001Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order at 6:05 p.m. Uh good evening and welcome to the Elkrove Unified School District's uh special board meeting. Live streaming of full in-person board meetings will be available to the public via the Zoom platform. Today's meeting is being video recorded and will be available on the district's YouTube channel. During special board meetings, the public may make public comments on items that are on the agenda. Individuals with comments on general school district issues may address those to the at the next regular regularly scheduled board meeting. For purposes of this special board meeting, requests for public comment will be accepted regarding the superintendent search firms up until the search firm candidate presentations are concluded. Generally, members of the public will have will be given three minutes to address
002the board. If there are 15 or more comments on a specific item, the board will reduce individual comment times to two 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 board 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
003addressing the board. All right, Miss Ballerini, our land acknowledgement. All right. We acknowledge that the Elkrove Unified School District administrative facilities and schools occupy the unseated 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 people who share it. May our daily lives and work, teaching, learning, leadership, and community engagement support the evolving vision of the Miwok for their community and these lands. May we strive to acknowledge the past for the 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
004successful education of our community. Thank you. And Mr. Yang. The pledge of allegiance. Thank you very much. All right. So, let's go over let's do an overview of what this inter interview process will entail. Um, so this evening, the board will listen to presentations by three applicant superintendent search firms. These firms submitted written proposals in response to the Elkrove Unified School District's request for proposals for a superintendent search firm. For the benefit of those of you who are viewing this meeting, please allow me to review the process that we will be following. Each of the three applicant superintendent search firms will have submitted a response to the district's request for proposal and a presentation. Each superintendent search firm will have 15 minutes for their presentation. After their presentation, 15 mil 15 minutes have been allocated
005for each superintendent search firm to answer board questions and to provide a one-minute closing statement. After the three presentations, there will be a short break. After the break, the board will pro provide an opportunity for public comment regarding the superintendent search firm agenda item. The board will then deliberate and consider taking action to select one of the superintendent search firms. Miss Lasser, would you like to uh walk us through what the board members have in front of them? I need to do Oh, there we go. Perfect. Good evening, President Vargas, fellow board trustees, superintendent Hoffman. All of you today have in front of you a folder, an Navy blue folder that looks like this. Inside that folder, you have a couple of different documents. Um, on your right side, you have a notes on presentation.
006You have for each firm, there'll be three firms like President Vargas said that will be presenting tonight. So, you have a notes on presentation for each of those firms. You have a superintendent search services packet that has the various questions that some of you will be asking tonight along with a section to take notes for clarifying questions and then a section for the one minute closing statement. On the left hand side you have a superintendent search forced ranking sheet. We will use that at the end of the presentations after public comment when you have your discussion. We will use that forced ranking sheet to decide which search firm will move forward. And with that, our first firm is here. Are we ready to bring them in? So, one clarifying piece just to make sure we're
007on the same page. Um, so as far as the the questions go, uh, we're thinking Miss Moore would ask question number one. Miss Bowwin would ask question number two. I think it was reversed. Oh, did you reverse them? Miss Bowwin, you'll ask number one. Miss Moore, you'll ask number two. Thank you very much. So, and Mr. Yang, you'll do the closing ask for the closing statement. Yep. Thank you. Are we ready to move? Any other questions? Board members, any questions about the process? Okay, then I think we're ready. We will bring them in. The first group is leadership leadership associates. Ready when you are. Excellent. Well, I'll give you let me give you a quick rundown of the process. I'm sure that you guys got an email with the uh the basics, but just in
008case. Um, so welcome. Thank you very much for your application. We really appreciate it. We're excited for this process. Um, so during this interview, you'll be given 15 minutes for a pre for the presentation and then 15 minutes for board members to uh ask questions and uh during that time, there'll also be a one-minute closing statement. So, please begin whenever you're ready. Okay. Well, thank you so very much and all I need to do is navigate how to move the slide. I think I just figured it out. So, thank you again so much for us uh to present to you. It's quite an opportunity and we really look forward to working with you on this most important project. By way of introduction, my name is Dr. Jackie Horsesh. And um as all of our partners
009are, I am a former superintendent. I was superintendent in Union School District in San Jose. And I will let my uh colleague Blanca introduce herself. Hello, Blanca Kavasos. And uh as Jackie said, we're all former superintendent. and I was superintendent in Taft Union High School District, which is a small district in central California, not the LA one, but central California Oil Country. Good afternoon, trustees. My name is David Verdugo. I am a senior partner with Leadership Associates. I've been on the senior partner group for about the last 11 years. Former superintendent of Paramont Unified School District in Los Angeles County. about 17,000 students. Following my retirement, I became the director of Kulsa, the California Association of Latino Superintendent, and also worked in Washington DC for ALASS as the leadership academy director, where I mentored and
010coached aspiring superintendents ac across the nation. Um, one thing I'd like to mention, however, prior to the next slide is that um, wanted to stress to the trustees that leadership associates is the only silver affiliate uh, search firm business partner that is recognized by CSBA and we think that that's important in terms of the um, association with each other uh, as that as to how that works. Let me go on to the next slide. I particularly think this one is uh very unique and quite special because it displays the support specialists assigned to the search uh who will provide exceptional support to um Ludy Avalos to Lisa to a number of people within the main office. um comprehensive on call support which is again unique with leadership associate personalized written guidelines, templates, sample documents, checklist,
011brown act assistants as a matter of fact and each of the ladies that you see on the left there have been former assist have been former executive assistants in superintendent offices um throughout the state. Let me go on if I may. I know that we're trying to There you go. um a sampling of some of our regional and successful searches which really is the title of in terms of our experience and qualifications. We have conducted over 750 searches a very long and proud history of successful searches and these are some examples. Sacramento Folsam Fairfield Cissoon as a matter of fact about a year and a half ago or so. Modesto, the Santa Clara County Office of Ed, San Francisco, Oakland, Corona, Norco, San Raone, and others in Southern California as well. Tustin, Orange Unified, Irvine,
012um, Berkeley in the Bay Area as well. So, one of the things that we've been doing is finding out a lot about your district. And of course, if we were fortunate enough to be given the search, um we'll do that much more extensively through our uh focus groups and our surveys and all of the uh stakeholder input. However, we do know a lot about your district that enables us to know what it is that you're going to be needing in a superintendent. So, you are definitely an award-winning district. You're committed to academic excellence and the types of skills and experiences that you're going to need. um in a superintendent is somebody who's going to ensure that all students get a rigorous curriculum that prepares them for college and career. Also being able to have experience
013in providing targeted support students for those students who um have been marginalized and have some uh disparities in terms of their academic performance. You also want to have somebody who has experience in promoting and fostering safe learning environments for your students and one who authentically engages families and community partners including decision-making types of activities. Um you are going expected to have growth of over 8,500 students or more in the next 5 years. So having somebody that's got experience implementing bond funded new construction and modernization will be important for you. Also, the fact that there are one-time funding shortfalls expected. You're going to need somebody who's got experience in securing funds in order to make up for those types of shortfalls that are um possibly going to impact students. And you have very positive relations with
014your labor partners and you want somebody who is going to be able to not only maintain those but also be able to foster those moving forward in the future. So, we're going to be going through this wheel um and telling you a little bit more about all of the parts of our process, but I want to start with the top of the wheel, which says we it starts and ends with the board. And that's truly we walk side by side with you throughout this search. Um again, if we're fortunate enough to receive the search, one of the first things we're going to do is we're going to have a collaborative meeting with all of you. And we call it the initial meeting. And during that meeting, we outline every single step of the search. We
015do the timelines. We find out which stakeholder groups you want us to have sessions with. You're a large district. And one of the things that you'll hear moving forward in our presentation is we will meet with as many stakeholder groups as you want us to. We do it both in person, we do it online, we also have a survey available in a number of languages. But our fee is one just it's oneizefits-all. We don't charge you by the day. We don't charge you by the hour. We do the whole thing. And hopefully you also had a chance to see that um the fee that was in your initial proposal was incorrect. Our fee actually is the lowest. Um it was the 4250 I believe. So I hope that you had that uh correction made. Anyway,
016so we do all of these things. We talk to you about salary ranges with competitive districts. We walk with you through your contract language. We get contract parameters from all of the uh finalists and we keep you updated with weekly or sometimes bi-weekly updates just depending on what we're working on at the time. So on to the next one. So a part a very very important part of the process is community engagement. And so, as Jackie said, when we have our initial meeting with you, one of the questions that we will ask you is, who are the educational partners that you would like us to meet with? And those meetings can be in person and or online depending on how you think it would be best for that group. Uh some groups would prefer to
017meet online, some groups would prefer to meet in person, and we will accommodate whatever works best to get the most input that we can from uh your education partners. David and I are both Spanish-speaking and so um we uh would be meeting with any of your Spanish-speaking groups um and be speaking to them in Spanish. Um, we also have an online survey that we would uh work with your team, whether it's IT or your executive assistant or the superintendent's office, whoever you designate, uh, to be able to put that out um, send that out through your network so that any of your parents um, the stu the parents of the students um, also that that link goes out to them so that they can respond and that um is is online survey is available 24/7.
018So if they want to do it at 1:00 in the morning, they can fill that out at 1:00 in the morning. And that is in addition to the the in-person or online uh meetings with us. What we do is uh we take all of that input, we create a summary that we share with you and we use that to draft a position description. So their input, your input is extremely valuable. It isn't just we're listening to you and then we're doing whatever it was that we wanted to do anyway. It really is that that input really informs both the position description and then later on the interview questions that uh we will draft some interview questions and then you are the ones that determine what that will be. Again, the position description that's a draft
019that then you uh edit uh at that point and and make sure that it is what you want it to be. But we summarize all of the input that we receive. We provide that to you and then that helps you as you look at that position description to see does that match. Thank you Blanco. This slide really displays our partners and not consultants. I say that because we all have a vested interest in the organization. Uh we are located invested in California. Uh we are not an outofstate organization. We are what I'd like to say is California savvy and yet we've placed more candidates uh from out of state than any other firm and we're very proud of that. So there is a national reach as well in fact international. We've recently placed somebody from
020Toronto as a matter of fact. But uh I did want to mention that twice a month all of the partners that you see there on that map uh we all have a mutual zoom call twice a month to discuss recruitment placement references positions of each search that's taking place. So in essence you really have not only Jackie and Blanca and myself you have this entire team as it relates to relating to this particular search. uh two of our search partners happen to be board members as well and so I know that they can and we can walk in your shoes as uh board members which is I think very very important as well. This next slide I think as I mentioned uh displays a little bit more specifically our state and national reach. We've been
021responsible for the CEOs or the executive director of a number of those positions and or those organizations that you see up there. CSBA for example, AXA, Kalsa, CASA, Kappell, ALAS nationally. I'm a former governing board member for uh AASA. And so again, many of these organizations have depended on us for the search for their next new leader. One of the aspects that makes us unique as a firm is that not only do we do uh searches but we also provide executive leadership development. And so as far as recruitment is concerned, we are throughout the year working with sitting superintendent and we're also working with assistant superintendent, many of them who want to step into that role. And so that's another in addition to our 1500 uh subscribers, we also have contact and we're able to
022actually uh see them, hear them as they interact in in these different uh leadership development series and the series are uh happen uh throughout the state. Sydney swims. Me too. So, uh, one of the the questions that you had is, uh, about the background checks and candidate vetting that we do and we pre-screen each applicant. We speak with every single applicant and we ask them some questions to get an idea of how well they are meeting that position description, how well they might be a match for your district. We also do uh very comprehensive reference checking on our applications. We ask for three letters of recommendation, five um five references and we contact those people but we also go beyond that because of our reach throughout the state because of the different leadership series that
023we do. We have connections with many many districts and so we get a lot of information that may not uh come from a reference. It might come from the county superintendent of of schools. It might come from somebody else who's worked in that district who wasn't listed. So we get a lot of what we call intel or information on candidates that wouldn't show up uh in doing a Google search for example um or or just by talking to the references. So we utilize our networks, our personal connections, all of the partners that you saw on there and we also will verify their credential and then there is now an AB2534 disclosure document which says this is where they've worked so that there's a little bit more accountability as far as evaluation and interview support. You
024as the board will have access, you will be able to see every single application. and we don't keep anything from you. We're working for you. We do not work for the candidates. We work for you. And so you'll be able to see all of them. We based on again that input, that position description, etc., we will help you develop some evaluation criteria as far as how you might look at those candidates as as you're looking um at the applications. And then we will review those with you. We will rank them or tier them. I hope that's not I think we have two minutes. We'll rank them or tier them. Thank you. And um and then we'll share that with you and as far as who best meets that criteria and then we'll facilitate the interviews,
025provide all the materials, assist you with salary comparisons in the area and then provide uh contract assistance. You've seen the search timeline. We're not going to spend any of our time on that because it's up to you. Whatever dates work for you, um we will work around that. So, I'm going to use the last seconds that we have just to sort of summarize. Why would you choose us? There's a lot of other firms out there. Okay. Why us? Well, I could probably spend an hour on this, but I'm going to try to truncate my my comments. First and foremost, we can get you the highest quality pool of candidates. We have the subscribers that we talked about. We blast out the minute that you hire us for your search to these 1500 sub subscribers. We
026strive every day to meet the diversity needs of this district. And last year, 66% of our finalists were either women or candidates of color. You heard about our our California and our national connections. We're partners. We're part of this company. We have a vested interest in your success because you'll give us a recommendation and we'll do another search for one of your neighbors. You saw from David's presentation how actively engaged we are with public education. Um 85% or more of our candidates have stayed in their position a long time. I know that you value that. You have a fabulous superintendent who's leaving you but who's been part of your district for a long time. Uh and we know how important that is. And also we are an all-inclusive cost. There's no hidden fees. We have
027a two-year guarantee. We'll do the search free if after, you know, before two years the candidate leaves. So, I really hope that you'll consider us. We do believe that we offer a high quality service. So, do you have any questions for any of us? Thank you very much for the presentation. Um, so we do have a couple of set questions and then we'll uh we'll open it up to board members for um clarifying questions as well. Um, but Miss Bowwin, you have our first question. I do. What is your firm's retention rate for superintendent placed? Can you provide examples of successful superintendent placements you have made and what do you see as a key factor? What do you see as the key factors that contributed to those successes? Go ahead. No, go. Okay. So, uh,
028as we mentioned, uh, 85% of our placements stay for 5 years or more. But, um, actually, let me see if I can go back to this very quickly. Um, it was some of these the comparable districts that uh, we shared with you. Um these are districts that we the ones that have an asterisk we have done their uh search for them previously but uh some of these candidates for uh for example uh Folsam Cordova not the current superintendent they've only been in in place for I think this they're starting their second year but the um uh Sarah Kiganian who was at Folsam Cordova she stayed for I believe it was six or seven years uh Modesto City. Um Sarah Naguchi there was also 7 years seems to be it was uh uh the magic number
029uh has been there uh for that amount of time. I think Corona Norco was like maybe six years and San Ramon was four years. But uh so there is a a good history there of um long tenure and I think part of that is really early on developing that good relationship with the board and making sure that that superintendent is another member of the team and and sees themselves as a critical member of the team and is constantly ly communicating. There's constant communication back and forth. Thank you very much. Miss Moore has our second question. Yes, thank you. How do you ensure that you are reaching the broadest group of applicants with a wide variety of viewpoints and experiences? Specifically, how do you conduct your search so that your scope of potential candidates is not
030limited to applicants with a narrow set of perspectives or experiences? Part of what we had mentioned previously is the contact with each person who might be an applicant. We reach out to them and try to obtain from them um additional information about their skill set, their experience, personal and professional as well. What might be some of those characteristics that you in fact are looking for and is there a match and fit for um for uh El Grove Unified School District. So it is in terms of comprehensiveness a a deep dive into where are they at, what are they doing, where have they been. Um we don't have a pool. We certainly don't have a stable. So it's unique to the needs here in this particular school district. Uh that outreach that we have though as
031I mentioned as a result of the contacts we have not only statewide but nationally this will be a a well sought off after district. We would predict, if I may, and sometimes we do that, to have well over 45 to 50 applicants. Narrowing that down to just the finest in tier 1, tier 2, tier three is really going to be very important for you to be able to see all those applications as well and get a stronger sense yourself of what your needs might be. I'm sorry. Yeah. And I and I'd like to just add to that. I think two things. The first thing is we really dive deeply into the candidates. Um, so we know a lot about them and their perspectives. But what we really do, I think most effectively is we know
032about your district as a result of the stakeholder input. all the time that we spend here with your community, with your administrators, with your parents, we know what you are looking for and what it's going to take for that next superintendent to be as successful as your current superintendent has been. So, because of that, we really feel that we're able to match what you're looking for with what we know about what the candidates can bring for you. Thank you very much board members. And at this point, um, does anybody have any clarifying questions? These questions should be related to something in the presentation or the packet, uh, or something like that where you think maybe there's some clarification that could be provided. Miss Moore, uh, I did just I was wondering, you said you have
033a a two-year guarantee. If we are not able to find a candidate for some reason that we're happy with, what is what happens in that situation? Well, the two-year guarantee refers to um if you hire a candidate and if the board who hired that candidate, the majority is still the majority on the board. And if you have done regular um goal setting and evaluations with that superintendent, if after a year or prior to two years it's not successful, that person leaves or you ask that person to leave, we do the search again uh just for uh basic expenses. An example, if I may, is Culver City. Culver City superintendent recently had to move back to Florida as a result of a family issue. And so I happened to have done that particular search in Culver
034City in Los Angeles County. So we did come in and there was no cost to the to the to the district other than our um support specialist. I think it was about $2,000 because of the work that they had done for that. So we stepped back in. We did it free of charge and have been able to bring forward an outstanding superintendent there. Thank you. Other board members. Yes. Yeah, I uh just want to say thank you for presentation. Um uh what is the um source or criteria that you guys use to um find a pool of candidates that will uh reflect on um diversity. We are absolutely committed to diversity to equity. We believe that that's one of the main um components to a superintendent and a leadership according and a leader accordingly. Uh
035we don't have that slide but we do have a slide that actually goes into detail regarding the fact that that's some of our core values. We often call it our why as a matter of fact. So uh it is an important factor. We take that into consideration. Much of what we will be dealing with if of the course is u out as a result of the position description. What are your stakeholders and what is this board of education and the trustees uh asking for and um uh requesting if you will. It's that person that we are seeking. We also happen to know and this is going to sound a little aggressive or assertive. We know who has baggage and so as a result you know we don't bring those people forward. Certainly, they're welcome to
036apply, but during those conversations that we have with them, we temper that quite a bit. As a matter of fact, it's interesting. I was at Chick-fil-A today. What a wonderful environment, your families, your kids. I I just want to mention that I was just so impressed with the environment and the atmosphere and the culture that exists here. I got a a flavor for that while I was sitting there with at Chick-fil-A. Pun intended. Well, yeah. Flavor. Flavor. Yeah. Thank you. And if I can certainly if I can just add to that. I have to tell you one of the things that also attracts uh uh candidates to our firm. Uh and I just say that because recently on a search that I was doing, one of the candidates contacted me because she's a Latina and
037she saw my name. I don't know her uh but she contacted me and wanted to speak to me as a Latina and what are some of the barriers? what are some of the things that she should be preparing for etc. And so our the diversity of our firm has been increasing um and and we were very proud of that and we continue to seek that out um because as David said it is and if you look on our website you will see that it it is part of our core values. Thank you. Other questions? Board members, I have one clarifying question. So, um, on your stakeholder engagement process, we are a very, very large district. Um, and most of the applications we got, I think only one or two had uh done a process for
038a district as large as ours. Um, so obviously stakeholder engagement is incredibly important to us. Um we represent three different cities, schools in three different cities and unincorporated. Um so would you please expand upon a little bit what stakeholder engagement might look like uh or has looked like in the past for you? Okay, thank you. It begins with a template that we provide you with samples or examples of the type of outreach that we have typically utilized or reached out to stakeholder groups. you add to that template because you know of course your district better than anyone else. So that template is kind of the beginning of the list if you will of the stakeholders that you'd like us to speak to. U and if there's a a an affinity group for example u if
039there's a organization uh that's not listed on there we add that to the list and then we make sure of course that we are reaching out. It's really very important that those stakeholders realize that you as a board, as trustees are reaching out to them and requesting their input. It's really critical. It's more than just a feel-good type of thing. It's an authentic and genuine request during that conversation, whether it's Zoom or personally being here, and we have actually talked quite a bit about the fact that we would need to be here for multiple days in order to capture that voice uh accordingly. But um my point was going to be is the questions we ask of them uh what experience do you desire most in your next superintendent? What experiences skill set? What strengths
040do you do you require? But we also ask them what are the strengths in the district? What's going well? But perhaps more importantly, what are some of the challenges? That is all compiled for you folks in a wonderful road map almost like a WASK accredititation uh document. That is the executive summary. It's a wonderful road map where we would provide that to you along with a free 90-day plan in assistance with your in conjunction with your superintendent, your new person, along with in conjunction with the board. So, those are all steps towards success if you will, but that outreach is very, very critical. As Blanca mentioned, we are both Spanish- speakaking, so we can certainly um provide that opportunity. We have the survey in multiple languages. we would ask you what those languages are that
041you'd like us to have those surveys in, but it's very comprehensive. Uh that is really the heart and soul of uh reaching out and again those stakeholders appreciating the fact that you've asked us to speak to the city manager of three different cities perhaps or the police chief uh safety being such a concern. Um the DAC group, I remember speaking to a DAC group of parents, Spanish speaking primarily. Um, of course I was lucky in that they fed us so much. But the one thing that I can recall specifically a little bit of humor if I may was uh in the end they simply said Dr. Savis GMO waphovven they just wanted somebody handsome and and young um the DACA group that is that was for a large school district and elementary school district as
042a matter of fact. So we work uh diligently with those stakeholder groups and we create that relationship with them. And I also just want to add that um it's important for us to meet with your labor groups. So we always meet with you know the executive board of of all of your uh labor groups and then we also meet with the membership of your labor groups. Of course we meet with your teachers, we meet with um the parents, we meet with the students. Um, usually we'll go to, you know, a couple of the high schools and we spend a day uh meeting with uh whoever it is that the principles think would be representative. We don't always want to go to the government classes. We want to be able to get a broad spectrum. So,
043we see uh and hear the voices of those people. I also want to mention because this is was new since co 19 um since co rather many many groups uh particularly um those who work in the district really appreciate the opportunity to join zooms and it can either be by school or or their group. We have found since co that that's in many in many cases their preference. We used to do, you know, after school meetings a lot. Um, but people want to get home. They want to take care of their kids, go to soccer games or whatever it is. So, um, we find we ask you what the best way to meet with the people are. Um, so you know, your superintendent, your administrative assistants, they know. So, they let us know and then
044they help schedule that accordingly. And I just want to add if we find that we need uh more time then we will add more time. If we need some more resources we will ask other partners to join us um in gathering that information if needed. Thank you very much. Mr. Yang, do you want to close us out? Sure. Of course. Thanks again for your presentation. At this time I would like to ask you please provide a one minute closing statement for us. Thank you. They know I'm long-winded. That's probably not a good idea. I think there's a reason that we've done over 750 searches. I think our firm has a welldeserved reputation. We work hard. We've all been former superintendent. We know how vital, how important it is that the superintendent who leads your district
045has what I'm just going to characterize as the right stuff, has those skills, has the experience, has the aptitude and the attitude to take your district where the board wants to see it go. We want to work with you to get that leader who's going to take you to the next level. You're a great district, but you all know that the enemy of of great is good. You want to constantly be improving. We've looked at your data. You're doing a fabulous job with a lot of the kids. You have a more work to do though with all of the kids and that's what you're going to need in that next superintendent. Told you I'm long-winded. I think we're worth taking a really sorry serious look at. Thank you very much. Appreciate your presentation. All right,
046board members, we have a couple minute break, so please continue taking notes. Uh, and we will be back in four minutes. And do I have to do Oh, it works, right? Okay, good. I don't. Oh, no worries. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. Just to give you a really quick rundown, I'm sure you've gotten this information before, but just in case. Um so the process we're going through here is um you'll have 15 minutes for the presentation and then 15 minutes for board member questions uh and a one minute closing statement as part of that. So feel free to take it away. Thank you very much and pleased to be here. Um I I sit in this room and think about all the things you must be thinking about now
047and I'm sure you've heard from every firm this is the most important decision a board makes. Um but it really is true. Um, and it's a busy time. There's a lot of work to be done, but it's also a great opportunity for you and your students. And I think I've got this right. Okay. So, I'm going to I'm going to just talk about the piece that's missing here as you already know, right? And that's your next leader, the governance team. It's not the board and the superintendent, right? It it's the governance team. And leadership in your district makes a difference. And as all of you know, so what happens at the dis um if great things happen at the DAS, great things happen in your classroom for you and for um your students and the
048community you serve. Um you've got 68,63 reasons to do great work. And when you look at your goals and your objectives for your dis um for your students and those outcomes, um the reason why I put this up, first of all, it gives some insight on you and your priorities. But as we start talking about um the research process and how we include your community and education partners, these aspects will be part of a part of that and I'll go into that to a little bit in a minute. Um just like you, we believe every student is entitled to a high quality education. um a and as mentioned um high quality leadership is an important part of that process. So we are a nationwide search firm. I think all of you know that we did
049the search here I think 10 years ago. Um and one of the reasons why sustainability is important the average tenure of a superintendent used to be 3.5 years. Now it's 2.3 years. Um, that's heartbreaking, right? Because it takes that sustainability to make good things happen. A leader cannot change or move a district forward if they're not here for a long time. So, we are a nationwide search firm. We have um 130 consultants across the country. Um, but we have 25 here in California. Um I I think what's really critical too is all of the consultants um have and I'll show you who's going to be on the team in a second have different networks and connections um to make sure that when we are doing a search about putting something in ed joining Ed Cal
050but it's looking at the criteria that you develop for your next leader and using that criteria to really identify what it's all about right it's about fit because you're going to have a lot of people that are going to want to be here and lead this district and there going to be a lot of candidates that are qualified, but are they the right fit for you and what you need at this moment in your district? If you look at the one bullet point where it talks about authentic stakeholder and education partner um connection, so a lot of people talk about um including education partners. I I think one of the things that makes McFersonson different is every one of your education partner groups have a different voice. So a lot of times people will do
051town hall meetings or online and they can have value but what where the real value happens is where you take for example and we have meetings with each of your bargaining units. We have meetings with PTA we have meetings with your ELAC DAC all those groups are education partners but their voice and how they see and their challenges in your district and their opportunities in the district are different. So, making sure that you help us identify those groups and us having one-on-one meetings with those groups to make sure that we're hearing that voice and and providing that to the board as really in a different lens that you're going to see and what your community's concerns are because every group in your community has different concerns and priorities and needs. This just gives you a
052kind of highle overview of us. Um, and I'll just focus on a couple bullet points. Uh, roughly about 80% of, um, candidates that are hired with McFersonson are still in place at 5 years. Um, the team that's going to be working the search numbers are better. Mine are at 97%. Um, Nicole's at 95, I think. Um and and so when you look at our team and the amount of time we spend in doing searches, we really are intentional about making sure um we're not hiring your your next leader, right? That is the board's job. Our role is to bring you the best candidates that align to you and your criteria. The the reason why the 130 consultants is because even though they won't be working in the search, they have a network and that expands
053our network. So all of our team members are members of every major um superintendent organization or developing leaders organization. And so that network helps us identify candidates as well um to help you meet those needs. And then if you look at the 60% at 10 years and 40% at 15 years are still in place. This just gives you um I I know that equity is a big factor to you and um the lead consultant that will be um part of this search and Nicole has done some really great work of just giving you a kind of a highle overview of the diversity of candidates um that she's able to build um over the 16 searches that she's done in just in Northern California. So this is your search team. Um Nicole's got a great background.
054She worked at AXA. Um really broad network across multiple fields, but um is a Northern California consultant. Dr. Dan as well too as a superintendent and uh so is Dr. Spalding. Um my background is a little unique. Um I'm a board member. I was in um Riverside and Alvort Unified for 21 years as a trustee, roughly 23,000 students, a little smaller than you are. and then um left that and now serve on the county board. So roughly 400,000 students in Riverside County. And the reason why our team is built that way because there are different lenses and different networks and different information. We get about candidates. We learn about superintendent. I get information when I talk to other board members than my peers would because we've known each other. Um same thing with my colleagues
055that are superintendent. they provide a different lens as well. And as a board member, um, try to go to the grocery store for 15 minutes and rush home, right? How often does that happen? It it doesn't because you are the most accessible elected officials in your community. And so your lens and how you see what's important would be different than the other leaders. And that's why I keep reinforcing we don't hire superintendent. That is your role. Our role is to bring you the best candidates based on the criteria that you identified. So, um, we've worked in district and all sizes. I've I've personally have done districts as small as 125 students up to 71,000. Um, I just did Fresno. Um, I did Stockton and uh, Santa Barbara that are, excuse me, San Bernardino. They're roughly
056the same size as um, your district, a little bit smaller, but um, roughly the same size. We have a high degree of stakeholder involvement. it that is critical because the more information that the board has in making the decision um the better outcomes you have. The third the other piece when I look at the last bullet point is it's tailored. We do not have a cookie cutter approach. So, it's really critical that when we're talking about the process, yes, we're going to have candidates, you know, go through the typical interview that is most candidates um and most interview process that you're probably familiar with happen, but um we include some other things like videos. So when we bring to you and I'll go through the process in a minute, but um we include videos, we
057include scenarios, other things so you can see a full round of what um the candidates have to offer because somebody can be great in front of a group and answer questions in an interview process, but may not be the right fit. It may not connect with a community and may not be really kind of the leader that you want. So we'll bring all those things forward so you can have a multi- view of of what that looks like. 7 minutes. I reinforce number two. We work for the board and and that is critical. We don't have a cadre of candidates that we bring in from district to district and a smaller district and then take them to another district and to another district. We work for you. As the old phrase goes, we serve at
058the pleasure of the board. And that's essential because that's the lens that we look through everything. Um, I'm a board member, so when I'm sitting and I'm talking to candidates, I'm thinking the same things that you are, right? No surprises. Um, I I don't have any stake in bringing anyone forward except who's going to be your best fit and who's going to serve you well and most importantly who's going to serve the students well in this district. Let me go through our um phases. Um the typical search takes between 8 to 12 weeks. And people typically ask, can we do it faster? We can. I wouldn't recommend it, especially in a district this size. You deserve the time, the intention, and the focus to get the best candidates possible, and to rush it for a
059month sooner um is I wouldn't recommend doing that. We we can do what you want, but I would not recommend rushing the surge date. 12 weeks is just the proper amount of time to um vet candidates um to recruit candidates um and really background checks, right? There's a lot of things out there that again, no surprises. So, let me go through the the phases real quick. Um we spent a lot of time in phase one. As you can see, it's all about the characteristics. Um, identifying the education partners or the stakeholder groups that you want us to meet with. Um, and that equity piece with meeting with education partners is important because some want to do it in person, but some people are working and they want to do it virtually. So we do whatever
060is best for those groups to make sure that um there's the right level of participation and there's the right level of engagement and there's the right ability to make sure that those voices are all being heard. So when I say education partners, it could be your bargain units, um students, um we meet with um community members, um site administrators, cabinet, really anyone that you tell us is important to meet with. We meet one-on-one with those groups. Those group meetings are usually about an hour and there's usually between 20 and 30 people in those meetings. Um when we have those meetings, we give the board a document that has the feedback from all of those groups. We recommend that you share that publicly. Um but it also is a good resource for the board when you're
061talking about later on the goals for the um this new superintendent, but it's also a great thing for your candidates, right? It provides information for your candidates. Phase two, um we'll still be interviewing, meeting with stakeholders. Um, you'll have my my gut is you'll have probably 40 plus people apply for this job. Really, it it's a horrible location, right? No one wants to live here, but you'll probably have 40 people that'll apply for the job. And I I reckon the men the board have a mindset of the reverse funnel, right? Bring as many candidates in the pos process and then take out those that aren't qualified. We'll take out those that don't meet your criteria and then we will bring what we call a short list of roughly 12 candidates that kind of align well
062to your criteria that align well to the size of your district and anything you tell us that's important to you. Right? That would be what we bring to you. And then from that list, the board would say here are the candidates that we want to interview. So when you have that short list, you'll have background material on the candidates. You'll have resumeums. We do videos of those candidates, so you get to see those candidates do like four or five questions about whatever you think's important. We'll have them answer. So, you're getting to see them now. And we've already done reference checks on those candidates. So, we've had reference checks and all that information you'll see before you say these are the ones we want to move to the next step. And then in phase four,
063um I mentioned the interview process. Some boards include a community panel, which means the board would say, "Here's the type of people we want to serve on a community panel. It's not required. Um, but it's another way for the board to engage the community, and we facilitate those sessions. It doesn't extend the session. Um, we do the community panel interviews the same day the board's doing their interviews. So candidate A could be interviewing with the board, candidate B could be interviewing um with the panel and then they would switch. So that gives you the ability now to have and let me say they do not rank, they do not tell you who they want. They just provide from their insight who they saw had these strengths, where were potential areas of opportunity. They do not
064tell you who they thought you should hire. And that's essential, right? It's just information if the board wants them to do that. and it creates it creates less concern if they don't do that piece. The other piece, it's very confidential. They don't know who's even being interviewed until they walk in the room. Um, so we we make sure that our candidates are protected as well. I think I can do it. Um, and then the next piece is just as important, right? It's how do you set the future for you and the board? So phase five um is once you select your candidate, we meet with the board and your new leader um to help you set what are those goals that are the two or three things you want your next leader to focus on
065and we want to support that, right? Because if you're not aligned on the goals um and next step for that leader and how you're going to evaluate that person um that is all the work we've done on the front end um doesn't have the best results because that's how we make sure that we get these 10 11 years. In addition um if your leader leaves for any reason within 2 years we come back and do the search at no cost to the district. Um, I'm going to skip all that because I covered all of this here. Um, and I'll stop talking now for questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have a couple of set questions and then we'll open it up to the board for clarifying questions. Thank you. Uh, our first question,
066Miss Bowwin. Thank you. What is your firm's retention rate for superintendent placed? Can you provide examples of successful superintendent placements you have made and what do you see as key factors that contributed to those successes? Uh yeah, our retention rate um for 5 years as a organization is 80% 10 years um 60%. And then 15 years I think it's 40%. I can pull those up for you but that's roughly what it is. Mhm. And then you asked what is the reason? Is that is that part two of the question? Do you want me to read it again? Just that the second piece was the reason. Yeah. Can you provide let's see can you provide examples of of successful superintendent placements you've made and what do you see as a key factors that contributed to those
067successes? I I I think the search we did in Hammet um the search we did in I can think a lot of Santa Barbara has been really just watching that leadership team grow um Fresno um Stockton Ventur those are probably really good examples and the factors that I think made it go really well where the board was focused on taking the time um to make sure that the search process was thorough. They had high level of community engagement and the education partners also bought in. All of those all of those searches had community panels and it's not required but it does make the feel the community feel like they're part of the process even though it's more work for our team. the outcome of of the sustainability and engagement and connectivity um I think led
068to the success of those searches and that's just a couple so did I completely answer your question good enough okay what did I miss okay thank you very much miss more thank you how do you ensure that you are reaching the broadest group of applicants with a wide variety of viewpoints and experiences is specifically how do you conduct your search so that your scope of potential candidates is not limited to applicants with a narrow set of perspectives or experiences? I I think well I know we um we have a broad network. We're a nationwide firm. We have roughly aboutund excuse me we have roughly about 1,800 people in our database. So even though we don't move people around, um we have a large database of potential applicants, I think the number of consultants that we
069have in their network. And we identify and target people once the board identifies that criteria of who we're going after. And if you look at just the information that Nicole provided relative to the diversity, not only of experience and ethnicity and all those pieces, but all those different things that are relevant um show you that we have a really good record of making sure that that we are um focused on the best candidate, but also the widest reach and not just a small cohort of of candidates from a particular school or or network. Excellent. Thank you very much board members. Um this is your opportunity for clarifying questions. Um these questions shouldn't be anything new but related to the um the presentation or the documents we've been provided. So any questions? Yes, Miss Albiani. I
070had two quick things. Um wanted to clarify you were joking that this is a horrible place to live. Absolutely. It's gorgeous. Okay. Um just don't want that to go on record being a negative. And then um you mentioned videos and scenarios. Could you expand a little on that please? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um so the short the short list the list that we bring to you those 12 candidates, we have them do a video. The great thing about the video is that we give them questions. They can do the video as many times as they want. We give copies of that video to the board prior to the short list discussion. So when you're reviewing those candidates and let me go back and say when we have that short list discussion with you, we'll tell you
071everybody that applied. We'll tell you why we didn't bring them forward. And again, it's your search. So if you decide, well, I know that person, we want to still talk about them. We'll talk about any candidate. But the video gives you a chance to see how do they answer questions and how do they answer them well on camera and and um it's another tool for you to make um a decision about. You're welcome. Thank you, Mr. Yang. Yeah, thanks for the presentation. Thank you. Um, as you know, our school district has a very diverse uh students and uh I'm just curious as far as uh community engagement um what sort of what sort of um source that you guys use? Well, um so we have people on our search. Let me So I showed you
072this the our team, right? that that had um people that speak English and some of our colleagues speak Spanish. But if we needed someone that um you need if you're talking from a language standpoint, they would be added to the team. We we recognize that we don't have on our primary team maybe all the things from a language standpoint, but we have the resources to add those people to our team as well. That's the great thing about having 25 consultants in California and 130 nationwide that um whatever the board says the board said to us our um Asian population is 28% and we want someone that speaks Mandarin to talk to this specific group then we make that happen, right? It just whatever is necessary to make sure the groups are all feeling their part
073of the process. You guys do any sort of survey? Um, thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, we we do an online survey um that that will do all the same things that we talked about in person. So, we have an online survey in any language you want. um that survey is added to that stakeholder document that I talked about that includes all those pieces of not only what group they're they consider them part of and I mean that by like do they consider themselves employees are they community members and we ask those groups the same question that we ask the in-person groups and um I I would recommend that the board would keep that like at least a month um open so people have enough time to to apply and then we provide that
074in that document as well. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, board members? One one note. I'm trying to be quiet in this whole thing, but I thank you for being here. I did notice in the in your proposal um page 43, you you speak to a price match um for the service. I just want can you clarify um the um how that works? Yeah. Um, well, that sounded like a TV voice. 955 KO. Um, yes, if if there's a firm that does a similar search as we do, um, we we don't want, um, and this is going to sound hokey, but dollars to prevent us from doing the work that we all enjoy doing, and we'll match that price. And our price is all inclusive. That includes all of our travel. Everything is all
075in that one price. And all the advertising as well, and the stakeholder meetings in person. Thank you. All right. Uh I have one followup. Um so on your team, so you have four members uh on your team. So would you specify what each of those members would be doing uh as part of the process? Um it it would depend on the criteria that you identified. Well, no, not really. Um Nicole would be the main point person that would communicate with your point of contact. Most boards um want to be included as well. Some boards only want the president, but most boards that we work with, all the board members want to be in community communication. Nicole would be the point person for that. We'd have different members meeting with stakeholder groups based on the number
076of groups. I would say all of us would be doing some of those stakeholder meetings. And then um on the days of the interview, if you had a panel or didn't have a panel would determine on determine who would be um meeting with the board for the interviews cuz we would be there for the interview process. Um my gut would be Nicole would be meeting would be with the board when the board interview candidates and then one of us would be meeting with um the pan the community panel um if you chose to do a community panel while that was happening as well. So both those sessions would be facilitated. Um, and then for the reference checks and background checks, all of us would be doing that work. And I didn't mention we our home
077office does all of the administrative work. Your staff is busy enough. They don't need us asking them for things, right? The only thing we ask them to help us with is on the day of interviews and meetings just helpful logistics, but we take care of all that other work ourselves, too. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any last questions? Yeah. Again, thank you for your presentation. At this moment, I'd like to ask you to provide a one minute closing statement for all of us. Thank you. Thank you. Um well, thank you for I'm biased. Thank you for the work you do. Um I I don't think people realize how challenging these times are for board members that really truly value this work. And you've heard me say the superintendency and and this decision to
078pick someone is an opportunity for you and we'd like to be part of that opportunity. I think the the diversity and the uniqueness of our team um we could do similar work like we did before to bring you an exceptional leader and not only bring them to you but help you as you move them forward and um we look forward to working with all of you. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Um, let's see. Board members, we have we have a couple minutes until our next one. So, feel free to continue taking notes and uh I will bring us back again in about 8 minutes. All right, everybody. Let's bring it back for our third interview. Thank you for joining us, gentlemen. Uh, we really appreciate it. So, I'm going
079to give you a really brief rundown of what we're going to do here. Um, and you probably already heard this, but bear with me. Um, so we're going to have the first uh first 15 minutes uh is for your presentation and then the next 15 minutes is going to be for board questions. Um, and at the very end of that there'll be one minute for a closing statement. So feel free to take it away whenever you're ready. Good evening. I I wish to thank President Vargas and the members of the Elkrove Unified School District board for allowing Education Leadership Service or ELS to present. We are honored and privileged to stand here before you as you begin the process of selecting a new superintendent for the Elkrove Unified School District. I'd like to start by
080recognizing Superintendent Chris Hoffman for his many years of service to public education and to his years of service at the Elkrove Unified since 2014. My name is Bob Lee. I'm a consultant for ELS. I intend to tell you a little bit about the company, myself and our other cons consultants who will be joining me on the search. Since we are the third company presenting, you may hear some duplication or similarities because of the type of work that we do, but we will try and note what sets ESL apart. ELS was founded by experienced educational leaders committed to helping California school districts successfully navigate the changes they face, as well as becoming agents of change in their own leadership development. You are elected leaders who have the critical task of selecting the next superintendent for the
081Elkrove Unified School District. We are here tonight to meet with you for one of the most important decisions you have as a school board member. You represent and advocate for the 62,000 students and the 68 schools in your community. You also represent you have the responsibility of representing the 7,000 district employees and the numerous labor groups. I'd like to tell you a little bit about the four consultants who will be representing ELS. Dr. Ron Kuth Dr. Ron Kuth has served as a superintendent for 16 years in the Whittier City and the Elorado Union High School District. He served as the president of AXA state superintendence council and the executive director of the California high school coalition. He's an active member of the Southern and Northern California city superintendent. He's also one of the most decorated
082administrators with many prestigious awards including the 2023 Ferd Kisel administrator of the year axis highest award. Bob Lee has served in public education for 38 years in the Mantika, Modesto City, Rockland, and Fremont Unified School Districts. He's been a teacher, high school principal, and assistant superintendent of human resource for the last for three of the last districts. He served as the president of State AXA in 2008, the first Asian-American president in AXA. He received the prestigious Bill Alam award along with numerous other state awards from AXA. He's also a member of Kappell and was asked to be an honorary board member during the inception of of Kappell because he was the first Asian-American act of president. Kelly Staley, superintendent of the Chico Unified School District located in Northern California from 2007 until her retirement in
0832025. Chico consists of 21 schools including seven charters and 12 distinguished schools. She began her career in the Lodai Unified School District as a high school principal. She serves on the superintendent council and chairs the two 2016 superintendent symposium. In addition, she serves on the California State University Advisory Board and the Chico Rotary Board. As you can see, this team along with 16 other consultants are relevant and stay very closely connected with our education community. ELS has a very large footprint in California through their recent work, their high higher level teaching, their leadership in statewide associations and their community service work. These four consultants have a strong Northern California connection. ELS has not participated in national searches, but have found national candidates for California positions. ELS is connected throughout California with district leaders committed to
084helping California school districts successfully navigate the changes they face as well as to become agents of change in their own leadership development. ELS stays current, ELS stays active and ELS stays relevant. I will let our last team member George Zaraki introduce himself. Good evening. I think one thing to note is we all live in this area in Northern California. So, we're close by. We're relatively um close to be able to do the work that we need to do. I was a resident of El Grove for five years in two different settings. So, I know the Elgroveve community. I do have fond memories from my coaching days where we played the Thundering Herd. Even though we met him both times in the section final and lost twice to the Thundering Herd, the last time wasn't such
085a close game. And I remember uh the player Lance Briggs who went on and played for the Chicago Bears. So a lot of history. I understand the community. Um I was to to a superintendent for 10 years. Uh upon retirement, I became the small school districts association executive director for an interim period for about a year. Um as if you know anything about small school districts association, 700 of the school districts in the state of California are under 2500. So have influence and um connections with small school districts. Um I also teach in the doctorate program for uh University of Mass which is the um produces a lot of doctorates uh for education and I think I mean it's never easy to talk about yourself but I think that's good about me. You got a
086good sense of who I am. Next slide. Don't I? Yeah. This is my favorite slide because that's you, right? That that is every district has its own DNA. Every district's no two districts are alike. You know your district. And that's what we're here to do is help you find your next superintendent because you know that you know your district best. With our extensive state and national contacts, our team will recruit from the following network of potential um uh associations and you can read them all there yourself. We do have connections at the University of Massachusetts global doctorate program as well as the University of Southern California Rosier School of Education as one of the deans sits u and works with us. So we have a number of associations and associations that we will search for
087your superintendent. What's different about ELS? One, we have a clearer understanding of today's educational landscape because we're relevant. We're out there in the field right now as we speak. We're out there listening. We're out there teaching. We're out there mentoring. and we're out there coaching. We're network and we're connected. We're current. We're experienced team members with over 700 years of educational leadership experience. We have higher educational connections. We will lead a search tailored to the needs of your district and community. We provide firstear coaching and mentoring. The cost is included in the contract for the full year. We have a 100% retention of superintendent placements to date. I'm going to walk you through quickly our our four-step process. The engagement, the recruitment, the selection and support and mentorship. So, the engagement process, the very first
088thing we'll do if selected would be to sit down with you as a board to make um decisions of what this looks like. We will give you some guidance, but at the end of the day, you ultimately make those determinations. We would um then determine who are those stakeholders that you would like us to engage with. We know you have a lot of labor partners. Um this is just some sample of some potential uh stakeholders that you may want to connect with. But our goal because we're right here is we're able to come in and meet with all the groups that you think is critical for us to um get the voice of your community as well as an online survey both in English and Spanish. We can do other languages if we need to.
089Um, and to develop this what we call as a superintendent profile. I think you probably heard other firms talk about something very similar, but that superintendent profile becomes essentially the guiding light. It's the collaborative superintendent profile will anchor the entire superintendent search process. So, spading the ground well with your community, getting people's voice, getting your board's collective voice. U, that's the second part of that. Then we develop um this profile which also provides clarity to your candidates about what you're looking for in your next superintendent. We want that person to know exactly what they're getting into and and what opportunities um lie here. And then we help support um you decision- making of finding that right person. That's where the um questions will come from. We'll generate questions based off this um superintendent profile. recruitment
090phase and um like Bob mentioned we we know we'll know somebody if somebody applies we'll know them if we also know people that are very talented that would be wonderful superintendents and we would tap them on the shoulder we didn't mention we do part of our 20 consultants we have a couple board members as well who understands that board member perspective u which I think is so critical in this process we do ex um extensive ref uh reference checks and then we categorize the candidates. I'm I think we're a little unique and and they may have changed, but we we give you every candidate who applied. So you'll see the application. If we have a 100, you'll get a 100, but we do categorize those by highly qualified. That means they closely align to your
091leadership superintendent profile. qualified means they could be a superintendent, maybe they're missing a few things and that will be your determination if that's uh the person you want to give an interview and then applied. I think that speaks for itself. And I think one of the things that also separates us as part of our our package is that support and mentorship as Bob mentioned has worked very well for us because all placements have been very successful up to this point. as it says at the top, proposed timeline. Again, at that first workshop with a board, this is when we would determine um this exact timeline that you want to follow. But we put this down as a as a starting place for you with a hope in this configuration, the new superintendent to begin December
09225th or whenever Chris decides he's off on a sunset somewhere on some travels. Here's our fees. 50,000 note four consultants are part of our package includes advertisement the bilingual surveys and that first year of coaching. You can see the payment schedule. Um you can see also that we will if if your superintendent was to leave in the first or second year um we it's a free search. If it's if it's left in the third year it's reduced down to $35,000. And last, um, we have a five-year non-solicitation, meaning we will not tap your your superintendent on the shoulder to go to another district unless the board gave permission to do so. I'd like to close by giving you our promise. We are committed to providing ongoing support to the new superintendent beyond the search process.
093This includes mentoring, regular check-ins, and connecting them with professional networks and statewide leaders. Our goal is to ensure the new leader is wellconed, well supported, and positioned to lead the Yelp Grove Unified School District with confidence and impact. On behalf of ELS, we wish to thank board president Michael Vargas and members of the Elgrove Unified School Board. It has been our pleasure and honor to have presented to the fourth largest school district in California. Thank you for your time and your service to the students and community of the Elk Grove Unified School District. Thank you very much. All right. Now, we are going to do about 15 minutes of board questions. So, we have two questions set ahead of time and then we'll move to uh more freestyle. Um so, first up is Miss Baldwin.
094Thank you. First question, what is your firm's retention rate for superintendent placed? Can you provide examples of successful superintendent placements you have made? And what do you see as key factors that contributed to those successes? I think I mentioned it in the PowerPoint presentation. We're a firm that's been around for three years, but we have lots of experience. In those three years, we have 100% um success rate. So, in our packet, you'll see um the references to some of the districts that we've done searches for. Um you can check with those references. Um but every district we've been successful and I really think it's that coaching networking piece that really has uh that separates us from maybe the other firms. I apologize. How many searches did you say you've done total collectively in those three
095years? I'm going to say somewhere under 15. Okay, thank you very much, Miss Moore. Yes, thank you. How do you ensure that you are reaching the broadest group of applicants with a wide variety of viewpoints and experiences? Specifically, how do you conduct your search so that your scope of potential candidates is not limited to applicants with a narrow set of perspectives or experiences? One of the largest attributes of our firm is that we have ongoing people in the field as we speak and that field knowledge is vital and critical to um helping to provide you with the best candidates possible. We know that this is not a oneanddone type of situation that it's an ongoing process. It's something that is living breathing um situation where things change and we have to be able to change
096with them. We have to be able to help them. We have to have be able to connect them with people that can provide them with the information they're seeking or whatever it is. Um housing market is one thing. Uh growing districts, loss of enrollment is another situation. These are all things that are new to people that are new in this position. So, we try to provide all those resources so that that person can be as successful as possible and we'll be there with them every step of the way. I would just add, you know, one of the pieces I failed to mention is student voice. Too often we forget our student voice. We need to make sure that's incorporated in this process. Um, our team of consultants, we meet every two weeks. We talk about
097which candidates are out there. Um we are really careful to um eliminate unconscious bias purposely. We do not um videotape because we believe that could uh contribute to unconscious biases and the selection process. Um we are very intentional to make sure that we have the diversity that's representative of California when when they do apply or we who we've tapped on the shoulder. Thank you very much. All right, board members. this an opportunity to ask follow-up questions uh or clarification questions on something that's been in the presentations or in the application materials. Any questions? Miss Moore, um I I know Mr. Vargas asked how many searches you've done. I was just wondering if there if you happen to have a list of the of the schools, a comprehensive list of the schools you've done searches for.
098on the website it should have that on the ELS website but I don't think it's part of the packet that you have proposal we only provided the references okay thank you there's a list of five in their packet though other questions board members Mr. Yeah, thanks for the presentation. I just want to uh see if you guys could elaborate as far as um providing different languages through engagement to folks out there for survey or any other source that uh might need it. And and I'll have a follow-up question. Yeah, that's part of our package that's presented. um it's only in English and Spanish. However, um we would then sit down with the board and say we this is our population that we need to be able to reach and do the online survey. We'd also
099um lean heavily on staff to help with translation when we do in person. Some some communities um want to come together in person and we want to make sure we're not limiting um just to online for those communities that don't speak English as their native language to be able to come and give their input in their native language. So, we would leverage all resources and make sure that we meet the people where they're they need to be met. And the follow-up question would be um what type of search and source that you guys will use to make sure that you guys have a a will uh diverse candidates uh slash equity. All I can speak to is um we're very intentional and make sure that we have good diversity and and and um and and
100being very inclusive in our process. Um I would just recently I was part of a process separate from um the ELS but was we they hired their first African-American superintendent. So we're always looking for um diversity and making sure that we can provide um a strong applicant pool. Our if you ask me at the end of the day when if we're successful will be that when we actually paper screen them down you will have a hard time making a determination who should be interviewed and then when we get down to actually the final interviews um usually somewhere between three and five depending on board's preference that will make it even more difficult to find the number one um and so if we do a good job we should be able to present you candidates that
101are diverse and very talented. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions? All right. Mr. Yang, do you want to close this out? Sure. Thanks again. Um, at this point, I would like to ask you to provide a one minute closing statement for us, please. Bob kind of already gave that one minute. Um, so I I'll try to um generate something really quickly. I I think we're a great firm. I I when you really think about the end of the day, what separates the firms in my opinion, who can connect with who because if we can connect and we and we know it's not a guessing game. I think when you look at the four consultants that are dedicated to this search, their proximity to this area and their connections um they belong to the organizations but
102they are very active in organizations there will not be a candidate that we won't know or somebody won't know them and we'll be able to provide you a strong candidate pull from that. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right board members that is our last interview. So, we are going to take a 15minute break. Uh, please collect your thoughts. Uh, finish taking any notes you need. Uh, and we'll be back uh at 8:02. All right, everybody. I'd like to call this meeting back to order at 8:02. So, before we get to board discussion, uh, as is our custom, we'll take public comment. Um, I don't see any. Have we gotten any public comment? There been any? We have not. Okay. We have none. Board President. All right. Then we will close the public comment
103and move to board discussion. Um all right. So how this is going to work is everybody should have their um forced ranking sheet and hopefully has filled it out or at least knows what their one, two, and three are at this point. Um so we will go down the line. um saying what our ranking is of the three uh applicants. Um Lisa is taking notes of that and it will appear on the screen. Um and so that will serve as our starting point. Um if one of the firms clearly rises to the top um then we could discussion may be brief. Uh if it looks like it's a little bit more spread out then we can have more an in-depth conversation about it. But this will serve as the starting point for our discussion. Any
104questions before we start? Okay, Miss Baldwin, would you like to kick us off and give us your rankings? Sure. Based on like round one or just all three at the bottom? Yeah, your your final all three. So, y sorry, I was paying attention. I promise. Uh, so I um do you want me to give you my rankings only or my rankings and my logic behind how I came to that? Start with rankings. Okay. Leadership Associates is my first, ELS is my second, and McFersonson and Jacob is my third. Okay, Miss Moore. Um, thank you. Leadership and Associates is my first. Um, Education Leadership Services is my second and McFersonen and Jacobson is my third. Thank you, Miss Balerini. Okay, I have leadership associates is number one. Number two, McFersonson and Jacobson. And number three, education
105leadership. Okay, Mr. Jeang. Um, my number one is McFersonen and Jacobson. My number two is Leadership Associates. And my number three is ELS. Thank you, Mr. is number one is leadership associates. Number two is education leadership services and third is uh MJ. Thank you. Uh Miss Albiani, my one and two are very close. My number one is MJ. My second is LA and my third is ELS. Thank you very much. And mine are number one is ELS, number two is leadership associates and number three is MJ. All right. Have the totals in there. So we have so leadership associates was clearly our top choice. Um the and then McFersonson and education leader services were tied for a second. Okay. So let's see. So we've got four. So before we go to It looks like we
106do have enough. If somebody wanted to make a motion, we do have enough um to get to a majority on leadership associates. Um before we do that, I want to give anybody else who had a different number one an opportunity to um explain why. Um and yeah, so let's see. Beth, I think you had it. Um I felt they were very close. Um I have no problem going with um leadership associates. Um, some things that stuck out for me for MJ maybe for just a feedback personality for them was um how they spelled out longevity which I liked. I felt it was um hard not to have their lead person here that was going to be our person and who I happen to actually know and have taken classes from. So um almost have a
107little bit of a different view on that but I don't. But it it took away that she wasn't here or it wasn't even mentioned she wasn't here. Why? So, um that was hard. And I like their phase five. Um and leadership development. I I like how LA finds their people through leadership development. I think that's really cool. So, um I have no problem with lead with um leadership associates. I'd support that board. Okay. Mr. I also agree with Miss Albiani, but um some things that stood out for me for McFersonen and Jacobson is how um how their foundational statistics were stronger than all of the other candidates. They've worked with school districts that are larger than ours and smaller than ours. So they have a good grasp good grasp on candidates that could potentially fit
108a school district that serves such a large amount of people and such a diverse number of students. That's all I have. Okay. Uh and then I was the only person to put uh educational leadership services as number one. And I will the the one thing that really kind of jumped out at me and what became the the tiebreaker between um them and leadership associates for me because it was it was very close is they were just so local. Like they had such a knowledge of the area and our district and um you know they they had the superintendent experience um you know but like they came in talking about our district. they came in talking about the area and that really kind of became the tiebreaker for me. So I I would absolutely support Leadership
109Associates if somebody wanted to wake make that motion. Um you know but I thought ELS did a really good job too and yeah so all right with that unless any other board member would like to offer any discussion I will at this point entertain a motion. Yeah. Um can I make a comment too? Yes, please. I um I put uh EOS as a second because I felt the same way even though they're um much newer, but I I did feel connected with them. uh just the fact that they are uh locally and they has been exposed to our school district and I I really feel that that vibe of uh um you know have that local vibe local understanding of who we are and uh all demographics and so forth and that's why I chose
110them a second their their presentation was lack of some of the stuff that I really wanted to Um, but maybe it's because they are new, but uh I I did really feel them as well. Okay, Miss Moore, I did just want to say that ELS was um a close second for me as well because they live close by and um something that stood out to me as well from them is that they meet with each board member and to me it seemed just like a more personable experience. I think the main the main drawback for me was just I wanted to see more um you know because they were so new I just feel like it's kind of hard to tell um how successful they are but you know they did mention that so far
111they have 100% retention rate um and they did also they were also the only the only firm that said they will re-engage in the process if if it's unsuccessful um and that is a possibility so um that was something that also stood out to me. Great. You any other comments? Okay, then I will entertain a motion. So move the motion but to move our top voted. Yeah. So um the motion would be to award the contract to pick one. Whichever one you want. Yes, please pick your number one. That would that is the idea but exactly what I was going to say but I just want a clarification before I make that motion. So I want to make a motion to move leadership association associates to be our vendor to search for our next superintendent.
112Okay, I'll put that. So we need some magic language. So, I'll put that into. So, the motion is to authorize the award of RFP 799-2526 Superintendent Search Services to Leadership Associates. Is there a second? Second. I'll give it to Miss Ballerini. All the numbers and all that, too. Nope. I already said the magic words. Um, all right. So, we do need to do a roll call vote. So, starting out with Mr. Jeang. Hi, Okay, Miss Albiani. Hi, Mr. Yang. I Miss Ballerini. I Miss Moore. Hi. And I am also an I. Me, too. What? She's not on my list. I should have known that. Miss Baldwin. Hi. All right. Wonderful. Motion passes unanimously. H. All right. Um, Lisa or Karen, am I forgetting anything? We need anything else or are we good? You're good. Would
113you like the firm to come back in? They are waiting. Uh, we can they're more than welcome to come back in and we can tell them. Um, go get them. Sure, go for it. But yeah, go go go for it. And before we do that, we are adjourned at 8:13 p.m. Your folders and binders here if you want. We'll take care of them. Yeah. [Applause] We're totally done with that part. Yeah, that's great. Enough for me. Got my one. Just keep throwing stuff in here and then I just grab the same magnets. have to clean this the store tabulation down. There you go. And you know what I sometimes