WCCUSD Special Board Meeting, Tuesday Nov. 17

001uh good evening i mean good evening to milan i'm going to go off just for about a couple of minutes and grab some water that's okay oh yes by all means um i'm on now uh mr garza is james brown james r brown with leadership uh jim said he's on he can see me but i can't see him i'm gonna promote him that that's yeah he's in the attendees let me move him in to our room all right any anyone else who need to promote from your team sandy thurston yep i see her as well okay perfect they should be with us now uh jim is with us and sandy's with us now yes hello hi sandy how are you my friend good how are you i'm good great hello to both of you hello

002and i think uh penny's gonna join us in a moment i don't know if uh yeah okay i like the frito color look so reuben where did you get that character it somewhat looks like me um all right now i see where you get it yeah yeah um you know that's where i'm not wearing my glasses in the caricature but yes penny just the text and said she's having trouble connecting penny penny pile let me see if i can oh i see her i will promote her into this room she should be with us now there she is there she is hi penny hi hello everyone [Music] okay reuben there will be a video of this meeting correct correct okay sweetie case we need to go back and check our notes or anything yes uh

003i hear a sweet little somebody in the background that's my dog trying to get me to take her for a walk yeah i suspect either my dog or cat will come running in at some point bobby can you make tony a co-host i am now i'm good are you okay okay reuben are the new board members joining us uh or tony they are yes they're in the room with us one two three we have three three now okay yep and one current two current have they been admitted yet yep yeah as they're coming in i'm i'm admitting them into our room so i believe mr phillips and tom panis are here with us now i don't see him no he's here he's here okay okay our board president is here as well hi everyone welcome

004good evening hello stephanie hello good to see you thank you for being here um welcome i'm mr brown and i see so many um faces on here with us awesome okay so thank you all for joining us tonight i would like to um welcome everybody and just open up the meeting um by calling our meeting to order so i would like to call to order the november 17 2020 special meeting of the west country costa unified school district board of education i hope everyone joining us tonight is in good health and that your families are also doing well and in good health um i am so excited to see everybody here welcome trustee phillips trusty panas um welcome staff and welcome everybody at leadership associates too um welcome to the new trustee select um mr

005uh trustee gonzalez trustee christian trustee reckler trustee uh smithfolds welcome thank you for joining us today and welcome i look forward to having you join the discussion and to um you know have the ability to have your input and participation at this meeting um and so welcome as well to uh mr garcia great to see you and have you join us for the first time thank you and and um mr thorstensen and miss pyle as well welcome thank you yeah pleasure to be here with you all great same thank you so we can go ahead and get started um welcome to everybody to two members of the public um as you know we continue to maybe a zoom for all district and board meetings as authorized by the governor's emergency executive order issued on september

006or not i'm sorry not september march 17 2020 the west contra costa unified school district board of education will conduct board meetings via video teleconference until further notice um thank you please join me uh for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag flag to the republic for which it for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you okay so um if we can have uh i'm gonna share the meeting instructions and how we're going to engage with zoom and then we can have roll call please um and dr walt if i can have your support with that certainly thank you so i would like to start by sharing how we're going to be using zoom today and involving members of the public um please uh make

007sure that we're all um on camera if you know especially for new um for for new faces on here so everybody knows who who is who when we're having this conversation um we'll be having live public comment be assumed and it is our hope for members of the public to be able to participate and share their public comment with the board in a space conducive to a respectful public forum for all during the meeting all board members and the superintendent will be on video throughout the board meeting staff members and guest presenters are also present and will be on video when they present members of the public will not be on video and will be muted throughout the meeting except for public comment when they have raised their hand on zoom and are unmuted the

008public comments section of this special meeting is agenda says item b opportunity for public comment on agenda items members of the public should raise their hand by pressing the raise your hand button on the zoom app or or by pressing star 9 by telephone when the board reaches the agenda item b if you are calling in with your phone when your name is called press star 6 to unmute your phone when we get to the public comment agenda item a member of district staff will call your name comments will be restricted to the amount of a time allocated by board policy your hand must be raised before the first public comment is read on the agenda item after the first public comment is read on agenda item b there will be no additional raised hands

009on zoom accepted for public comment besides the ones already raised in order to be recognized to speak you must be using your first and last name thank you now we share these same directions in spanish [Music] please also note that the meeting agenda can be translated on the webpage where the agenda is posted by clicking on the button labeled english with the little globe icon next to it to translate the meeting into multiple languages and we also have interpretation services available via zoom by clicking on the globe icon on zoom the demo gracias thank you all um dr walt can we please have roll call certainly uh trustee panis president trustee phillips president trustee cuevas is not present trustee laura also not present president hernandez jarvis president and should i do roll call for um

010the other new potential trustees i don't think it's um necessary but i think we should go ahead and do it because i think members of the public would would like to know okay um in no particular order future trustee dimitrio gonzalez white president future trustee jamila smithfold here future trustee o3 christian present and future trustee leslie reckler president thank you dr wolf so um everybody is here today uh from the current trustees and and the new incoming board member select um so we do not have trustee cuevas and uh she let me know to communicate with you all that she regrets not being able to be present today but she will be present at our board meeting tomorrow just wanted to um let everybody know that and so um then we can get started we

011just finished roll call and we're going to go to public comment so if you would like to comment on um any of the agenda items at the special meeting please raise your hand now on zoom so that we can get started with public comment for this item and depending on how many public speakers we have will determine how long the comments are so if you have any comment for the ratification of the contract with leadership associates for superintendent search advisement services or for the discussion item facilitated discussion with leadership associates regarding superintendent search process now will be the time to raise your hand for members of the public at this point there are no hands raised thank you dr wolf so that means that we'll go we're going to go right ahead and go to

012our consent um item and the only consent item that we have is c1 ratify contract with leadership associates for superintendent search advisement services um dr walt would you be able to introduce this item certainly at the last special board meeting on friday night the board interviewed two search firms after deliberation and discussion the board voted 3-0 to recommend a contract with leadership associates to facilitate the superintendent's search at a cost not to exceed as listed in the board agenda with um that we have brought forward a finalized contract for this meeting to ratify prior to a facilitated discussion this evening on the next steps for the search thank you dr walt and since this this is a consent um item we can go ahead and have a motion to to approve this item um before

013we do that i think i had one board member elect reach out to me earlier and i apologize for not being able to respond sooner but there was one clarifying question that um she would like to make and so i just want to uh check with the current trustees jesse phillips and trustee panes if you would be okay with us doing that and then getting to the motion i'm fine with that yes ma'am thank you thank you so much uh trustee breckler would you be able to ask your question and then we can go ahead and go to the motion thank you i did thank you thank you very much for for this uh i was wondering if someone from leadership might address what a visit to the community might look like in the age

014of covid and what you did last year and perhaps what you would do this year to facilitate such a visit thank you thank you trustee reckler mr brown um or anybody from leadership associates if you would like to share i'll talk about that yes thank you very much for the question uh the last time we did the search there was a um of course this was in the non-covet age where a number of people from the staff and community went down to the visit the district of the uh of the finalists and uh this time in the age of covid that will have to look a little bit different uh of course this is now this looking at our our tentative timeline and schedule this is prob we're probably talking about late march or uh

015when this when this would uh when this would happen after a finalist is selected what we have been doing uh during the age of covet assuming that the board would like to conduct some kind of site visit we've been setting up and we asked the board members with whom they would like to meet and talk about the candidate and then we set up a zoom meeting with those people so that we can do it electronically some boards choose not to do a site visit but when it's done which is the majority of time for the present time we're doing that by zoom and we asked the finalists to help facilitate on on his or her and those those meetings by zoom thank you mr brown for your response and thank you trustee elect reckler for

016um that question as well for clarification i'm so trashy spanish and phillips are we ready to entertain a motion to um approve the to ratify the contract with leadership associates for superintendent search advisement services yes ma'am my move ratification i'll second it what motion made by trustee philip seconded by trustee panas can you please take a vote phillips yes yes yes motion to ratify contract with leadership associates for superintendent search advisement services passes three yes votes with two absent votes trustee clevis and trustee lada absent thank you thank you dr wool and we just had trustee cayden cotton blake student trustee just joined the meeting awesome great thank you for letting us know and welcome trustee cotton blake great to have you here and uh trustee cardenblake we have uh the meeting um sorry i'm

017blanking out our meeting is also being joined by the trustee select and leadership associate staff so that's why there's a lot of people right now um on camera with with us here today thank you great so now we can go to our one discussion item which is item d and it's uh d1 facilitated discussion with leadership associates regarding superintendent search process okay thank you uh very much trustee hernandez jarvis we appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you this evening uh reviewing some key components of the search process and uh most importantly of all getting uh your thoughts uh on the qualifications and uh of desired criteria for the new superintendent and also for the time will need to come agreement on a timeline and a variety of other matters so this meeting uh

018we estimate should take about two hours it may go it may go faster it may go a little bit longer we also appreciate the opportunity to meet those of you that have been elected to the board of trustees were very privileged to work with you and your community in helping you select your next superintendent so thank you for being part of the process tonight i do want to mention that at the last minute today we received news from one of the members of our firm who was scheduled to be part of this search eric andrew that he has um gotten word from his doctor that and it's related to a blood clot in his lung that he has to restrict himself from activity and work until the first of the year and that's sort of

019a tentative date so uh we're fortunate to have juan garza who is on our screen uh join our team and uh welcome to juan and i know on you'll look forward to meeting everyone can you say a little bit about yourself so people get to know you well thank you and it's a pleasure to be able to step in for a colleague eric andrew my name is juan garza prior to joining leadership associates three years ago i was a superintendent in king's canyon school district that's uh 30 miles south east of fresno of about 10 000 students we had about 23 23 schools i was a superintendent there for 15 years before that assistant superintendent and hr high school principal for 10 years and then my career goes back to starting as a teacher at

020a high school a son of migrant farm workers and started out school as an english learner like many students in california today and it's a pleasure to be on the team and serve you and your school district so you will join a uh stephanie hernandez jarvis as roots in the central valley of california and so so i think you'll probably have some stories to share with each other as we go through the process uh glad to have you with us juan and we're keeping eric and his family in our and our prayers and thoughts thank you for the nice notes from the board members today regarding that matter uh okay let me uh let me start a little bit just by giving a quick overview of the search process this might be particularly helpful to

021those of you that are joining us for the first time and i'm we have a lengthy proposal that outlines all the services that we provide and everything and there is a copy of that in the district it's a public document for people to review and we would encourage the new trustees on the board if you haven't had a chance to look at that document will be helpful because it contains a lot of detailed information about the search process about our firm and how we'll be working together over the next few months i want to divide the process just this overview into three parts the first is just been completed and that's the hiring of a search firm to assist you in finding your next superintendent that process has been completed tonight with ratification of the

022contract so the next major stage in the process is designed to uh get uh input from many stakeholders in the community from staff members uh and from the board of trustees about what the qualities and characteristics they would like to see in the next superintendent we gather this information through an online survey and we'll be talking about that more in depth in a few minutes and also a series of meetings with various groups and individuals in your community and the present board has helped us develop a list of those groups that will be in the process of contacting inviting to a meeting sandy thorstessen will go over that process in detail in a few minutes uh the information perspectives that we gather from the from the stakeholder engagement process and the online survey and the

023information from the board of trustees tonight in the both present and incoming will help us develop a position description or position profiles at some time called listing the what we're looking for in the next superintendent there'll be some information about the the district and the community uh board members have a copy of the previous position description which was used back in 2016 so uh that's a very important document we publish that on our website it is sent to all prospective candidates we ask letters of application to address the information in and criteria that are listed in the position description and uh we are tentatively looking at having a close to final draft of that ready for uh the board meeting of i believe it's on december 16th so that's the that's the target date to

024have at least that position description in pretty good form we can visit it again at the first part of january if that's necessary and that's when we start the third part of the process which is the recruiting and reference checking and interview part of the process and that will go through january february and march it takes us although we will begin it on it sooner than that we will be recruiting candidates and uh doing our reference checks making sure the board has good background information on the candidates we will be recommending for consideration for an interview we do ask we do bring all the candidates that apply their names to the board because it's the board's final decision on whom to invite for an interview we will give you our recommendations but it is the

025board's decision on whom to and whom to invite for the interviews those interviews will occur at a date to be established hopefully tonight they generally we start first with a meeting with the board to review the candidate pool and then a week or two later we meet with the the board to conduct the interview process that usually takes about two days there's an initial round where the board asks the candidates that they've invited the same set of questions so we have an equal read on all the candidates then the board decides whom to invite back for the second round that is less scripted it's much more give and take and sometimes boards will invite back three candidates sometimes two so one but that's the board decisions uh and i know that they always learn more

026in the second interview about the person that they would ultimately like to hire as their finalists after the finalist is selected then the board has the option of conducting a site interview and uh there was a question asked about that just a few minutes ago that's the board's discretion whether to do that and then after that there's final negotiations on the contract with the prospective superintendent we asked the board to have its contract parameters ready before the interviews and we also asked those invited to an interview to submit their contract parameters because we don't want we want to make sure that we're not bringing anybody forward to the board that doesn't fit within the general parameters that the board has identified we'll talk a little bit more about that later so to recap briefly the

027hiring of the search firm has been completed we're now moving toward the stakeholder engagement process through meetings and an online survey that will lead to development of the position description in january we'll begin the recruiting of candidates both statewide and nationally and uh then in march we'll meet with the board to ask who they want to invite for an interview and then we'll conduct the actual interviews the site visit and approval of the contract so that's a quick overview of the search process i we will discuss parts of that process much more in depth now and if we could move to that uh i think some questions that people might be have have be answered as we go through the more detailed parts of the process is that okay to do that trustee or an

028understanding yeah that's totally fine mr brown and i was wondering too if you want to have any of the documents that are attached shared on the screen um so we have them as points of reference in the conversation but if you have a specific idea of how you want it to facilitate this i'm i'm okay with that if we don't need to have the screen share but if we if that can enable um and enhance the experience of the discussion then maybe we can do that well there are a couple of items that will uh for example we talk about the stakeholder meetings we might want to take a look at the list of groups that have been identified to date by the board uh because we want to get that finalized tonight and we

029might want to look at the time we'll have the timeline document that we can share screen with and uh penny pyle has these documents ready to take a look at so uh the proposal itself is rather lengthy and and we're not you know that that's available as a hard copy for those that want it and i know all the board members have it so uh is that okay yeah that works okay okay so uh the next part of the meeting is to get your thoughts on desired qualities and characteristics for the new next superintendent and i'm going to turn this over to sandy thorson thank you jim the first stage here is it's a very very important to to seek community input and as jim mentioned we've received a very extensive list of those groups

030that you want us to be able to to meet with via zoom or via vr conference line to ensure we get all that input but we want to start with you start with the board and with the trustee elected board members as well to seek your input so we're going to ask the same questions of you as we will with all the groups that you've identified and and then there will be others that that will be invited to attend and in addition to that there will be an online survey with similar questions that will be posted on your website that everyone will be invited to respond to to be able to make sure that this is a very inclusive process so the first question there are three questions that we'll ask of you that will

031ask of all the other groups and starting with you and the first question i'll share the questions then we'll go back to the first question to receive everyone's input the first question is what are the desired qualities and characteristics that you would really like to see in your next superintendent again that's the desired qualities and characteristics so it's personal qualities and professional characteristics that you feel are most important in the person who will be leading along with you was contra costa the second question that we'll um obtain your feedback on or what you believe the district's most important strengths are the strengths and again we'll ask those that question of of um all of the folks who we will receive input from and the third and last question is what are the districts challenges it's

032important for the candidates to know what uh what the strengths are what the challenges are and and important for us as we um work really hard to recruit and vet candidates that it's a good match we've got to make sure that candidates are a really good match for what you need and we can only know that by seeking your input and your community's input on these three questions again desired qualities and characteristics personal professional qualities and characteristics the district's strengths and the district's challenges so with that i'd like to um and i really greatly appreciate that penny pyle is going to help us ensure that we get all of this feedback down in our google doc and uh we'll uh jim and juan and i will be taking notes as well so with that i'd

033like to open it up to um to all of you board members and elected just recently elected board members to provide your input and we'll start off with that first question desired personal qualities and professional characteristics that are most important to you in in the person who's going to be serving west contra costa as your leader great thank you so much miss thorsensen and i have um i have the rotation down i wrote down you know the names to to take turns if that's okay if it seems too um structured then we can just if you're not ready to go you can just say you know i don't have anything yet or i'm still thinking about it um i have trustee phillips trustee panas trustees uh trustee elect smith faults trustee elect gonzalez oy trusty

034elect christian trustee elect reckler and then myself thank you all so if we can um begin and and trust the student trustee cotton blake is experiencing some internet issues i think as many of us experienced earlier today so um hopefully he'll be able to to join us later today so if trustee phillips can um get us started with the discussion that would be great thank you very much um so we're beginning with qualities and characteristics right correct okay um i would like our new superintendent to have a doctorate in education i would like the person to have actual experience as a superintendent i would like the person to have very strong management skills i would like the person to have strong teaching learning and coaching fundamentals and i have this written out i'll go through

035it for everyone to hear but if you need me to email it i can do that as well thank you um i would like the person to have significant experience working in low to moderate income urban and or suburban school districts i would like the person to have a proven track record of turning around low-performing school districts i would like the person to be fiscally conservative i would like the individual to be competent yet humble and what i mean by that is i want them to be confident in their ability not hubris but but confident because they they know what they're doing right i want them to be confident in their ability but i want them to be humble enough to be able to listen to other people whether that is board members or cabinet

036or staff basically not somebody who is a know-it-all or thinks they are um i would like the person to be firm yet fair uh with employees i would like the person to be unassuming and modest and what i mean by that in particular is i would like to see someone who uh who the most important thing uh for is really to just kind of get to get the work done and that's kinda and you i think you may have heard me say some things like this last time but someone who just wants to get the work done and is not you know you know so concerned about being on tv or press releases or whatever but just someone who you know i'm here to do the work i'm about to work um somebody who i'm

037obviously the person would be the superintendent so obviously they would stand out just for the role that they have alone but not someone so much relishes in standing out but who is more focused and concentrated on on getting the work done the next thing is i would like the person to be uh ethical uh and after that i would like the person to be apolitical uh and what i mean by that is uh we don't need a sixth board member uh we need a superintendent uh we don't need a politician another one we don't need that we need we need the superintendent in some ways i almost say we need almost a bureaucrat in a way um and i don't mean that in the negative sense that people use often times uh but i mean

038it in the sense where i was talking about before about the unassuming uh modest person who was really just about the work and and can leave all of that other stuff alone um and then the last thing that i have for qualities and characteristics is i would like someone with a very strong work ethic thank you trustee phillips trusty bonus thank you president hernandez jarvis um i wrote six things down that i considered the most important things uh the first one was experience as a superintendent in a large urban school district the second one is complete transparency in decision making and spreading all information that are bad out to the community attract superintendent with a track record of student learning success superintendent with a fiscal background or experience and balancing and aligning and aligning budgets

039with strategic plans a superintendent who takes ownership of challenges who is willing to be held accountable for outcomes and who's willing to hold the staff members underneath him as cabinet members and others accountable for outcomes and superintendent who listens to and honors the assets and perspectives of the community so those were the six items that that i thought were the most important to me thank you trustee panas and i would like to welcome um student representative our trustee um let's see trusty i say avila's here with us trustee cotton blake is not back yet but trustee oh yes trusty cotton blake is here i i see him now great so thank you for joining us and welcome jessie garcia and um i think you um may have arrived a couple of minutes ago but we

040started we're having that discussion right now for agenda item d1 uh facilitated discussion with leadership associates regarding the superintendent research process and uh trustee phillips just had um a chance to to share his input and now trustee panas did and so now we're um starting with uh the other um trustees elect who are in the in the panel as well so we're going to um continue on with that and if you have any if you also want to share your input um feel free to also let me know i want to give you a few minutes to to to have your um your notes ready and then you can share when you're ready as well thank you so trustee elect smith's folds hi good evening um in preparation for this meeting i talked to a

041small part of the community that i'm in and i talked to teachers and some of the things that they said are the same things that trustee phillips and trustee panis have said so i won't repeat those but some of the things that were not mentioned that i would like to make sure they're on there are brave courageous strong a planner efficient um in tuned with the community we did talk about experience in the classroom visible is another one that was brought up a lot available and to make sure that this person knows that they need to continue the work of race and equity that's gone on in the district um and a strong instructional leader which i believe trustee phillips has said i do have a question and i'm not sure if this is the

042place for but i just want to put it out there your search party how diverse is your search party um how diverse is the people who are actually going to look for the superintendent that's going to be brought back to us that is a question that i have thank you very much very happy to report that we embrace diversity in our firm and we reflect diversity in our firm i'm a 100 latina and juan garza uh is as well and um eric andrew our partner who uh fell ill who was on this team who we hope to see um as a continuing member of the team's second semester is african-american and jim brown is jim brown is our um yoda so that's just a smattering we have um uh women we have men we have

043uh um members of of of all different uh groups that really um demonstrate our commitment and our belief in the strength that is diversity and if i may ask you had such a wonderful input but i wasn't uh to getting it all down fast enough uh you mentioned brave strong a planner visible available but i know i missed a few in that first listing would you mind repeating that initial part um i can send it to you in an email if you want if we want to just keep moving but i talked really fast sorry um but i can send it to you in an email but you've got most of it but i will send you the list okay great we appreciate that we just want to make sure we don't leave anything out

044and um i listen fast but my hands don't move as quickly as my ears yeah and we do appreciate the emails so uh trustee phillips same you know uh please please send those to us we we do give you a summary of what we heard so uh we don't and we don't want to miss anything so thanks for doing that the other thing i might add um i mentioned that this this um input that we receive is is a real driver for ensuring that that the candidates that we recruit are a good match a really really good match for west contra costa but the other the wonderful additional benefit to this is at the end of this whole process we provide this complete report to you but whoever it is that you select that person

045will then have the wealth of all of this input from their board that they serve and the community that they serve the certificated classified staff members the kids parents community leaders um members of the community it's it's a really really uh an asset beyond belief to the new superintendent to to understand what the strengths and challenges are of the district and what the expectations are before they even hit the ground running thank you thank you so much trusty like smith folks and um trusty like gonzalez um i keep on saying oy and i'm just thinking that it's hoy right that's right yeah it looks it looks spanish but it's it's not i apologize so thank you um if you can please go ahead trustee gonzalez hoy thank you uh president herren jarvis and and also

046thank you for inviting us today and trustee phillips and trustee panis who really appreciate being part of the team already it's exciting um you know i completely agree with a lot of things that have were just mentioned by trustee phillips trustee panis and trustee elect smith folds the only things that i would add is i would love to have a learner and by i mean by that it's not someone who who's learning how to be a superintendent but someone who wants to learn about our district someone who's hungry to learn about our students about our schools um someone who listens goes really hand in hand with that and then someone who's really inclusive who has a track record of being inclusive of all stakeholders and voices especially our students in their district um and lastly

047i just want to really focus on that equity-minded comment by trustee elect smith folds that's really important to me as well someone who's has a track record on looking at equity in their district and is able to look at resources and spread them in an equity-minded way as well as you know looking at the needs of every site um and let me see if i missed anything i had a laundry list of things but trustee phillips mentioned most of them so thank you trustee phillips for that um and someone who's humbled i i really like that by trustee phillips uh so thank you for that and that's it thank you trustee like gonzalez christian hello can you hear me alright cool thank you um as i was sitting here reflecting on the desired personal qualities

048and characteristics i believe that the superintendent should have should be outgoing connecting to all the schools and the communities because our district is made of different cities and we need to build a strong partnership with all of our cities from hercules san pablo el cerrito richmond all of our surrounding areas and then at the same time making sure that he connects with the heartbeat of the community of the district and also building up the morale in the district and by understanding that our district is right now is at a at a low but we need somebody that can come in and motivate and um help our district to go to another level um so basically what everybody all the trustees have said i agree and trustee phillips trustee pattins of the information they mentioned i

049believe that our superintendent also should be able to connect what our student population and and recognize that our student population is diverse and we want to show equity across the board with all of our students and so um so i'm looking for a superintendent that has a passion and a drive that can make things happen and that's pretty much thank you thank you trustee elect christian trustee leg reckler well i guess the best thing about going last is that it's pretty much all been said so ditto to everything that was said previously and just to add a few things i am looking for someone who can push the system modern modernize and innovate i am looking for someone who can inspire and motivate and get everybody marching towards that goal i also think that someone

050who's very collaborative is important and also someone who is genuine and then some things that really stood out to me is previous experience as a superintendent or someone who has run a portfolio as large and as complex a proven track record of working with like students students that we have with a proven track record of results and improvement an instructional leader and then something that board member philip said last week has stuck with me this entire week up until this meeting and that is he described a workhorse and i understand exactly what he is talking about and it's you know we're not glamorous here uh we are head down we are get the work done we're humble and i um i very much agree with with that board member phillips uh described last week and

051i'm complete thank you thank you i trust you like regular trustee garcia avila i wanted to circle back with you and trustee uh cotton blake if you wanted to also um share your input right now i can go first um a lot of the things that i was writing down have been said so i'm just gonna go quickly um so transparency with like community and staff a clear vision of um what needs to be done what they really want they also need to be a good listeners so listen to parents students uh and staff uh and they also have to be like student focused and student motivated and continue uh practices of anti-racism and equity in our system i think it's super important especially um for the future so yeah thank you thank you trustee

052garcia trustee cottonblake all right um good evening again everyone um the biggest thing for me when it comes to a superintendent um including everything that was stated here tonight would have to be a superintendent with vision so i heard one say one that's fiscally or financially conservative i understand that and i would appreciate that but if he or she had that mindset looking in the long-term um long-term vision essentially on how um they would like the district to grow how they would like the district what programs they'd like to be added throughout the years um not just looking at a possible small term but looking at where do we want to be in 10 years you know 20 years and what are they going to do now to put those pieces in place and get

053us where we want to be and again to express how much i agree with the learner one that wants to learn you know the culture of our district who we are what we represent um everything from principles to simply the history of our district um it's it's imperative that they are a learner in that sense thank you thank you trustee cotton blake so i think i will um you know firm my agreement with a lot of what has already been shared i think that for me specifically i think that we need to have someone that you know i completely agree that we need to have someone that has had superintendent experience before i think that is uh completely um you know just something that i keep on hearing from everybody someone who has had not

054just experience as a superintendent but successful experience as a superintendent um especially in a district that is largely latinx african-american and indigenous and has students that have been historically underserved so someone who knows how to work with the populations in our district and and does it in a way that it has racial and linguistic sensitivity and competence as well and so i i think that we need someone who has unwavering commitment to racial equity and the ability to reflect and plan long term in community with others um so someone who is able to partner with community members and not not um you know not just for the district but for the whole community to thrive so someone who is able to open the door and and bring more people in into this work and the

055ability to create long-term plans for literacy someone who has a clear commitment that every single child um is going to be literate by third grade no matter what that that is that is the baseline for every kid um and for older students who are beyond third grade now when when you know um they they come and take the role of superintendent and lead everybody here that they will be able to to commit to also saying that those students when they graduate from wcc usd they will be fully literate and able to access text you know at their grade level and beyond the grade level um i would also say that we need someone who has experience working with parents as leaders and partners not seeing them as the passive advisory role and i think also

056someone who sees students as as active leaders in in their own right and in their own communities within schools and someone who is able to manage adults and give guidance as well as hold accountable each person that reports to them directly and and someone who who likes to work with board members too who's able to communicate well and have that openness and and welcome collaboration with board members that's it for me um i don't know if anybody else has anything else to add i think everybody had um amazing input so i think maybe we are ready to go with the next question and we can also continue president hernandez jarvis there was one hand that came up after public comment i'm not sure if the trustees want to have that person speak or not that

057would be fine right now we can do that i know that you know for for the special meetings we have the public comment right at the beginning for all items but we can go ahead um if we can ask for uh for the public comment to be um two minutes maximum that will be great there's now a second hand so there are two hands um i'll do the first one and that's don ghazni okay so let's do let's do one minute please then thank you not a problem thank you very much for the special consideration you know i'm looking at the lengthy list of groups to invite to participate in the selection process and i'm impressed with how broad the list is it seems that you've listed just about everyone except the little league and

058the girl scouts i'm sorry my let's just disappear there we go with close to 700 million dollars in bond funds available to renovate and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure of schools the citizens bond oversight committee is surprised at the glaring omission of a representative from the cboc on this list this speaks volumes to the community about the process and how insignificant the list maker considers the proper spending of nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars of taxpayer funds to say we were disappointed would be an understatement perhaps this can be reconsidered before it's etched in stone thank you thank you mr ghosni and our second public comment is fernandez petronila and you can unmute hello good evening board members and staff and welcome to new board member 2. my name is petro nila fernandez and i am

059a partner of the district i have a fourth grade student at forest school one of the reason i am coming for today is because um this is especially for superintendent as a parent we need a collaboration with the with the parent community we need a very good engagement and actually i would like to see more the new superintendent show data to the parent how our resources how the student data for especially for all of the category for low income foster you special education data how is the district is facing and how is the end of the one year will be supposed to to improve as a parent again it is very important to having a input of from us and i invite all of the the person there to engage with the parent have the

060possibility to provide parent voices actually be a part of this thank you so much thank you miss fernandez and that ends public comment great thank you dr wolf um so we can go ahead uh to you know going to dive into the next question if we could go um if we could review it please miss thorsensen certainly we can combine the uh the last two questions into one and that is one of the district's strengths and what are the districts challenges let's do that thank you so trustee phillips again if you can get us started with a conversation thank you on mute okay there we go uh thank you uh president hernandez jarvis uh i want if it's okay to just backtrack for a little bit uh uh one is i wanna acknowledge um miss

061petronila's comment about somebody who is data driven and i understand there is some need for flexibility but i do agree with her that it's important that when we are making decisions and that we are basing our decisions on something and and what we do oftentimes here anyway that should be most times here most always times here that should should be student data student outcomes um so i want to thank her for that comment um but where i really want to step back for a moment is um i've heard a couple of times um folks say that the the current board submitted uh groups uh of stakeholders for the community to um to potentially be interviewed or interviewed for these input sessions um and i could have missed it but i personally don't recall seeing that

062list go out and mr ghazni uh go out before it went to you all at leadership mr ghazni just called in and made a comment about it as well which is also why i'm bringing it up because i actually came tonight with some comments around groups and i i really think that it is absolutely fantastic that the current board under the leadership of president hernandez jarvis had the foresight to get this started so it could be completed by the next board in a timely fashion but at the same time i really think we should be hearing uh from the trustee elects about which groups they think should be interviewed that doesn't necessarily mean somebody else can't be interviewed but they may have a different opinion about what that list should look like and obviously depending

063on who or what entity is on that list the outcomes or the input that you all get at leadership may be different and in some instances it may be very different and so i think like i said it's great that this current board has started this process under trustee hernandez jarvis is leadership but i think as far as like really kind of sculpting how it moves forward i think the right thing is for the trustee elect to really have a big big saying that and i think that includes uh them being part of uh i wasn't part of a discussion about the groups but i mean i think that includes everybody who's coming on uh on the new board being part of that discussion so i would like to talk about that at some point

064this evening um and trust me yes ma'am i may um interject a little bit so i can clarify a little bit about this and then you can get back to your um answering the question um and trustee pandas feel free to also um chime in so um jim brown um explained that usually with this happens the list is generated at the meeting um and trustee buenas had actually sent some a great list that has it's very comprehensive it's much longer than than the items listed on the one that was posted um so i think maybe we can get some input from leadership associates as to how it was um narrowed down to those 20 and i'm sure that we're going to hear from all the trustee like um trustee select tonight on who else to

065add um but i just wanted to to get that out there i think you know um chelsea panas sent the email with a really comprehensive list and i added a couple but because of the brown act i didn't think you know about like sharing it or sending it to um a third board member so that was that was my thinking behind that but this is not and you know this is not the list it's something to build on um so i don't know if trustee panas wants to clarify any of that um but this is certainly a starter list that is going to be added on too thank you president and the sheriff's i think that pretty well describes the situation i did have a list though like the 40 or 50 community groups on

066it um somehow it did not get incorporated into the the list that was presented this evening um if you like i can try and get an email out here very quickly with all those people on it or we can do that i could just you can just take that list and send it out at a later date but certainly we want everybody's input on who that should be but your comment about the brown act was i know what you like that's what you had said to me and not wanting to step across any lines there yeah and if you would like to trust upon us after everybody's done um sharing their input um if you want to name the groups that you had entered there that you don't see on the that you know you

067don't hear tonight at the meeting you can certainly read those two i can read them too that way um those get entered into the public record as well so that everybody um hears about them too thank you so much congratulations and um mr brown i just wanted to add to that that the intention of the meeting tonight is to build on the list that we have to get the uh perspectives of the new trustees and anybody else in the community that the the process has started usually it doesn't get started until tonight so nothing is finalized until we have this this meeting this evening and we really welcome the suggestions uh i think we can show you what suggestions we've had so far from a couple of board members when we get to that item

068on the agenda but that's wide open tonight and uh you know for example the bond committee that would be a very important group to include in the process and i think we'll get some more good suggestions tonight and i'm glad we've got a good start great thank you so much mr brown and we we can get started um with answering the question trustee phillips if you want to join me about the strengths and the areas of need of the district and then trustee panas and then we can get to the board member select okay but just so i'm clear before we leave here tonight as a group we're going to revisit this list yes yes okay thank you um so starting with uh strengths um we have a really rich community um and i don't

069really mean money but i do mean uh rich in in personality rich uh inexperienced uh rich in culture um i think it is a good word uh you know to say that there's humility here but i i also think that there's a lot to be proud about as well you know in the community and i think that those are all things to be valued um and and i think that i guess if i was to sum it up in in any one way um is i'd say that good people live here um and that you know maybe that's my definition of good people but uh good people live here um decent people live here uh people who are worthy uh and valuable for who they are intrinsically live here and so anyone who wants to

070come in this community really has a lot of upside uh to work with um because there are just there are great people here and what i mean people um i'm really i'm talking about the whole you know nine yards i'm talking that we have i'm not saying everybody is perfect but we have some great staff members we have some great parents we have some great students we have some great community partners i mean there are good folks here and i think that people need to realize that as they come because i think sometimes what happens um is you can look down on certain folks uh for different reasons and not necessarily always see the value that they have and so the people here have value and i think that's a strength um and then in

071addition to that um i would say that people here are really hungry for a better way and specifically a better way around how their children are educated so you have people who are willing and you have people who are eager so people are are open to change people are open to doing things a different way but they just want results that they can see you know and and they don't want to be you know sold you know uh uh goods uh or billa goods and and i think you know that kind of brings me into like challenges because i think that people have gotten their hopes up um on many different occasions um in this school district and and even not just in the school district but you know including in some of the the

072cities that are in the school district for different things people have gotten their hopes up and and their hopes have not come true and so while you have people who are are hungry uh for something better for themselves for their families you also have some people who i think are are a bit jaded uh and i i would say rightfully so because of past experiences that they've had so that's something that somebody would have to to understand or be able to navigate the complexities thereof and two more things i'll leave for challenges because i think they're the biggest ones academically our our kids are not performing where they should not even close to where they should i'm a very firm believer that when kids that kids don't really fail they may not perform the way

073we don't we want them to but um when when a kid doesn't get it right or when a kid has a problem or when a kid quote-unquote fails it's because some adult somewhere along the way uh failed them uh and so you know their issues or whatnot are our byproducts you know of ours and so you know you you have this situation where you know we have low academics it's not i i really don't think it's the kid's fault but it's somebody who has to come in here and and realize this is the situation um and and you know we don't need you know people blaming the kids um and quite frankly we don't need people blaming their parents because the parents went to the same schools before the kids did so it's really a

074systemic cyclical thing that we have going on here and somebody who recognizes that and then the other thing that i wanted to point out challenges is you know funding we do have a high needs population and we have a lot of demands you know that are on a limited budget so it's trying to figure out um how to deal with that and get the kids you know what they need and realizing that we don't you know we really don't have a credit card so i guess it's balancing so those are my comments for strengths and challenges for for our district thank you trustee phillips jesse fonus thank you president hernandez jarvis so uh on strengths we have amazing amazing diversity in our district and we have the smartest most brilliant most creative kids on the

075planet [Music] we have parent communities that are so dedicated it's amazing to see that we have community groups and philanthropic front funders who are so dedicated to improving outcomes in our district and we have a really dedicated staff who cares about kids on the other side of the ledger you know we have a huge achievement gap and it's gotten worse um we haven't made hardly any progress on our roadmap there has really been no significant focus on equity and i'm talking like just equity in terms of making sure every kid has what they need but also racial equity and a commitment to anti-racism we have large facilities challenges in our district we have new money we can spend but there's just like so many facilities issues that we have to face up to um and

076we've never really been successful in saying this is our plan everybody let's get together and execute that plan so those are my thoughts on our strengths and our challenges [Applause] trustee like smithfold um so i just want to make sure before i move on to strengths and challenges that i make sure that i want to let it be spoken that i would like to have a superintendent that likes and loves kids needs to be on there you have to like and love kids i also want a superintendent this is just for me this is not what the community has said i just want to make sure that i want someone who's in it for the passion not the paycheck um i want to make sure that there's someone that chooses this district i want them

077to know the district i want us to be transparent with who we are and then i want them to choose us and all of our everything that we are our whole being i want them to choose us because that shows a level of investment finally don't limit the search to just people who have that certain experience we're looking for because understand that we're dealing in a system to where you may not have a lot of black women who are superintendents but that doesn't mean that a black woman couldn't be a superintendent just because the system has not allowed a black woman to get to that level of accomplishment so just keep it open keep it broad know that experience comes in different shapes and forms in the education system um you can have more degrees

078in the thermometer and not be able to do the job so just make sure that we keep it bold but experience and exposure is key but that experience and exposure comes in many different forms so be in depth with your search for who's going to be best for this district um our our challenges and our strengths are the same thing we're a big district it's our blessing and it's our curse we're huge we're a we cover a lot of ground we cover a lot of different cities we cover a lot of different student populations so that's our blessing and our curse our district should be um seen as a both hand so you have uh you have students who achieve and you have students who don't and that achievement level is not where it's supposed

079to be so be clear within that they achieve at wherever we put that cap on on the district but that's not where we want them to go all the way um we have trust and we have mistrust in the communities we have hunger and we have complacency in the community i want to make sure that it's known it's just who you ask you can get a different answer based on who you ask so whoever's coming into this district has to ask everybody and everybody is meaning taking an intentional look at those sub-sections and those groups that make our community run and make our community function so i want the search committee to be uh aware of that don't have a meeting at 10 o'clock in the morning you're only going to get a certain group

080of people that show up to that don't have a meeting that doesn't have translation you're only going to get a certain group of people that show up for that so be intentional on who you ask and want to ask everyone and do it in multi layers in multi different ways because that's that's what our community is it's a layered school district so remember the both end thank you thank you trustee like smithfolds trustee elect gonzalez hoy thank you president hernan jarvis um so i agree with a lot of what my colleagues have said um i've what mr pence said about diversity i 100 agree with that was the first thing that came up as a strength to me um and also that we're resilient i think our communities are incredibly resilient no matter the challenges

081that are brought forward whether staff responding to emergencies or is students responding to what they have to deal with at schools on every day basis or in the community and same with parents having to navigate a very difficult and large system like my colleague smith folds mentioned i think that one of our strengths is also to add to what trustee penn has mentioned we have a lot of community organizations that want to be involved want to support and honestly why not even sometimes give resources to our district to help it become better um or to serve all of our kids social emotionally like our rice youth center uh but sometimes they feel like there's an iron gate that they're not allowed to go through and sometimes they feel like uh they are not appreciated or

082welcome um i also think that like you know in my day job i work with nine districts in the south bay and i think that one of the things that makes us special is that we have also great relationships with labor our labor groups are wanting to support us are wanting to work with the district or wanting to have positive relations are wanting to collaborate to make schools better and that's rare because i see it in many districts that are urban and large like ours where there's very poor relationship between labor groups and management um and you know some of our challenges is some of our cross-site collaboration is a huge challenge i think that we're doing amazing things in many of our schools but sometimes we don't do well at sharing what's going well

083in those schools and how it can be represented how it can be done differently or done again in other schools how we can learn from one another and i think it's because of the challenge that we're so big but we don't also offer the opportunities for teachers to collaborate with one another and i don't mean within the site but i mean with other sites or grade levels we don't always um allow principals to share uh resources and what they're what's going well and what's not going well at their school sites with each other um because there's so much bureaucracy and so much paperwork that they have to go through and i think that part of our challenge is also our professional development opportunities um i think that you know we have a lot of people

084a lot of staff that are hungry for those opportunities uh i've been excited to see the equity trainings that have been going on lately but i think that people want more trainings one more specific trainings to support what they're doing at their schools and then i think transparency and decision making is definitely a challenge that we constantly hear or i constantly hear excuse me that people feel left out especially our youth um i think that our inclusion of youth lacks in every level of the system whether it's at the sites or whether it's by the board or whether it's by the district themselves uh whenever we have a decision to make um and and lastly uh for time i think also our support for our bilingual program um is is a huge challenge to me

085um as an ex-teacher in our district with for the bilingual program i've seen how we don't support the program itself to the extent that we should and i know that under the leadership of mr aurelia now we're heading in that direction but there still needs to be quite a bit more support that needs to occur i have more but president harris jarvis is okay if we email them uh later yes it comes okay wonderful thank you we greatly appreciate that thank you trustee like gonzalez boy um i just wanted to let everybody know that uh trustee cotton blake had to head off so um he just wishes he he says that um thank you that it was a pleasure to meet all the trustees you like that are here with us this evening um so

086thank you trustee conway for uh being here with us tonight um if we can have trustee like christian go next interest thank you trustee hernandez um one of the things i look at our strength is our diversity we're made of many cultural backgrounds throughout the district we're looking at our teachers our classified staff our students um and i and then we have our stakeholders from the community so you're looking at our strength and now when it comes down to what are the challenges the challenges is about building community and making sure that we're showing equity across the board to all of our schools to our students teachers classified staff to everybody in the district we have to build the lives of our young people and one thing i want to see in a superintendent is

087understanding that the foundation is very important especially in our elementary schools are the foundation to all of our students and if all of our students get a good strong foundation our kids will go to the next level we have to make sure the resources are going to all the schools and making sure that everybody is on the same equal playing field of getting their education and um and those resources to help our students and having wraparound services so a superintendent number one has to care about our kids about our students and also wants to see the best in everybody and also i just want to go back and mention the morale the challenges is that making sure the morale is is that making sure everybody's connected i'm around we are at a low time we're

088very low in morale in our district so we got to lift it up and we need somebody that understand uh understands and able to communicate and uh appreciate uh uh people and not talk down to people but lift people up a great leader leads by an example so we need a superintendent that can lead by an example and be the superintendent and to take our district to another level um that's all i have at this time thank you thank you so much i trust you like christian trusty like reckler yes thank you once again i don't have too much to add going last uh there's a few things i'd like to reiterate certainly our greatest strength is our diversity it's it's just so wonderful and rich here our students are fabulous our families are fabulous

089um always supportive i'm also very thankful for our good relationshi with labor we we really do have a great relationship with them and it is very important um and uh we've we've worked really hard to to make that happen and i'm proud of it uh as far as challenges working across five cities and the number of unincorporated areas that is a challenge there's no question about that uh there's five city councils there's unincorporated boards neighborhood councils i mean that that's it is a lot to navigate um also diversity is a challenge in that we serve every student and family ima imaginable we have students that are the daughters sons and daughters of millionaires all the way down to um you know we've got schools that have been on the program improvement list for as long

090as any of us can remember so serving the needs of that great spectrum is you know difficult um and um and equity has been a challenge uh no question um to invest and to um you know really really look at our district and with an equitable lens has also has also been the challenge and with that i am complete thank you thank you trustee like regular trustee garcia avila thank you um i'm gonna start off with strength so i feel like our first strength would be like growth i know that we fall a lot of times but we get up and grow from it and also our community is so together i feel like when there's something wrong in our community we team up and come together and fight for what we believe is right

091um weaknesses i would say communication i feel like we lack a lot of communication with our community um and you know i've been also a part of that communication weakness um as a student trustee at first i didn't really get like the memos and stuff like that so um yeah also teacher retainment i remember growing up we i would get close with the teacher and then they would leave the next year so that wasn't very great and another weakness would be inclusivity so that goes back to retaining teachers more you know bipoc and also changing our curriculum to be more lgbtqia plus inclusive um and teaching us like real history in real life things so thank you so much trustee garcia avila um i want to also agree with a lot of what has been

092shared already i think that for strengths i would definitely say that i have witnessed um so many school leaders and teachers who go above and beyond to create learning environments that transform the educational journeys and the lives of students in very literal ways um i would say that we have a you know we have plenty of parents guardians families who are leaders and who are partners and who want to collaborate and leverage their experience um not not just in in roles that are more passive and advisory again as as actual partners and and knowing um you know they may come from different fields from different areas they may be um you know they're they're just equipped with a lot of knowledge not just as parents but in addition to parents also as humans and with

093their own experiences um rearing children in an educational arena as well i would say that of course the kids for being their full selves every day and being the core of our communities and families and all of the creative and magical and beautiful dreams that they have that we in turn have to support and and also the regional and historical communities the diversity and the different languages cultures traditions of all the children and families that we serve i would say that we're also as a positive as a strength in our district we have entered i think a time when more of the conversations that have been kind of on the on the margins around race and equity inclusion language and diversity are coming more to the center in the forefront even though they have been

094happening for a long time i think that we haven't had we hadn't had it as the center piece for a lot of the way um that we speak about the work that we need to do so i think that we have entered a time when these are all conversations happening alongside other conversations that have to do with academic achievement financial solvency and all of the things that that affect our district and in students um challenges challenges i would say that we definitely are seeing educational opportunity and equity gaps exacerbated by the pandemic and the effects that we are you know beginning to see and that we'll be seeing in the next few years as well and needing to address um i would say that there's also mistrust in the community and there's a lot of

095mending and healing work necessary um whether it is for fiscal transparency for more need for accessibility to financial documents and information um and so i i would say that there's a lot of mending and healing to do a lot of that work i would say that we also have a lot of systemic needs and long-term plans specifically around literacy programs that we offer um the ways that some district and departments uh work some district offices and departments such as volunteers transfers things that are more technical but we still need to to hash those out more um and i would also say that you know when trustee garcia i was talking right now i i thought about like student voices and how what does it look like too to include student voices and more so um

096high school students too because i think that they're they have entered a time in their life when we're about to say like here's your here's your degree you finish these um years of formal education but like how do we involve them in in this process and i'm thinking specifically around issues that that do create risks in the community like police on campus i know that that is something that that will be that will need to be addressed so i think that having their voices heard um and not not invited just to say something quick and be done but like invited as partners in the work too is important to to make sure that we do so i would say we have a lot of strengths and a lot of challenges that i think we we

097will continue to to need to work on and to you know face fully forward that's all that i got to say on this um if anybody has any final comments or thoughts that they would like to add that have not been shared certainly uh beautifully rich feedback from everyone and i might add that it would be extremely helpful if we could have those thoughts emailed probably directly to um to jim brown and then he can forward to our team so we can ensure that they're included in our google doc as we continue on with this similar process with uh the very very extensive um group of people the groups i should say groups of people that that you've asked us to to contact and that can the list will continue to grow by the end

098of this meeting certainly and so um what would you like to facilitate next since we're done with the first three questions and if we can have um dr wald or miss haney if somebody on staff could forward the email of mr jim brown to the new board members alike so they can get in contact with him and send them us thank you believe that the next item up is the timeline is that correct jim uh the online survey i think we want to talk about that briefly um okay so before the timeline yeah let's do that uh since we're talking about engagement and strengths and challenges we also have an online survey that we use and we uh particularly during the pandemic times have gotten very good responses to that we made a couple of

099changes in it based on our previous conversations with the board but it helps us to use a fairly standard format in different places begin because it gives us a better read on uh what people are thinking we can do some comparative analysis so uh what we'll need and i sent a note to robert jordan about this and marin the other day we'll need to have that and debbie we'll need to have that made available through the district website it will be available in spanish and english and uh if there's another language we can address how we might best get that uh and we'd like to run it from november 30th to december 10th so to run it for 10 days we want to give people plenty of advanced notice about the survey and encourage widespread

100participation and with the survey we will give you the results of that survey in detail you'll see the comments there's a place that people can do ranking of different leadership characteristics there's a place they can add their comments and suggestions on qualities and characteristics and strengths and challenges the new trustees and the present board will get all that information along with a summary from us but uh i just wanted to mention that in in fact will a number of people find it more difficult to go to meetings even if it's zoom but the online survey is a good way for us to reach out to even a broader part of your community so we'll also have that tool available for you i don't know if the new trustees have gotten a copy of that yet

101but we'll make sure you get that so you can see what we're doing and so i'm just quite sure if there are any questions about the online survey part of the engagement process at this point jim i might add uh just a couple of um changes that were made to the online that we made to the online survey as a result of our last meeting to better reflect um who you have um stated that you really want to have as a leader in west contra costa um on page seven uh the first item was is a strong instructional leader who will maintain and improve student achievement gains made in the district that's been changed to as a strong instruction leader who leads successful initiatives that will improve achievement for all students and on page nine

102the uh page nine there's a rank order that anybody who's um providing input through this online survey there to rank uh these characteristics the original characteristics were decisive organized approachable democratic receptive to ideas imaginative and pragmatic the new revised that we're offering would be equity-minded empathetic consensus builder visible collaborative accountable that's holding themselves accountable and others courageous and visionary so we believed that the uh that the revised list that we offered to you for the online survey would better reflect west contra costa the rest of it is is the same and we expect to have thousands and thousands of respondents to your online survey and really it is it is the most um effective way to reach everyone students parents certificates classified staff um community members community leaders community partners everyone everyone will be invited

103to uh provide their input through this online survey they will be posted on your website yeah we will work with robert on uh the wording for that uh on the website uh and be helpful in that regard and it will at least be translated to spanish yes right absolutely thank you so much miss thorstensen um do any board members have any questions or board members you like have any questions or uh clarify clarifying questions or comments for the online survey uh revisions that were just read trustee uh you liked gonzalez hawaii thank you president hernandez jarvis um it's actually a suggestion um which is uh that for staff we have these fridays that we're putting aside for pd and uh for site work i would actually encourage staff if we could have a day in

104between those two weeks where staff um is given time to do the survey i think that would that will encourage participation um this required um obviously those dates are already scheduled but if we could shorten something just so they have a little bit of time because everybody's overwhelmed right now um so as a survey right now sounds like added work um so if we can just embed it into their work i think we'll get more participation thanks good suggestion thank you uh trustee like gonzalez seems like that was the only comment that we have for the online survey so i think we're ready to go on to the next part okay may i ask a question yes trustee you like uh smithfolds um what's the what's the number that the uh that the leadership team

105has for okay this is we've covered an amount of people like if we have 32 000 students if we have a number of so many teachers we have so many staff of it what's that number of surveys that you get back that says okay we've covered it if you only get 50 surveys back then no coverage if you you know 32 000 students if you only get with the first i looked at the survey in the first box is how are you related to this survey your parent are you a community or your teacher or your student if you only get 10 students back no coverage it's 30 to 32 000 students so i guess my question is much like trustee elect uh hoy says what is your what is your plan to make sure

106that you get that coverage out there are is the is survey's to go to the ptos and the ptas is the survey going to go to the apex is the survey going to go to the leadership classes is the survey going to go to the student council class is the survey going to go to the principals and then they push it out to their uh student population like i just want to make sure that they're it's not just a box that's checked that okay we did a survey but that you're really getting workable data back from the survey because you covered enough of the area again we're a huge district so making sure that you not only covered all of our populations but you've covered you're hearing back from the entire district not just from

107area five because there this population of people who will fill out a survey are not just from area three or am i making myself clear yes you are and there are two questions embedded in that i think one is the question about the number and then the question is about getting out the information to all the different groups and individuals uh i can give you some comparison numbers in recent districts in the bay area there are two different kinds of districts then yours san ramon unified and fremont unified but they're of comparable size to west contra costa uh and the responses range in the in the 15 total responses in the 1500 to range now not everybody fills out every question some respond to part of the survey and some to others and we in

108the survey we also ask people to identify themselves as students parents teachers community members so we get a bit of a read on that i will tell you that usually the largest participation is from parents and teachers in the district uh but and that that gets us to the second part you all know your community much better than we do and so we will work with your director of communication we understand that's robert jordan to make sure it's publicized and uh but that person has to help us identify is it getting out to the right people how do how do you post it on your website uh how do you get the info do you depend on reading it do you ask principals to be sure they circulate it to their to their parent community

109their if it's a pta or a booster club or something like that so this requires to get it out it really requires a close cooperative effort with your the personnel in your district and uh mr jordan and i have had a preliminary conversation about that but i think this conversation tonight will be helpful to him as well as us in in in in achieving that goal our goal is the more the better always and we want to make sure we heard from every group if it's necessary to extend the survey for a length of time we are prepared to do that and that has happened on occasion we need to get the position description done but we'll get enough from the initial responses to help us to complete that task but we don't want to

110close it until the board of trustees the district and we feel that we've reached enough people so if we have to leave it open another month we can do that we just won't get the summary to you we'll have to give you an interim report on what we learned to that point it'll be a multi-pronged approach and we'll need to tap into a variety of avenues that um that the district has used in the past and then other avenues that the district may have not have used but but as we look hard at how to make sure that their input is um is sought from all across the district from all varieties of groups and and you mentioned the principles are really a key factor because they've got such a close connection with their uh

111communities that they serve that their school serves so the principles are going to be very key in this and your director of communications will be very candice in this and and what go ahead sandy i'm sorry that's okay uh juan garza is coordinating this part of the process for us so i know this information questions will be helpful to you thank you all so much trustee like brickler thank you bordelec smith's folds raises an excellent point and us we here in in trustee area five we love to fill out our surveys we would fill out anything that you sent to us it is important that we build into this another type of identifier either by school or by community or city so that we are able to determine whether we are getting coverage thank you

112okay thank you thank you electricity like smithfolds and trusty like reckler i think we're ready to move on to the next part of our meeting okay the next part uh and this will pick up on an earlier question uh and after this it's some of the matters are a little more technical in nature getting dates and things like that but this is the meeting where we ask the board of trustees which groups and individuals we should invite to the stakeholder engagement meetings uh sandy i think you're going to talk a little bit about this the dates in the process am i right right right so we have um one garza and myself and jim brown the three of us are going to be facilitating the community input sessions so we have the three of us

113with three dates that we've um identified at this point november 30th december 1st and uh december 2nd so we'll we'll have um at least two of us and likely three of us all day for those three days um it may be the first day november 30th it'll be two of us and then the other days we're looking to have the the three of us um on those days so uh penny pyle on our team is working with debbie to um start scheduling the the sessions and we're gonna do it via our conference line so we can we can tabulate all take all this input into our google docs so we'll have um we'll have three days and we'll have three of us and uh we're very grateful for the support that we've received from debbie

114and others on your team and working in conjunction with penny and penny is on our team as a real superstar for those of you who may have not heard at the last meeting she was an executive assistant and uh davis and uh as the executive assistant for the superintendent was a part of uh more than one superintendent search on her end of it so she's uh very well versed in the kind of support that we can provide and will provide to your team so those are the dates and uh we we move through all of these sessions uh we ensure that we have a lot of stamina for those three days because there's a whole lot of folks in fact in all the searches that i've been um privileged to serve on i've never seen

115such an extensive list of stakeholder groups and this is i know a list that is um is not yet complete but it is the most inclusive list that i've seen and it's a real testimony to your um your commitment to transparency and inclusiveness in your district so at this point we want to hear from you on which of the groups and individuals that you want to be sure because it really depends on your your office sending out the invitations to these groups we don't know who they are we want to meet with whoever you want whomever you want us to meet with so we have some names that have been suggested by trustees uh panus and hernandez jarvis to start with but we're interested in hearing from each of you are there are there individuals

116or groups you want us to be sure that the district reaches out to to invite to attend one of these sessions with us on november 30th uh december 1st and the whatever's whatever remains on december 2nd great thank you so much trustee phillips and then trustee panet thank you president hernandez jarvis um i want to start with the list um well i'll start with the list that i i wrote and then i'll move to the list that um was given to leadership um and some of it is the same but i look at it more in like buckets so i believe that each district committee should be part of this and when i say district committee i mean every committee that we have that the residents get to serve on whether it's a parcel tax

117committee cboc mdac asat those kind of community district committees that's what i'm talking about so i think each one of those and there's a list of them if someone can send that over to to mr rum that would be great i also believe that each bargaining unit should be included and i do see on the list where the executive board of utr is included it says csea but here we're teamsters but basically every bargaining unit they should be included in this process as well and ed fund i think they should be included and i see they're somewhere down their booster groups i guess they would fall under that bucket and then i also think that we should include uh our outside labor partners as well just like we're doing with our business partners so for

118me that would be the building and construction trades because they are partners with us another community group which is kind of like the same but the cte task force folks they should be included in this as well and now i just want to spend a little bit of time talking about the list that did go to leadership um we are going through this process to find a new superintendent for a reason the contract wasn't extended for a reason we have hired leadership for a reason without saying much more than that i don't really feel comfortable with the current superintendent participating in the process of who comes behind that person and and i i just i don't feel comfortable with that i understand that once we select a new superintendent that they will have some kind

119of conversation because there has to be some kind of transition but i i've never heard of a situation in any job where somebody is basically let go and then they get to do what we're proposing which is help select their replacement under those circumstances that's not something that i am comfortable with um moving down the list and i'm reading too so people who maybe don't have it know what's on it so school board of course superintendent please know uh cabinet yes leadership team um without principles and parents yes principals classified district office staff yes confidential employees yes classified staff yes certificated staff yes teachers association exec board uh csea which is teamsters for us exec board yes to all of the bargaining units just not those two all of them i think the student and

120student board reps is a great idea the school site council reps including them that's a good idea parent community leader reps which is kind of vague but yes service club representatives yes uh dlac elac again all of our uh district groups where we have residents serving on them should be included i do not believe that the city council members and the city staff and the police chief should be giving input on who our superintendent should be for multiple reasons one they are different agencies two they have uh and this might be petty what i'm about to say but there have been multiple city managers hired uh since uh i've been on the board and i don't recall um being invited to participate in any of those processes and i doubt any of you have either

121and i do understand that they're partners but we're different agencies and i think one of the issues we had a conversation about challenges in this district earlier one of the challenges that we have is and ms fold said this as well mrs foles that we are so big uh but we do have some very basic functions that we have to uh do and we have to do well um and we can't do that if we are trying go blowing in the wind in every direction and let's meet with every city council person and get there but that's not that's not their role and and i don't think that we can uh can do that and then be true to what we're trying to do for our students and that's not to say that they're not

122valued partners but i don't think that that's their lane i agree with the chamber of commerce ptasa pta obviously agreed um and then the last one on there i agree with everything else on there except the number 22 which is neighboring district superintendents i don't see any reason that we would be surveying superintendents in neighboring districts about what we need here i don't know what reference they would have to even give input but you know if i just i don't want that to happen either because it doesn't make sense to me um so those are are my comments i'm going to email those in but you know the ones that i just don't want there to reiterate its neighboring district superintendents which is number 22 number 17 city council members city staff manager city police

123chiefs uh and and the super and the current superintendent and to the extent that like council members for example want to participate they can because we will have a process where just the general community could come and so nobody is saying that you know councilman from richmond or panel or el cerrito can't have some kind of they could all participate but having something set aside specifically to get the input of the council i don't think that's the rule so those are my comments thank you thank you trustee phillips trustee panas and uh mr brown i see you there henry a couple quick comments uh one is that it is our general recommendation in almost every search that the present superintendent regardless of the situation the board be distanced from the process so that's uh we

124just think the process they ought not superintendents ought not to be appointing their successors or involved in the process and uh so that's just you know one one general thought that's consistent with what trustee phillips says uh the second thing is that over time in different districts we don't get where districts want us to reach out to city councils and police chiefs we tend not to get a lot of participation on that and remember that the online survey is open to anybody that wants to participate so if if the city council people if you decide not to do that they can always fill out the online survey and that's a good way for them to participate thank you for clarifying that thank you president hernandez jarvis um uh i'd like to thank uh trustee phillips

125for his comments and i also agree about the superintendent city council members police and the neighboring district superintendents um trustee phil just seemed like the list that that you see there like it has very little relation to the list that that i sent in uh president josh would you like me to read the list that i sent him i think that would be beneficial yeah okay so i'll just run down this list it's a little bit long but african-american side advisory team adult school teachers united bay area community resources bayside council of ptas building blocks for kids beacon school directors black educators network community advisory committee catholic charities citizens bond oversight committee chambers of commerce of all cities charter school representatives community housing development corporation casilla latino contra costa college council of industries dl caps

126committee east space center for performing arts uh ed fund faith community representatives first five girls inc familia sunilas go public schools uh grip great enrichment interfaith program healthy richmond high school students latina center mdac in english mdac and spanish mathis youth enrichment program middle school students naacp richmond branch and el cerrito branch peach out in hercules philanthropic funders principles rainbow center richmond community foundation richmond police athletic league richmond promise richmond revolution rise youth center safe return school supervisors association seneca unconditional education stand together teamsters local 856 united teachers of richmond west contra costa administrators association west contrast the parents council yes nature neighborhood and the ymca so those are the the groups that i that i think we need to make sure we we include them and i i believe mr brown already has that

127list thank you for reading the list below too for everybody too you have it on record as well it's the most inclusive list i might reiterate that we've seen it's beautiful thank you thank you miss uh thorstensen and uh trusty ponies did you want to add anything else uh thank you president and that's i don't have anything else to add you know i do like the comments i agree with with trustee phillips on those three things all i do want those to stand yes thank you um so we can go ahead with trustee like smithfolds um so i'm gonna have to digest your list mr pantis and make sure that i'm getting it all because it was a long list i did look at the list that was sent i think that this is where

128we can really start doing some um tangible work because because we are five areas but we're on one hand i think that we really need to talk to the people who are in that area because for hercules and panel there are groups that i know that bind our community together and push our community forward that may not be the same as in el cerrito or san pablo or ward two three and four but in ward one there's things that pushes us to that level so for example you know there's heft which is on the list because it's an education foundation there's free there's heart there's spin over fair government there's wave watchers there's pineal rotary there's hercules rotary except there's peach et cetera et cetera et cetera so i think utilizing the knowledge from the

129elected ward trustees will be a benefit to this part of the process i also want to make sure that i um highlight bold and underscore the fact that asat and ben the black employee network is on there i want to make sure that we also when we're reaching out to students we're reaching out to mafinique we're reaching out to the bsus we're reaching out to richmond revolutionary reaching out to the youth solidarity project like these are people that have made themselves known in the community as change agents so i want to make sure that we bring those change agents to the table this is our first opportunity and our best opportunity to create sustainable change in the district by making it a wide and long table for everyone to be invited to so again my

130last comments make sure that we we have those core people that are the center part of the hand but reach out to those individual trustees for their list that keep their community moving forward their smaller part of their community moving forward as we work towards a greater district thank you trustee like smithfolds um and i completely agree with with your comments too i definitely think that um we need to digest the list that trustee uh panas read aloud and add on to that um and as the new board you know incoming board um that's going to continue this process i think that your input on who who else to invite is going to be crucial for this list too to grow and to have everybody who needs to be there thank you trustee elect gonzalez

131hoy thank you president herren jarvis um so i was trying to like i have a long list as well and i was trying to play like bingo with mr pandas's names but i i missed honestly like half of it because it was going so quickly um so just mentioned the ones i think i missed that might be on the list and you can just confirm if it's there or not um you know uh trustee elect uh smith folds mentioned that youth solidarity project uh which i don't think i heard on that list um oh okay perfect oh get a point um and the naacp youth council i know that uh uh you may have mentioned indonesia i didn't mention the youth council oh all right two for two um uh the richmond progressive alliance uh

132i know did not get that one look at i get an a for my work tonight um and uh i think that's it i had a bunch more but um i think that they were all on your list so thank you thank you uh trusty like gonzalez hoy and we are ready to go with trustee elect christian okay thank you um pretty much has been said about all the different stakeholders um from all the different parts of the community are mentioned um and it's making sure we have the right stakeholders at the table and making sure that uh uh our young people uh from all the uh the schools in the within the district from hercules back to el cerrito richmond san pablo and so forth are playing a part in um uh selecting our

133superintendent so um but pretty much has been said uh so far so uh that's all i have at this time thank you so much jesse like christian trustee lake reckler thank you i do want to recommend that we do hold meetings for the feeder families so for all the schools that feed into elsewhere the high school all the all the schools that feed into kennedy hercules spinal i think trustee like reckler i can't hear you or see you anymore i'm not sure if your connection is going out is everybody else experiencing the same right now he looks frozen yeah she's frozen okay it was about feeder families at the high school the feeder junior middle schools and the elementary schools that be sure that we have some connection among the that community of schools great

134thank you so much um for catching that in uh trustee lake reclair is back right now so let's see can we hear you now i hope so yes we can okay yeah um yeah so i think someone said it to do by feeder family so that we're looking at you know who feeds into el cerrito panel hercules kennedy richmond so you're getting that you know the synergies of who comes through the elementaries to the middles to the high schools great thank you so much uh trustee like reckler and i um i agree with the list that uh travis dipanas um read and and the additions that trustee elect uh gonzalez hoy interesting like smithvolts also um mentioned i think that that that's just gonna you know continue to make it more comprehensive and that's all

135i have for this and the student trustees had to head off as well trustee garcia avila so that's that's it for comment on this item if we may ask for um as with the previous input if we could have those lists emailed uh to jim brown to make sure that we we don't miss anybody there were also um some comments as to groups that needed to be removed from the list noting that everyone will be urged to respond to the online survey but all the particular groups that are going to be invited but we need to make sure that that those uh groups that that the majority of the board uh would prefer not to be uh reached out to as far as the invitation certainly we want to have everybody invited to the for

136to respond to the online survey but we need to make sure we have an accurate list a couple of uh summary comments on this just so because this is the most challenging logistical process of the whole superintendent search process there are a lot of groups involved and we're running the online survey and we're running and scheduling the meetings one of the things we do at meetings is uh we can combine groups if if needed so we can have a representative from this group represented from that student group and that sort of thing so that's one way we can make the logistics on this process work uh and and that that's been fine in the past so we will probably be doing that we can combine where necessary the other thing to think about is we

137have um you know our goal on this and i know it's yours as well is to make sure that every voice is heard we also are operating on one deadline which is to have that position description ready so for public for posting hopefully in mid-december no later than the early part of january if we have don't have every uh all the people that we need to talk to by that time we'll have enough information to post to get the description together and we can even post it as a draft and then if we get later on if the addition we miss people or something like that we will always be available to talk to people they can email us we can have one-on-one conversations and that happened last time we did the search there were

138three or four groups that uh we didn't get ahold of the first time they weren't aware of it or whatever but we managed to make contact with everybody uh information that we get right up to the time of the interviews is important because it can help us work with the board to develop interview questions and all that so we'll do our best to make sure every voice is heard we think we'll have enough in for the goal is to have enough information and get the position description up and going and then if we need to continue any after that we're prepared to do it great thank you so much for that summary um is there another um follow-up question or more to the to the conversation or do you want any closing remarks or do

139you have enough information to to continue forward sandy juan are we okay on our end i just want to make sure to stress that the list is very very extensive those of you that have lists please email them as soon as possible as it's important that we send out timely invitations to these groups and and those invitations go out from debbie haney's office so and then if we compile information we will share it with with debbie and uh robert jordan is involved in this part of the process as well because recovery company so we really you know this has to be a real partnership with your district office team and they've been great to work with so far great thank you all so much leadership associates um mrs thorstensen mr garcia mr brown miss pyle

140thank you to staff that's here with us today facilitating the meeting dr walt and everybody from the community and all of our current trustees and you trustee select thank you for joining us tonight okay we have we have some some technical matters we have to do real quick real quick yes thank you one one is the timeline and uh what we need to focus on mention the december 16th meeting and the dates for the stakeholder meetings so we think we think those are good to go uh the november 30th december 1st and maybe december 2nd if needed and that the 16th at the meeting that meeting and i think you're new is that when your new board is seated is that am i right on that okay so that would be the the physician description

141night as well that we'd least like to get a draft that we can post on the on your website and on ours the next dates are uh the application of closing uh is scheduled right now for february 15th uh would be the deadline for applications uh which means that we will advertise in january statewide and nationally and that on february 15th the application with that would be the application deadline and then we will complete our reference checks background checks in the latter part of february and we are looking at uh early march and i think i have my the date here i wanted to suggest is somewhere around the week of march 1st to have a uh meeting with the board to present the names of candidates in our recommendations so that's one day that's

142about a three-hour meeting uh late afternoon evening is usually the time that that happens but sometimes boards do it during the day that's one meeting we need to schedule and then the interviews we're looking at the weekend of march 13th 12th 13th and 14th so those are the dates we wanted to run by you the sooner we can get those locked in the better because we post those on our website i would like to um defer this to the to the new board members elect if you have any any um questions or comments on the dates and we can begin with trustee phillips and trustee panes and then um get to uh trustee um elect smith folds trustee gonzalez electricity like gonzalez joy trustee lake christian trusty like regular so we can hear on that

143um if you have any comments or questions or suggestions can you say the dates one more time please yes uh the first week of march we are looking at we all have our calendars and we don't need to have this you know nailed in concrete you know put in concrete tonight but the sooner we can get these dates the better uh the first week of march a late aft afternoon evening meeting about three hours in length where we would present the names of the candidates to you with our recommendations and then we're suggesting the interviews be two days to set aside two days march 12th 13th and 14th somewhere in that two of those three days sandy juan i think those work for you okay i'm available um on all i'm available the first week

144of march and i'm available uh the 12th to the pretty much 14th it unless your mic is on right now sorry i couldn't hear what trustee phillip said thank you um i am available the first week of march and i'm available the 12th through the 14th i thought that the 12th through the 14th is uh that is a weekend um is that normal or i don't know i've never gone through this process so i am available it is usual just because the candidates are you know they're traveling they may be traveling they may have commitments in their district i mean the profile of the pool that you created tonight now can we do it during the week yes but it usually works out a little better friday and saturday would probably be the two best

145dates that we can do that work for the board and the candidates i'm available the 12th through the 14th i was just asking a question because yeah yeah you know that's all i'm available okay thank you so much trustee phillips joseph thank you president hernandez jarvis um i just have one question for you mr brown um so i when i've talked to trustees at school board meetings etc in the past they have said they wish they had more time to think about it between the time they do the final interviews and the time they make the decision so i'm just wondering is that built in here is that not built in here i don't know if the new board will want that but it it's something we can adjust to usually the two days uh

146we do we have done it in one day but that is you know that that isn't going to work in west contra costa yeah and it didn't last time we had a a lengthy uh two-day process and the second day were the call back interviews and there was lengthy deliberation the afternoon if the new board wishes to have more time for that we can talk with them uh maybe in in in january or february you know sometimes the board likes to you know we need to go home and think about this can we come back the next day we will work with the new board on that to make it work for them but i think the important thing to do at this point is get the two days set and then if we need

147more we can we can figure out how to make that work great thank you that's my only comment yeah taking your trusty penis jesse elect smith um i don't have a comment i am available for those days thank you so much trustee elect gonzalez high thank you president herrera service um i have a question uh but i am available in those states uh my question is when we meet as a board in those states um does that include our student trustees uh that's up that's uh the last time that's what the west contour board did uh but um and that worked well uh they were important part of the process but that's something we would like to talk with with the new board when you're selected in in their involvement in the process usually this

148is most cases this is a board function but they are student board trustees and last time they were included and their comments were helpful we in fact we really enjoyed their participation and you know they respected this is a closed session confidentiality of candidates is so critical to our getting good candidates but they really respected that process that way yeah i mean i know we're going to have that conversation eventually but obviously my preference is that they are involved which means that if the rest of the board agrees on that we're going to have to make sure that doesn't conflict with student um well the school day but also just on other student activities yeah thank you thank you trustee like christian yes thank you i am available on those days and so coming in

149thank you thank you trustee licked reckler i am available on those days and i did just want to ask i did look at the district calendar we're sure there's nothing major going on that we don't yet know about or anything um just to double check on that thank you thank you and i don't have any additional comments um to say i just want to thank leadership associates for working with me and the current board to um get this going so that the next board can continue the work and and take um leadership of it one uh additional item is that uh it is important that we have the board's contract parameters for the new superintendent it doesn't have to be an exact salary but we will need things like a salary range uh the length

150of the contract and things like our recommendation is that the new board would appoint two of its members to work with us as a committee and with the board on that part of the process we would like to know by early february what your contract parameters are now you have we also will need uh from debbie a copy of the current superintendent's contract that's a public document and it would be important for the new board members to have that as well and then maybe at the december 16th meeting the board could consider if they think that idea is a good one having a couple of its members and then uh working with your attorney harold friedman on this is also important he's a really terrific asset on this put on this part of the process

151so that's down the road but just be thinking about it because it'll be on the december board agenda okay and then uh on protocols for the search process um they're really a couple of important ones one is that the board we asked the board to identify a spokesperson usually that's the board president that's the role uh trustee hernandez jarvis has been fulfilling so far and we would assume continue up to her appointment their the new board president has not been selected and sometimes boards appoint somebody else for that role but we will need to know who the board spokesperson is on this and a corollary to that is usually then we would send communications to that person and that person would relay to the board some boards like us to send everything to every board

152member and for the present it's been through uh president hernandez jarvis if that's to be different we need to know that but we'll need the new board to pick up on this when uh when we meet with them on december 16th who the continuing spokesperson will be will be your president or somebody else so action not needed tonight we would assume you would continue to fill that role hernandez uh trustee or dennis jarvis until the newborns okay that is that is select and then the uh a second protocol that we suggest is that it is really important for us in this process to be the point of contact with candidates prospective candidates in particular if board members have suggestions on people that they would like us to contact regard maybe you've met somebody along the

153way one of your board colleagues in another district has suggested please send that to us we ask that you not get involved in with individual conversations with prospective candidates and we haven't had this happen maybe once or twice but if a candidate if somebody were to contact you individually and say do you think i should apply for this job or whatever refer them to us because sometimes candidates would read a response from you as an endorsement of their candidacy and we don't want to put you in that position so uh if anybody should contact either the president board or the incoming board please say you know we've hired a search firm we suggest you call the search firm we'll they'll have our you'll have our contact information and do that those are the two but

154those are the major protocols the who's the spokesperson and then any conversation with candidates uh will the new trustees be attending the csba i'm not the conference this year uh and i think that's in december isn't it i believe so and i think that there is also um and if everybody just wants to nod their head if they are going or if they're not participating okay got it yeah okay that that sometimes is where you're likely to you know run into a candidate well it'll be virtual this year right so we won't have the problem but that's happened in the past where somebody spots a board member from just hey i'm gonna i'm thinking about applying for this superintendent job what do you think you know that's when you say go sit go see the

155leadership associates group so uh and we do want to work closely with uh debbie and robert jordan on post your website is critical to the communication in this process you're sending out the invitation to the stakeholders and everything it's a big part of the job we don't know the community like you do so we will need to work closely with robert jordan and debbie they're going to be busy with this part of the process especially getting out the invitation and the ongoing communications on your website um a note that we sent to robert jordan the other day said it's it's it's near the time when you should have something about the search process up on your website you hire the firm we can make suggestions on what that communication would look like and we're assuming

156that robert would be the the key person we would work with in that regard along with the board president is that is that a correct read on our part at this point because it's a real team effort yes okay all right uh any other items that any of you have for questions or anything like that that you'd like us to address and i just might um mention that penny on our team is very instrumental in guiding your along every step of the way yeah we have agendas board agendas that you can use to post the different parts of the process and everything and penny and debbie will work together on that awesome thank you so much um to uh mr brown to everybody at leadership associates for your overview and detail explanations and thank you

157to all of the current trustees and new board members select for your feedback i think um you know you you got this and i wish you the best in this process um i know we won't see each other again until the next board meeting um when you will be sworn into office so i i um applaud you and i hope you know i wish you the best and i hope that you can get this process going and and finish it very successfully for our kids and families thank you all um thank you again leadership associates and staff and we'll see each other again tomorrow for a regularly scheduled board meeting at 6 30 for um public except for the open session so thank you everybody and with that unless there's anything else um that we

158need to say we will adjourn to this meeting at 7 16. thank you so much thank you very much great to meet all great to meet all of you we're so excited about working with all of you and we'll do our best to make sure you have the right superintendent thanks now i'm glad to join you thank you all have a great evening good night thank you