simple one. So, they're introducing, you know, some new process at the school. Um, either as board members, some new process or some or procedure we
268have to follow through or cabinets, you got a new system or something you have to implement. But they're introducing a new process and you have no idea how it works. You have no idea how it works. If your mindset's inward, which one would you go to? No idea how it works. Introducing something new and you have no idea how it works. This is where I hang out. That works. All right. So, so what are you two thinking? Are you in the worst then? I think so. Okay. So, Beth, you're in the better than what are you thinking about this new process and the people who implemented it? Yeah. And that's right. over here in better than you're kind of annoyed cuz you're thinking like who came up with this idea right weren't things working fine
269before right what do we need something new to worry about and uh and then I deserve what are you thinking they should they should be doing this the way that I can't that's right exactly or somebody should come and do it for me right I I shouldn't have to do this and worse then what are we thinking I think There's one more thing. Yeah, there probably was a better way. But over here, I'm thinking, look, I can't do this. Just one more thing, right, that I can't do. And over here, what are we thinking? Know how to do it. So, we're super worried about how we show up and how we look. And so, all of us over here, we're like, we got this, right? we're g we got this even though we have no
270clue we got this and so we're going to go do it right so think about that think about any time in the district we're initiating something new if I what's the consequences of better then you think they'll implement it no they'll discount it what do you think about I deserve will they implement it they do it'll be complaining and begrudgingly right worse than feels overwhelmed they're not going to be able to get to it. And all of us over here, we're going to be faking it, right? We're not going to ask questions. We're not going to get some help with this thing because we got to be seen as we have this, right? So, there's implications to that. Okay, let's think about just a couple of home ones just for fun. Like you mentioned just
271a minute ago that you feel like you could be in a couple of these, right? How many of you feel like that? You're thinking, "Hey, I could be in a couple of these." So, here's an here's one you got to think about for a moment, and that is you walk into your house at the end of the day. If your mindset's inward and you walk into your house at the end of the day, what might be your inward style? I know which one's mine. Just walk in your house at the end of the day. I don't know. whatever. All right. So, if we're in this better than place, how do we walk into the house at the end of the day? And you can move if you need to, but how do we walk in
272at the end of the day if we see ourselves as better than I have to straighten out now? Yeah. What do I have to straighten out now? Gone all day at work. Yeah. What have you been doing all day? Right. Good grief. I conquered the world today and you've been sitting there all day. Damn it. Exactly. Watching TV and the water's exploding. Exactly. So, I deserve What are you thinking? What are you thinking? I just need two minutes of quiet. I just need my quiet time. I need put my feet up. Somebody take my shoes off, a little drink. I need something. Right. And uh and I'm I'm asking the question like, "Hey, who left that mess over there?" And what's you know, right? And so, cuz we deserve, we deserve. Now, if we're worse,
273then when we come home, what are we thinking? I'll come stand with you because I've been there many times. You're out of the I I feel like I We feel defeated. We feel overwhelmed like I I'm home and work and I can't do it all and the grass is growing and the fences needs to be fixing. Right. We just feel overwhelmed right here. Exactly. I know that one. So given this over here, you're feeling this a bit. And so how do we show up over here? This is the most exhausting one of all. So much to do. Yeah. And so over here we need to be seen as that we can do it all. We can take it on. Right. that we got home work. We're going to take it on. And uh so we're
274up all night. We're doing the things we need to do. We're trying to get cuz we because we feel worse then and we're trying to make up for it. Trying to feel we're trying to make up for it. So that's why I say that's where kind of perfectionism, doing things for everybody else, indulgence, all of that comes in. Isn't that need to be seen outside? So okay. All right. Here's another one. And uh now if you don't have children at home right now or don't have children at all, use your imagination here for just a minute or or anticipate it's a niece or nephew, but you get a call and uh and your child or your niece or nephew, you've been asked to come down to the school because they're in the principal's office. If
275your mindset's inward, which one would you go to? Given that you're a board member or a cabinet member here, which one would you go to? That's right. All right. So, if we're better, then what are we thinking about that child? Okay. So, we're thinking about the principal, right? Don't mess with my baby, right? Consent. So, but if we're we see ourselves as better than the principal, that would be how it would be. If we see ourselves as better than the child, what might be going through our brain? It could be either one, but I'm saying you can go either one, right? If you go to the school, you're better than them. Why would they bring them into the, you know, principal's office, all that, right? Yeah. You know, stuff. You know, stuff, right? If I'm
276thinking about the child, I'm thinking, look, why would they do that? I wouldn't have done that when I was in school. I wouldn't behave that way. But as and I love that thinking about as board members and cabinet members, first place you go is the school. Like right my child. They're going to bring them in. How about I I deserve what you what are you thinking? Touch it better. Yeah. Yeah. It's making me look bad. Yeah. where I will end up. That's right. Going back to so much better than That's right. You fix this. Yeah. Yeah. worse than. Whose fault is it if we're in the worse than place? Yeah, I was a better dad. As home more, I'd have been We take it all on over here, right? We take it all on. And
277then over here, what are we thinking? That's right. It's making me look bad. What did they do? Right. I'm a I'm a board member of a gamut member. This is making me look bad. Right. All right. One last one. One last one. And so the last one is look um you uh um let's see. I was trying to think of what's a board scenario. What's a what's a board common board scenario that would be a challenge for you guys? One that came to mind was like you actually made a decision on on um information that wasn't complete or entitled, right? That happens occasionally, right? So, okay. Yeah, that's a good one. Okay. So, let's just say that one, right? So, um board ends up making a decision you do not agree with. Okay. And so
278if you were and then same thing with cabinet, you guys make a lot of decisions relate to the district. So you the cabinet makes a decision you don't agree with. If your mindset's inward, which one would you go to? You were in the minority. [Laughter] I'm going to be back here. Can we be in the middle? Leadership is hard. That's right. Yeah. And I love your comment around can I be in the middle? And uh so so remember how we talked about earlier we said look when our mindset's inward we have to justify it because people are people. They do count no matter. But when I see them as anything other than a person I have to make that okay in my brain. and I have to say something about them and something about me
279that makes it okay for me not to do that. That's how we picked these up. So if one's not working, we might move to the other. Like think about the experience of you walk in your house at the end of the day. Like that one I can move through all these in about 45 seconds. I'm always going to start right here. I'll start here because this is my dominant one at home. I walk into the house thinking like what have you guys been doing all day today? Right? The comment you made. And when nobody recognizes my better, then that I conquered the world and didn't know it thanks me. I start to feel a little unappreciated and a little deserving, a little entitled. And when somebody calls me out for having a little bit of
280an attitude, oh, I'm so sorry, Gayen. I wish I was home more often. I wish I was a better parent. I'm going over to the worst then, right? And before I know it, I'm going to be over here doing the dishes so she's going to see how helpful I'm going to be tonight. That make sense? So, we can move through these pretty quickly. But the idea of this exercise is start to identify what what one might be the most our go-to one, our most dominant one for us in all of it. And this one, this one was a good one and and revealing. So thinking about better than what are you thinking about? You're the minority. Better than what are you thinking? Yeah. Yeah. [Laughter] Exactly. And then I deserve. Yeah. Feeling not appreciated. Yeah.
281Why didn't they listen to me? Exactly. And look, nobody's in the worst than one, but if we were in the worst than one with this one as a minority, how do you think we'd walk out of the meeting? Yeah. Deflated. I, you know, I can't do this anymore. You know, turn in my resignation or whatever it might be. Like I I feel deflated over here need to be seen as how do we walk out of that? Even though we're in the minority, how do we walk out of there? Because we need to be seen as what? Oppetent. go off a cliff. Yeah, you're anxious and stressed around it. But you're also going to probably show up and we'll probably indulge people. We'll be kind to people. We'll be nice to people. We'll be right because
282we need to be seen as we have this, you know, image about ourselves. We have to project. We can't let ourselves down and all of that. And and so we won't speak up. We won't say things. We won't write. We're [Laughter] Yeah. And uh and we might see that this is not going to go well, but we're we're still going to be mostly focused on making sure this doesn't make us look bad and all of it, right? And sometimes this might drive I know in my own personal life this might drive me even though um I'm in the minority gathering some allies to help me right to actually to help me keep up that image that this is that I was in the right. So all right you guys is that helpful just that little
283idea. Okay so return to your seats. Return to your seats. I'll give you a minute. Return to your seats. So, as you as you return to your seats, be thinking for just a moment about look which as a board member or as a cabinet member, but as a board member, which one as a board member might be your most dominant one or at least your go-to one, the one you go to the most? And again, we're not always inward, but when we are, which one given the circumstances, situations, we just played in. You don't have to share with us which one it is. Just one might be yours. So, just ponder that for a moment. Okay? And then you have a tool right in front of you. It's called check your mindset. And have a
284copy of that right in front of you. Yeah. It should say check your mindset on the top of it. Okay. So, with check your mindset, what we're going to have you do is pretty simple. Um, with it, I want you to just think about a board situation that was challenging for you in the last month or two. All right? Won't take you long. Just think of a challenging a situation that was challenging for you as a board member of the last month or two. Just write that down on the top. What was the situation or the person? Could have been could have been a teacher. It could have been a parent. It could have been another board member. But just think of a challenging situation that's kind of front of mind for you as a
285board member the last month or so. Write that on the top. And then you're going to ask yourself, all right, so how do you act in that situation? How did you act? Did you shut down? Did you go quiet? Did you walk away? Did you get upset? Did you start a legal brief in your brain? Um what how did you act? How did you feel um given that situation? Look, as board members, we put on the courteous errors no matter what, right? Because we know. But inside, how did I feel? How did I act? Tell other people. Did I just say, "Oh, well, right. I fire off an email when I got home. And then ask yourself, which of the four inward styles might you have been carrying in that moment? may not have, but
286just consider which one of these may have been your dominant one in that moment. That situation was it better than I deserve, worse than need to be seen as Okay. Now, there's some questions on the bottom and I actually love these questions. These questions are super helpful. So, what we want you to consider with the first question is, look, what might it be like for others when you have that inward style? What might it be like for others when you see yourself as above them or deserving or worse than or worried about your image? What what might it be like for others? Does it make it hard for others to reach out to you, communicate with you, include you? Do others feel less as a result of it? Do others feel like they have to
287tiptoe around around you? What might it be like for others? Like for example, what's it like to go to family reunion with Mike when he sees himself as better than everyone? Probably no fun when I'm in that place. [Music] Or what's it like to work with Mike when he needs to be seen as this hopeful, confident leader? He can't make the tough decisions. He can't and have those straightforward conversations because he's too worried about how he's being seen. Not authentic, not real. And the next question, my favorite question is just this idea and that is okay, what would it have been like if I didn't have an image about myself that was now getting shattered or threatened, right? How would I approach it then? How would I have been then if I wasn't worried about
288me? But what would have been different about that circumstance? Would you have slept better, had different conversations? Would you have been able to be more straightforward? Speak up. What might have been different? And then the last question is all right, what do I got to do about it? What I got to do about it? Now, our easiest response and the easiest thing we write down there is just get out of the box, right? Most of us won't say we got to turn outward or get out of the box. But what does that actually mean? What's it mean to turn outward? What's it mean to get out of the box? What do you think? Good. Yeah. Take a moment to actually put myself in their shoes for a moment. Consider what life might be like for
289them for a moment. So, let me quickly go back to our slide here. If you remember our inward and outward slide, um if you'll notice that with the outward mindset, there's that outside triangle. Other people's objectives, challenges, and needs. Whereas with an inward mindset, that's not in the equation. That's not even there. Others are just objects to us, vehicles, obstacles, or relevancies. They're not people to us. And so Beth is exactly right. If I find myself inward, what's missing? Well, others. their objectives, their challenges, their needs. So, if I find myself with an image that's now being shattered in some way or threatened in some way, that's a telltale sign, a red flag that helps me see when I'm inward. And when I'm inward, what's missing? I don't see others. So, I have to get
290curious about them. I have to put myself in their shoes. I have to consider what life might be like for them. I might need to go and ask more questions because it is the truth about others. It's that outside triangle right there, their objective, challenges, needs. It's the truth about them that I'm cut off from when my mindset's inward that can actually get me outward. In other words, it is the truth about them that chases away the resentment, the entitlement, the image about me and replaces it with care and compassion and empathy. Right now, today we did a meet tolearn to kick kick things off today. So you partnered up and learned a little bit about somebody. And so in other words, that outside triangle just got a little bigger and brightened for you a
291little bit. And how many of you just visiting with somebody, learning a little bit about their headaches and their challenges, how many of you felt just a sense of care and compassion for this other board member just doing a meet to learn, right? Because all you're doing is bringing that outside triangle into the equation. the very thing that's missing when my mindsets inward and it at Anastasia we teach this to the young people who participate in our program and we do a lot of work in the outdoors with young people and we learn a great truth every day in the outdoors and that is that light chases away darkness and so it is the light of another human being that literally chases away the darkness in my heart the the the frustration and replaces it
292with care and compassion what I've learned in my life is that if I feel anything but care and compassion towards you pretty good chance where am I and pretty good chance what am I thinking about well me and if I feel anything but care and compassion toward you pretty good chance I don't know who you really are just my self-fulfilling distorted view of you that I have when my mindset's inward so that's exactly right if I find myself inward so that last when you go to that last little shaded area on that tool what do I need to do I've got to get curious about others we've got to take a moment get curious about them so that I can bring that their objectives, their challenges, their needs into the equation. That's how I turn
293outward. That help that idea. Okay. So, what we're going to have you do just for a minute and you can find another partner, not somebody that you partnered up with for the meet to learn, but somebody else this time. And you don't have to give them all the gory details of what happened or any of that, but I would love to have you share with them, hey, um, look, what's it like to be with me when I have that inward style? What would be different if I just the three shaded areas? What would be different if I was if I was if I didn't have an image about me that I was worried about and what do I got to do about it? Right? So just share what you wrote down your thoughts. So we'll
294just take about So it's 10 minutes five minutes each. So got to switch five minutes through. So find a partner. Make sure instructions are clear. How are you? So good to see you. Good to see you. I'm Noise. That's from before. Another minute or so. [Music] All right, have you returned to your seats? I got Michael. Got it. Hey, was that helpful? Just take a few minutes, think through that. And uh and so look the idea is and the easiest for me for me to remember it is just anytime uh there's an eruption for me or I'm getting triggered in some way there's a corresponding view of me that's now being shattered or threatened and even just to take a moment consider how I might now be a challenge for others actually I it invites
295me into a whole new realm that I'm of reality that I'm not considering because I can realize hey I can do something about this. So simple story and then we'll take a short break. And some of you heard me share the story before, so I apologize if I shared it, but I had a really good friend of mine who um attended Outward Mindset training in Phoenix, one that we were giving there in Phoenix. And he and a partner of his had a franchise there and were having some challenges. And so they came to the training and he calls me like four months later and he says, "Mike, I got to tell you what happened Sunday." I said, "What?" And so he tells me this simple story. He has he has four children. The first three
296were boys and they behaved really well at church. These three boys were just great. Super quiet, really great at church. And so people would come up to him after church all the time and say, "Hey, um, how do you do that? How do you get how do you get kids to sit there so quietly like that? You're amazing." And he said, I would always kind of pass it off on mom and say, "Well, they they got a great mom. They got a great mom." But he says somehow I must have started uptaking that because he says then we had Kelly and Kelly was a girl but she was a volume above all three boys put together. She was a disaster, right? She was complete disaster. We found ourselves bringing crayons and Cheerios and, you know,
297fish, goldfish, anything we could do to keep her busy. But she was just loud and we'd find ourselves out in the hallway with her. She was a disaster. As she got a little bit older, I'd get her to sit on the couch with the older boys. We'd practice. We'd actually practice sitting quietly and we'd do root floats or banana splits or something at home to make it fun. She'd do great at home, but we go to church. She'd be standing on the pew talking to somebody four rows back at the top of her lungs in the middle of the sermon, right? She was just a disaster. So he says, "So he goes, I got to tell you what happened Sunday." I said, "Tell me." And he says, "Well, Sunday she was completely out of control."
298So he says, "I grabbed her by the wrist and I pulled her out of the, you know, out of the row and started walking her down the aisle, out of the chapel. And as we're walking down the aisle out of the chapel, she starts waving at people. Bye. Bye. And he says that just insensed me, right? I would just got got mad at her. And he says, then I, you know, I pulled her into the forer and just as the chapel doors closed, he says, um, I stuck my finger in her face and I let her know exactly what I was thinking about, you know, her behavior. And uh and he says suddenly had this horrible realization of what you were teaching me. Says I realized he says I don't know what it was whether
299it was the tear on her cheek or the fear in her eyes but he said I suddenly realized that I had turned the whole congregation into my audience. I was the sort of dad who had perfect children. I was the sort of dad who was above all the other parents, better than all the other parents. And Kelly made me look bad. I treated her differently. I treated her differently. And so, so again, anytime we're getting shattered, anytime there's an erruption for us and there was no clear thought or feeling about how we ought to have been just boom, someone spends too much, boom, someone doesn't include us, boom, you know, we end up being the one vote, right? Then and we if we we have an eruption for us, start first by asking, is there
300an image about me here? There's something about me here that might now be being shattered or threatened. Okay? And then get curious. Just get curious about the people around you, what they're thinking. Put yourself in their shoes, trying to understand the circumstance. I love that word curious. Turning, you know, I cannot be curious and inward in the same moment in time. Just doesn't work. So, it is something about that intentional effort to get curious that invites me out, right? Does that help? Okay, you guys. So, we're going to take a quick quick break. So, we'll take about a let's see what time we have. We'll take about a 10-minute break and then we'll come back in and we'll talk about the the board book. Does that work? Okay. So, 2:04. So, we'll come back at
3012:14. 2:14. Stand up stretch. Run to the restroom. Get some sunshine. We'll see you back. [Laughter] there was that they're trying to kick out across the the shipyard and Arbinger was like number 19. He was like 19 on the list and and the commander got up and says, "Look, hey, Arbinger is actually not 19. arbiter actually informs all 30 the other 36 because the other 36 are only as good as how we see and regard others. So as you think about outward mindset work, it shouldn't be extra work. Actually, it should be how we do our work. Um and so whenever we're deploying an initiative or trying to work together through something to set the tone by really thinking about like how how can I show up in a way where I'm taking others into
302account. I'm working in a way that helps facilitate the success of those around me, not just me. Um, that's what actually accelerates um any effort, any initiative that we're trying to move through in a good way. It's when we sees others as objects that we put a drag on anything we're trying to accomplish because now we have to manage all that resistance that we've we've started. Okay, let's go to the board book. So, you'll have this document right here. We're going to do just a very simple activity. Um, and so we're going to have you partner up. We'll make it easy this time. you just partner up with the person closest to you. And uh and so we have these are comments and feedback on the board book. It's an opportunity for us to make
303an update to that board book. That board book is it's it's really good for all of us to come back to it and revisit it and it's really good for new board members to come back and revisit it or visit for the first time. Um but in that board book, it allows us, we need a standard of performance to hold ourselves to. And so it gives us that standard performance and it it helps us as board members understand our roles and responsibilities as board members. So we're going to take a few minutes. These are some of the suggested um potential changes or edits that we might make to it um by different board members. We've had staff respond to that. We've had our legal so Karen's back there and they've responded to it as well.
304You'll see their notes in blue. And to to to kind of help this move forward, what I'd love to do is have you just in groups of two. So we'll start over here. So the first group will be you two and you'll take pages. Um so you'll see the little four and six. So you'll read from four four and six and then the two of you will just take seven and the two of you will take eight. And so just pull your chairs close to each other, read through the staff comments, read through the um the legal comments, and there's no vote today. All we're doing is are there any additional comments? Um any additional feedback? we feel good about what what's been suggested. So, it's just a chance for us to kind of um
305add to it. And Karen's here to respond to any questions you might have on the legal side and staff are here if you have questions from their comments. Okay, time is yours. By the way, when take notes because when you're done, we'll have each of the three groups share out so that you all get a chance to hear the response. [Music] There we go. Thank you. And just give me a thumbs up when you've gotten through your section. Okay. So, what we're going to do is we're going to have you um so we'd like each one of you to have one main copy. So, put a number on there. So, this is group one, group two, group three, but just one copy of yours where you're going to capture or give any feedback. We'll give
306it to Karen and Karen's going to try and take notes as well, but we'll start with this group and you have the opportunity to say, "Hey, nope. We're good with the the recommended changes. We've read through the review or you can ask questions of sta other board members, the staff members or Karen from the legal side. So, this is just an opportunity to provide additional feedback and uh and make any additional comments you want to make regarding the proposed change. We'll start with you. That's two. Okay. The first one is E4. Of course, we're fine with that. I would think we all are. I don't think anybody's listening. Yes, I'm listening. Go. Yeah, they're ready to go. Okay. Okay. Um little teacher thing. I don't have eyes. Um I have some training in this face
307forward. Okay. It says, "Oh, omit the superintendent board to first approve an agenda item." Um, we agreed that the way it is adds order, keeps us on task, clean brown act. And I'm going to say from my history, it allows you to know what you're voting on. So, what's happened in the past is if we throw them in that night, someone says it one way, then three people need clarifying comments about it. So, now we've broken Brown Act. Now, we've also been presented information at the same time we're asked to vote for it, which does not allow time for thoughtful reflection or individual research and thought, which is how I hope we always come to these meetings, having read our agendas and having time for thoughtful stuff. I understand it might make the process longer,
308but um it does in the end if if the superintendent and the board president say no, you can still ask for it to be brought to the board. You and then it will come with it'll be on an agenda. It will have some information of what it truly means and is asking for because that was also an issue like you said this but it meant this and then what did we vote on because we didn't these people thought it meant what you said and you thought it meant this and it it's just been um the words I want to use aren't appropriate. So, it's just been a little bit of a mess in the past. And this was the way we didn't stop your ability to ask for something to be put on the agenda.
309We just added a system for it that ended up with clarity and time to reflect upon it. So, any additional feedback on that one? Comments? Hey, great. Those were my those are my two. She's going to do the other two. That was four and six. Um, two and four, I think. Uh, two and two and four, excuse me. And she's got four and six. Okay, great. Um, on four. On four, um, it's something that's already being done, and we we would have admitted president and left superintendent will provide the board with a six-month calendar. Um, we didn't think it was up to the president to have to get that information to us. any additional comment from board members on that one? So, I would do want to add the um the in the staff suggestion
310um clarifying uh specifically when we're going to get it. I would appreciate because we tend to get it a little bit like um like this most recent one we got like a week after the first meeting that we're supposed to get it. So, like if we can get it like 30 days ahead of the first meeting that's covered in it, I think would be helpful. But like some some timeline I think put to add to the in the board book a time frame, right? Just put a time frame in that says um you know for uh the July to December meetings you're going to get it June 15th, right? Or you know something like that. That sound right? So when so that was just thinking through um so for clarity sake that's why my my
311thought process was if we did um July 31st as the kind of the kickoff date but then the idea would be um every other month there'd be an updated version of it so that so that so you're so it's it's always it's always coming through is I I um sat down and talked with uh with Ludy and tried to figure out a way that was doable for her but also gave the board what they needed. So, we'll do the the the new version. Um, but no, um, you'll you'll have had one a couple of months before that just because we're going to we'll keep it in a regular cycle. Perfect. That is more than I asked for and I love it. Can I I just say that if Oh, sorry. I if if there's something
312new that's been added since the last time it was there, can we denote that somehow like with the different font uh italic so that you know what's new as opposed to what's already been on there? Does that make sense? You could um I'll check in with Ludy. it'll it'll end up being a bit of a management piece cuz cuz they they do morph over time. And so, um, if we if what you'll end up seeing is a bunch of stuff that used to be on there that's not there anymore and the new stuff that's on there. Um, so I'm just thinking each time we each each each each each update we can high whatever is new will be uh will be highlighted but then the next time that is just the normal and it goes
313back to right. So so it's only you're only looking at what changed between the last time it was produced and this time versus trying to capture all the changes over the entire year. Then the then the document becomes unmanageable I think. No, that would be fine. Okay. All right, great. I I did have a comment. Uh I had my hand raised with the actually the first uh the requesting item on the agenda. Yeah, I just that was actually my suggested edit and I know that that's how it used to be that we didn't have to go through the board president and the superintendent. For me, the reason that I requested that is that I feel that it's one more step that potentially delays getting something on the agenda that's u in some cases can be
314timesensitive. Um, and it's a lack of transparency to the community about how items are getting on the agenda and even to the board. I mean, honestly, we don't know I don't know how most things who put most things on the agenda. Um, and um, most many boards do what we used to do where it goes to a a vote at a specified time or designated time at the end of the the end of the meeting. Some boards don't even or they allow a board member to put anything on the agenda. Any any board member can put anything on the agenda. So to me, it's just um gatekeeping. And you know, I know we talk about the Brown or Miss Alani referenced the Brown Act, but one problem I have with the process we have now
315is because I have to go through the board president um and the superintendent. um the board then I've already told the board president um I've already had to use him as one of my like if I'm trying to be strategic and talk to two other board members I've already told the board member um all the details of my um the my request and so then I'm left with one other person to contact and that might not be strategically um the person that I wanted to talk to about that item. So, that's my issue with our current process. I I feel, like I said, I feel like it's gatekeeping. It's not transparent. Um, it's makes me use my Brown Act uh contact, I guess, how you however you want to say it, in a way that
316I might not want to use it. And it's not uh is I feel like the community wants we need to be more transparent with the community. How are any of these things getting on the agenda? No one knows. So, that's what that's my Great. Any additional comments, thoughts on that feedback? We we make note of that on the one that we're going to give back to Karen. Great. And I know Karen's taking notes, too. So, thank you. Thank you. Okay, next group. You got you guys have finished up any just one more. um on the electronic communications to add a bullet or modify the last bullet to include document retention rules. Um I don't see the reason for it, but it's something I'm not against. Were you against it? I don't why I mean Yeah.
317No, this one was mine. Um, I mean, and it's partially my lawyer brain because when I when I read through this, I was like, my lawyer brain was like, "Okay, but how?" Like, sometimes I want to delete old crap and get it off of my phone and get it out of my emails and all of these things where I just I don't want it cluttering my space. And so, the thought process was like, I don't know what the retention rules are. And so, I don't think anybody else knows. And, you know, if I'm, you know, I'm confused about, well, how long do I have to keep this? how long do I have to hold on to this stuff um you know in order to comply with the uh with the public records act. My thought
318was can we just put it in there so that I know after 2 years I can I can dump this stuff because it's not important. I don't I mean I'm just I can I'll check in u with legal on but um the the district as far as the um district email goes um that's that's three years um and that and those and those are those are kept automatically and actually you'll see it um on the top of the email will actually give you the date that um that that email is going to go away um on your personal um device um I I can check in because I'm not a lawyer and I didn't stay a holiday in last night. Um, but I I think the the main the main piece there is um is
319once you get a P um or or you get notified, you you you have to make sure you don't get rid of something after the notification. But if you have on your personal device that you know after um 30 days your your you know text message or emails go away on your personal device, I don't think that's a problem. Um but um I I can check in with legal to make sure on that. Yeah, Karen. So just generally the district receives all kinds of requests for records and so there are times when the district will receive a litigation hold or some other type of request for records. There's so many. Um once the district is on notice of that, you're not supposed to delete, you're supposed to preserve. Um so uh Superintendent Hoffman is correct
320in terms of the district system for maintaining emails and your own personal devices. How you maintain emails. However, if you receive information from the district that something um is subject to litigation or there's a litigation hold or there's another matter um involved with those emails, the retention is indefinite. So forever um until we get through whatever that particular matter and we notify you when those kinds of situations happen um whether and we've had it before where we want all um when superintendents uh emails blah blah and and all board members and then so we give then a communication will come out and it'll say okay so from this day forward um you got to keep keep those in place but if they're already gone if you if you already if you had a a piece
321in your personal piece where your text messages go after 30 days uh there wouldn't be anything for you to hold on to if it was already gone. That doesn't mean somebody else the receiver doesn't and they wrote to us and said you can't don't delete anything and we'll let you know when it's okay to delete stuff again. And then we did the idea is delete it every 30 days. Right. So and I know that the when I put this in here my assumption I'm a bad lawyer from it. Um, my assumption was, "Oh, there'll be an easy rule and we can just plot it at like 2 years and then I saw the comments here and I was like, okay, that's not an easy rule." Okay, so I'm I'm perfectly fine with us not having
322something in there if it's not going to be simple, but it just it was something that popped into my head. Great. Great. Super helpful. Yeah, super helpful. Great. All right, let's go to this group number seven or page seven. Okay. All right. So, page seven. There we go. Addressing conflict among members. Um, it says, "Eddedit the final bullet point. Board members will participate is all that was added at the beginning of it. So, board members will participate." Um, we're thinking that's that's fine the way it is. Um, and then it just it made it a whole sentence is the whole thing. It's just an edit. We like that. Yeah. The only the only my comment with the only thing was that um if they don't there's nothing we do. I mean there's there's no it's
323not it's not a legal requirement. It's not a it's not an ed code or a California law. It's just a it is kind of an expectation already but it's it's just it's making the board statement. Yeah. And we and we know that not everybody chooses to participate. Um uh but uh you know all the only point was we wanted to make the sentence a complete sentence. I think the expectation is still we're still good with that. Yeah. Right. Sure. So, will or are expected to or should should I I don't know are encouraged to. All of those are wonderful. Like will will. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. We just won't say what happens if you don't. It happens a lot in this. Hey, there you go. Roll in the public. Roll in public. Okay. Roll in
324public. Um, so this one, so the first half of this one was the first bullet point is real should really be two bullet points. Um, so the first bullet point would be the board understands the importance of being visible and accessible to the public. Then there would then we would push that next sentence down to a separate bullet point because it's a separate thought. Trustees will demonstrate their dedication and commitment to the governance team by clarifying their authority as one of seven in all board decisions and actions. Um and then for that first bullet point um the thought was to add uh a second sentence that was as such board members are encouraged to attend district uh school district and community events to meet with constituents and to be responsive to constituent communication. And that
325was just um you know the thought process there was um just encouraging people to be out there, be visible and you know uh go to events, go to community events, um go to school events and just show up everywhere. Um that we should be that was all just clarifying that thoughts, comments, feedback from the rest of the board. Um, so this is the one where we're probably going to need to ask Karen for feedback again. Um, so this one, the second part of this was to add a bullet. Um, and the added bullet would be board members or leaders in the their community and are encouraged to inform their community of upcoming school district events, board business, or ways to provide feedback to the board. Board members may take public positions on issues before the
326board and may encourage community members to advocate for those issues provided that the board member um will exercise due care to ensure that their advocacy does not interfere with the uh the business of the district and board meetings. And the thought process here because this was one of mine is we don't really talk in here or even in our bylaws about our role as advocates. Um, you know, one of the things that we do on the board is we are regularly uh, you know, suggesting, adding resolutions, changing policy, things like that. And, you know, in our role as board members, we are advocates for those things that we want to change. And in part of doing that, we invite the public to come in and speak on those issues. Um, and since we don't talk
327about that, I wanted to make explicit that that is part of our role and that that is acceptable for us to do. Uh, and if this language doesn't get at that, perfectly open to suggestions. So Karen, thoughts, I know you put a lot of notes on this one. Exactly. That's why we were like, we'd love to hear from you. in general be very very careful in g I mean this is a very positive advocacy statement um but in terms of the implementation of it there are risks to the district and to the board um because when you're engaged in an advocacy role because you're elected officials public may not understand if you're speaking on behalf of the school district or you're speaking on behalf of yourself. So, you do have detailed board bylaws that as
328a board over the years have been adopted that specifies when you can um communicate with the community on matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the school district. And that caveat's really important. You may have interests outside of the subject matter jurisdiction of the district, but when you are operating in a public forum, whether it's in person, on a phone, on Zoom, at the park, in a grocery store, at a school event, people might only recognize you as an elected official and might impute whatever you say um to beyond yourself in that advocacy role to the entire school district, which could create potentials for misunderstandings and risk. risk um and liability for the school district. Of course, your child um should be enrolled in um both AP language classes. Um you know, that is something
329that's really important and I'm sorry that there wasn't enough room. We'll work on that right away. They may perceive that as you are speaking on behalf of the school district and you have the authority to do something with respect to that. So, it's just fraught if it's not clear what your parameters as board members are. And when you are speaking in those environments, because you will speak in all of those environments, it's just important to be clear that you are speaking on your own behalf. And then if you're in those environments with each other, it becomes more fraught because if there bless you, if there are more than um three of you together um and you're having a passionate advocacy type conversation about something within the jurisdiction of the school district, the rest of the
330public um who's not there isn't privy to that conversation because you haven't properly agendaized it under the Brown Act. So the public can also hear and comment on what you're having to say. So it it's a very positive general statement. It's just in the execution in the implementation there is risk. And so this might be something for the board to think about longer term training wise um so that it doesn't create additional issues that helpful feedback. I mean yeah I mean I'm I'm open to board member feedback on this one as well. Any additional feedback from board members? I I guess I have a question. So, are we making changes today or are we just comments and suggestions that would push this further, refine it further? So, potential changes could be made later, but today's
331just a discussion. Yeah. Today's discussion. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you. Okay. I have a quick question back on page two. It's I I I know I'm going backwards and I will come forwards, but there was a one bullet and then the second one. Trustees will demonstrate their dedication and commitment to the governance team by clarifying their authority as one of seven and all board decisions and actions. Is that in here? Yes, that was the second sentence of the first bullet and we just pushed it out into its own bullet. Okay, now I understand. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. Um we are my opinion we are advocates for children here and we are advocates for what's best for our school district and we each have separate things that we feel very strongly about but and
332that is your life off this dis and when we are here we are working as a team towards this and I am concerned concerned that this um one you as a person can take a a a position on something and I can look at um different people's I don't look at anybody's Facebook just because I don't want to get into it but I I could see different people feel just strongly about different things. I could find out, right? Um I I don't know. I just don't I think our focus here is to be a team to work together and this is a feels divisive to me. I I can take a position and you can take a position. I've never felt like I couldn't take a position but we also do things as a group
333like I've gone and advocated at the capital upon the request to CSBA to for school buses. So we do bring some things here. We have voted. We've been asked to support a legislation. Then it goes on a full agenda. We all see it and we tell our lobbyist to please we he can add our name to our letter. A letter happens to be a man. Um I I'm not comfortable with with that for those two reasons. It's just the highlighted of that is what is the is that Karen right the biggest issue? That's the additional dot. And it feels like the biggest issue is everything after the first sentence. The first sentence feels pretty straightforward and easy. It's what's after the first sentence. I think so. The board members may take a public position where
334it starts there. Yeah. So I guess my understanding though too is that um it seems to me that we may already be doing this um in our own capacities but not maybe not on the dis but I thought my understanding of reading this is that we're trying to make sure that we're being careful that that doesn't get in the way of our business. So we're almost trying to safeguard what we do in the dis versus our personal positions on things and our personal life. But is it is a purpose of bringing it to the handbook to try and create like a um understanding that we all come to this and know that we act as a group of seven. we're one of seven and not just like my position on a specific thing even though
335I have it. Yeah. I think the idea is to clarify um in the handbook what is and isn't acceptable behavior from a um from a board member. Yeah. So this one just from a complexity standpoint I think it is covered in board bylaw and there so the things that are um in the handbook are more often a more kind of quick reference on how the board is interacting with each other. Um, so one of the things I could do is I could take a look at the the board bylaw related to this and then um get it out to folks and see does that meet the that does that define things as that need to be defined and then maybe it's a a reference in the handbook to the board bylaw and then the and
336the board um the that's that's the content because if we we get we get that complicated this is going to turn into a 30-page document if we start to pull all the different things that are actually captured someplace else. That makes sense. Yeah. And and Karen pulled a piece of the bylaws um that I think is good. It's close um but it's not 100% what I what I was getting at. So if you want to look and see if there's something there that makes sense and we can tweak then all for it. Yep. I can speak. Yeah. On there the part that board members may take public positions on issues before the board. that to me seems a little conflict with the fact that we're supposed to work as a team of seven. Um, and
337I I don't know how a person would be able to separate themselves if they're publicly affirming that um action and encouraging other people to come cuz it it I know for me it would kind of like set me back a little bit because what what hole are you digging for me is where I would kind of feel. Um, so I I'm not real comfortable with it being there. Okay. Any additional comments and feedback? Yeah. Um, I I think part of what this is trying to say is that um the public has the opportunity to come and advocate for themselves. We're by by telling them that they can come to a board meeting and speak. I think we're we're helping them be advocates for themselves. And I I don't see how that could be a bad
338thing except if you get 5,000 of them. I I get it. Um yeah, they only get to talk for a minute if that's true. That's true. Very good. Um but I think we need to remember that we were we were elected by our constituents. So, we are supposed to if somebody comes to me with an issue um and and they say, "Let let me know the next time that's talked about in a board meeting and I see it on an agenda and I tell them, "Oh, by the way, we're discussing this at the next board meeting. If you'd like to, you might want to you might want to show up and speak on public comment." I I think that's my job in in some ways. I mean, it truly is. So maybe maybe you then
339wording doesn't work for what Karen's saying for protecting ourselves, but I I really think we need to capture the part about us teaching the public how to be advocates for themselves. Yeah, that's why I said that first sentence for sure stick. And maybe the second sentence, what I'm hearing from you is that that could be taken in one of two ways. So maybe there's some clarity we can bring to the second sentence that is more about protection than it is around exercising undue influence on the rest of the board members. So I don't have any issue with the first sentence. Yeah. Just to be clear. Yeah. Okay. Noted. So that's super helpful. Yes. Um so I was just reading through the bylaw board bylaw 9010 that was attached to that. Uh and it it says
340that the board president um all public statements authorized to be made on behalf of the board shall be made by the board president or if appropriate the superintendent or other designated representative. But um I mean I feel like that's a little bit of a gray area because if the board president for example speaks to the media and does he have to identify or they have to identify if they're speaking as the board president or as an individual board member because if it's not clarified I think that can be messy and and do does the board get consulted if the board president is representing them the meeting and with the media. Well, there are limitations to the Brown Act limits the board president's ability to consult with board members on things. Um but yeah it is
341a you know it it is a complication of and you know it's within the purview of the president to be careful speak and try to clarify because that's the president um as a general rule and sometimes another member um you know like if they're talking with CSBA or something like along those lines um between the the communications department andor whatever department the the content of the questions uh we'll often provide um some talking points related to um you know what what the what the current what the district is currently doing in relation to that um and u and what what potential work lies ahead. So uh in in those cases u the president is speaking on behalf of what the what the school district is currently doing um andor may do. So that but then
342often times in in that same interview a reporter may ask um and what's your opinion on that? You know so they'll actually and it makes it difficult for the individual in the moment um to make a distinction and and very well may say well this is this is the district stance on this and what the district is doing. Um and and if somebody shares their I'm sharing my individual opinion. it's really dicey in that the reporter doesn't necessarily um report it that way. So, so it it's it is it is very challenging and there's not a there's not an absolute um right or wrong um but how it's covered and that's often times for me personally when something like this gets asked and Lisa said I give it to them in writing um and so
343so that so they actually so I don't actually do I do very few interviews and I put things in writing because then if somebody comes up this is what I provided um and then so it so that that makes it easier but it's it's not easy as the president you you are the representative of the board. So there has to be a value that we we entrust we voted this person to be our president and our representative. And then there's also the expectation that they will work with communications to make sure that the information they're giving is correct because I think that is the biggest reason we don't want everybody to go be giving interviews is because we can't have wrong information put out. um wrong information can upset certain groups and then I mean
344like we've got enough stuff going on. We don't need to be fighting misinformation. We need to we keep things clear. So that's and I don't know how many interviews you've done. I did like two maybe in two years. It's not something that comes up and I just want to say when I joined the board we didn't have a handbook. So like having this discussion in itself and just some guidelines is just very helpful to get out your thoughts. So, I I appreciate that conversation, but it doesn't happen much. And you almost always refer it to Lisa to Miss Lavasser. It's very rarely that that board president is asked to speak. And I think the written thing is a good idea. I was going to say oftentimes because they're asking for very detailed information and it's,
345you know, because they're they're trying to fill out the the article that they're writing and you just Yeah. Mr. Lasser is the one who knows that stuff. So yeah, it's a it's an interesting relationship. Yeah. I guess I just think it needs to be clarified when speaking to the public. If you're the board president, it I'm speaking in the capacity of as a board president or an individual board member. I think I don't know. I mean, I don't know if we need to change that or anything, but I I think it can get a little messy in that I agree and I think they should identify, but I think that's assumed. That's a really good note to add on here. Um because that that's again a standard of conduct that that's what this is about.
346So I love that. Let's make that note and we can we our time is up. So we just need to hear from this last group and then we'll wrap up. Uh sorry let me get to that page. Okay. So the first one was actually do you want to do the this and then I'll do this? Sure. Sure. Okay. So we had eight. Um I would like us to discuss what we want to allow to be mentioned under board member and superintendent reports. I would like to change the wording on the individual board members comments to allow us to share important or special activities that we have participated in. Um, and so I think the concern here kind of along the same lines as the other ones is that um, do putting something like this in
347place is a little bit hard in the execution because of the potential of a Brown Act. Um, and I do I I see the value in um, you know, being um, having a little bit more opportunity to talk a little bit more about the things that we've been participating in or and sharing um, the experiences that we're engaging with um, when we attend things within the district. Um, so it in I guess my suggestion was that if we were to to update this section um that we would have to be really mindful and u maybe treat it kind of how we treat public comment where we would be very strict to say um like guidelines around you can share but nobody else can comment on it because if you do then it creates a discussion
348that maybe violates the Brown Act. um or probably would violate the Brown Act. Um and then I think we maybe if we tried to just limit um be very clear about what are the things we're going to share. We like we can't just air the laundry list, right, for 10 minutes at a time, but be really um like things that we share at the DAS need to benefit the public. Agreed. So things we share need to benefit the the public. And I love that comment to add on there. Any additional thoughts, comments on that one again. It has come up many times. You're right. Um yeah, I I think this was an effort to put um guide rails on a freeway and it just it used to get a little crazy and so um want
349to change the wording to individual board member comments. Um, I think board members under board member and superintendent report should feel free to um, we don't want it to become a one-up. I visited seven schools and I went to three things and you haven't been to anything and so you're a cruddy board member and and I'm just I mean and then I've done all these things and I'm in the bottom right box, right? The have to be perfect box, right? If I'm inward and I mean it's it's easy. It's it draw you right in. So then I need to go do something cuz I got to talk with the board member and she's going to say she did something. But public has no idea that she had a funeral to attend this month or had
350a challenge or had a baby. Yeah. Had a baby. Yeah. I mean or had a baby with complications and or has a dying parent or you know not all that shared. So this has turned into one of these on more than one occasion. So I I think if we as an understanding want to say in your board member report, I was able to go to the what was the thing we did the other day? A live shooter training that active shooter training. Um those that's a board member report. That's that's an activity you went to. So, I think we need to make an agreement and I'm just going off what we ended up with last time and and this is a very different board and I feel like the old lady today tell you that.
351But, um it it should not be schools. It should not be it needs to be things that I love how you put it, Dia. Benefit the public and benefit the public. Yeah, I love that comment. I I think that that's good. And when we do a 2 by 2, it's good for this the community to know we're meeting with Rancho Cordova 2 by two trying to figure out a high school. we're meeting with CSD to make sure our pools are still going to be met and all those things are going to be. Those are things. So, as a group, um I would suggest we don't change it, but if you but maybe the definition we can we can kind of think of the definition a little wider if you would like and then if it
352becomes a problem, let's re go back on it if you feel like it's becoming an arms race. I've had some good conversations about this one over actually past couple of months. Um, and the guardrail piece is is a little scary, you know, from from my perspective. I was I was thinking of the idea would be um let's take it out one more rung this time. Um, and then and then see how it goes. So the idea of um um you know highlighting community events, you know, so so things that were um that were um that somebody attended or or want people to know about something that's coming up and and add that to the to the list for this this version of it and see how that goes and then you can make an adjustment
353um moving forward. So that was just one thought of just just trying to to to tweak it a bit um for the benefit of the public. I think adding that language and that's the best guard drill you could come up with, right? It's to the benefit of an individual board member, that's not helpful, but loving that. Okay, so the last last one on here. Um, so the the last one that we covered was um requesting resolutions and this was my um request and um my request is that we the process for the board member to propose a discretionary resolution item shall follow the same process as a request for a an agenda item request. Um, and I did also say in that that staff members should not have more power to put a resolution on
354the agenda than board members. Um, so I the reason I um s would like to change this is because um I feel like we already have a very robust process like I already shared um just for getting something on the agenda and then if you want to request a resolution, it has to go through even more of a process. Um that process includes currently includes a subcommittee. The board president um has the um authority to choose the subcommittee members. And so again that goes to uh this actually recently happened to me. So I'm I'm like I'm trying to get a resolution on the agenda and then the um so then because the board president has the authority to choose the subcommittee members. those were like my automatic um individuals that I like I cannot speak
355to anyone else about my item and so that's why I especially don't like that process uh that part of it and then it talk it does talk about going through legal but don't all agenda items go through legal anyway no okay well um I mean maybe we could write that part that they have to go through legal still. But um uh let's see where else what else did I have? Um again I just feel like it's more gatekeeping, lack of transparency. How are these resolutions getting on the agenda? And um the superintendent has shared with me that if if something is already vetted, you know, by the state or something like if it's already state recognized or federal recognized, federally recognized day or something, then the staff can create the resolution. Um, so I guess
356it bothers me that as elected officials representing constituents, we have less power to put something a resolution on the agenda than staff members. Um, and that those are my points. So yeah, so noted and I think that what I'm hearing from you is um somebody being able to protect against somebody having undue influence as to how something ends up on that agenda. So yes. Well, I one thing I would say I'm open to the com, but um I have I have notes on most of them as far as a um yes, add it, make this tweak. Um what I what I don't have yet um is kind of direction with regards to requesting the future agenda item. And then this one, the resolutions, they're kind of linked as far as there's a process in place
357um in order to do it. So, um, I've heard from a member that they like what's currently in place and I've heard from a member I want something different, but that's all I really have is just the two opinions right now. So, I I don't know from a direction standpoint which way to go. So, I'd need more conversation around those two items to figure that out. So, to add to the resolution one, I think because agenda item is a very fuzzy thing. It can be a lot of things. It can just it could be a report, it could be a discussion, it could be a action item, it could be a variety of different things. Um, but resolutions, I think it's appropriate for them to go to start with staff because there's an expertise that
358you need to look at, right? What is that resolution saying? Is it saying something about our policies? Is well, actually, that's a separate issue. Policy change is a separate issue that needs to go through a lot more. Um but the resolution is saying something about um us as a district, what we value, um what we what we do. Um and that is not necessarily something that we as board members can um we would it we would be smart to get feedback from staff who are the subject matter experts on these things before we start you know before we start that process. Um now the subcommittee process that is that is something that we have chosen as a as a board to do that. Um we could change that that we could change that to go
359through the traditional um agenda item process and I we could just make that choice. Um but I would for a resolution in particular I you know much like a policy change I think it's important that that one start with staff and then come to us and then we can pick at it and figure out um you know where we stand cuz we are you know I mean we have two subject matter experts you know in particular areas but of education um but we are you know we are not the subject matter experts we don't have 30 years of experience doing these things and I would rather hear that first That would be my thought on the resolution one. Um, but other thoughts? Miss Alviani? We we this we went through a lot to get down
360to this. Um, and the part of this is starting to trust your fellow members and if you feel strongly to ask to and request to get put on the committee to do the work. We have to if we spend our time discussing resolutions I I think we are in a point of so much learning that needs to happen on this dis a resolution is a distraction from the larger point. Um uh there we need to understand the three legs of we need PBS. Um I'm not I'm blinking. Uh qu the quality what do you call that thing? Quality education. MTSS. Yeah, the MTSS. Like there's things we need to learn right now and we need to keep learning these things and resolutions are never going away. So, we made a system to deal with them
361because they're not they're consistent and we don't want them to be these things that come in and blow up or come in and take our time when when we are pressed for time period. So, we created this system and I'm hearing that you're very concerned and interested in one. I don't know who's on the committee right now. Do you know? Okay. You're on the committee that does it. So, um, so I think that is your best way. And when we did this, the person that was the most concerned about it got on the committee and then and felt this was a a place to do it. And there's different kinds of them, too. I think it's good. It it says the state sends some some are getting done by education and some are discretionary. And
362I think we want to be very particular about our discretionary because the discretionary is a statement of the whole group. But it comes from um trusting your committee to to do the work. So I I I have even with all the ups and downs we've had, this system has worked well for us and people that really wanted to be on it, the board president has always let them be on it to have their say. Um that's my two cents. And anything else? Well, I just wanted to say yes, I was allowed to be on the subcommittee, but the board president had the authority to choose the other two board members and then they became the two only two people that I can talk to about that item. So, that's valid. Any additional comment? I would
363just said that I mean that's a valid issue with this and I think as with as with everything, right? There's trade-offs, right? It, you know, if we make it easier to, you know, for any board member to put a resolution on the agenda, we're going to have 50 resolutions every meeting, right? We make it a little bit more difficult, you know, because we're trying to consolidate it down to the things that we can all do together. Um, and there just trade-offs that we have to decide as a group. We have to decide those trade-offs that we want. So, okay. So, write your name on yours because it sounds like you've been adding notes to yours as well. So, write your name. I'm sorry. We missed one. Oh, we missed one. What did we miss? On
364page four on the bottom is school visitations. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Do you want me to start? Yeah, go for it. Of course, I have an opinion. Um, I love board members will visit each school in their trusty area once every two years. I think it's very reasonable. That's um not an unreasonable expectation and I think as well as such other schools are agreed upon with the vice president is I I don't agree with that part and would encourage language such as and are encouraged to visit other schools outside of their trustee area. Yeah, I was just trying to bring it into alignment with what we had already agreed to um with the trying to get to some our own districts plus or our our own schools plus more outside and the uh vice president is
365the one who's in charge of coordinating that. And so that's what I was getting at. If if the language doesn't sound right, the language sounds very you it it 100% okay with us. I do like Yeah, it is. We got to change the language every two years and then some sort of encouragement to go beyond that, but like making me reportable to the vice principal and he's going to vice principal he's going to tell me I didn't do my job and like no totally okay with that for me. I just want to bring it into alignment with what we had already agreed to the the change we had already agreed to on this. So awesome. That's pretty specific like that's specific to us and we're trying to keep this more general. That's fair. So, I
366mean, I think you're in the weeds and we're trying to be a little Yeah. Okay. So, we can totally fine finessing that language. So, write your name on it. Um any additional add any additional comments you'd like to and then let's get these to Karen as you leave um here today. Okay. Pass them down to me and I'll take care of it. Pass them down. He'll get them to Karen. So, as we wrap up here today, two things I wanted to share with you and then we'll close out. So, real quickly, I've added two tools in here. These are what are my favorite board tools that Arbinger provides. They're ones that will solve you save you a lot of headaches as board members. Um, so I want to quickly reference those. We're not going to
367fill them out or do them. I just want you to know you have them there as part of your toolkit. The first one here is called who's affected. How many of you have made a decision that you thought was really, really great and you got four people upset at you? Right? We all done that and as a board we got to make decisions together. So this is a simple tool you can use whenever something comes to to to if you're going to take action you're going to make a decision to ask yourself who will be affected by that decision to thoughtfully have that conversation discussion who will be affected by it how will they be affected by it and how will that change how we approach to come to it so it's one of those
368tools you want to just print off have it on your desk have it somewhere pull it out anytime you're about to take action or make a decision that will invite you to take into account others when you're making that decision or taking action. Second one here is called help others feel appreciated. As you all have mentioned many times, we all are really busy and we have a lot on our plate. We're moving through things quickly. So, this is a tool that allows you to get really intentional about taking just a moment. It's one of those other It's one of those tools I love to just print on my desk, have a couple of them there. Every once in a while, taking a moment and asking myself, who might not feel appreciated here for the good
369work that they've done? They've served on a committee and did a ton of homework. They visited a couple additional schools. They did they they showed up at a program and shared right and cabinet members who provided you with detail on something that you knew took them extra hours to do that. Take just a minute to say thank you. Just a minute to show appreciation. You'll motivate people more by showing your appreciation than you ever will for criticizing for the things they don't do. And so, and we don't do it not because we don't want to. We're just moving quickly. So it takes intentionality to ask ourselves who will be affected, who might not feel appreciated. So they're just two simple tools. Keep on your desk, keep somewhere close. You can copy them, print them off.
370These are tools I had on my desk that I felt like were super helpful and found helpful in board work. And so I wanted to share those with you. And then real quickly, we'll wrap up. Just any last minute takeaways um from our time together today. And so any takeaways from our time and you can stay passive too, but any takeaways from our time? Yeah, I think for me the takeaway was just um I felt like today we had this is a great example of how we work together um to come to um understanding have good discussion um and it just makes me feel like um we can be productive. Awesome. Awesome. Uh I just appreciated the exercises and kind of thinking about um like you said maybe where I am do where I lean
371to uh or which area I lean to and then maybe how I can react to different situations. Awesome. Awesome. Great. Thank you. I appreciated we actually kind of got to talk to each other and find out more about each other. I love that. That was that was awesome. That's the best, Michael. Yeah, I appreciated the um you know the inward outset versus out outward mindset. um you know and just a reminder to stay humble and you know uh self-reflect. I appreciated the um the getting to know better and also when we when we went to spots to I think even if you know where someone falls then you know how better to see where they're at and and understand why they're coming they're coming forward in the way they're coming which makes you help them
372get out of the box. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. just and and someone asked me once, can I when I'm outward, can I actually see that somebody's inward? And uh and absolutely, being outward is not rosecolored glasses. Being outward is seeing people as people. When I'm inward and I see someone else's mindset is inward, I uptake it. I use it as justification for how I treat them. But when I'm outward and I see that someone else is having a challenge and is inward, I have compassion upon it because I've been there, too. I know what that's like. I understand. and the last thing I want to do is make that harder for them, right? So, I really appreciate that comment. Well, my takeaway was this was our beginning of creating our new team. Um, and just some
373of the conversations were had that people are struggling or working with the same kind of concerns, the same kind of um things they want to improve. Um, and just being at the same page, maybe for different reasons, but we're at the same place. We're all peaceful. Love that, Chris. and just proud to be part of the team. I appreciate um everybody. I know it's a long day and we still got some more work to do. Um so u and Mike always appreciate you taking the time to uh to be with us. So just thank you everybody. Hey, thank you. Back to you. Excellent. Thank you so much. Um all right. Um we are at another break, but we are behind schedule as we always are. Um and so pretty close. We're getting better, but we're
374still not great. All right. So, let's take five minutes. Uh, do we have snack or snacks in the back? And we do. And then the firm's here, so they'll come in and get set up, but there's a little little something help get you through the rest of the afternoon. Okay, let's try to make it 5 minutes, but buffer. All right, let's bring it back. Looks like we've got everybody at least in place. Um, next item is superintendent search process discussion. Uh, Miss Levasser, take it away. Okay. Oh, there we go. It's always delay. Good afternoon, uh, board president Vargas, board of trustees, superintendent Hoffman, Miss Avalos, fellow, uh, cabinet colleagues. I'm excited today to, um, have this group present to you and provide you some information and have a discussion, uh, regarding the superintendent search
375process. So, I'm going to introduce you to the three U consultants that will be working with us over the next couple of months. You have uh Miss Jackie Horsch here. Uh Miss Blanca uh Cavazos. Perfect. Thank you. Worked on it. And Mr. David Verduga. Get it right. Okay. All right. I'm going to turn it over to them. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. And good afternoon, trustees. It is so nice to see you again. and we're very very excited to be at the beginning stages of our process. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to call your attention to the u document that you should have in front of you. It's uh entitled initial meeting discussion items. If you could pull that out, I'd like to walk you through that. Does everybody have it?
376It should be in the packet you received. Yes, it should be if if everybody has access, it should be in your um online. Yeah. So, we may not have it in physical form, but we should have it on online. Are we okay? Okay. Terrific. So this is a discussion outline that you'll see u everything that we're going to be talking about uh today in open session and then when we are finished with our uh open session items we will uh adjourn into close session to discuss uh personnel items. So number one is just talking about the review of the search process and that's what we're going to be doing step by step by step with you today. We're going to really be trying to nail down the dates so everybody has everything in their calendars
377and you'll know exactly what we're doing and when we're doing it. So the first thing I want to find out from you is we generally have a board liaison. It could be the board president. It could be the president and anybody the vice president. But this is just for logistics. Sometimes there are just some quick questions that we might have that doesn't require the entire board to respond. So um who would you like to have as the uh designated liaison you want to do? Oh, do we want Oh, so do we want it to be the subcommittee or do we want it to be a member of the subcommittee? I'm fine. Beth Beth has offered. So, I'm fine with that unless anybody has a unless anybody has an objection. Okay. You know what? I can't.
378So, Beth is going to be the No, you know what? I would love to, but I I now that I think of it, I have like three blocks of travel scheduled in the next 3 months. So, I don't think I'm the right person. Do you want to do it, Jennifer? Jennifer. Okay. Okay. I don't go anywhere. I know. [Music] Great. So, it'll just be Jennifer. you'll be our contact person, the leasison. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Um, and do you want to make sure like Lisa like so Jennifer and Lisa as a having a staff member? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, the next thing is just to make sure that Lisa and her staff have received all the guidelines and templates from Penny. So, I don't know if Lisa is still here. Lisa, did you get
379everything you needed from our executive assistants, from our search specialists? Yes, I did. Oh, good. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. And um I'd like to ask you board members, do you want us to uh communicate with you via your district email or do any of you prefer using a personal email? I think we would prefer district emails across the board. Perfect for Y. Great. Okay. David is going to walk you through the next session. Thank you, Jackie. Excuse me. Good afternoon, everyone. Um, we're on number five in that agenda item that you see. Blanca behind me here will be taking down various notes so that we're making sure that we capture a variety of the time frames um and dates and so on. But if you could are able to see that agenda number five, we
380want to discuss the use of input from the board, the stakeholder groups, and the online survey results in the development of what we call the position profile or the job description, if you will. And so I wanted to make sure that the board affirms the stakeholder groups for the input sessions. There is a second page someplace on your computer there. It's a template and it says superintendent search education partner input sessions and community forum. And it looks like this. And what it is is just a catalyst for you to add to this list should you now during this period of time come up with any other um groups perhaps or stakeholder groups or affinity groups that you are interested in us speaking to. So, if you wouldn't mind taking a moment and just looking at
381that list and really kind of u popcorning popcorn this with any comments that you'd like to add um in terms of this particular list. So, you'll see there we have about 15 which is pretty typical but there may be some unique groups and stakeholder groups that you'd like to ask to be interviewed by us regarding their input for the next superintendent. So, I'll just open it up. I'll I'll start really quick. Um so you have uh the teachers association and CSEA which is what you would normally have uh at a district. Um we are not a normal district and so I'm sure you all have heard. Um we have more than uh more than a few bargaining partners. Um so I think our preference would be that you reach out to and uh and and
382talk with all of our bargaining partners to the extent that you're able to and we'll be able to capture that Mr. Vargas with Lisa. Excellent. If I may. Thank you, Miss Moore. I think you had others. Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to point out with the parent partners, I I mean I like that idea. I did want to point out though that um not every school has PTA reps and so to be uh I'm assuming every school has a school site council though. So, I think that would be the best way to make sure that we're being fair. Uh, so that each school has equal representatives, equal amount of representatives. Uh, just because I I know for sure at least one of my schools doesn't have a PTA. Um, and I'm sure there's others.
383And then I like the idea of the open community forum. Is that usually just one or like in our district since we have such a correct a large area, would we do multiple locations? Yeah, we would work with Lisa on that. Most likely a community forum would exist in two different venues or locations within this school district. It can be divided in terms of geographically where you believe we need to have a meeting with our community forum. Um it could be held on the same evening but again u somewhat divided if you will. Uh don't know if that makes sense. In other words, we would be available typically from 5 to 7. Or if those hours are not um amanable to your client pool, we could make it the hours that you feel are most
384important because of parents working, for example, that kind of thing. Um, usually they're held in a multi-purpose room, perhaps a library. Uh we have found however if I may for a moment that the community forums are not as well attended as u as the information that we gather from our surveys and of course the personal zoom information andor personal contacts that we make. Uh we want to make sure that we have a community forum. Uh but at the same time um they're they're just not as well attended because of our busy lives I think. But we can divide that up and typically unless there's three sites that you think geographically because it's such a large school district we would need to do that. Yeah. Well, I mean our our district is very widespread geographically. We
385have cover three cities and um so I just want to make sure that we're making the these opportunities accessible to everyone. So by all means and we believe in that as well. Yeah. And I would I would echo that as well. I think, you know, given where we are right now as a district and the issues that are um prevalent, I would think you would want one in Elk Grove, which is sort of a defined community, one in South Sacramento, unincorporated um and then one in the Rancho area. I think those tend to be our big blocks um in terms of where the the issues tend to be salient and and similar. Excellent. And as I mentioned, Blanca is capturing a lot of this as well, so that we'll be able to uh review it
386again at some point or members. Anything else, honey? Um, did we mention equity councils already? We did. Did we say it already? Okay. I don't think we did, but Okay. We we have an equity council at every um high school, which is a perfect way to get in to the high schools with students. And then um and I'm I cannot think of the correct name. Concerned parents African-American. The one the ones at Laguna the one that started Laguna Creek High School. Yeah. Miss Joy Brown's group. Concerned African concerned African-American parent group. Yeah. Concerned African-American parents group. I I would like you to meet with them, please. That's important. in that same thing. Lisa, we have other parent other parent groups that we might want to consider. The um at Valley has the Latina group. We
387have Santario Metaposa. We have that group. Uh we also have our FBSU, Families of Black Students United group. Okay. Maybe FBSU is what I'm thinking. I think Student Union. Is that the one? Yeah, Families of Black Students United. Families of Okay, I think that's the one. But um those two groups and they with an interpreter and just an an open way to have that conversation for for those group groups please. We also have a Cantonese caregiver group. [Music] Could we also include our egg speaks group? So we are including our special ed. Yeah speaks. Yeah. I think it would be important for us to um if it's not um not end up being a forum but um something that's really accessible for if it's like a QR code for any survey that goes out that
388can be um highlighted on our social media so that we can spread it very widely um um specifically to like the welcome centers if we can put something up um that would make it accessible in multiple language multiple languages um in the caregiver cafes in addition to our community um partners uh cuz those definitely have families that are very interested in vested in their kids' education and I know that um they take time to go to the caregiver cafes they'll probably want to be involved in this as well and if I may miss Baldwin that's an excellent idea and we have found that we are doing that more often now connecting with city councils with the city manager to help us advertise the surveys that are out there and the QR code has been utilized
389previously So, we'll make sure to capture that. Thank you. Anything else? When you when you meet with people, do you normally now that you're you mentioned it, um do you normally meet with city city officials, city staff uh when you're doing this? I'm I'm not mistaken. I think it's on there, but I could be wrong. Mr. Vargas, number 13, service clubs, chambers, reps, business partners. But more specifically, I will put down city representatives. Yeah, I think typically it's the city managers. We work we work closely with this the the various cities that um particularly obviously Rancho right now, Elkrove where there's um significant amount of growth and so their perspective would be valuable. If I may ask, we have a CSD which is rather unique to our city. CSD immunity service district. Okay. Um we
390work very closely with them in uh facility sharing and that's probably the biggest but um we we have a very good relationship with them and and value that. How about law enforcement? Is that important as well? It would be. Okay. Yeah, we would. That would be valuable. And um the fire department and emergency services actually in our CSD in Elkrove. And we make efforts to try to consolidate those group meetings, if you will. So, if it's a city manager, we may be asking three city managers to be on the Zoom call with us or to meet at a facility accordingly. Great. Okay. Anything else? And if, by the way, something else does come up, feel free to contact us and or perhaps Lisa and Lisa can contact us and add it to that list prior
391to starting or kicking that off. The next item under number five, um the bullet I should say is the position description itself. Very often there's a community um uh narrative. We you most likely have that on your website. In other words, what Elkrove is, who you serve, that kind of thing. But we will eventually be creating a position description that describes the uh skills, the experiences, the skill set that you desire most in the next superintendent. Um that being said and that will make that will go forward and it'll be available on our web on our website on your website, but we will require a salary range. We don't need that today, but if you'll begin to contemplate what your current superintendent um and his compensation is and or u anything that comes up that
392you'd like us to provide you in some terms of any comparability u current districts um similar districts, you're unique in that you're I believe the fourth largest school district in the state if I'm not mistaken. And so that will come into play. But we do have information that will provide, it's called a J90, and it provides really some great information for you to review and to look at when you begin to contemplate uh the salary range because we do need to put that on our position description. Thank you. Um building on I'm sorry. Building on that, Mr. Superintendent um in order to inform that would you provide us uh the board in a BC or something the um remind us of the salaries uh the like high level salary ranges for the deputies that way
393we at least have something to look at I mean we have the one that we just did we just did mine in um in July so we so we we have the latest one that the board approved so we can provide that yeah that'd be helpful that's a very good point as far as that gap is concerned between your superintendent and your cabinet members Excellent. If I may, I'm going to go on to the U third bullet and that is basically that when we do post and have the position description available, um we intend to send that to Lisa and that in turn will be provided to you through your consensus andor the leazison group I should say u for you to share with the balance of the board. uh and basically it's your thumbs
394up or okay on that position description. Once we have that available for the board, we are able to make some changes within typically a 2 or three day period of time. Uh if there's something that you'd like us to remove, eliminate, or add to that position description that you think is important, we're able to do that prior to posting it officially for applicants to con to contemplate or have consideration for. And that'll be sent out on our website as well. I think that that'd be something that the subcommittee would do. Does that make sense? Yeah. Except I can't email everybody. Lisa can, right? After the subcommittee works on it, Lisa can do it. Does that work? I mean, I mean, I think that would be the what the subcommitteees part of what the subcommittee is
395charged with doing. So, I would so I would I would do it within the subcommittee because doing it outside of otherwise it's got to be an agenda conversation, right? If it's not if it's not done within the subcommittee and Dr. Hoffman is correct. I I was referring to it as a leazison group. I forgot you had the subcommittee that you've already established. So, that's exactly correct. Yeah. So doing it through the subcommittee makes sense and we can that way we can do it quickly and we don't get into Brown Act issues through consensus and no Brown Act issues and no doctor over here. Sorry I didn't okay it will you'll provide us with it but I'm going to say this is the first time I've done it like what's a sample of one do we
396have the one we put out for Chris do um Mr. Hoffman um some some sort of as as a person on the subcommittee I would like a little sure help with that when that time comes. There are two things I would suggest that yes if there was a position description for Mr. Hoffman previously you may want to have that at your fingertips. We can certainly provide you some samples as well and you can begin to see how that flows. Typically, it begins with again a pos a a description of your community, a description of the district specifically, how many students, who you cover, that kind of thing geographically. But it also creates this this list, if you will. We desire a superintendent who is an equity warrior, understands the importance of fiscal and financial obligations,
397holds people accountable, but we'll provide a sample and I think that will gel with everybody in terms of the position description. uh it may be uh a bit larger than other position descriptions because of the size of this district and you create that based on the feedback from all the people. Correct. That is correct. Because when I did this last time, I was a parent who went to Pleasant Grove High School and sat there and was able to say, I want to make sure my student my my superintendent has these qualities. And that's correct. That's the conversation we had. So, I've done it from that side. Okay. Thank you. Yes. And we'll get to that at the latter point of this agenda. We'll be more specific with regards to those experiences, skill set, traits that
398you desire most in the next superintendent. Okay. Um the next is the online survey. It's the fourth bullet under number five. The online server survey dates and specific languages. We are able to provide the survey in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Farsy, Vietnamese, Mong, but we have no Hindi. And so as a result, we would need some assistance on the part of the district with respect to that language should those languages be requested by the board for the survey information. We we can sorry, we can provide that. We that is one of our top languages. So we are able to do that if you would like. And if I may ask, Lisa, that is a predominant language that you feel or the board feels we need to have that survey in. Yes. Excellent. Yeah. And again, that
399speaks volumes of the size and the capacity of your school district. So again, I'll just repeat English, Spanish, Cantonese, Farsy, Vietnamese, Mong, and we will get assistance with the Hindi language. Okay. Um, with regards, however, to dates, we do have a tenative timeline that we'd like to share with you and or have you contemplate that. When we first gave our presentation, we had some dates in mind that um were created that met the um the really the obligation to have a superintendent available for you uh on a certain period of time. So those dates, number four, fourth bullet down from number five, online survey date. I've already covered the languages, but we had are suggesting between August 25th and September 5th. That's a quality period of time to have those available. That ser that online
400survey will be available on your website. And again, as Miss Baldwin said, we will try to establish other um options for that survey to be available to our parents and to stakeholders. So again, that's okay. Timewise, board members. Um I know. Okay. No matter when we do it, there's going to be a track off at some point in time. So I don't know. I was just getting my calendar out to look and see um when the different tracks change over and maybe we need to be able to have it running partway through one partway through the through the next one. Is that something we want to do? I know that they need to do that um for the teachers the EGA they always have issues with running things that way. What's our thoughts? If I
401may, I will share with you that we work directly with our site principles. There's many occasions when we will reach out to the site principles to encourage and to um get that information out during any track that you might have. Okay. Mhm. That is a good point though because that could potent if staff that are off track or on vacation or something or students and families, they might not be checking their communications and that could it could um potentially limit their u opportunity I guess. Yeah, exactly. And if you have parent square for example or connect ed that's another way in which we can blast out the fact that there's a survey available and the information pertaining to how to get on to that survey. We can use talking points and and that will go
402out to every family. We also have it uh a lot of our schools our year- round schools have it by track so they can make sure that they get that out as well. Okay. We will put it out in all of our various platforms. Okay. because I'm just during that time period the only track off is B track but I know that's a large track too. I would hate for them to miss out on the opportunity. I think we encourage it so much that it's it'd be hard to to miss the opportunity to take that survey specifically the survey. That was my question is do we think that the twoe window is enough? That's a pretty short window. Typically we've had about two week period of time. There's times when we've extended it to two
403and a half weeks or so, but that provides us the opportunity to gather the information again, get back to that position description, which is so important for us to to have available for the board to contemplate yay or nay so that we can get the ball rolling for applicants accordingly. So, there is some timing factors here of course that come into play. There's a holiday in there, too, with Labor Day. So, it's nine days technically. How long does um your organization need to um analyze the data from the surveys to move us to the next step? I think it's typically one week. Yeah. Usually our executive assistants can get that done within one week period of time. Yeah. So if our next item on the timeline is consultants confer with staff and communities design. So
404that input would be in combination with the survey data, right? The survey data wouldn't um influence what happens the 8th through the 19th. There's no conflict whatsoever there. Okay. So we could extend the survey. Um it wouldn't it wouldn't be an issue, I don't think. When would you absolutely need the date by for to complete the next item on the timeline? I think if we were to flow into the September 8th when we are actually designated to receive input that next item that you see on the timeline, I would venture that we would use it for another three or four days. So perhaps the 8th or maybe even the 9th of September. I'd be okay with that. Yeah. And we can be a little bit flexible on this cuz we had initially thought um our
405initial initial schedule had us approving the superintendent in December and this one has us approving it in November. So we have a little bit of flexibility there on the back end as well if we need to push things out a little bit. I don't want to go crazy there um because Lord knows something's going to come up. Always does. And so, you know, I want that buffer, but if we need to be a little flexible, we can be a little flexible moving things around. That may be determined by the idea that you have perhaps one board meeting in December. So, we have two board meetings in December. The first one is is theoretically a special is a workshop. Um, but we can also just have a special board meeting to address this if we need
406to. Yeah. The superintendent's contractor approval must be done in a regularly scheduled board meeting. Okay. So then would be the 16th if we if we push into um into December is busy meeting tracks back on the 12th. Am I reading that right? It's really small. No, the the teachers come for half day. That's a minimum day there. The 15th is their first day back. September. Yes. But again, respectfully, I we don't really think that that's going to be an issue as a result of how we blast this out and how we inform your community. They're off already. Okay. Okay. Well, that then next takes us to what Miss Baldwin brought up, and that is September 8th through 19th is when we would be either directly here in person or perhaps setting up various Zoom meetings.
407Um, if all three of us can be here on, let's say, a 2 to three day period of time, we can uh basically complete quite a few of the in-person and/or Zoom meetings that we will begin to set up via Lisa. Um, we know that Lisa obviously has great contact with those people that we've already listed on this list of ours and it'll be a matter of giving them an invitation, setting up a time schedule for them. Typically, we would be meeting with as many as maybe perhaps 10 people, perhaps a little bit more if it's in person. and over about a 35 minute minute period of time is where we're able to capture their thoughts as stakeholders of those things that they desire most in the next superintendent. So again, datewise, um September 8th
408through the 19th, we'd like to stick to that. Okay. Okay. Moving on on the agenda and getting into now um number six and the bullets that are behind that. We feel that the AXA edcal publication the spec specific dates would be September 1st and the 15th. In other words, announcing to um all of the administrators in the state of California who are AXA members that this job is available and open. That's more of a technical date. It's just what they do. However, I will ask whether or not you would like us to advertise in any other publications. So, for example, Kulsa or CASSA. Kalsa, California Association of Latino Superintendent, CASA, the California Association of African-American Administrators and Superintendent. Yes, please. Yes. Those both on Okay. Okay. So, are we saying that the um posting is
409going to close on the 15th? We are suggesting no the deadline for application will be October 3rd. However, uh informing various administrators who are might be interested as candidates or applicants those two particular that particular publication edcal is really critical for us. Okay. And I I mean we could use edoin but in terms of edjoin they would have to transfer our application paperwork into a different format. So we tend to stay away from ED joint. So EDCAL and the affinity groups that I mentioned. The only other group that I didn't mention is Kappell, the California Association of Pacific Islanders. Oh, three. Yeah. Okay, everybody. Okay, last chance. Chris, it's getting down there. Are we advertising in any um things outside of California? Yes, we have a wide variety of interested folks throughout the entire nation
410who belong to our website, if you will. And when we blast out to, if I'm not mistaken, over 3,000 individuals, uh, many of those are nationally based as well. Yeah. That being said, then, um, we've established the dates for the input sessions, the EDCL, and so on. Um closing date would be I'm sorry I apologize the date for us to meet I'm sorry again October 3rd would be the deadline for applications if we're okay with that and I think that meets with any timelines that Mr. Vargas brought up and then in October uh consultants complete comprehensive reference checks. We'll be doing that but it's October 16th which is a special meeting which can take as many as 2 hours 2 and 1/2 hours in which we would meet with the board and provide you all
411of the application and this is where you would begin to select your candidates to be interviewed. Prior to that, about a week prior to that, you will be provided all applications via an a special readonly email, view onlyly email. So, you're able to see all of the applications that have been submitted to us. Um, leadership associates, we provide you that information about a week ahead of time prior to this particular meeting on October 16th. So you'll have an opportunity to review them, uh begin to maybe jot down questions that you might have. What we will do on that particular date, October 16th, from our reference checking and our vetting process, we will bring forward to you what we consider to be the top tier candidates, the tier one candidates, tier 2 candidates, and tier three
412candidates. Um this is going to be based on the position description obviously that you have generated. And so having that as our tool, if you will, this is what the best match and fit comes up with. It might be five people. It could be seven people. And that's not to say that tier 2 are individuals that don't make the cut. They're outstanding individuals, but there's some traits and experiences that put people in the tier one category that best match and fit your position description. Questions there on the dates? I think we prefer Tuesdays if that's at all possible. Um just cuz we have those already set aside for board meetings. And so just you just kind of thinking looking at dates um the postings the 1st and the 15th this would be pushing it a
413bit but if you had the applications due September 26th instead of October 3rd we have a special meeting um already scheduled on the 7th. We'd have we'd we have important topics to talk that day already, but we could we could do a a section to allow the the board to um to work through that if we wanted to stay within existing um meetings. And this could certainly be a special meeting for two two and a half hours. I understand Chris's point about trying to line that up, but we do have deadlines and certain works taking place within this calendar that we need to establish with our executive assistance uh in order to have everything ready for you accordingly. Um we do we could certainly do Tuesday, October 14th. So, let's t let's put a pin
414in um you know the 14th and board members uh Mr. Superintendent, can you confirm with everybody that they're available for that day, please? Can we do that right now? In case anybody didn't have their schedule and we wanted to do it later, but we can do it now if everybody has their schedules out. I'm good on the 14th. 14th. I'm good on the 14th. That works for me. I have soccer practice. Just kidding. I'll make it work. That was your So I can do it. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it. All right. Okay. Next item in terms of the time frame that you see there. I'm going to be the bad one on that one. I am out of town on family vacation. See, he goes out of town at that entire week. I specifically set
415this one up because we had all of our dates in and I told my family, you get this week. So, not that week. And that was what is there was if there was any way to do the application and say we could go to the 21st. We have a regular meeting scheduled that day. So, so we could do a we could do a special meeting ahead of the regular meeting. That would be early. We could do everybody could get there. What? How how many how long did you say you needed? 2 hours 2 and a half hours and the 21st would work. We just checked our calendars. So if we started at 3:00 on the 21st I am gone on the 21st. No 21st. Are you gone that entire week or? Yeah, that's true. this
416far. Yeah, that's why I was trying to work work off of the the 7th as the um reviewing the um applications, but the only way that works is if the applications were due September 26th to give you folks time to do what you needed to do. Chris, we think that's doable. It's I mean, it's tight, but but if we're going to do So, we're going to do um a posting on the 1st, a posting on the 15th, and um and they're due on the 26th, and then special board meeting. We have we have some important stuff to do on October 7th. So, I just let the board know that it's going to be it'll be a a long day again because we because we we're going to be working through budget pieces as well, but
417it's taking advantage of time we have and we um can we call in for a close session? Either of us could do that. Neither of you here on the seventh either. I mean, oh um seventh. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can do the seventh. Yeah, that's what we're talking about now is October Seventh. Seventh. Seventh. Not the 14th, not the 21st, but now the 7th. Because you have that on your calendar. You should have that on your calendars already. Does that Does that give you all enough time? Yes, sir. Squeeze in. Okay. So, October 7th, then most likely what I'm hearing is you have a regular board meeting that or special board meeting. We have a special board meeting that day. But we can we can figure out what time works for you folks and
418then we'll then we have the other the other topics. So, just know it'll be a long day. Yeah. and we'll make it convenient for you. If you decide for have us available at 3, that's fine. And you start your special board meeting at 5, whatever the case might be. Okay. So, now we're looking at October 7th. And that being said, we had originally November 1st for board interviews. That that is a Saturday. Is everybody with that? It's an all day. Out of the country. You're out of the country. I'm home on the 2nd. I I I didn't think we'd do it on a weekend. Was the 8th? October 25th. Perfect. I I'm asking, but that's if that if that's possible, that'll work as well. She's still gone. I'm gone. I'm gone October 18th through November
4192nd. I'm going on a two week vacation. Can we push it back? Or does does that squish too much? Does the eighth work? Sure. It's my birthday. Me being on my birthday, too. Why not? We got Measure M on my birthday. I'm sure all the candidates will love us for sitting there eating cake while they're interviewing. I'll bring cookies instead. It's less conspicuous. Let us bring you something. What might Saturday, November 8th, look like for the board. Do that. The 8th. Okay. Looks like that works. Okay. Saturday, November 8th. Thank you. Thank you. Gosh. Do you know about what time did you I'm sorry. Did you already say that we would begin most likely to with an orientation for the board on Saturday, November 8th, beginning as early as 7:30. But again, we can talk
420about that. That orientation typically takes place about a half an hour. Um, starting our uh interviews, let's say, at 8, typically a 55m minute period of time for each interview, a small break, five or seven minutes before the next candidate. We have a process that we facilitate where the candidate will come in to wherever the location or the venue is. We place them in a separate office so that they don't overlap each other. As you are interviewing someone, we ask that the next candidate come in about a half an hour prior to their interview. We have a waiting station for them. They never cross over. We dismiss the one candidate. We bring in the next. And that's um another thing that we'll contemplate is the number of questions that the board will uh wish to
421ask and which questions uh you'll wish to ask. Many times the position description will somewhat semidescribe the kinds of questions that you're going to want to uh generate or contemplate, but we'll we'll need to do that as well. But uh it's a long day depending upon if you interview five people, we're looking at the 5:00 p.m. mark. if you're looking at others uh more people um it's a it's extended a little bit further. I'm not sure if you're early birds, but and typically there's refreshments there for you. Some type of continental breakfast, a lunch break. Um refreshments towards the latter part of the interviews. U generally we could interview three people in the morning hours having a break and then two people in the afternoon if it's seven. And what we'll do is we will
422actually provide you samples of interviews for five people, six people or seven people so that you can get a snapshot or an idea of what that day looks like for you. So So the other the other component with that with the group is they're going to I'm assuming going to want to have a community um panel as well. So it'll be Oh, okay. That's that's what was done previously. There was a a staff I have was there two of them and and the board interview. I think there were there may have been two interviews before the board interview if I remember. It's been 11 years. It's been a while. I mean the more the marrier. We should at least subject them to what we do to a principal. It's fair. So if you're contemplating a
423community panel as well then generally the applicant will start with the community panel and then jump over to the board interview panel. So we will alternate that or schedule that accordingly. Uh we generally have one community panel. So I'm not sure if there's a combination of of representatives on that panel and they're they're obviously not voting. It's the board's responsibility there. Board members, do you want to do a PI group last time? Did PI do it last time? Yeah, we had um I believe we had uh the president of each of the or someone from each of the bargaining units and I'm trying to remember who else. I know John Shook was there because he always reminds me that he hired me. So I was there too. Uh I agree with Oh, sorry. Well, I
424agree. Don't our principles have three sets of interviews? I mean, so it does kind of make sense that we I like the idea of having three sets of interviews for the superintendent. But so what do we think? So assuming we do that, um what are the So we are one set of interviews. Who are the other two? It sounds like we want our PI group or union leaders uh or bargaining unit leaders. Um do we and community Is there a way to do a parent panel or serve on that? How many people is that? I mean, they could be as I mean, probably don't want them to be too big, but you know, there's probably some flexibility in the size they can be. We could do a board panel, a community panel, which is made
425up of parents and community partners, and then if you so desire, PI or union leads May I ask was it done during a two-day period of time previously or one day because the the logistics are becoming a little bit more unique. Did you block that out or do you fully remember? I mean I I think I Yeah. The way the way it worked is we we actually met this this is going to be I think it's crazy but I think we met offsite um and I actually had um a brief conversation with um two members, two members and three members um separate just just as a kind of get to know conversation. Um then I then I went to then I came here And I interviewed um in the yeah I interviewed um with a
426with a large panel um the community panel. I'm trying to think if there was a second one or it was all done in one. I I don't I blanked it out and then then I had the interview with the uh with the board. There was at least one other major panel if I may ask. So the venue for the board's interview was here at the district office and the community one as well. The the initial conversation I think was at Valley High Country Club actually. I think we had they had the initial um you know I went like three or four different rooms and just said yeah and that was one day or Yes sir. Wow. All right. And that may I don't know how many candidates they had. So if if there were fewer
427that would make it more feasible to do something like that. Correct. Um it's like a trunker. I know we have the space here to do I mean I don't know what's booked so I'd have to look but if you wanted to do three different panels and do kind of a round robin like we do with community generally we've centralized the community and the community panels that we've worked with along with the board so that the location is literally an office or a building that's next door not necessarily having to drive any one place or the other. Oh yeah the logistics for all three here. Yeah, we could do all of them here, right? Um, okay. So, what I'm hearing is we like the idea of three. So, us, a community panel, theoretically a community panel,
428and a PI panel. Um, staff, we need some staff probably. That needs to be some sort of mix in there some. So do we so for one of them do we want to make it a mix of um you know bargaining partners, staff um anything else that anyone else who should be in that one? That makes sense. And then like parents and community members would be your community one community because that mirrors what a principal is minus the community member and the outreach to these people I'm assuming would be through Lisa since we don't know them. soon. Yeah. Yeah. And the sub do that. Just an idea for the community panel. I don't know how many people you would have, but maybe a fair easy way to do it would be that each trustee could
429choose a parent or community member and that way each area is represented. I don't know how many you would have, but I don't I don't have any objection to that. That would be fine. um you know at least one because that's seven so that's still leaves a lot of room for additional people if we want it to be a bigger panel or if it makes sense um I would also think and you know feedback on this fine to what extent and where do we want to include student input yeah they got to be don't forget you will have the survey and the community forum focus groups all of that feedback which includes several student groups and two community panels or whatever. You could mix people up. You don't have to have like only bargaining units
430in one and the other. You could have them mixed however it balances out the room. You could I kind of like the idea of having them more specific because then those people will have very specific questions that they'll all kind of understand and be able to speak to and and resonate with. Okay. Other thoughts, board members? Well, if we needed to make more room, the representatives are employees, so they they would actually fulfill two roles as a representative and as an employee, and we could maybe fit our students in with them. Okay. I like the idea of um somebody from each each region. Heidi. Um, Miss Moore, sorry. Um but what if we look at our superintendent advisory committee people because they um regularly interact with super the superintendent as it is now and I
431believe they have a better view of what's going on in the district as a whole just because they've already committed those hours throughout the year or years to see what they would want there and there will be numerous of them and maybe you you could um we or that they can send an email who's interested and we could pick one of them. That that would be a way to narrow it down from all your people and tie it to something that seems like almost a qualification with an an education behind it to go in. I have a question about um those panels like so are these going to be like a free flow of questions or are these pre-selected questions for each panel? So they'll just strongly recommend pre-selected questions like a like the principal's
432interview, right? So then we would not want a ton of people in there, right? Because we won't have that many questions for everyone to ask. Yeah. But the followup the it'll be like a principal well where the questions will get asked, but then the followup will be where we get the meat and potatoes. And generally the board will have available to them 12 questions within that 55 minute period of time that you desire that you've agreed upon. So as far as the board interviews are concerned that would be about 12 55 minutes perhaps an hour. The panels that you're talking about I would suggest that we have them sign a confidentiality statement. I think even if if we do these other panels, maybe we only need nine or seven, you know, each ask one kind
433of thing because we're not in the first frame. It was all us. But what we're doing is trying to be inclusive with everybody and to take their input. So if we come up with 12 questions, we could ask them to ask the questions and then we'll get the feedback on it. Typically, we would design or with your approval separate questions that they have interest in and they wouldn't be the same as what the board might be asking. Makes sense. How many people do we have in the superintendent's advisory? The one from every school. The one Yeah. One thing we Well, that's that's the there's one from every school. They don't all show up, but there's one from every school. Okay. So uh one one of the challenges just from a dynamics of this whole thing
434and I bet the search folks can help us with this is um the confidentiality piece is is real um and in these in these panels um you know who's interviewing and and how that all works it. So there's there's this balance of um inclusing being inclusive and having people they're not going to what they're going to do is they're going to ask some questions and they're going to take some notes and you guys are going to get the notes. I mean it's going to be kind of what what people thought but you're not going to want those folks to vote and you guys get to you guys get to make that's one of the um privileges of being a board member that you get you get to make that decision but you may want to
435hear what the others have to say. Um but there there's a real balance of how many people are included in that. Um and then how conf how confidential folks are about who came through those interviews, who who came through those sessions. Um it's these are these are people's lives and their livelihoods and their you know and they're tied to their existing school districts and their um um existing school board. So there there's just something that we have to be very mindful of. We we don't want to have a forum you know where where the candidates are coming in and and speaking to that because because you can't have any you know it's going to be ch no matter as soon as you have more than one person there is the um the ability to keep
436things confidential becomes less and less. So that's just just something to keep in mind as we're kind of working working through that. It's it's real and in when people are applying for these positions. It's an interesting phenomena when superintendents are applying for other districts accordingly. The common thought from their boards are you want more pay or you don't love us anymore. So that confidentiality aspect that Chris mentioned is really very very important. But I think too when we're pairing students with adults, we need to keep in mind that the adults, if they're community members, have not all been fingerprinted or cleared. Um, we might want to keep them with employees. I think the the students will have a a lot of opportunity to go in. Um, if anybody, it would be our student board rep
437would be the only student I would suggest adding and and that would probably be here. And then I I hadn't really thought about that, but it it should be a small amount of people so as to less the exposure, but I think you have to count that our employees are professional enough to understand that. And do we feel like our community input through the two different ways we've given is enough? They met with the the group and they've given us information and their wants and needs to go back to two. That's if there is any possibility of having only two panels. By that I mean the board and one other panel. Maybe you consolidate them somehow. That would really work out logistically and time frame wise. I've heard the word three out there because of
438your construct. Yeah. My I mean uh obviously it's it's up to all of us. Um you know my perspective is I would prefer more. I'm we literally just had a entire conversation where I was like give me more data. Um and like the more information we get the better. And I've in in being um in having done our principal interviews and you know the I I like the just the raw data that comes out of that, the perspectives, the anecdotes, the the information. It's been very helpful um in our decision-m in the past. And so I my my view would be I'd prefer more um with the caveat that I agree, you know, putting a having a reasonable number of people in those interviews is going to be important. They shouldn't be forums. Um they
439should be panels. Um but having more of them where there's two very clear, you know, um purposes to them. Um, so I kind of like the idea of saying we're going to have a community panel and that really is going to be community issues. What is the community's response to these candidates? What is their perspective? What are they looking for? And the people who work for the district are going to have a very they're going to be looking for different things. And I it's I think it would be very valuable to us to see what comes out of those two um panels because I think it will be different. Okay. And what's advantageous is there's three of us. Yeah. to be able to balance that accordingly. Excellent. Just remembered a group that I want to
440make sure that we um include in whatever portion of the process um is the Wilton Rancheria tribe. So, if we can make sure we extend an invite to um yes, them as our community partners. What was that again? And our Indian education group. Yes, I will add that to the list. Okay. I agree with Michael as far as if we're I think I almost think we should either just have the board interview or have the three panels that we discussed because I also feel that it's not really fair. I don't know if that's the best word to only have a like a a union and staff member panel because we the community is important. So I I think if we're going to do away with um with that panel, we should just have the board
441panel. That's just my personal opinion. Right. But at this stage, we're having two adjunct panels and the board, right? A total of three interview opportunities. Okay. So, do you So, what guidance do you need from because we've thrown a lot out here into four. We're really lucky and that we have Lisa available to us as well. As I mentioned, Blanca is capturing all of this information for our for our benefit. As a matter of fact, our executive assistant will be we'll be contacting her right away as well. So, we'll coordinate all of that. Okay, sounds good. Do you do you want us to make a any further decision on this or do you are do you have what you need? I think we have what we need with respect to the dates and particularly kind
442of the makeup of the panel that will eventually come together. Again I just mentioned the confidentiality aspect. It popped into my mind and so that is a very important aspect of things. You'll get some looks out there. So that kind of thing. Yes. I think the composition of the panels has been decided upon by the board according to what you want Lisa to contemplate putting together. Those that are employees of the district and those that are true community members. Is that is that sufficient guidance for you? Do you need more from us? So yes, but I want to make sure so I have um with community is that one parent representative from each area? That's the one I wanted to make sure. So I I heard two things. Do we want area or do we
443want school high school region? Yeah. Do we have a do we have a strong preference? So do we want nine or seven? Basically high school regions is more inclusive. It is. And that that's how we generally organize ourselves. And I think Yeah. Yeah. And I think our high schools are tend to be very unique um and have a unique character that is worth being represented. So are we okay? But that doesn't mean we're going to have nine high school parents, right? I parents because I mean it's an elementary school like that's not cool. I see what you're saying. It would be schools within the high school region. So nine regions. It does not have to be a high school parent. And my suggestion from experience is to to look to your superintendent who's your representatives
444on your superintendent and see who those are. And that's a I think it's a good place to start to to ask someone for interest. They've already shown interest in the district. And we are gathering that list right now. So we will have that the superintendent's parent advisory list available to us. And will that tell us which region they're in? Yes. Okay. Good. Which high school region or whatever. Okay. Per school. Mhm. Per school. Perfect. Okay. Is there additional guidance you need from us on that? The second group you spoke about was the next one was the employees. Yeah. So I have PI but then do you want beyond that? Do you want beyond union leaders? As Miss Davis pointed out they are staff. Is PI two from every group? Yes. Correct. Okay. So that's going
445to be 20 people. Yeah. So we need to go to one. So I think that two from every group. That's that's how it's constructed. So we should ask each um we should ask each of our bargaining bargaining units to select someone. Okay. That way we are not making that decision for them. They get to do that for themselves. Um and then do we want anybody beyond that? Do we want to fill it out? I I'm thinking somebody on that front table there should one or two people from there with that. Yeah, just just draw straws. We'll let them decide like some sort of interest shown. Yeah. and and I would say we'll leave it to your thought process and or we'll request your feedback in terms of others you think would be appropriate for that
446group. Okay. So, board community and then one representative from each of the bargaining units and did I miss anything? And we'll for that for that second panel. It can be cabinet and if you think if you have suggestions in terms of others who are not reflected or a perspective that's not reflected among that group let us know and I think it's appropriate to have more than more. Okay. A few more. Let's not go crazy. Got it. This is fun. Moody, are you going to be the secretary to the superintendent? Did you want to be on a panel? [Music] [Laughter] You you if if you're going to be there, you will have to work with them. It I've seen that as a positive, but it's up to you. We won't Jackie, we won't put you on
447the spot. All right. All right. We're just contemplating again here of the candidate selection date 30th. Where are we at here? So the issue is we've been in touch with our um search specialist Penny Pile who's going to be working real closely with with Lisa and us and um she has you know told us that she just doesn't think that we don't we don't have enough time to vet the candidates from when our um selection date is going to be uh versus when we end our uh ad. So, we have that the deadline was going to be September 26th. We changed that, but then that only gives us about 9 days between that uh end of the deadline to when we have our candidate review on October 7th. And we are anticipating a large number
448of candidates, usually probably around 40, maybe larger than 40. That's a lot of candidates. And we do an extensive vetting process. So, we're, you know, a little concerned that uh well, she's very concerned because not only do we have to vet the candidates, put them in tears, but then she has to do all of the background in information to put it together in the portal for all of you so that you're able to look at it in the portal and decide which of the candidates you want to um interview. So, doesn't seem like there's enough time Is there anything on the week of October 13th that people are available? Nope. That would give us So should we do that? Should we just look at backward mapping it a little later? So instead of having our
449application deadline in September 26th, maybe having it a little later that problem is we're going to have board members that won't be here the week of the 21st or October. Um, we already tried. I think we get I think we get it. If it's close session, can we call in Karen? If you post on your agenda the location of where you'll be calling in from, a majority of the board is present and the location is accessible to the public to make public comments from that location. There is a way to do it. You're in Australia though. That's public. If they want to go to Australia, they'll come see me in Sydney. I'll buy them a drink. On the day of the interview, you will open up in a public way or public session. If you
450find people that you'd like that would like to speak, they have the opportunity to speak. Following that, you'll go into close session with the actual interviews. We're not talking about missing the actual interviews. We're talking about when they bring us people, the applications. The applications, the review of all the applications, right? Okay. So, we're doing that on the 16th. That's your vacation, not mine. Yeah. I'd prefer not to do that. So, what So, is there any availability the week of the 13th? I'm gone that entire week. that whole unless you guys want to do it Friday. I can change my flight and come back in the morning and we can do it the evening of Friday October. I hate to have you cut your vacation short. It wouldn't be really cutting it short at that
451point. I I am not a happy flyer and so I'm going to be unhappy no matter what I'm doing that day. And that was well that was the that was the Okay. So, so we could do Friday the 17th or the 21st is kind of what we're at. Well, Blanca Blanca has another idea. Blanca, why don't you have a special on be before the special meeting. Those start at 9:00 a.m. They do start at 9:00 a.m. So, I mean, if we I have absolutely no problem getting up at 7:00. I'm going to be up at 6:30 anyway because I have dogs who love to wake me up that early. It would be added on to the We could do that, too. Interviews. Uh the only if you if you do that's the selection then you're
452talking interviews because you got in November late November. Yes. I mean and with the December at your regular board meeting selection I mean appointment school's out the week of the 24th. We're not going to have time. Yeah. Sounds like the down the downside of that, I mean, it's it's a possibility. Um, the downside is, you know, it'd be a challenge to get them in and settled by January 1. Um, I think another challenge with that would be if we're doing the interviews, then you it might be more of a challenge to get people to do the interviews just because of the its proximity to the holidays. um things like that. So we may try to make the 17th work. If you said you come, you come back and we do it. We do it on
453the 17th. We want to do it on the 17th. I can make that work. November. October. Are we back in our October 17th? Yes. What's everyone's availability on October 17th? Preferably in the evening. Are we all okay with the evening? Late afternoon. Late afternoon. Evening. Yeah, I can make that. That is again for candidate selection. Selection. So, just to make sure that I don't get confused looking at my calendar. So, we're going to be doing the candidate review with you on October 17th. Is that right? Any anybody can't do that. I'm not seeing issues. Okay. Probably in the afternoon if you're available. I think 17 and then the interviews will still be November 8th. Should give everybody enough time. Everyone is available November 8th. November 8th. Yeah. which in turn would have your regular board
454meeting on November 18th for approval of the contract if all if all goes well and we still have the December meeting if if we Right. Correct. But yeah, it's better than pushing everything back. I think Thank you. I'll double check that. So again under number six and with respect to those bullets consideration or location for the interview would be here as well as those two other panels. The next bullet following that is the validation visit or validation process. Should the board decide to actually have a validation visit to the candidate who is selected or at that time um prior to uh approval of the contract. That's something that you need to decide. It does not necessarily have to be decided now. If the candidate is coming from Hawaii, I'm sure three of you would love
455to go to Hawaii. But my point simply being is the U validation visit can be done by three board members but beyond that it would need to be agendaized if if four or more go and typically that's a visit to the applicant's current location of business where a meeting would be held perhaps with cabinet members, the superintendent, board members, maybe an executive assistant, uh a site principal perhaps. Perhaps it's the responsibility of the person that you've selected to set up that meeting. There are times when boards decide to have union members go with them on these particular validation visits. Typically, and I've never known anything to change once a validation visit is has occurred. So it's just again u and it can be done via zoom as well but that's a decision that you folks
456need to make. After the interviews you will be getting into the process typically the board president and your legal counsel into the negotiations that generally will take three to four perhaps 5 days and again it's in during that period of time that you might want to contemplate a validation visit. We would also have available to you a press release, samples of press releases that you could utilize and construct uh that would meet the needs of Elkrove as well. Again, I'm just mentioning that validation process. It's a decision by the board. It's at your discretion. As of right now, the target date for approval is November 18th. that still stands well with the start of the new superintendent on January 1st. Any other questions pertaining to this timeline that we've developed? Okay, I'm going to turn
457it back over to Jackie who's going to cover several of the other bullets here. Well, thank you and thank you so much for, you know, your indulgence as we wrestle with all these timelines. Um, I know how much fun it is. Um, we've already talked about candidate recruitment. We have the dates uh and everything like that. So, I'm not going to review those. I'm going to go to number eight, which is the contract parameters worksheet. Just to let you know that once you decide which candidates you um are selecting to interview, we ask each one of those candidates to fill out what we call their ask. So they tell us on a document that we have what is their salary range that they're looking for. Um what do they want in terms of any fringe
458benefits? What is their work year calendar that they would uh like to ask you for? Do they need health benefits? Um anything like that at all. We generally don't let you see those things until after you've made your selection because we don't want you to say, "Oh, we really like this person, but this one is, you know, 200 thou, I'm sorry, $20,000 cheaper." Um, we really want you to make your selection first and then you need to understand that anything that they're asking you for is negotiable, right? So, um that's certainly up to you, but anyway, you will be given that information about the candidates. Um and we're happy to share it with you as you're um deliberating about the different candidates. So, we did talk, I believe, that Lisa is going to give us
459a copy of uh the current superintendent's contract as well as uh the current salary range of your executive uh members. Are there any questions before we move into close session? Uh, at what point do we um talk about whether or not there are any current staff that is applying for the enclosed? We're going to do that in closing. I want to make sure I wasn't missing it. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we know it's been a long day and we appreciate that. Of course, here's something that we could contemplate and that would be the section that you see there, number 11, the board's members input. We can certainly capture your input on what you desire most in your next superintendent, the experiences, personal and professional, the skill set, so on and so forth. There
460would be other questions as well, including the district's strengths and challenges. we're ready to capture that. Or an option at your discretion would you would be for you to email us those um those items that you feel are most desired most in the next superintendent. Board members, do we want to popcorn for a minute? And if that if anybody doesn't have or if anybody thinks of something later, we can always email it. We could also just take the survey, Miss Alviani said. Um, well, let's start down there, Miss Baldwin. Um, yeah. I mean, I think for for me, I would love to have someone that is um has a heart for the work that we do. Um, a passion that drives them to really um, you know, do good work every day and want to
461be collaborative. who's um uh quick to listen. Uh I think it's really important, I think you mentioned it earlier, someone who's a champion for equity uh who sees um the importance of being a bridge uh for our community. uh particularly um where we have gaps in um our specific um groups, affinity groups that um are part of our our diverse community here in Elkrove. Um and I think for it is really important that we have someone that has experience in California um is particularly um with just understanding ED code and and all that um the nuances of what's how things are done here in our state. So, you know, I'm not opposed to someone outside of California, but I think someone who has a deep experience here is going to be extremely valuable. Um, and
462yeah, I would love the opportunity to email anything that comes to mind that I don't haven't mentioned here. Excellent. I think Miss Baldwin has kind of kickstarted the opportunity and Blanca behind me is capturing those thoughts which eventually will be added to the stakeholder input that we receive as well. So, with your permission, Mr. Vargas, we can go on with Miss Moore. Yes, please. Okay. So, again, those desired qualities, characteristics, background that you'd like to see in your next superintendent. We'll circle back if I'm sorry. We'll circle back to capture what you consider to be the district's strengths andor challenges in a moment. Okay. Um, I would also like the opportunity to email just because I want to make sure I can in case I forget anything. But um definitely someone who's focused on academic
463achievement for all students, improving um continually, you know, um improving academic achievement um and someone who's innovative innovative and who has maybe new ideas. I think that's um you know, we have a lot of great things, but I think it's never a bad thing to have new ideas. So, um that's really important to me um to see um new ideas that could, you know, um improve improve our our district, give our students more opportunities, those types of things. Um and then someone who's willing to listen to and properly address community members and their concerns. And that's great the opportunity to email us some other thoughts and ideas that come to mind during the next uh few days or so. Thank you, Miss Moore Spellellerini. All right, I put a few notes down. Empathetic I think
464is important. Experience in California, previous assistant superintendent or superintendent. We don't want somebody that's hasn't done any of that. Um, again, academic achievement was on my list and just um bonus points if if they know about our area and have have lived in the area. That was one of the reasons that Chris came to the top when I interviewed him before. So, besides his great smile, that's it. You want to go? No, I'm always last. Um, I agree with what I've heard. I also, um, I have a cons a concern. Um, we keep our superintendence. We have a history of having long-term superintendence. And we are a cruise ship, not a speedboat. And I don't want someone to come in here and think they're going to flip this place. Um, we're very proud of what
465we've done. We aren't asking our superintendent to leave because we're in a crisis. We're not in a crisis. Um we are we are making strides with plans and um I agree just as opportunities have come up, Chris has reorganized things and changed things in in a process and I I don't want to have somebody come in here and have that we have a whole new system. We have a whole new promise. like I I don't want our staff to get thrown off kilter or our our focus to be thrown off from where we're at and um with somebody new. That's that's a big deal to me. And you'll be surprised how many times that's going to be repeated accordingly by other stakeholders as well. Good point, Miss Davis. I'd like to email later too. Okay.
466Certainly. But a concern is someone who considers the classified staff and certificated staff equally. Um sometimes a lot of focus is put on teachers only, but we've got a lot of employees and I'd like that to be their focus. Um someone who can take us into the next generation with the AI and what's coming technology wise would be important also. Excellent. and we'll make sure to reach out to Mr. Yang to make sure he has the opportunity to email us. Mr. Vargas. Yes, please. Um, so the just a couple of things that uh popped into my head are student centered. Um, I think everything that we do uh needs to be student centered. I think we as a district have done that very well. Um, uh collaborative um we have a lot of different stakeholders.
467we have however many bargaining units um that you know and I say that because it's in flux right now um you know that being able to work with collaboratively and productively with everybody is incredibly important um and you know I'm I would I would guess that they are going to come in and be surprised by the quality of our relationship with our bargaining units and so um someone who is ready to you know and isn't going to come in and try to change that relationship or come in unprepared for that relationship is important. Um I would really like to see executive experience. Um you know if doesn't have to be somebody with a superintendent experience. It can be somebody at the assistant associate deputy superintendent level. Um but I feel like a district like ours.
468Um it you're kind of getting thrown into the deep end a little bit if you don't have that. And so some level of executive experience would be valuable. Um compassion I think is incredibly important to the work that we do. Um for me community service community serviceoriented I think it's incredibly important that um the superintendent is seen in the community. Um this community expects that it they expect it from their board members. They expect it from senior staff. They expect to know and see you out and about. Um and that goes to accessibility and transparency and all the other things that are important. Um but that is very important particularly in Elkrove. Um and then I I want to echo uh you know what Miss Albiani said is stability. I think one of the most
469important things that we do is provide stability for students. And when we do when we do something when someone tries to jerk the ship around, right, that creates instability that creates disruptions in students education and that is exactly what we don't want to do. Um so that stability, that ability to sort of um know that a disruption in a student's education is the worst thing we can do and you know we're making change in an appropriate and and uh and timely manner. Um so those are those are the things that popped into my head. Okay. And please recall that we will have an opportunity to talk to Chris more specifically in terms of our interview of him and some of his thoughts regarding the transition. The next question has to do with what are the
470strengths of the district? What might you be most proud of? What's working well? It could be the employees. It could be your cabinet members. Obviously, it could be you as a board. You know, that talked about the visibility and so on. But if I may, I'll start with Miss Baldwin again. A quick list of things. We're an extremely diverse community. Um, and we've come a long way from, um, you know, I think everyone jokes about Elkrove being a small but big town. Um, so a lot of us know each other. Um, we're closeknit community that really cares about um, you know, having really quality um, you know, livelihood for our families here that live here. And a lot of that comes out of our our school district. um is a really driving force for that
471here in Elkrove. Um and it's a place that people want to be. So, we want to continue um you know, the the inclusivity that we um provide here in our our community is really important to us. Um and it's a huge value, not just here in the district, but you know, it's an effort that even our city um commits to. And so, um, we definitely are going to need, um, you know, someone who is on board with that, um, and who knows how to also navigate because we have a very diverse perspectives here, um, that we're able to engage in dialogue, um, and, you know, come to decisions that really ultimately benefit our whole district despite having those, um, different opinions and perspectives. Um, I think it's something that, um, it's hard, but it's we
472we do a pretty good job at it. Um, I I'm proud to be a part of this board. I think that we have been able to accomplish some great things. Um, and the cabinet, working with the cabinet has been really great to um, hear all of the things that they're passionate about and, um, how they're really making efforts to address the needs of our community um, and and our schools. So definitely see that as a huge strength in terms of challenges. Um one big one we talked about today is just our growth. We're growing um and we will need um a leader who uh knows how to support the efforts that have been put in place um to do the research to complete the analysis, the outreach um that's required um to manage that um
473and make good choices and decisions. help the board understand as well um what are the options that are being laid out for us um because it's you know a great place to be and it's growing and we're thriving but with that does come some hard decisions that have to be made around you know what we how um we construct schools and um formulate calendars and and things of that nature. Excellent. Thank you, Miss Moore. Strengths and challenges. strengths could be a CTu program, the AVID program, a dual language program. Those keep those in mind as well. Yeah. Um I some that I jotted down um is that generally we have highly rated schools and as Miss uh Bowen referenced, we have highly in general I think our district is highly sought out compared to um
474some neighboring districts. Um, and we are diverse and along with that um I just think it's important that we um because we are so diverse we are always being respectful of everyone um and listening to all voices and so that's really important to me. Um and then also I put as a strength um that I see that for the most part we have involved community and parents and I think that really uh adds to our you know this school our and our community and our our students um weaknesses um because we're so large I feel that there as was already mentioned there's a lot of um challenges as we grow not only facilities wise but with district staff. How do we prioritize um the the way that the position, you know, district positions, the way
475we want to spend our money? And so I feel like we need um a leader who can um manage those situations. Um and that's all I have for now. Valerini. Okay, obviously diversity um is a plus. Um one of the other things that's a big plus is the number of CTE classes that we um offer and the varied experiences we have for our students across the board. They can be at different high schools and be learning totally different things and their high school diplomas when they're getting those the awards. It's it's interesting. as big as we are, you would think everything would be, but it's not. It's definitely it's it's it's unique. Let's put it that way. Um, we have we are onetoone with our computers, which is a plus. We've Thank Thank you, co.
476Let's go there. Um, we have very involved parents. We have strong unions and we have community connections out there all over the place. And the only minus I have right now is we are so big. Sometimes it's so big that it's just hard. There you go. Thank you. Um I agree. Uh we never walked away from CTE like it was it was done in California. Um, Elkrove didn't leave that and and it's it's a strength of ours. Um, I moved here to go to I moved my family here to go to Elkrove schools. Delia moved her family here to go to Elkgrove schools. Um, people come here to go to our schools and and so our diversity is amazing. It's our greatest strength and provides some of our greatest challenges. I mean, it's it's both.
477You there's no there's no um denying that. um some of our challenges we're going to have coming up. Um the COVID money is drying up those those points. So, we're going to be back to choosing board priorities. We're going to choose um we're there's an ever growing labor market. Um we have some of the most excellent relationships with unions that I I've seen. Actually, we have the best relationships I've ever seen through talking to other people. We have amazing employees. we have a we are very child focused and and what are we going to do for our kids and um that's just an asset we have. So um but size is size is a challenge but also we couldn't have um the training programs we have and the supports we have and the therapists we
478had if we didn't have this large pool of money. So, but it is a challenge on how to how to use it. Um, definitely challenges are very often equated to opportunities. Yes. And yes, I like that, Miss Davis. [Music] Well, I think one of our strengths is our employees and the relationships that are been built between leadership and those employees. Um, you don't see that in many districts. I think our CTE programs have grown amazingly and are offering our children opportunities. Um on the other side though, I would like to see our CT connections to careers after school um possibly to um internships, things like that. Uh sped program, we have an amazing sped program. I moved my family into this community 33 years ago to access the sped program for my son. um it
479never let me down. Uh diversity is a big strength of ours in this community. We have a lot of diversity going on, but that diversity also brings challenges. Um so with that scenario, we need someone to help us bridge some of those challenges as well. Um but that's about what I got. Thank you, Travaris. Yeah, I would echo a lot of what has been said. that I think diversity is both a is a wonderful strength of ours and also a challenge that we are constantly um elements of it that we are constantly facing. Um and being able to work being able to navigate that is incredibly going to be incredibly important. um CT and pathway programs. Um you know, the special education program. Um I think one of the things that I really love about
480our district is how is the size. Um you know, you because you get uh you know, in smaller districts where you get one or two high schools that they're like they're the district high schools, but here you have nine very different and unique and wonderful schools. and you go to one and it's a completely different experience than going to another. Um, and I love that. It is also a going to be a big challenge um, you know, for anyone who comes in. I mean, as a new board member, it's a challenge coming in and trying to get your arms around um, what all of our schools look like, the uniqueness of all of our schools and what are what they're all doing. And so, for a superintendent who also has to come in, hit the
481ground, and get their arms around all of that, that is going to be a challenge. Um, it is a fun challenge. It is a wonderful challenge, but it is a challenge. Um, I think one of the other things, one of the other strengths of our district is that we are very, when we, our decision-m is very thoughtful and intentional. Um, and that can be uh a surprise to people who want to come in and want to do something and have things and have ways of doing things and realize, oh, no, there's a structure here. There's there are systems here. There are ways of doing things here. And that is wonderful for us. Um it is also a challenge. It is a double-sided you know double-sided sword. Um in part because we are slow. Um but
482in part because you know you come into El Grove and there is a culture here. And understanding that culture, you know, being okay with that culture, figuring out where you fit in that culture is an important part of, you know, being part of this community. Um, and I think it's incredibly important to be able to do that. And that is going to be a, you know, um, if it's someone who's already familiar with Elgroveve, wonderful. They're going to hit hit the ground running a little bit more. But if it is someone coming in from the outside, um, culture shock is a real thing in Elkrove. Um, so I I remember from when I moved and I hear it from a lot of people I know who moved since then. Uh, it's a real thing. Um,
483but once you find your place, it's it's a wonderful place. So, well, as a matter of fact, as you talked about visibility and longevity and culture and fit, I happened to have checked into the town place suites, the Marriott, which is around the corner and so on, and the lady at the registration desk wanted me to say hello to Chris because you spoke to her at one point in time at a high school graduation, which just speaks volumes again about this community and certainly this board of education and your your leader. At this point in time, we will make sure that we contact you or you contact us with respect to anything else that you'd like to share with us regarding experiences, skill set, uh this type of thing. The one item, the bullet there,
484questions regarding any process or procedures u regarding the search process before we go into close session. We decided a number of dates today. Can we get sent out a confirmation of those to make sure they get entered right in our own calendars, please? Yeah. Yes. And Lisa has been outstanding by the way, ladies and gentlemen. And so it really does and has helped us a tremendous amount as well. So that being said, if there's no other questions, we will go to close session. Excellent. Then uh all right, do we do I have anything else? Um Oh, uh we skipped this part, so we'll do it now. Um Miss Alani, are there any blue cards on this item? There are no blue cards. Excellent. Um then we have already done the board discussion. So with that
485said, we will adjourn into close session at 5:10 p.m. and we'll be back in a minute. All right. I'd like to call this meeting back to order at 5:30 p.m. and announce that the board met in close session and no action was taken. There being no further business before the board, I will adjourn at 5:30 p.m.