BBOE Special Meeting of Board of Education: Second Training Session (Part 1 of 2)

001e e e work rela we're unmuted already have right yeah good evening this is a inperson special meeting of the Board of Education um it's Monday March 31st and it is 6:30 to um we're at Harding High School the library uh today we're the first item on the agenda is um the second full board can you lift it because yeah the second full board training session Facility by cave um in this training we're going to be talking about uh board self assessment and the policy and bylaws and we'll start with word self assessment we have with us I have to do our atts um I'm Jennifer prz for chair we have Andre Woodson will Medina Albert benan Joseph cic Marissa esta Jimenez Robert travor and online we have Christine batist Perez and Keisha cmir a

002floor on the board ready the board self assessment does qualify for executive session if we go on Executive session it'll be the board members plus our trainers uh Nick ruso Jo Jody um so if we're Rec could make that motion yes we had a lengthy conversation about this with the office and um given complexity of the situation the fact that the bate is sort of sort of required this um we think it might be in the better interest to do this in public not to mention the fact that if there is a complaint about it um whether you're you would win or not is up for grabs and but the complaint get on the front page of the newspaper and um I it's our recommendation that if people are willing that we do this in

003public um Dr AB has also joined us in person so saying no motion we we'll go ahead and do this in public for the board self assessment okay so good evening evening um have people had a because I asked if these get put out last week did people have a chance to look through these and look at the results um because rather than have to go step by step through it um I guess the question I want to start with is um did anything stand out I mean I I have some fact and I both spent time talking about this as well we have some observations but we don't really want to share them with you because we want this to be your evaluation we we'll pick things up later should we need to bring

004them up but um I guess I want to start with a conversation now let me that back for a second our expectation for this evening Dr R I'm glad you're here tonight I know you have another important thing to do um but I think it is important that you're here at the table as well um the two expectations for tonight Are One to um discuss this assessment and this is a benchmark this is a starting place um the state as I read their instructions were that this will be done periodically to reassess is there Improvement and you know going back to the elephant in the room from the last time they're looking for improvement it's not about being here being present it's also about seeing changes now in the evaluation as I read it a

005lot of you said you're starting to see changes already and that's great um but I think we need to work through that they would like to see some performance goals based on this evalu and this assessment I'm using assessment instead of evaluation because I think it's a it's a little bit different kind of measurement than the evaluation tool that we use so um My Hope Is that as we discuss this certainly want to identify areas of strength but I think or Improvement but I think also are there areas that need to be addressed that we can sort of turn into a performance goal and our goal tonight youing that word twice in a different meing in the sentence but our goal tonight is not to solve the problems but to identify some and develop an

006action plan toward working through so if we you decid this is one particular area we want to focus on we might talk about what the process for working on that would be but we're not going to try and solve it tonight does that make sense yes and that's going to be about the first hour if we're into a really good conversation it might go a little bit longer but we want to give Dr goer plenty of opportunity to talk about policy and byla tonight because that's the other part I know there he's been a a lot of work over the last couple of weeks um really digging into policy and looking at your bylaws and one just trying to track down which are the correct copies of each because they're they were pretty much all

007over the place and I know that's been very confusing to people along the way so a conversation about all that really help move us all forward but with that um and there's one other thing I want to maybe start because we came up with another elephant in the room and we want to address it right up front because over the next three or four sessions I mean we we plan on being a team through this whole thing we also have Leonard blockart our association president wants to be involved he's getting ready to go to um Atlanta this week to the National School boards conference where they're going to name him president-elect which is really kind of neat um but he wants to be involved as well but one of the things we kind of had

008this convers and if we're acknowledging it I can't imagine as a board how you feel about it that if you look at all the technical assistance people you look at the state people that are involved um there's a lot of people that look like us and you know we have to acknowledge that um we have they verwin who is a master superintendent who is this superintendent representative I guess for lack of better term on the technical assistant team is going to join us next week to talk about the board superintendent relations Ed arum who is um on the technical assistance team is a budget Guru I mean he really knows his numbers and Dr a you probably have started to work with him he really knows his stuff um but in as we were talking

009old white guys and we are sensitive to that we want you to have the people that can most impact with what's happening in the district can help you move forward so I guess we're kind of looking for some validation that you're willing to have them be part of it I mean they're scheduled but we could change that if you don't think it's going to be their participation valuable but we didn't want to just do it and have some you know hey what's going on here we wanted to be right up front with it we also have as our sixth session as it's currently scheduled and we are we're being flexible we're moving this around to make it work best for you we have a guy who um actually working with cave as a consultant now

010um Chris heran who does media Consulting for school districts and school associations he was in charge of public relations for the Boston Public Schools so he really does know Communications and again um if there's a sense of we want to hear what he has to say we can bring him in for that last session so I'm laying this out hoping for some feedback um and just maybe a little boost in the right direction so that we know we're on the right track or we're not so as we start can I just maybe get a little bit feedback on that to start with I'm okay personally uh with everyone and anyone you bring uh for the fact that I trust uh the people that you're bringing up and you're giving us their names and what they're

011doing and I don't have a problem with it's a male female white African-American Chinese green purple it doesn't bother me I would like to learn more and to be elevated and to to knowledge of what we're supposed to do so I don't have a problem I I I welcome it because I know who you guys are and you know the standard that you guys have to work with people we're also grateful for your confidence in us because we work really hard to do that to be clear I don't want them here at all but since they're here they should own part of what we have to do I did I did have a chance to meet with the finance guy you did you said yes and and and the whole the whole team going through

012the ranks and not so much a race thing as a lived experience thing they have not lived the experience of inner city school district while sitting down with the finance guy no disrespect to you if you're watching um he spoke of his issues getting bonding to repair fields and stuff like that those are not Bridge problems we're deciding whether we can put food on the table we're deciding to get rid of par professionals which probably only maybe three or four districts in entire State have looked at we're on sustenance level so if they're going to be involved they need to sit in the finance committee meeting they need to actually come go in our schools and see what they're facing to at least get a taste of the experiences we're living in if they are

013soed and r we going to began with I think this should be in first place Mr CH yeah I I I I think I I'm not quite where Joe is but my concern when I read the bios for the technical assistance team was the lack of urban experience um and I think it was I thought I read one was had some experience in danber but um which is you know a small Urban community and that I I Accord as having experience that would be uh comparable to ours um but otherwise it was a lack of urban experience and I think that's important to understand what we are going through and what we go through and the um difficulty uh that we experience that other other cities like us uh have been through because that's really

014what we we experience and um reflect in the um overall um his history in in all of the organs is the lack of funding and that's what you know Senate Bill 1511 this year is trying to address is a redo on the ECS formula and that's going to make a worldly difference in our ability to respond to the needs of the and to me that's the underlying problem in our district District um uh would allow us to address so so many of the shortcomings that we have um and um so I I just think that that's a a problem and so the ability to I I well Willie and I sit on the the CES board here and talk with people who you know have problems and they're legitimate problems but they're not anywhere near

015the same problems that we have to deal with an economy of sale no matter how you that is correct um I I will say according to the state expectation and again we're kind of living all of us are living with their expectations is to develop policies and procedures for overseeing finances and I think this case I think that would be very effective that because that I haven't unlike Joe I haven't I I was introduced to the three gentlemen as I was going in to meet with Dr Avery about something and they all were delightful human beings to meet and say hello to and you know I'm not casting aspersion on any of them I'm just saying sharing my concern was do they do they understand what we have to live with and what we've been

016through and my my goes back to the early 90s um but I saw it in the 80s too working in different ways through in districts throughout the state so well not it jobs anybody on screen want to jump in okay all right so fly noted um I'm not sure how much we can change the plans per se but certainly I'm going to share with both of them your concerns and that they aren't coming out right from the start making themselves relevant to your needs than um than CH I think that will I think that's best way to approach it here's the the challenge to you is to make sure that you can maintain credibility through this process um to help overcome some of your concerns I mean you can't necessarily take away the historical part

017but at least to have to they have the skill set to help you move forward well the other thing that I I that that I do agree with is that well I think that it is very helpful for us to go through this self evaluation self-reflection that we're going through through this experience it couldn't come at a worst time um because we're dealing with a 25 million plus or minus a few million because what it's a few million deficit that we have to figure out how to overcome um and that means lobbying in Hartford for this bill that we hope gets through the legislature um that would fix the problem so there's a lobbying need there's a budgetary component and there's um you know um um there's the the need for us to to go

018through all of this and oh by the way the state department that is going to be looking over your shoulder and breathing down your neck oh while you're trying to fix all these other problems and so all of this is just puts the pressure cooker on us and you know you perform perform perform under this huge so I just think that it's it's good it's good that we we we do need to to figure out how to but I don't think we're unique I at the same time the state's been in Hartford for a year and are they doing the same thing in Hartford I don't know but I don't think so and they have the same problem which is a big deficit and looking at layoffs hundreds and you know so Bridgeport somehow has

019been put on this in the spotlight and I'm not quite sure why and so I I just and it's nothing directed either of you Al well I think we all sh frustration working with you all but it's like do we need we need to to do all of these things at the same time this meeting that Dr Avery was at we've got a facilities master plan that we can't got out of this and it's a great thing that hasn't been done in 15 20 years we're trying to explain it to the public and the part that we you know to hear is the public explaining what their reactions are and oh no we got to come to this meeting now and not hear what the public says um and it's just how do we do

020all this and juggle all these things newly noted I want to try to keep this on track we want to get stuff done tonight um so that we can end it you asked I the elephant makes happy but again we open the door to just again keep keeping it on track having been a superintendent um context is important technical skills and and and the things that the state C can provide with support is is important but it's in a the context of what bridge boy is experien and we have to kind of keep that elephant on the table and make sure that we address it through our work mark one of something I want to make one so um in the assessment did as you were looking through this um and it's a very different

021one than the type we usually do this is really more about interactions and how you function as a as a team versus do we have a policy manual do we do this you know that typical self- evaluation is more about what do we do what don't we do as a board this is really to get at a better sense of your interactions and how you how you see yourselves as a high performing medium performing board or whatever in a variety of areas and um before we I'm going to try to hit up each of the 11 assessments quickly I do have many overall reactions any comments as to what you saw that either was surprising or um yeah kind of it's us and and I'd also refer you I hope you read the comments some

022of them were very enlightening um but that's part that's part of the re that's part of what you think of each other in some ways or yourselves and um I as I saw it I saw two or three areas and three or four areas that you might want to think about some kind of performance goal but as I say I want this to come from you if you need suggestions we're here but um I really want to leave this open to the floor now any observations for go yeah we still don't have as a goals and objectives by which to measure the superintendent we're supposed to be having a mid peak evaluation as well we're also again falling behind we have trouble as a board and I guess as an Administration as well um keep

023it to timelines things are delayed to the point where it can dropped in our laps we got to make a decision before X Y and Z this is lost these are those these are things we need to work to tightening up us as a board as managers of the superintendent we need to make sure these timelines are met and then we got plenty of time to vet the information that's put before us as far as budgets and everything as as well we can't operate as a board without information and we as a board need to communicate that that is unacceptable with please we can't just approve blanket 20 20 million cuts to two million in Cuts we're not seeing what what we're intending to cut we need to have a menu to address the bud

024anybody else have anything comment I agree the comment a comment because you know golden objectives we have we don't have sh like a vision yet for for ourselves um and a lot of our um a lot of our decision making is reactive that was another com that stuck out to me um you know y maybe jumping head slightly section five of the training is going to be about vision and goals and I see that as a working session to help establish some of that um the big question I think we want to have maybe this this evening or maybe down the road is what do those goals look like shortterm versus long term because you have some opportunities if you just think of yourself setting up for a strategic planning process um that would require

025you to have your permanent super intendment in place I think if You' want their their input on that that's a longer term process um but it might be your goal tonight to say that's going to be one of our objectives down the road or we're going to establish on that evening four or five goals for the next year or two you know not maybe this broad as every child will come out of here with this or that but to say for this next year we're going to that's where you might have the goal of setting up this contingent plan ensuring that the Administration has the appropriate resources to lead the school district that the teachers have as much in the classroom and safety I don't want to leave this conversation though so trying to it

026just but say that there is going to be a session on goals yeah I just got to make this point we can assure that the appropriate resources make it to the CL unless they give us the appropriate resources to distribute what we could do is make sure we distribute the scas resources that the state gives us in the best manner possible I just wanted to well that yeah and I'm again in the interest of the evening and time do we all agree that there's a problem with resources and advocacy is critical to doing your part as as best as possible to pull that in so why don't we that may be one of your issues I just don't want to be dead horse all night because there are other things to talk about right yeah

027it's the first thing you came up right I apologize but there's a false narrative being put out there that we're mismanaging the money and every time it comes up that we got to allocate resources properly it's going to come up that we've got to allocate the scarce resources that we have because that that narrative should not be allowed to bre any shape or form in any form and and I think it's easy for us to say we agree won't speak for not or not we we don't disagree with that one bit um it's why C exists in many ways it's the health advocacy your issues are even more desperate um as our apford the New Haven Etc but um you can only put so much into a formula before the formula breaks if it isn't

028enough money and that's been happening for very long time so outside of that um I mean I I saw several observations um in here that hit a flag rang a bell whatever um what are some of the other things that you need to talk about and I hope this is a safe place tonight we can talk about what we need to talk about we that's going to be myob job to jump in front of the bullet and somebody start shooting um but I I we can't fix something or we can't even comment that it needs to be done if we don't have this chance to talk I think all this talk about getting money and advocating I think they you I think that we have our priorities backwards I think going to be asking the

029state and I hear we I hear us asking the state for money all at time and sometimes I hear people threatening the state you know at times so you know that's not good can't be asking somebody for money and then threatening them at the same time we have a a a council woman who likes to threaten the state and at the same time ask the state for money you can't be both you can't be both people you can't be a tough guy and then at the same time go do things you know take the normal process you got to you got to you got like I said you got to be humble you got to go talk to the people nicely you may not like them but you got you know you you need them

030they don't need you so why are you going to be mean to those people so I said you know and I think before you Advocate you have to get your house in order you cannot advocate for more money when you're spending money out like crazy and you're not trying to get things in order you're just asking for money at least try to get your house in order before you before you advocate for money why why would they give you that's like that's like your your I hate the use it but like your kid your kid goes and you give them money for a haircut and they lose the money for a haircut and then they said that I need a haircut I just gave you money for a haircut so I'm supposed to give you

031money every time you lose your money you know it's that we have to get our house under order before we go ask people for money and we got to stop being mean and and and and threatening them and threaten lawsuits and all this stuff and then asking them for money the next minute that's just my my personal it's interesting when we speak about people and and things because that's the same thing we were trying to do back in the beginning of last year just trying to figure out to balance a budget to get a budget before but we weren't allowed to speak about the budget but then spending was being done without even having a budget before us you know without having a budget before us we were spending money and the same people that

032have their hands up to speak about the money or to you know have the house in order we're running the house under the ground and voting to have the house under the ground which is a matter of public record it's all in the meeting minute so I just can't stand in a room and say we're going to be you know honest with each other when we're not being honest with each other you know my voice was silenced multiple times could ask question we couldn't be Advocate we couldn't do any advocacy because we weren't allowed to ask a question something was on on the table then it was just move into a immediate vote without discussion having everybody respectful that's why if you look at my evaluation I don't know if you guys did personally I

033did I I did something that was done that you know we we have two boards here that's been functioning before December and one that was has been work functioning after December so we had maybe two months only to work as a board with a new board meaning with a new chair new superintendent new Vice chair new secretary and everything we only had about two months to start working and then we have to evaluate the board that's why the number one question that came out that meeting that I recall was are we doing you know using this to assess the last year's Board of functioning or this year for and that was a tough question and it was answered but it was tough to just think about that because that's not the reality that we've been

034we've been living we were living 12 months of chaos and then maybe two months of now we working for we were undoing I didn't know we were doing last year so so to your point though because it is going forward it is existing today and tomorrow not yesterday so what is so the observation might be what are we doing right now and forget about what happened 3 months ago 6 months ago a year ago what do you need to do now and continue to do that get you where you need to go and again I'm paraphrasing just what I have interpreted from what I've heard through articles and through some conversations with Folks at the state the difference between bridport and parkford I think is that the state through their observations of pass has a

035sense that we don't yet have the confidence in this governance board to fix the situation the way it needs to be fixed and that's is why we're going through this that's why we're going through this training so one hopefully if there's a missing skill or missing bylaw or missing procedures or whatever that you'll have an opportunity to work on that that's why we have Ed arum coming in to talk about money it's not you're spending it wrong it's I've evaluated the books here some processes and procedures that are best practices take what you will and Etc so the states back to our friend jumbo here their expectation is we want to have confidence in this board that it will lead and not be part of the problem said the date said the date's G just

036speaking recover superintendent um You Can't Be You Can't Be an Effective chief executive officer for a district if you don't know what your budget is so so I can't imagine going into a school district and being and being cired by a board and not having a budget that I could administer over that I could allocate resources to you absolutely need that so part part of the work that we're doing with the tech technical support and our work you're looking at your bylaws you're looking at your processes for getting a budget established your timeline every district has a particular period where their budget has to be passed right so you go you work your way backwards and you determine when does a superintendent do his drop and run with the budget when does he present to

037the full board when does the finance committee get that budget to then do its due diligence to look at the various object codes go through it and determine what what it recommends in terms of allocations and and and asking the superintendent to make recommendations back to the board as to areas to cut if you have to cut a couple million dollars all that needs to be done as part of the buildup to the to the superintendent's budget becoming the board's budget and then getting it approved by the city and then having a spending plan that the superintendent can then administer on but to have nothing I agree with you how do you run a district effectively without that is anybody who hasn't spoken and then we could go around to those who spoke but just

038for get a raise voices okay now back to the processes and procedures especially surrounding the budget there was all there's already a timeline established was established years of Precedence timeline was not followed last year and we fell behind this year due to repairing the Damage Done by the prior finance committee and prior leadership we had to make no well again again but they're saying we need to put processes in place and a timeline in place when it does exist I can forward it to you later and I'll I'll post it on my Facebook page later so people could see that there is actually a process and a timeline that was not followed so sit here and stay this cut you off a little bit because that's coming up in two sessions where we're going to

039focus on finance and that's the time to say this is the way we used to do etc etc I don't want to tie this up in I apologize but every time I hear a misstatement I'm going to have to correct it for the record I also think and then we'll go to missz and then you got hear um so again this is based this assessment is based on current you know we we've had issues in the past we have to move forward that's the point that's what they're looking for and so we have to take what we're what we're doing right now and go forward with that so we can harp on the pass and keep spending all our training time on that but what are we doing and end of the evening we won't

040have four performance goals to give to the state when they ask for it and then they're going to feel like this was a failure be Christine yeah can you hear me yep okay I just wanted to follow up with the comment that was made earlier regarding the house in order I wholeheartedly agree uh for me and from the materials I reviewed uh from the Council of great City Schools our number one function as a school board is produce student outcomes everything I've seen so far in my four-year tenure on this board has been producing student failures producing lack of opportunities restricting opportunities not using funds stripping Paris stripping interventionist stripping uh restorative uh wanting to strip restorative practice uh officers or stripping them uh getting rid of a chief academic officers getting rid of people

041that were from our alliance grant our directors or curriculum writers like at the end of the day how are we going to produce any kind of positive outcome that's going to net Student Success if we continue to strip all the resources that leads to what's actually impacting the student directly it's just it just seems that this focus on money money money but yet we've shown that even if we receive money we're not using the money responsibly and we keep getting these emails too from Council Members well we have dilapidated school buildings that's a fact it's unsafe that's a fact the facilities master plan show that we have about a billion dollars in repairs that's a fact yet this constant wanting to keep empty classrooms empty unsafe buildings open at the cost of what how does

042that help the student how does it help all the students yeah our house is not in order and I don't see why the state or the tax dollars of the state of Connecticut has to go towards a failing District that refuses to close buildings built in the 1800s that's never been remodeled it's just we can't even show that we're responsibly using the money for the betterment of the children this is not a this is not just a game to keep the dollars in the black but keeping the dollars in the black so that way our students can succeed stripping our our elementaries and middle schools of assistant principles you know it's just there's no a thought into the process of how that impacts to dayt day of the students and so it's just uh I

043I I'm going to just disregard what was said in the past because I ignorance is bliss there's money that was spent that just came out of covid dollars that were use it or lose it so if if individuals don't want to go and read that's that's their loss and and I can't I can't cure insanity but our house is clearly not in order the focus the last focus is the child the student in the City of Bridgeport our resources being offered to them are not being spent responsibly so I don't see why the state should give us more money that's why I haven't advocated years and years okay yeah the city n if I have a five-bedroom house and it's just me in there and I cannot afford it you must downsize we have several

044classrooms where there just five to 10 kids in there yet we don't downsize and we can't even show results for those kids in those classrooms because the majority of our students are Bel low grade level and so I believe the house and order needs to put who's our priority and our priority needs to be the children and how we're going to be able to service them Mr I to your point that you said earlier 86 point that you said earlier that the state came in in January that's when they came there was a vision there was a uh a telescope mark it started in January so this board the way it's functioning now it's not that same board that they were giving a report about that's why I say what I said earlier you know

045that's why I said what I said earlier because it's not the same board that was functioning when they got a letter back in December 3rd that's not the same board exactly the same people that are talking about the house is not in order yeah it wasn't in order because you didn't do nothing to help to get this house in order I'm a new board member so there's six members of this board that are fairly new at that time was less than a year six people you can't say the board of the past is the same one that's right now when there was a dysfunction that was happening many years before there were six people brand new to this board perfect opportunity to start fresh hit a nice reset button that I've been talking about from

046the first day I became part of this board because you have people on this board that never read this this policy they're never ready but they were using the old policies not meaning the top the ones that that was implemented by this board the same people that didn't imp that implemented it from the beginning but they were using the old one but they were the ones that were the board you know there's only three senior people on this board Christine Perez Jose and Albert benan those are the most senior people here that have four year plus everybody else is under two years but taking that thought let's move forward again um um I'm still trying to figure out there's an expectation that something has to change it may be that we've made the change and

047we're happy now but I think we again reading the comments there's still some places that I think people still have some disagreements so if our expectation this evening is to come out with I want to say two or three now maybe it be even one folks it'd be better than zero but if this board doesn't want to utilize this time to say what can we do going forward to make us a more effective leadership governance team then I'm not sure that this conversation is helpful because that's what we need need to we need to learn from your comments from your expectations and say uh you know there was one where people um are sometimes not necessarily treating each other with respect for example that that was pretty obvious from some of the comments so there's

048got to be a way of this board articulating that we have a one of our performance expectations is that we're going to work harder at creating a a that safe place and many of you said I now feel safer than I used to but how do we do we make that built into the DNA of this board so it isn't something that just happens because Jen is more you know better at doing something than maybe someone else was we need to focus on that kind of work or this evening will not really be helpful to you yeah like um I think the a lot of the the decisions you know need to come from Dr Avery we we a lot of times we Advocate like not I didn't say Advocate but I mean we speak

049like we know better and I I said I I know I've said a couple of times we need to listen to the to the experts I like I I like the opinion of expert I don't know why you know a lot of people a lot of other people don't but I think that we should always defer to the superintendent and for for anything that you know or his staff that that their background is like the you know that's their that's their background so you know like I said and it's been times where Dr Avery and his staff they've been the first you know when they when they say you know I heard Geor tell or you know bring us some you know things that we could he was the him and his staff was the

050first people to to to to take a pay cut so you know I I I applauded them for that I I don't think they should have did to tell you the truth but they was that that was them making a step toward trying to help this move this process forward and I said I didn't hear nobody else say you know Advocate which I I'm not advocating for anybody but nobody else came forward and said look I'll take a pay cut so we that help you nobody did that nobody's asking anybody else to do it so you know I I I I think that there's a lot more options that we pursue they know that that we're spending a third of our budget on out of out of District services and stuff like that how don't

051how about we bring about 50 million back and spend 20 million on a school or something like that and you know that's that's that's money right you know there's ways that we could you know have there's plenty of ways they haven't pursued all they haven't gave them NE they've been NE been saying NE has been frustrated our finan they been frustrated because they haven't gave him B options that he knows are out there to save money so you know I think that we need to start putting everything on the table we haven't put everything on the table I I will say and again not to jump for it because I wanted to keep this going but there were a number of comments about board members not necessarily staying in their Lane and letting the superintendent

052be the superintendent and I want to pursue that in a little bit because that came up over and over again in the comments um take you had your hand up next yes please thank you the only way we can keep forward is Let It Go the pass We Don't Let It Go the past we got to keep Cate the same we have to let it go we grow up men and woman here and we have to work together like or he's right now superintendent we have to support him and we know in the B and everything as a board member we have to protect him you know because he's the person you know he got night balls say he know that so working with it good with good communication Let It Go the past because

053that's for the reason you're here to help us and I'm very glad you guys are here that's what we need you know if people to stay here you know to guide and what's going on and talk with that favor and coming to F forward but we're going to be talking about the past and throwing rocks listen before you throw rock be sure you know be before you throw rocks your house is glass so let's Let it go because I'm TI about talking about the past this is p p doneo bye adios let's be present and let's keep forward because kid is watching us people's watching it the whole Connecticut is watching it they know our brid points the first page of anything so let's keep forward and Let's Help the People cabinet and that while

054here one reason our kid want to say that thank you so aligned with that however some something and I'll get to you just a second Christin thanks because I can't see the screen behind me so somebody points it's really good um one of the things that um I I think we need to work on is or you need to work on is that communication with the superintendent so you know talking about not getting information quickly enough you can't just say do it better you have to come to some agreements on what are we willing to sacrifice in order for this to happen that's that's a two-way conversation we'll talk more about that in the next session when we discuss this superintendent relationship with the board um talking about who does what I think that's but

055it's important to establish those because um sever of you have said superintendent is CEO and we and as I see it there's a breakdown a lack of trust not in Dr Avery but in the superintendency and because of and I don't think it was just even just the last superintendent because you've gone through a number of them over the last few years so there needs to be a different level of relationship now and I think there's an opportunity there for all of you to figure that out with Dr ay or depending on what happened with a permanent superintendent you certainly want to have those conversations at at the appropriate time um I know again we have very little to say about what the state's looking at other than try to read their expectations and help

056you do that but I did suggest to them that at some point they may want to um require or it um suggest um that you have a good solid Retreat when you start with the new superintendent to have these kinds of conversations up front so we don't have surprises who's going to make the pro the proper decisions who's going to talk to staff who's going to do those types of things it's helpful to do that right from the beginning so um I'm gonna stop I think Christine had her hand up next and then um let's might be Mr Traer Christine yeah I just wanted to comment regarding the difference to the expert I mean with my four years on this I see a fear-based central office it meaning that there's a lack of control with

057board members Bridgeport has one of the largest voter apathy in the state with probably like one one to two% of Voters turning out and yet the board is not the expert and I've seen experts retract what they believe is actually good resources for our students going back to the students because they fear the board will retaliate and have them lose their jobs and it's clear on the record that we have employees in the district including superintendents that are fearful of the board retaliating against their children def making slander and defamatory statements on Facebook you know this the the experts can't be the experts with this bridge cour board the experts can't be no one on this board maybe the most the highest capacity of served in education is just teacher no one's been a principal

058no one's been an AP no one's been a coach and let alone lead a school district but the experts can't be an expert and one of the problems too is just to disconnect our acting was our deputy and so a lot of stuff that was fully aware as to how we're going to save money the sudden change is not because an expert opinion it's because for fi uh for job survivorship I need to adapt to this board not in the best interest of children not not because we're going to see growth we're not going to see economic opportunities coming for our kids nothing it's just to a few board members that got on by if they're lucky 3,000 votes are because we had s such high turnover that there were seats available and very limited

059applicants you know like a part of this too almost feels like it's putting the cart before the carriage because uh because we have an election with five seats are go turn and and so you know my thing is it I agree with defer with the experts when but when the experts are scared to actually do what's best for children because it becomes a financial security or some other motive a fear retaliation from the board because this board is well known by their different posts to be retaliatory towards uh either members or members of cabinet if they don't get their way and that kind of mob likee or racist or however you want to phrase that mentality that's never going to yield any kind of positive results for children let alone have is actually get the

060right expert opinion because holding a gun to someone's head and this is just a metaphor and telling them to say this just because it's coming out the that's mouth doesn't mean that it's necessarily good but because this board and certain members that still serve on this board may have the Paradigm that now they believe they're inow and control not because they're serving the best interest kid but because they want personal power and control that they the board's so much better and it's functioning no our kids are still failing our kids are still not getting the quality education they deserve we still have a budget to balance and so I would love to rely on the expert but I know the truth is a lot of the the experts that are here now and they might

061actually feel a lot safer now that the state has intervened to limit this board from threatening and bullying the experts around but there's a lot of Disconnect from the last administrations I saw to now that even I would say I I'm apprehensive of believing the expert because the expert in my opinion has just changed to go along with The Narrative of the board and and I don't see how that's going to yield anything positive for the student so I would love to to yield to the expert but um I I just think that there's a lot of stronghold um mobike personalities that are not geared towards the interest of children but personal power and then that interferes with the expert being the expert for the best interest of the students in this District so that's

062that's just what I want to add to it it's just all these people talking about you know now this current it's the same people it's just Powers changed but nothing's gotten better for the kids and the same people that's talking about oh it's a better board because they abuse bullying techniques getting people out of office continued inability it it it doesn't make it a better district for any child and we're going to see that clearly in the data for the students and that's another thing like when it comes to actual student data and performance it it shows that this is not a functioning District thank you um so I would I would stick with the glass houses and the Rocks but I think I go with the U that he who was without s cast

063the first stone um instead I used to play around with all of them in my class um and move on from after that one uh the fact of the matter is we are functioning on a level that most people in the city feels is a refreshing change and uh this city has a historic um uh historically uh divisive history on the board of that and it's not just the people in this room it's many of our predecessors on all levels um and so uh people have found the last few months to be uh amazingly different um and um it should be a goal to continue that um and I asked you at the last meeting how are we going to rate ourselves when we've already made a major change and we have and that should

064be a goal to continue that change and I would urge us to try keep behind that uh people are participating more people are talking more we are exchanging ideas can this we reate that and at least we're hearing each other disagree um and that's really important um and without without trying to be provocative and disagreeing with anybody here at this point I think it's important that we hear each other disagree um and so that's the beginning of having rational discussion is is that we all get to articulate our point of view and we hear from each other and hopefully we find some common ground and move forward and I think you're seeing that more and more we had some very interesting votes at the last board meeting last week uh as to who voted with

065who on what issues uh including I think Christine and I voted on one the same way on an issue um which was unique um so I I think that uh that's what we need to continue doing so so I want to push not push back as much but get you to articulate so what is that because if if you a go doesn't have to mean we have to do something it might mean we want to pick up where we are right now and keep moving forward yes that's what I'm saying so what what is it that's happening that you can articulate as the board is currently doing this and we work towards we're having full and open discussions um and that's what we want to keep doing um and and and so we're listening to

066each other we're discussing things in a way that we weren't doing before and so now we're doing that and we're having those those complete discussions around the issues before we take a vote and in taking those votes we're having different votes than we've had before um and you know that's just the beginning of of having a better board a healthier board than we've had before and we're not all agreeing on everything about everything and and I think in that issue Marissa voted a different way than I did and Christine voted the same way I didn't it was just and Joe and I didn't vote the same way as so as it was a it was a weird vote but it was like a reflection of what the board is doing differently um and so so

067I heard that from several comments but I also heard comments saying the contrary to that so not everybody agrees with you at least when they were in the in the confidence of the voting the facts speak for themselves in the votes at the last board meeting um and you know it it it it didn't make everybody happy but we had a a healthy discussion and healthy votes that not everybody liked the outcome but it was different than before and that's what's better about the board in the direction we changed it and that's why I somewhat resented the the state department event coming in and saying we don't like what you're doing well we already started doing it let us keep doing what we've done and that is what we're doing and it is a healthy

068change and so that is a change that we should get credit for and we want to keep doing is having these healthier discussions so Andre is talking and saying where he disagrees with us and and that's good that's a good thing um and I think that's all better um you know I don't agree with what he said a minute ago but he's disagreeing with me and that's all good I'm going to push on on Nick's part in terms of looking at structures is there the best way to ensure that you continue moving in this direction that flywheel effect and keeps spinning in the right direction is to to be able to identify what it is that you're doing now that's different than what you were doing is it just simply that you're just it's more

069of an interpersonal issue or are you following bylaws that we weren't following are you sticking to B laws that we weren't sticking to just so we understand what you are doing now so we can replicate it and move that train forward I think the chair is letting everybody have their say and everybody is speaking and feeling like they have the right to say there's peace and disagree with each other in facilit you have yeah sir thank you so um in terms of the survey and the comments I've reviewed them and one thing that I will say um it is at least for me it was very intimidating coming into this board um because just a few months ago it's not the way it is now but I will say um when I did step in

070and got sworn in it almost felt like we were always working reactively like there's a fire we have to put it out let's put our bra together and figure this out and and now at least um in the last finance committee meeting we were thinking about okay we have to make these major budget cuts but if we do get properly funded what are those things that we would bring back so we're starting those conversations on being proactive which is kind of where as a board I feel like we should be living in being proactive and not so much reactive um so those are conversations and um item that we've actually brought up to um Dr Avery as well so just kind of want to put that out there yes we are dealing with the issues

071that we have to because of the situation we're in but we're also trying to look Beyond and into the future as well yeah I think you hit what you said all say now we are BN we're staying within policies we are staying within thing we're looking at that and to her to ex com and to Mr Tre that we have a chair now that is working to have everybody inclusive which was completely different to what we had last year you know and we were silent we were you know ridiculed we were disrespected all that stuff was happening and we didn't have a voice to have discussion like Mr TR said you know to to my colleague Mr Mr Woodson you know in the last two months three months we've heard so much Insight coming from

072him directly that we never heard all last year and that's my opinion and it's great to hear his thing because we we don't mind having disagreement I know some of us don't mind other people just think disagreement means that we're fighting with it no that's part of discussion that's part of having a dialogue we were not able to have this it was a controlled atmosphere and that's what was going on before it was a dictatorship that was what was going and that's why it's different that's why it was hard for me to you know they received the letter December 3rd all of a sudden January the state comes in January 9th I believe that was the first meeting we had with them so they were only going with what they saw before January 9th nothing

073forward from it and this is a completely different board you know and to Pi up the leadership that we have right now understood always I guess happening last year and was able to say Okay I want to do this differently it was her vision I I can't speak for her whatsoever but we knew that it was going to be different automatically we had a hope of that why because we were all now have a voice we can all talk and not not be silenc completely silen I'm talking about Silence by microphone we can have meetings now in public with the public or not with them in the public but not with the public we can have that now before it was taken away from the public we are public official we were voted some of

074us not all of us but we were voted and so we didn't have that so yes now we have a better structure we're trying to stay within those guidelines we're learning more about them like I said before there's people that have never read with five are whatsoever the old new president or whatever we got today but they haven't read them they don't understand it you know Mr a my understanding is he's the commanding and chief he's the one that think he is we hired him to do a job and it's him to bring forward the program it's for us to help him and guide him but nowhere in here that I see in the bylaw is for us to be uh trying to demand achievement all that stuff you know what I know one thing

075that this board has never talked about that I've voice it all the time over 100 classrooms are being taught by permanent or substitute or or temporary Subs how is a district is ever going to move forward antire thing and it has to do with funding unfortunately how we going to move forward when we have over 100 plus classrooms not being taught by certifi teacher how are our students going to learn I'm sorry I don't know who's teaching them you know talking about instruction we talking about instruction over 100 classrooms I mean that's what I want to try to fix and help to try to fix this to that way we can get proper instruction in the classroom for they where they can get it growth and that way we can get better achievement and that's

076the standard that the state has not me I I just read it and learn it and learn from those experts that we're talking about Andre I'm gonna call on you next Joe has had a lot of opportunities we give him one right after you but you get to go first um I guess I I I agree with but I agree with Mr but but we we we we're trying to run a business know like you said they they you know they talk about about um you know like my thing is student teacher ratios and and and and our contract it says that we could have up to 25 students and 29 uh high schools something like that if you're not being a uh uh phisically responsible but you want the state to give you money

077you know how that you can't have them both you know we we're trying to do something hard we're trying to do something that's that's uh I mean I I'm sure it's been done somewhere but you know people I don't know what what type of bubble people live in but this stuff that's happening in BR is happening all over the United States I was just want to say I I was just reading an article that um came in Connecticut Post I think it was Sunday I just left my phone but oh it was it was about unlike anything we ever seen how Co has caused issues in Connecticut school 5 days later all the issues that we're talking about here it's nothing new it's nothing new it's just how you deal with it who who are

078the people that you have in that you have in in a responsible position that that deal with it and and our people that we that we ar dealing with it the best that they could you know it's like I said it's not anything new what's what's roughly the Bridgeport budget this year 315 million 315 million so 309 you're talking about a 10% shortage facts 39 309 and we're talking I last I heard about $31 million short short so that's about 10% and while the numbers were drastically different our budget was $23 million but we got cut 2.3 so we had the same 10% cut we had to lay off 10% of our teachers we had to lay off every pair of professional we stopped buying anything no field trips no anything and and we had

079to oversee that and and Bloomfield again very different demographics well in some ways very different demographics in other ways not but the the reality was we had to struggle with and and what we had to do was trust our superintendent and say you got to help us find this money and when he came back with proposals sometimes we liked them sometimes we didn't but we had to the overall picture was better in his eyes than anyone else and but this so that's one example where we did have to make those tough decisions and I'm not giving any of you any I'm giving you all the profits in the world for having to deal with this because it is horrible especially those of you have been on the board a while and it felt like you're

080building all this time and all of a sudden you've been y the rug out from under you um but I got one more point to I want to say too okay one more and then Joe like U you know everybody was saying I was quiet because I was getting the comments online too and and and on Facebook but what people don't realize is you don't come into a position like even you know Miss Miss himz said you don't come into this position just knowing everything you hit the ground run no so it took time you have to listen you have to understand you have to know the history you can't just be speaking on stuff and I understand people went to me meetings in Harford and stuff like that but it's nothing like sitting here

081getting the information making the hard decisions like whether somebody's job is going to continue and stuff like that you know there's nothing there's nothing like that so just people know I wasn't just not listening and agree with everything I was listening really really paying attention to what's going on trying to get a feel of what's going on and then making a a comment you know you can't just be speaking just to be speaking just to have your voice heard so be on YouTube or whatever it's not that's not the point of what we be here we we we just wna I I just want to be informed before I spoke that okay Joe you're going to be the last and then I want to see if we can narrow down to a couple performance goals

082that this board can agree have because we don't walk out with that the state's going to be looking over our shoulder saying well you failed to they failed but minus points I don't want that to happen so I and it might be just continue what we're doing but I want to we should walk out of here with some acknowledgement that this board is going to do something over the next six months year whatever to improve whatever that means I think this will go towards actually creating a goal and in staying in all thingss the first thing first and foremost thing we need to do is understand our leads to understand that the State Statute empowers us and demands of us the Board of Education to deliver a balanced budget Board of Education could be held

083liable for a shortfall in that budget the board of education's Lane is to manage the budget to hire the superintendent to be involved that's why every time there's a cut that comes the board of education has to vote on it what is being suggested by listening to the superintendent is We R Done we don't have to we shouldn't have to vote that every single thing that's put before us by any superintendent should be liked but no but no that's not it is we are responsible for this budget this is our budget yes supp the superintend supp to bring us suggested cuts and we could also bring Cuts we could also bring Alternatives as a thinking board as a participating board to rely on one person without question is to Advocate your responsibility that we all

084ran for and or got appointed for and sought out this position to do to be stewards of the tax dollars that we given superintendant if the only job was to hire the superintendent let him do his job they could just let the May if the state statute was intending on that it would just let the mayor appoint the superintendent and be done with it there would be no Board of Education we would be uselessly redundant so first we got to understand our role in the budget process and in other processes in order to carry out the mandate state to understand what those are and a lot of that's going to come up in our next session not it but that's to be all I said he was the last but you haven't spoken yet tonight

085and it's gonna be really quick I promise okay yeah so um although I agree that this board has done a really great turn around since the Christmas break really good like I see the difference um what my comment is to that is is it a positive difference because the state is involved and has implemented this technical support team um me personally these are my feelings what happens after the state walks away and says you know what you guys are good I'm just saying thinking forward you guys are good we don't need to be involved anymore does all the chaos return because leopards never change their spots they never change their spots and so although I agree that things are almost honestly they're very much better at least we're respecting one another because that definitely wasn't

086going on over the last year and a half but how long is it is it going to be something that's going to last the distance are we going to learn from the experience of YouTube being here and the um technical support team being here and that's a comment that's not a question that's what I'm telling you how I feel but it but it raises a very interesting concept because we we can all be good for a little while yeah please I I agree and there's still room for growth because five people turned this in on time by the 5m they went well four actually on time and then we got another after the yeah but it was two came in after the deadline and then you're right following week we three more kid yeah so

087eight Al together out of nine and we didn't all turn have the right at the deadline so like there's still so much room like if we are trying to do this change and and we've seen some changes but we're not even doing what this the the bare minimum is we had a month to do this three weeks three to four weeks to do this and so and that's is not I'm not pointing out who did or didn't do it but the point is like this was just the bear ass like one hour to do this if that right and and and you have three and a half weeks to do it four weeks to do it so and then we got our hand slapped for it so you know there's there's there's still so much

088room to actually grow like we we're saying there's growth we're saying there's there's change behaviors but is there really when you don't when this bare minimum thing couldn't get done one of the things I think Jody's going to talk about so I'm not going to S sum but the of protocols meeting expect meeting Norms um Beyond just like a a policy or a bylaw that says here's how the boards going act but really to get you to um I've seen some boards even establish some sort of list of these are the things I'm going to adhere to and then everybody signs it for example um I'm going to leave that to JY to maybe articulate that a little better but I I acknowledge the idea that I still think you need to be able to

089say the state we're feeling like we're in a better place this is a plan of action to ensure that that stays that way or that we continue in this direction and I'm I'm needing some help wording something for you that would say we're going to continue professional development to improve our skills improve our protocols improve our our interactions I I just the absence of that leads to exactly what you know not to mention whatever you create as a culture in the next three or four months what happens in November when you have a brand new board can you be able to say to these new people well you know what this is how we do things now rather than you know we've been this way we've been that way what are we going to be

090like next time but that you have done this long enough that it's part of your culture and that that someone new coming in is going to say I either want to be a part of that or I accept that this is how we do business but you have to be able to articulate it and you have to make sure that it's it's entrenched in here and you don't have a lot of time so I I heard just going going to Joe's comment about Lanes I think Lanes is a really critical element that has to be drawn in somehow to the goal because you know there's thing that Joe said as as a been retired superintendent I might disagree with in terms of the word manage budget I managed the budget as a superintendent the board

091voted on the budget it be it was the board's budget um but I was the one who managed it day to day and ensured that the budget was being carried out effectively and and the finance committee met monthly the finance subcommittee met monthly it looked at all the accounts they looked at where were there overages where there underes it looked how I was spending the money and had questions and from their through their questions I was able to go back to my Administration and redirect our efforts and allocating the funds so we weren't in we weren't in April wondering how we're going to make up a $6 million difference we were talking about that as we were looking at the forecasting model that my finance director is coming up with so but but I think

092your point about Lanes is really critical because words matter and and and and if we don't establish if the board doesn't establish what its Lane is it's not it's not a rubber stamping rubber stamping Lane it's understanding what its role is it is the board's budget it is it is adopted by the board but is the board reading contracts is it when I was last here is the board's job to sit and read cont contract with a vendor around that that was voted on by the board to have as a vendor and I don't know if I think it's good use of the board's time for nine people to look at with legal a legal contract that's what you trust the superintendent to do with his team but you certainly want to oversee the the

093vendor's work and for the superintendent we like a report on what this vendor is doing for our district how much money do we spend so far how much money is we expecting to spend so you don't end up the end of the year over budget and liable for being over budget so that's when I talk about Lane that's a really critical conversation around your role as a policy maker Your Role to elect to appoint the superintendent to give the B the superintendent the opportunity to put his team together so you can hold the superintendent accountable for the team you put together so he can't come back to you and say this isn't my team it's your team and I can me accountable for your team that's not a fair position I wouldn't take a I

094wouldn't take a job as a superintendent if I didn't have the opportunity to develop my to bring in my team and have the board hold me accountable for the team I brought in so it's those conversations when I think about laying that are really important and I think that's a really important foundational goal for this board let me add to that I think that's important I mean I've kind of set and i' I've kind of experienced probably more so than anybody else in this room room the different nuances of of old new next one in line for the position but I think it's the trust issue it's the not the trust issue of anybody that sits here it's just the position you know and I think there's there's been so much history in Bridgeport regarding

095the trust of the superintendent and it just it just hovers over everything and everybody that's in the seat you know and that's hard for for any superintendent to to to Grapple with and to deal with because like you said you would never take a job you know if you research that District you Google every board member you Google the district perspective on the day the day you're all in the news who would want to even begin to take a take a job you know but I I've lived it for for the year and a half guys I've seen so much damn potential of what we could do as a district but it's just it's it's muddy the water is just really really muddy but I see so much potential and I I've been through all

096kinds of boards i' again 30 plus years in the business and so I get it uh and I've seen boards snap out of it and do really really well you know and I and my hopes is that this board will be able to do the same thing you know but it's it's the lanes you know it's it's how we weave through the different lanes because we want to on individual occasions and not all the time but it's just it's not a straight pass to where the team the team Miss Baptist Perez made a a very valid point my team is so gunshy31 targeted at them you know and it and it was not intentionally but there was just there was so much stuff happening with individual board members that it was just and I don't

097even think anybody realized what was happening but it was happening so I think it's just we got to move away from that you know you know and I Le differently than previous administration you know that's just what I do you know but I but I also feel like I'm pretty guy I I saw what happened to the previous administration I'm not going to let that happen to me you know because why you you live and learn these things you know and so it's it's understandable that my job is to try to give you the best I can give you every single day you know and I try to do that uh and I feel we have an opportunity here with the state coming in and when the state comes and she said it there we

098we could breathe a little bit including myself guys I'm I'm not trying to hide anything but it it's it's refreshing to say okay I can go to this that Tech that technical assistant team and I can say hey we need I'm getting ready to come up with $32 million worth of cuts guys that's one of the hardest things I ever done as a as a school superintendent but I'm bringing it to because board members want it I'm G to lay it out there I'm gonna it's going to be very sinc it's going to be but it's it's it's a process that I'm going to lay out to this board and have a a good conversation around it and maybe it's it's it wasn't quick enough for some people and maybe it was you know but

099I think it's time for us to be able to figure out a game plan you know I think the timelines of the budget process you can't always go back what happened five to six years ago life is different now you know experiences are different situations are different in this District so we have to plan it accordingly shift a little bit you know but you still have a you have a framework but you can still shift it a little bit and still make it work for us right so that's hopefully what we're going to be doing collectively together uh moving forward and thank you for that um and I what I also remember and again I say in jod time now um I'm here for the in in the comments there were a number of comments

100saying that board members interfere with the operations of the district which is a little different than second guessing the superintendent you know as you start to take on the leadership of the district more so it's more of you leading rather than sort of reacting to your situations um there's a difference between them challenging you as the leader or saying I'm not sure I like all the budget recommendations for example versus then interfering with your ability to lead the district where they're going to outside staff members or your C or your administrative team or even coming to you and saying I want you to do this or I think you should do that that you work for the collective entity known as the Board of Education and you've got to be very comfortable if any of

101your board members come to you and say I think you should do this well you know we're going to talk to Jennifer we'll put it on the agenda and if you convince the board to vote for it becomes my work and you need to be comfortable saying that back to this sort of atmosphere of fear that we've heard from a couple people you need to feel comfortable saying it board members need to be able to listen to that and hear it and if they think it needs to be done then it becomes a board decision it becomes your work but I I also know that when you're when you're coming to the board with $30 million of reductions I mean I I I I I was in a position where I had come to my

102board several different years with billion doll reduction that's hady change for you I know but but what my work was as a as a district leader as a superintendent was to make sure that my staff knew that that these reductions the names were going to be on these reductions but lot of your teachers know who these reductions are AED at they know are in in terms of numbers of years of experience but your job is really going it's when you tied up making sure and trying to control the communication path with your teachers so they don't feel like they're being degraded or they're feeling like they're not being treated professionally so that that's that's a really important role for you and you want to make sure that that as a superintendent your your board is

103aware of that role and that they're not take they're not in your lane doing that kind of because that's a point a good point that you make though because that's it's you have different difference of opinions with that as well because do we have a chaotic perspective moving forward or not so but you get judged because you're you got feelings of everybody in in in in front of your decision to provide those cuts so it's so again it's it's a mix it's it's mixed so we have to be able to be you know a happy medium there to be able to make that so because it's going to be very difficult to be able to do but and I'm assuming that you're not sitting in your office with a sharpie just exting stuff out on

104your own either you're going to your staff and saying at the principal level what can you do in your building what can you do in this department that and you're collecting that and trying to make sense of what they're giving you like making an assumption we got that on the board I mean on on the horizon right now I I solicited to them I want to pull us away from this conversation a bit because that's next week that's only next Monday night we're going to be delving into this a little more and um it's going to be important that we remember what we've talked about tonight but Lanes it's l l yeah but final push for us to come up with something that says here's what we want to do for the next 6 months

105or or whatever or whatever um that's going to reinforce us as this allnew highly effective Bridgeport Board of Education what do you how do you word it so that you can say to the state because they're the ones that are asking for this we are committed to doing XY or Z in the next six months or a year in order to um better the work toward the rich public schools and more importantly the 19970 children that um are we're responsible for can I suggest one yes please I'm looking for something please develop and Implement a comprehensive budget plan that ensures fiscal responsibility and sustainability for the next five years that that really encompasses everything that this board should be doing it should be one of the number one things and making sure that we're fiscally

106responsible for everything that we do and then when you start digging into that it's do they have money to have curriculum do they have money to pay teachers do they have money to develop programs that's going to enhance the ability for kids to learn so that develop and then developing it together do a whole new restart on that I think it would be a beautiful thing to be able to do uh moving forward that written that I do have a read job good could you email that to me tomorrow yeah I have a job I will um but but it's speaks to because part of I think the Dilemma that you face is you've got triage going on right now the victim is bleeding out and yet you also have to be concerned about the

107wellness of the patient because that's the goal isn't to have the patient live the goal is to have children learn yeah and so how do we preserve what we can you know I mean and again for all the all the reasons I think that really make sense to people get rid of Administrators well if in order for a school to be successful there needs to be a certain level of administration that's your educational leadership so we have to maintain enough of the system while we're cutting gouging stabbing all the horrible things to say this helps us get through the next six months but we also have that five years we have to be able to say we plan on being better at teaching children math English whatever it might be that's that's why we're all

108here that's what drives all of you there's a lot of things you have to do but that's what makes this that's why you're that's your purpose can we can we commit to to to doing something that has something to do with the statistics that come in because this one of the statistics that we had got in is that there's going to be a decline in population for the kids so nobody everybody's talking about keeping schools open don't close this don't we got a decline coming up in the next 10 years in the population what are we doing building plan is going to take 10 years to implement give or take well my assumption is that part of the study that you're doing also looks at projections for student enrollment so they got to believe them

109they they sometimes they act like they don't believe you know what the like oh no how the kids be going down we're getting a r that's what the study says you there there's demographers out there not always right it's like weatherman but but they do their best and they're based a lot of this stuff on data that's what we got to go by but I I think it goes back to of Dr ay's talk about sort of A Five-Year Plan that's going to include and and again that strategic plan and I strongly suggest that that be a long-term goal for this board is to establish a strategic planning process and get understand and I learned this from someone else I'm not that much of a genius the Strategic plan is not more important than strategic

110planning it isn't the finished document that is all inclusive we have that because I've noticed in this District what you call Strategic plan is really the superintendent wrote some goals we need goals we and again you all acknowledge that that was this was full of we need goals so I I get that but a strategic plan is more than that because it's not just nine people and the superintendent sitting in the room and writing something you include your community it's a really great and we don't do this so I'm not trying to sell us on something so um there are people that can really do a good job of that for you to me that's another long-term goal for this board to be in a position where we trust trust the the community to help

111us develop a long-term plan that focuses on learning um we still getting sidetracked a little bit Joe yes yeah to go I would like I like Dr Avery's goal and integrace what Mr Woodson was speaking of because there will be cost Savings in right sizing our district possibly potentially in a future that's going to be baked into the numbers however I would like to offer a friendly Amendment or addition to Dr A's thing beginning with delivering a balanced budget while keeping in mind the rest of them because we need we need that shortterm goal too because that's the fire we need to put out right now and that has to have the most urgency and to keep in mind that we still need to function as a district as we are making these Cuts as

112well are we on the right are we on the right page of what you're looking for for tonight I want to make sure we're focusing on that yes I think a finance plan is is one of those things that's really critical that's also going to be the subject of the conversation when Ed arum comes in to talk about Finance because the state's expectation there is to develop a plan and processes for managing the budget more effectively so it Dove Tales very nicely with Dr A's suggestion so your goal being followed through on that other session will be very helpful so I think that's a very good good step I don't know that Finance is the only thing that you should be you know um again there's been several people that have talked about the importance

113of learning and should there be a saying we want to reemphasize within our meetings and our our board work student achievement and I really apologize because you had your hand up before and I did not come back oh um so something since I came on board I had a great conversation with Danielle and she actually brought it up to my attention that we needed goals so during all our conversations I've actually been writing down adjectives like what does everyone in the room feel that we need and using that I came up with like a list of different items that many different people throughout this room um put together and I used AI artificial intelligence to generate our goals so they're impartial and of that so some of those it it spit out six total goals

114so one of them was around enhanced student achievement which I believe Mr wson and aesa were bringing up insuring fiscal responsibility which completely covers what Dr Avery was chatting about promoting constructive criticism and I think this goes back to you know having that feedback even though we're not agreeing on something we can still respectfully speak about it hold ourselves accountable um and I can send this to the team because it's kind of flumpy and I won't read all all of them yeah um increasing Workforce Development for students and for teachers as well um that's kind of long-term because we're we're not in a situation where we can spend money on that but going forward and being proactive is where we kind of want to live um so um that was one of the rules um

115goals so the all in all that's kind of what it came up with um but yeah just kind of wanted to put that out there I I enjoy doing that because I've done it with a couple boards where you because the hard part is you get all the stuff stickies on the wall and you have to press words let the AI do it for you job five seconds it was low yeah so and that may and it may be that last one is something that goes on the the um next set of goals which is more District Focus rather than what's this board going to do because the first one's our budget working Better Together focusing on student achievement a lot of you in your comments made the comment um several times that we don't

116spend enough time talking about the data in our meetings that we're not focusing on the achievement rather we're talking about you know Killer Bees bosses books plus budget um I add blowers because we fight over snow blowers sometimes too um but buildings buildings yeah absolutely I that one off but um I just built a PowerPoint SL screen that has all of been on there just question clarifying question for me um is is there a chance that rather than writing a goal that the board could write a theory of action that would basically say if we do this or if we do these things we will get so student achievement could be the end of that theory of action but it would require looking at right sizing buildings it would require a balanced budget would require

117a budget that's directly looking at student ACH so would that is that I don't dis I think that's a good planning session for moving forward yes but I don't think that gets us where we need to be well first of all we don't have the time to do that soon and and I'm not as skilled as others are in leading the and perhaps you are and but you give you the chalk next time but um and I I think when we get to the vision part that may be an important part of the conversation but for the purpose of tonight are people comfortable with moritz's three maybe incorporating a little better the language that Dr Avery put in because I think he was a little more specific which I think does I and again I'm

118only speaking for my understanding what I've heard I think that's what the state is kind of looking for is give us some action steps that will help us perform better and I think being more specific to for this part of it because again we're going to have more goals in section five where we can have deeper conversation about that type of work um but outside of that would those let's say those first three goals in particular help address some of the things we've heard was it Financial oversight student achievement and like working or Finance I'm thinking if you can take M some of your goals that deal specifically with student achievement and then and then the other goal perhaps around you know governance yeah around lanes and identifying roles and responsibilities I'd also like to

119know which one of those um overlap with Dr ay because Dr ay had written our oh his his those were just the basics just to kind of focus the work for the next no I understand the reason for them but I just I think they're important and I think that if some of what she is saying is overlapping then we should take care of that but I mean you know it just sounds to me like I don't want to reinvent the wheel you know he came up with a lot of great ideas and I think that they should be implemented and maybe if she has something different than what he has it should be included so are district right those are district and that's going to be the subject of our fifth session together when

120we talk about oh we're talking about Bo this is what are you going to do gotcha disclosure I hope they're not listening but how do we get the state off our back what do we have to commit to and I didn't say what do we have to say because if you just say it don't do it they're going to be they're they're not interested in words and they're not interested in being at the table they're interested in seeing it change but just so I'm clear what Dr Avery has is District goals and what she's talking about our board goals yes or no or are they or your action goals for moving forward yes the other the five is how we move forward by incorporating all those five different things to get us to a point

121where we can build a strategic plan at the end of that in order to be able to incorporate that into longm right a longterm I understand shortterm but long term at the same time some that's going to be a long time all right so I just so we've got the goal for financial um well-being for lack of a better term but you said it you articulated that really well and I I have it written down and we talk about student achievement our learning objectives learning goals how to focus I think the other one I wrote down was support social emotional Wellness for all School Community uh oh support in Social and emotional Wellness for all School Community matters and that's that's just a very Global thing for the board social emotional workers they need it

122too they they get just stressed out as we get so I think it's important for that whole piece if they focus in on that they're going to take care of themselves but they also going to take care of you know staff students we include sh include modeling the behavior true um that might change that the other thing I would say is probably because another thing we heard over and over again bylaws bylaws bylaws meeting Norms protocols that you need to establish a better understanding of how we're going to interact to each other and I for the lack of better term call them meeting norms and I think developing a set of those would be very important just in terms of who's going to communicate with each other how are we going to comport ourselves perhaps

123and Jody will talk about um we may start our next session on some of this if we don't get mov because I want to make sure it goes with what my colleague was talking about if we don't get to this and I know it's a responsibility of the uh superintendent to bring forward to us for us to approve and I being new on the board this is my second year right now um is you know to identify our curriculum to know what's working what's not because I heard during the all last year that there was a lot of things going on things that were purchased that not being used that and all and I I don't know we all know as a board you know what are our curriculum thingss you know what is it

124that he can bring that can save us money possibly or things that can work that way every campus is you know focused LS to focus on you know achievement and getting you know uh you know growth that we can get so in that the the fifth meeting where we talk about um goals I think that's a good I'll call it a short-term goal again it's something that keeps going but to ensure that the structure towards instruction at the best level because um it's curriculum it's instruction it's professional development it types in all these different things um it's like one giant tent that we all have to fit everything under um how you can articulate that would be best done on that session but I I do think it's important that you because that's got to

125be why you do this that's got to be the purpose of all this work is to focus on if we do everything right kids learn if we don't do everything right kids may not learn and that's not what anybody wants you know I say that more also because I want to know it but also because I don't know if I'm wrong and again I speak with the board not at the board and not at you but towards you because when people say that we're not we as a board or say me that I am not focused on student achievement you know I haven't read anything any policies in ours or any other policies of other boards and other states even that I've read that says that we have control over that we don't have control

126over that to me is superintendent takes care of everything goes under you know as far as that I know that he he or she that's in a position of superintendent bring recommendations to the board to approve or to align uh curriculums I understand new curriculum all that stuff I understand that because I read it and I know that's one of the things it's not us bringing a curriculum over to the superintendent no the superintendent brings it to us as the recommendation is this one is not working I've talked to the teachers to the STA you know the staff the directors whatever we feel this one is better and we can actually you know speed right through it and get into it because the teachers know this it's something that's older maybe and it's been proven

127maybe another town next to us have it or not but again that's not our goal to bring forward a curriculum it's a superintendent and staff not ours did you have do you have a standard committee a curriculum committee yes we do instruction support sir so so that would be a place where the board having could establish or or having a curriculum committee could schedule through that committee different presentations from various parts of the community that that the superintendent would work with you to bring we have a new literacy curriculum a new um a new science reading curriculum um you would that that committee would meet monthly get a presentation and share back to the full board about what it heard and why what you know and go through the various objectives of of the of

128the curriculum and what it's going to do for students what are the measures of success of the curriculum and and really and look at it again from from a a balcony level as to what this curriculum is doing how it ties with other curriculum how it's improving instruction what are the metrics you're going to be looking at and asking the superintendent to provide to the full board to show this there's growth in these areas that the curriculum was going to address so you're not actually again managing the curriculum you're not proposing the curriculum you're hearing about it and asking questions about it and and holding the superintendent accountable for results with and that's going to come up next week a little more because when we talk about the the barriers the lines Lanes um expectations

129board superintendent relationship that's going to all come up I think there and that might be one of the things we want to touch on directly but but that that would to me that as an outsider that would be that would be if I looked at your board and I were doing a a an analysis of your board that would be those would be the kinds of questions I would be asking what do you know about the curriculum in your District what what What mechanisms do you have in place to learn about those those curriculum matters what what how do you hold your superintendent accountable for results so it's those kinds of that's that's board level conversation not I think we I think this dist District should have this curriculum and um the superintendent needs to

130take this and and run with it it's overseeing his work that area pull this back one more time okay sorry point so close so close I don't want to be that team that you know last Bill Buckner you know um those of you old enough to remember Bill Buckner please don't bring it up so I I think if you could and I'm going to ask maybe that you send them to me and I'm going to try to take what I've heard create something share it back with you make sure you're happy with it um but I I would like to be able to send the folks and and at the sde that you reflected on this that you thought through some things and while you're very you are happy with the direction you're going in

131that you acknowledge here's some more work that has to be done and the development of plans to do that will be forthcoming because don't want to get mired into the solutions before we've really clearly agreed on what the problems are because too many boards spend their time on Solutions when they haven't agreed on what the problem is that always leads to chaos checking to make sure there's no little yellow symbols on it um and if we can walk away with that then I won't feel like we wasted two hours or an hour and 45 minutes I hope you don't feel that way is it fair to say that there should be at least three goals one dealing with with student achievement one dealing with lanes and governance and one's dealing with fiscal um I agree

132that's good y i i see possibly part of that the lanes one being set of protocols that we all agreed to governance yeah governance that you know we will work through the superintendent we will be respectful etc etc um some boards actually have this thing and they all sign it every year they have literally sign as a pledge but we don't have to get that specific just yet but um there are examples that we can provide down the road as well to help with that did we do we leave how we treat each other that right I'm take critically important oh absolutely absolutely well that get in the protocols because part of that is going to be how we treat each other but yes but I think it's important to stay to the goal that

133we are going to work towards working Better Together absolutely yeah you have the goal make specifically thank you for breing that the more we reinforce it that that's important the better yeah because whether it happened before or after the state came in here and I understand Miss cir's point we want to embed it in function that whatever happen in November for example that there's something it gets it gets embedded in have this should function right it shouldn't just be for the nine of us it should be we want to take a 5 minute break and then ody can come and you need a we keep going when you hit 70 you need that five minute round our colleague today reminded me that I'm closer to the age of 119 than I am to the age

134of 19 oh that's I didn't say that much too young guy closer to 19 the last three weeks since since um Nick and I were last here just to kind of give you a again I use the word time SE for just to give you an idea of what what I've been up to and what I asked you to do last week around the bylaws I had one of those uncomfortable moments whereas a facilitator or or someone doing this work making a statement around how great it was in your bylaws all approved in 2019 and when I got a few little fuzzy eyeball looks and said I don't think you really did your homework and so that being the smart guy this that's a signal I I have one assumption the board has a different

135assumption but what was really important for me was to through that experience find out what your bylaws were because you guys know that we cave is doing a policy project with you guys and um and that started back in August and and talking with superintendent his team around what are the critical areas around this work that what are the urgent things we need to do and then we can go from there we can we can chunk it out um some districts for example some districts for example you step in the hallway it out the thank you um so to make the long story short there we we've been we've been engag with a policy project with with with you guys and and that's going on for a threeyear period um so but we wanted to

136make sure that we started with the right urgent moves and that was around mandated policies that were missing mandated policies that needed updating and that's important because if for example you had an a complaint around a harassment issue and and someone brought that complaint to the board or or to the administration and there wasn't a policy that directed the superintendent on how to act who does what around this complaint that person would then have the right to go to OCR the office of civil rights and they would do an investigation the first thing they would ask is what's your title n policy and if she said we don't have a title n policy or what title n policy then then it becomes major issue for the board it's an issue of liability but it's also

137an isue have time allocation what your superintendent will be doing for the next three months with OCR to go to meetings and and and it's just not a place where you want to be so the key thing around the board's policy workers getting a mandated policies adopted um and getting your your mandated policy that you have but are need updating to get the old policy resented and the new updated policy adopted and and again my only advice to you would be to whatever you need to do to expedite that and and again having been a superintendent in a similar position I worked with my policy chair and came up with a strategy to okay we have 23 missing mandated policies let's take four a meeting and move move move to adoption bring to the board

138let's not sit with it let's get them adopted and then once they get adopted you can then step back and then you can begin to really look at those policies more carefully is this a policy where we can add our own language to it can we can we tweak this a little bit but you really want them adopted and that's and I get I I suggest with the superintendent and with with your your policy chair to just sit through those and determine what are the 23 missing mandated policies what's our plan for getting them adopted and then also there other strategic things that you that the superintendent and the board can do around getting those policies adopted you can um wave your two reads to get them adopted right away you can you can do

139a two read but then also not get into the the word smithing that boards like to get into do we want to use the word shall or will or what I will say to you around the cave model policies that we've given to your superintendent and um for his for his you I don't do a lot of um um improvisation with you know improvisation is great for jazz you know John col train could improvise I don't improvise when it comes to mandated policies I look at the legislation I look at what's required and I basically take what's required for legislation and I put it in your policies so most of the policies that are mandated are really like that there are probably a handful that get into a little bit of nuance that the board

140can maybe put a a fingerprint on save those for later but get the ones that really need to get in there in there so um but but also um let me just share with you some of my observations I I did look at a policy meeting um on a Saturday morning on I was looking at my iPhone I was looking at my record collection on on discog record collector I know it's sick Ancient Ancient I know ancient Miss missed a 5 minute bathroom place over tell me I'm ancient so on my on my cell phone Bridgeport policy meeting comes up I'm go oh that's interesting so I for two hours I watch on the SAT in morning policy meeting and and and I have to say it was excellent policy Dr Dr s right Dr

141s he did a great job of of of uh framing the policies to discuss the policies to set the policy committee up to have a good intelligent conversation around the policies and and I believe there were there three or four policies that the policy committee brought back up to the board and I I I watch in a four and a half hour meeting the board meeting which was not as much fun we both launched that we both launched it um again I my my my impression was that it got into a little bit of that Quagmire a little bit of the the wor smithing and and away from get them adopted that sense of urgency to to taking that point of luxury and saying let's talk about this a little more let's think strategically about

142when we when we adopt it and when we when we talk to kids about it and things all really important things but I but I also think that when you're talking about a missing Mand a policy you get it adopted and then get them all adopted over the next three or four months that's a really ambitious schedule and then you can step back and say just as we were talking about we're not putting the fire out anymore now we can be proactive we can start looking at our non-mandated policies we can we have a pretty good group we know what we're doing we're thinking policy let's continue working with cave on on the 3000 Series and the 4,000 are let's look at our business practices so get the mandated policies adopted get the mandated policies

143that need updating resin the old put it the new and then and then we'll be moving in a really good direction policy was but but again I I from my from my sense you know what policy is you know the importance of policy you know how to talk about policy you don't need a lecture from me about that stuff but I can certainly help you be strategic I to get those adopted policies I'm happy to do that yes does it matter if we put an amender in the middle of the school year end of the school year not at all again having heard the conversation which I thought was a really intelligent conversation around the drug and alcohol the marijuana policy I I I'm sure that when a kid violates the law around drugs that

144you're doing something about you have administrat sit have a policy is fine yeah I'm sure that so having the policy now creates the it gives you another level of fortification around that and and certainly you can talk to your your community we just adopted this policy which reinforces our practice around what we're doing but now it gives you an understanding of what we're doing why we're doing it and and here's the policy to review so you can talk to your child about it and so you can really do some of that back filling but then again that's that's strategy work and that's where you want to be with your superintendent and talk to him with him about how we're educating our community about these policies we're adopting it's an ambitious schedule um but I think

145your community ultimately is going to be pleased with the fact that you're taking this role seriously and you're getting them approved and adopted just curious as to how many mandated policies that are not in our policies like do you have a number I do you have 23 um missing mandated policies and you have 23 policies that are mandated that you have but they need updated and for those policies I think the role there would be re when you when when it's when it's when it's brought to your attention there there there there's an action to resend policy blank blank blank on this topic and then you're going to Second motion would be to approve this policy the mandate polic the mandated policy which has been updated U the the missing mandated policies are a little

146easier it's just one motion we adopt this policy it's mandated right and I think strategically you want to you don't want to you don't want to sit there as a policy committee here are 23 um missing mandated policies and we're going to Simply bring all 23 to the board to to do that that's that's why I think think strategic there are I'm like Title Nine I keep going back to title n I know I could tell you that when I was a superintendent and I was told by by C that my title n policy was out of date at that point I said to my board this is a title n policy we're we're out we're out of compliance we need to get it adopted my board within a week got it adopted um they

147they waved the two reads they so they had a motion to wave that bylaw and they approved it because they knew how is are all 23 that level level readed no but that's where again with your superintendent he and I have had many conversations going back and forth around these topics well many more I'm confident that he can stage these um required policies over the next several months to get them approved and and say to you this really you have the luxury of two reads you really don't have the luxury of two reads so this is an area where you need to trust your super superintendent and his team and work with them on that Surly ask questions you don't want to Simply say he says no just adopted you can ask him why and

148you can you know listen to his explanation as to why it's important and make that determination because ultimately it's your action right so we have that moving should that like kind of bypass at a committee level like when it's mandated like that just go straight forward I'm a big fan of committees I really am I you know make sure we're yeah so I I I still think the committee should be the you know bring it to the committee because I I think the superintendent and his team needs to strategize with the committee to make those determinations so there's a common understanding because you're going to be listening to your committee chair um talk about it and talk about the staging and you want to hear that he had a conversation with the superintendent and he's

149well versed in what what he's recommending to the full board you want the full board to trust that work so it can then wave the policy and then adop wave the just jump in a little bit you we've talked all night about how we don't necessarily always adhere to the same protocols or or processes as we go through you don't want to start pick deliberately creating places where you don't follow the process because then it'll start getting well should we have shouldn't we have to just now the policy committee can just say based on the recommendation thank you we'll move it forward without getting into the weed um but let them do that otherwise you're just setting yourself up for future disagreements and moving to to another point I just want to share with you

150what I what I did over my summer vacation um Danielle and I had a long three-hour conversation I think it's three I I said I told some people that so most time I've spent on a phone since I was in high school talking my girlfriend so it's like three and a half hours but but it was really a really well spent and thank you so much for your for your work with that because having having a disagreement as to what the bylaws were I wanted to make sure that we had we weren't going to struggle over what your bylaws are that that your bylaws are what are in front of you I want to thank Joe for for um making it um you know recognizing that one of the bylaws was not correct and that

151he was able to point to the adoption date and all that information so I am 99.9% which is more than any I'm confident about anything that that the bylaws you have are your current bylaws so we talk about bylaws we're talking about the same set of bylaws they're posted online yes so they're posted online we can we can say hallelujah to that um but I I think that's a really good start and again that's the kind of work that I think is really important it's not about lecturing you on policy it's getting your policy and your bylaws moved because B me are really critical another one no he said it's correct that's the one that's getting corrected the one that yeah I got to put the corrected one online the but because that's the one

152we talked about I showed you that red line one is I got the line one that's when that's online now well no not that correct that correction didn't I wanted cuz it was after me and you talk so that we'll we'll have that done tomorrow um so so again I think we're in really good shape there um and um so so looking at your bylaws I ask a question about this please please sure okay um I understand what you're saying what I what came up at the I remember when when you talked at the last meeting you said we were we had all this these things we had to fix but we were better than a lot of places you you haven't seen those in the place no yeah you just put it put in

153that context yeah we're messed up but we're not as messed up as a lot of places right so when Willie was trying to present this at the last board meeting I said Willie I don't understand why we got to do this when we're better than a lot of places and Willie is well I I'm you know so I he got put on the spot I and I'm now I'm going to raise that question with you because you're the expert Willie was sort of on the spot um we do I have learned so you you need to answer the question that I learned since I've been on the board of there being a past practice here at least of not implementing new code of conduct at the in the middle of the year which was the

154question that was just asked here so that's not a given changing the rules Midstream there's really no given regarding that again I think I think it's again when the board is in a position to have a luxury of time State you know like like for example a cell phone policy is a great example of that um my recommendation for boards adopting new cell phone restriction policies was don't don't lay it on kids in November you know you know and that's one of those things you look at a natural break look at when kids get back from winter recess look at the beginning of the school year right but you also want to take it three months before that to Stage to talk to kids about it to have have Town meetings about it to well

155I understand that so here we are in in March April April and we're going to say okay now we have a new cell film policy that's not a not an easy time to implement something when theyve spent eight months you're a teacher living one way to say okay new rule that's just not not good not easy to implement from the teacher's point of view or the administrator building administrator's point of view so I understand the logic of not implementing new disciplinary policies unless there's some really important reason to do it so that's why I I understood the logic behind what I was told was the past practice here so I think the key word though Rob the key word is mandated policy so phone policy is is a no I get I get that so

156this mandated policy is is that important that it has to be changed okay so now the the the one that I had trouble with from a teacher point of view was the U time out policy that struck me as ludicrous so if that's mandated by law so so again the the the seclusion policy is mandated by law but there that's one of those policies again my my recommendation you get it adopted so you have a seclusion policy but then you can step back away from you know when you have a luxury of time and the policy committee you can charge the policy committee look at that you know talk to talk to Cave about these this aspect of that policy there are some concerns we have about it is is there any wiggle room we

157can do we because you can always get go back into it and then have a conversation about it and then revise that policy if there's room for revision but you want but you want to let me let me because I understand the idea of not including a kid lock him in a closet lock him in a room that stuff that's nuts I get it but my sending a kid across the hall to my colleague's classroom for a half hour or an hour to come down and do bit do work that I give them to take over there that's like common practice right again my again this is just myice right my advice would be take get the take the policy get it adopted so you can say to the state of Connecticut we have a

158seclusion policy it's been adopted that's a big deal if you don't have a seclusion policy and then then when you get it adopted and it's and it's in your books you can then talk to your teachers um they you can have a a policy committee meeting to review the seclusion policy that the board adopted and to talk about are these best practices are there other Bridgeport practices we can add to it to ensure that we're in the spirit and the in the letter of the policy but we can adopt it other language that's more suitable to like for example being more specific about the difference between a timeout and seclusion um so and that that might be a difference that you can within the the legislature and in the law you can maybe make those

159differentiations where the K policy is more just simply the actual law another way to look at it if if but and that's an area that is very open to having lawsuits you know it was Miss they did it wrong whatever the first thing they're going to do is say what did your policy say because any employee is supposed to go to the policy manual for guidance there wasn't a policy yeah so having the policiy the first step toward protecting the district from unneeded lawsuits or bad judgments um it's enough to say we have to have a policy on the books that meets the law and then as Jody said with time you can start to make it bridg ports but the absence of the law in the policy or the absence of the policy could

160put you in serious legal Jeopardy and so that's why he's pushing the idea that it's urgent that we do it and then when you have the luxury of time you can improve it make it better make it fit your needs better but no policy in this case is very much worse than having a policy of any kind thank you was speak yeah just a real quick Point um if we do in fact implement the policy against better judgments it's myself anyway there is a policy that says we must integrate the date into the policy if it's a student policy that wants to take effect immediately because the defaults policy embedded in our policies is for student centered policies to take effect in next school so we would have to modify the motion correct would be

161an effect as up yeah and um yeah last Point um as we do these policies it's important that we post them I don't know if we we I've read that up last time did we post the two that were approved yet we app we approve two for immediate impementation will talk to it and see about those I think we we have we have thatal things that we have to kind of fix because the next day after the policy is approved it should be so Danielle you and I just need to kind of make sure that we get that cyle of How It's be done that'll keep us from another, now I was looking at your PO again I looked at all of your bylaws and again there there most of your bylaws and by the

162way your other point the very fact that the pr Public Schools wanted to get involved in a policy project with cave because were concerned about missing mandated policies and needed that in my view signifies to me again I'm being very careful how I word this that that you are in ways ahead of the districts that don't know what they don't know my first conversation with your superintendent back in August was we have two Services we could have provided one was an audit which would be which would take about three months for cave to do we look at all your policies and basically give you an audit and tell you where you're deficient and where and where um you're strong and and give you a report back typically from there the board would then engage with

163cave in a a u a custom project to take what the audit shows and give you the model policies and supports to get you where you need to be um over a three-year period what your superintendent said to me is we don't I don't need an audit I know I know we need we have missing mandated policies I know we have updated Poli or policy that need updating it hasn't been attended to in many years we need to go right skip the audit which will take up three months of time and resources and let's get right to the main issue and so that's there are a lot of boards in not just City but a lot of boards that aren't really policy-driven boards they like to put out fires but they don't like to deal

164with the the policies and um what I'm saying is clearly you're not in that category you you get it you know what you you know what you don't know and you want know it so in that way you're in great shape um the fact that you have some critical urgent things to get done there is that's a strategic issue it is an aoid unwillingness issue and aoid having its head in the sand issue that's how do we figure this out we're we're here in a particular um period of time where we have some urgent matters to address and now is a strategic issue I had issu so to me in my in my poly that's the board I want to deal with Bo that gets it that clear that um what what I share with

165you is one of the so again I'm not going to go through all your bws because many of them are fine and don't really need it was they're similar to what you did in February of 2019 to what you did in March of 2023 they're they're pretty standard policies we don't need to sit here for two hours and talk about oath of office I think I think we're good that but there are some policies or things I've have observed that I think whether they're Norms or bylaws I think they're at least I'm not here to tell you what to do but I'm here to get you to think think about them as a board a thoughtful board that wants to move forward one observation I'll make immediately um which is um the which has to

166do with the role of the board I notice that there are times in meetings where public has a chance to provide input and what I see here in in Bridgeport is different than what I've experienced and I've seen in other boards where board members will stand and speak as the public to the board and again I'm only raising this as I'm not telling you you can't do that there's no law that you can't do that but I would only raise that as as an issue of either it's normative practice or bylaw because as a board member you're part of this body and to speak as the public even though you are part of the public but when you're here you're a board member and just think again think of your public think of what you're

167trying to convey and communicate to your public and think if that's practice that you want to continue if it is we're not here to tell you not to from my standpoint it's it's it's a real Bridgeport um it's a Bridgeport thing it's a Bridgeport thing and and again think if you're trying to if you're trying to communicate unate to your public certain thing about the board and how you're working together as a board then you're not also the public speaking to the board you're on the board and you have the privilege of being on the board and speaking as a board member to the board and again that may have come out of lack of trust lack of opportunities to speak it it could have a variety of places this just something that my observation

168is when I when I saw that happen I thought that's unusual that's different it's one I just like to a bit of a Counterpoint to that um while I was waiting approximately 10 11 hours to testify before the state there were several state senators and state representatives testifying before the Committees and they have the same opportunity as we do so it's not really that might not be on that committee but they got the chance not of that comme no but they still got the chance to ask questions the parallel to that would be again again I'm not the argumentative but but if you're if you're it's fine I just it's just a point I know it's true that even the city ccil members speak to the city council member and listen as a leader in

169the community um I speak for my community I have a church-based community I have a community that I've been on my so it's just like you know where is where do I draine I'm a board member but I'm also a father I'm also a community leader I'm also an activist so where I dra line I I respect your opinion I I hear you I well that's an interesting point I've never had anybody else say that voice I'm like that's an interesting point but it is Rich does it all the time well the fish never knows it's in the water right no so I think board member I I I would say that you bring that to the board so you were elected by your community to be on the board to be part of this

170board that has no power um except as a board and you and you bring your vote you bring your experience you bring your your lived experiences and you get the opportunity at every board meeting to share those experiences as you know you can say as a father as as a as a church member part of my faith-based community I'm hearing a lot from my community about this topic and and you know sitting from your seat is important number which is a privilege um um privilege so you think we should do it from our that that that's just again W within any motion on the floor or opportunity for the board to discuss something you can always share your point of view at that time um I think the point and we this isn't the first

171time it's happened and I'm not talking about necessarily just in Bridge Court but it's always something that races Flags because if if you're in at the podium you're not really speaking to the board what I'm hearing is people speaking to the public in front of the board and I'm I'm not trying to be unfair about that but when you're at the board table you're a board when you're in the room as a at a board meeting you're a board member and that's the purpose for people to influence the board by sharing their thoughts during public comment which is a little bit different um again Jody clearly we're not telling you how to do it or how not but that is unique enough especially as a practice there are some places where I've seen it happen

172maybe once maybe once or twice it's not every meeting and it's not a common understanding and so I think as you discuss bylaws that might be just a place you want to pay pay at least recognition to it and do it deliberately if that's what you want and not to just do it because that's how it happens the bare minimum like you're not speaking first like at the very end but if if we can't agree to like take it out like make it happen then at least let the public speak first so another what some boards do and and of course I know we may be potentially opening up a whole different can ofs but our board had board comment after public comment we had board comment and board members would have three minutes if

173necessary to share I was at a student event at the high school or I did this or I did that or I you know again I'm afraid that the three minutes would become six minutes but that's if the concern is we don't have an opportunity to just talk to the board it might be at the end of the meeting some boards have future agenda topics and that's how they address that and you can bring it up as at some point I'd like to see an agenda item that is XY or Z or deals with a report on how the special ed things going or up placements and then so there's a place where you can focus the board members opportunity to speak to each other but not taking it up at the most inappropriate time

174an inappropriate time sorry that's perfect thank you um when I was looking at your meeting conduct policy is it 91 60 I noticed that there was a a section that I think really effectively addresses issues of public address what what the what your expectations of the public are when they address the board and around Civility and then I and and I thought what better way to support this part of the bylaw then for the board to have its own civility um code and so I I looked it c c has a a model policy on civility board Civility and um talks about a little bit of a narrative that goes along with it um the policy implications but it's it's a conflict of interest bylaw we have it coded as 9273 and we adopted this

175back in 2020 February and um in my view this again this is one of those bylaws that the board can it's a model bylaw this is something you can chew on you can think about there there's language in here that you may ascribe to there's language in that you don't need to not a mandated by law what I think this does is it signifies first of all it it signifies to your community that your own civility matters and going back to some earlier points around Beyond this board this is a bylaw that all boards will follow and I think it promotes good practice but I think more importantly it also models what you expect from your public and you know some boards will take this um civility code as as its bylaw and post it

176in meetings maybe review it in meetings um hold hold itself accountable in in regard to the this particular bylaw um to reflect back on this bylaw to have it maybe on on on the desks and tables as you have your meetings but again I I think it may be I think in my view good practice to consider your own civility code and I think there's some really good language in here that's worth reflecting upon as a board 9273 15 got it right here okay to read I got read it and if you look at the first page of what I hand down as well where you found the civility code this is our table of contents um for all the bylaws that we have in our our packet so if there's any bylaw here that

177that you want to address or or think or get a model for we we I would be happy to send that to your superintendent you can share review so for example you want to look at a um well for examp I'll give you a good example stat of Integrity committee committees oh yes I'm confused by your committee by listen to this part sorry committee time sorry not we were just talking that's what we just talking about so so my world and again I I I know I worked with three different Boards of AD and and um actually four different Boards of AD in in central office when I think of committees I think that there are two different committees one is a standing committee and that's why I think in hampon we had we have

178a policy committee we have a curriculum committee we have an operations committee look with facilities and things that nature we have a finance committee which um looks at you know monthly the finances of of the of the district we have a goals and evaluation committee a a standing committee a Personnel committee which I thought was probably the weaker did each of those standing committees when you say standing committees they met every month every month yeah these were and there was a chair and there were there were three members on each committee um so so there were a lot of committees and but they were standing committees every you know when a new board chair was elected the board chair would identify who's going to be on the committee and who's going to chair the committee

179that was the board chair's role to do that but so but you had standing committees that met monthly that did the work of the board that that you know the policy committee you know we're looking at dress code we're going to bring in the we we want the the high school principls come in the Middle School principal come in we want to hear from our community they're the ones who they're doing the research they're figuring it all out and so then then they they get to a point with their their policy that they're ready to bring it to the board for its first read and then answer questions they take the leadership on developing that policy and bringing it to the board for the board's full consideration for the board's adoption of that policy after

180two reads that's how I think of like a policy committee the finance committee would meet monthly it would get it would know it would get reports on special education fund you know um finances Transportation um forecasting where are we with with Personnel are we over budget are we under budget based on where we should be in March and so it does all of that work asks the superintendent his Finance person to be at that meeting and and and provide those reports for you to study and and provide your feedback on to give back and say we we need to do a freeze on our budget because we're $6 million over in Personnel cost and we we don't have much time to alleviate that that we're getting into the end of the year we don't have

181much time to figure that out but but that committee would be looking at in September where are we with Personnel costs but in October where are we with Personnel costs continue to forecast it out to see what changes do we need to make early so they don't have as big an impact later so that's what the finance committee does um the superintendent in October or November um presents his budget to the entire board and then and then that budget goes to the finance committee and the finance committee comes up with a series of workshops and looks at um um this these object codes for the first meeting these object codes for the second meeting and and looking at what the proposal is where the differentiations are in terms of your budget where are you above

182were you 20% above last year were you 10% below last year in strategic meetings to give back to the superintendent to say let's see if we can adjust the heating line um see if we can do some strategic thinking around we turn thermostats down to 70 instead of 72 what kind of difference will that make you know unfair Labor practice or you know but that's where we have those kinds of conversations um and then and then the finance committee after reviewing all those object codes makes recommendations to the superintendent um superintendent then provides um takes those recommendations gives you his ideas back to bring to the full board for consideration to vote on the budget and then it becomes a goes from the superintendent budget to the board budget superintendent goes from I have a

183budget to to defend to I have a board to support in his own budget and to get out there and and advocate for that budget and that that's the role of the finance committee as I see it but my point is those are standing committees you count on them year after year and the only other committee would be an ad hoc committee which would be we we're looking at strategic planning we're looking at um building capacity it's beyond the operations committee's capacity to do this work so we're going to appoint three members of the board to head up this um ad hoc committee to look at this spe to be in charged to do this specific thing to bring recommendations to the board for full consideration so when when I look at your your committees

184it's it's and the the idea that it's a special committee kind of confused me and the fact it's very Broad and it doesn't get into specifically you know what the Committees are what they're charged to do and and again so to um rather than being the the the dental monitor helping you think this through I I have some some prop some model policies or bylaws that that are I share with you from your consideration as you think about the committee work I I just want to also point out though that while the committee work might take some work off the board table and have it done in smaller groups where you can be in the detail one thing you have to acknowledge is that every time a subcommittee meets the superintendent has a heart attack

185because there's a certain amount of level of of preparation for any meeting whether it's subcommittee board meeting um years ago I helped the Kansas School boards Association start their first online agenda to things so I learned a lot about preparing for board meetings and it's a huge amount of work central office basically stops for a few days prior to a board meeting um and then you're tying in your administrators who are maybe bringing in proposals and stuff to present to the board all of that extra work falls on the superintendent so having meetings just for the sake of meetings on is sort of the opposite effect of creating less work for the board may also be creating more work for the superintendent so there needs to be a balance if if we had like this

186well we do have there there special meetings of committees but let's just say there was we call them standing committees then then the the superintendent would know like every first Wednesday it's this committee and they're preparing for it as well with the with the chair of that committee so in a sense like you know I know in the past we it's not best practice at all but we we put out agendas the day before and that ties up the superintendent's office and the argument is they should have this information already that's been an argument um but it also does tie them up in trying to you know stop in the work to to get the information so I think like if we you know whether we call a standing committee or whatever if we can

187and myself as a committee chair too like making sure that you know not two days before the committee but maybe a couple weeks before we're already preparing for the next committee that way it gives the staff time to prepare for it wellow and the board to to read through materials right and if and most our committees are on select date sometimes we have to call it a special meeting of a special committee um but uh but for the most part they are on specific dates right already so you know I guess best practice would be to begin preparing for them sooner than three days before and again I think this is something that will come up next at our next session as well there's got to be a better communication between the board or the

188subcommittee chair and the superintendent to say this is coming just like we want the superintendent to sort of preempt and say this is going to be coming down the road in a meeting two meetings three meetings I just want you to be aware that we're on this and something will be coming um that kind of cooperation needs to happen on the subcommittees too because if you're just dropping something a day before or two days before we want to have a conversation about this or we want to disc debate this particular issue I want to know what the superintendent thinks long term about what the effects of that would be he might not it might not be just creating a document or or pulling a document out of a file it may be I need to

189talk to my principles and see what the interaction you know what this what the potential effect is that might not happen in 24 hours so but there also way that superintendent can perhaps um distributed use distributive leadership so you have you have someone who's talented as Dr saki who is capable of running the Pol you know being their the key point to the policy committee um your Finance person would be the key person that would interface with finance committee you may have another um central office person who may may who you whom you can tutor and help support to be a the go-to person in another committee as a way of building their capacity to do this kind of work yeah he does that like Dr Saki and so that's I think that's yeah we

190were given a what you lead person for that's a smart practice yeah um yeah real quick it's gota it's got to go both ways because sometimes we have we'll have a superintendent driven item on the committee and no documentation behind it until the day before we're expected to redo a the day before a committee if the document is there at all sometimes we'll just have a verbal presentation which to me it's it's unacceptable to decide on an issue when I haven't had a document in front of for examp at the committee meeting tomorrow with a program that's looking for approval that the contract is not in the in there yet and we cannot responsibly approve things that we have not seen as a board and that puts us under the gun we get the data

191at the last minute especially with like this happened in the past other superintendents in the past as well that we'll get something two days before this got to be approved or we lose this and these aren't things that like buildings on fire you got to approve the hes but now these are contracts that expire six months seven months you got lead time these are known solid dates we should not ever be put under the gun as a board to make a rash decision without the information because rash decisions are very rarely good decisions ARG you get an argument for me and I would be lying if I I told you I never had a board tell me that you're putting something in front of us that we don't have time to review we needed to

192we need two weeks or a week and and and those are the meetings where I left the board me think feeling pretty mortified that I was I put myself in that position it happens but but you also remember you're person evaluating the superintendent that's certainly one of those issues that would come up in an evaluation conference and say look you know one area where we need to see some grows and and be sensitive to the board's need to to um when they have to act on something for us to have the opportunity to read it and to understand it to ask questions about it that's a fair conversation I think where I would draw the line though would be around like we talked the last time about um we have a contract a Sandy Hook

193promise contract 700 page contract I I don't want you reading that TR the come on the super it's not work to put it in a portal if the board member so chooses to read it you don't when you say you don't want us to read it well again it's that that to me says what don't you want us to see no it means that you you're aware of the fact that we are engaged in a in a in a relationship with with this organization that this they got they're providing a a student safety security tool that we're all and you're going to get a presentation on what it is why it's effective you ask all your questions but the bottom line is you need to engage in a in a contract with this organization and

194you have to at that point say to your superintendent make sure the cont I expect the contract to be um promise wasn't going to cost us anything it was that they were going to provide this service please have it vetted by the attorney and and and report back to us that you went through that vetting process and has your stamp of approval so that we can say that we're in good shape with it I tend to be very suspect of things I don't approving things I don't read because we never know you never know what's within the four anything in that four count we B we're binding the board we're binding future boards we're binding the taxpayer around these things and if there's something in a right I mean we can you can't ask every

195question but if you could give it a perusal most contracts aoil the but I I always had a board member when I when I was in that position board member always asked the same question whether it was around a field trip you do we have the appropriate level of coverage that was always that board member's question and if it was more than this ratio it wasn't going to fly he wasn't going to vote for it I another board member who says who would say um around a contract that I that I talked to the board about do are we expending any resources on on are we spending any money on this and if I gave them the wrong answer to that it'd be held pay to made so those are good questions legitimate questions that

196you would want to ask your superintendent before approving a contract who Ved it who's responsible for it what do we what do we liable for and again that doesn't mean that I'm talking about that kind of contract you have a contract to hire someone to bring someone into the district it's part of the leadership team or it's part of a grant that brings in a team of people absolutely you want to hear about who the people are what are they going to be doing how many years will be they be doing it how much money are we spending to these people what are we doing without those are all reasonable questions but the actual contract you if you have nine people who are suspicious of contracts on your board and they all want to read

197the contract all you'll be doing is arguing over a language of a contract and have to you can doesn't mean you don't vet and and hold accountable but my concern as as a in my position talking to you about bylaws and and action is where do you want to spend your time doing this work you want to talk about student achievement moving distri forward um doing taking this good work you're starting and moving it forward or you want to be reading contracts so again that's we can agree or disagree but yeah but but but my it's my time to use as I see fit if I'm want to peruse a 7even 100 page contract which is not likely it's not the perusing part it's coming back to the board and saying on page 10 I

198saw this on page 17 I saw that on page 18 I saw that and that you're only and there 800 pages to go through so at that point now you're talking 30 minutes at a board meeting about a contract that you had your superintendent that he should have been preparing and holding being accountable to and again that and we and there are some contracts where you want to have more when you're spending money and it has to do with people coming in you want to ask all those questions and make sure that you don't want to be five years down the road and not have not have heard about it and now you're dealing with taking money out of your budget and paying for this person when you didn't have any role in having that

199person even come in even though the person was in so that's I think there's a role for the board but I just think you could to be mindful of what that role that goes back to Lanes question yeah all right yeah I the only point I was going to make was we have a we have to clean up that language because uh when I came on the board we had seven committees then we had three committees and there was a dispute about whether the chair had the right to do that um the chair unilaterally changes from 7 to 3 on the argument that the previous chair had changed it from 9 to 7 um and now this chair changed it from 3 to 4 and the language seems to imply that the board should approve

200the number of committees so we need to clean that up um and prove what those committees are and I think we should be clear as to what they are um that's what that and and that could be a goal yes that needs to be worked out um as to what those committees are and be a little clear for more than a year as to what there's responsibilities are um so that needs to be cleaned up I think you'll see from the model bylaws that I'm I shared with you there's at least some some language there that can help frame that discussion yes I'm I'm just saying that we historically in the recent past have had a dispute part of which occurred before I got on the board part of which occurred while I was on

201the board um and so we just need to clean that upad but I think the key piece there is think about your functions what you're trying to accomplish as committees and then you can determine and then as I've understood it at least in my brief time um we have had an administrator assigned to a committee so there was an administrator assigned um and so the chair that worked with that that administrator not always with the superintendent in arranging for the agenda in working out what needed to who needed to be there at the meeting right Etc and that's good practice I'm not sure that it's strictly a policy decision I mean you use the policy to clarify what it is your intentions are but if the board at some point down the road in your

202goal to be more effective um you might want to have a meeting to say okay how do we do business right now is there a better way um I worked with Shelton a few years ago they had nine subcommittees you know why they had nine because they had nine board members and everybody got to have a committee that was the rule and so they had one called cafeteria and Athletics that was the name of the committee why because the chairman liked to deal with those things we spent an evening going through what all these committees did and we had a list we got it down to three and but a lot of it wasn't lost it was either this really would be better under budget or this would be better under policy but what we

203ended up doing is about 2third of the work was we really should need a committee to make these specific this should be a policy and So you you're making sure the work gets done but not necessarily here well you don't hear me advocating for more advocating CLE clear policy and how it should work right you know how that how that decision should be made in you know and and in within that I understand that you can have standing committees and AD hot committees you know but I your point is it should be a deliberate process to come up with who's doing CS because in the last two or three years we've had disputes as to how that's working that's a great Point again standing committees really should have have a lifespan of more than a

204year yes you said a name of something that you just gave us so I have two papers here documents um the bridge Board of Education Five Laws series 9000 and then the other one that has is headed by cave public school which is the model what you just call the model thing which one is the model um came out of the B it came out of the laws of the board DEC Public Schools this work no okay thank you that's the model thank you very much I just went they both are yes so I gave you this one both out of the C this one has stability the one that has the C and then I also gave you a committee 9131 right 9131 in a couple of the word model so I wanted to

205make sure I which one I have I want they both the only these are both mod yeah yeah just model policies on different topics yeah the only other thing I wanted to is think um again we have I think five more 15 more minutes till 9:30 but um what what is your process for posting meetings in terms of time what when when you get your meeting regular board meeting or a special meeting posted at City Hall um through through umel so yeah through Danielle um again so for our byw we go by our bylaws um and how much time do you so the meeting has to be noticed Monday is the meeting so the meeting has to be noticed uh uh on Thursday 72 it has to be noticed then and then it has to

206be the agenda has to be up um no later than Friday by uh City Hall CL set for so by right right so posting the meeting you do it less than well more than the 24hour posting report they're also post at the beginning of the year when we send it technically that's a notice well but then the notice for each particular meeting goes out the Thursday Flor right so when you post the agenda again my my experience is we we had meetings on Monday for example so if we had a meeting on Monday at six o'clock we posted we we made sure that the meeting was the agenda was posted Friday afternoon Friday at the end of the day that's that's what you do I just want to make sure that you're not putting yourself

207in a position of of of requiring more time to get things posted so as long as you was following fi a I would just say stick as closely to that as possible because again thinking as a superintendent um and I need I don't want to cut time away from what I had to do by bylaws to get things posted and and official so I would just follow your [Music] fi we doing something so what I'm going to continue to do is is work with your superintendent um get get information from him regarding not simply the policy work but if there are bylaws that you want more models from if you look at this table of contents there are things in there that you'd like to to to see a model policy from Cade um please

208let him know and he'll share that with me and I'll get those model policies to you as well I mean again the the um K Public School bylaws we all listed here so that's all in our bank and I'd be happy to give you any one of those bylaws that will help support your work are they on a website or are they on a c website um the bylaw is probably not um but if if you tell me which one you want I can okay I can go in my my index and easily just send it over right so you can also any board member could reach out to me and say Hey you know I'm looking at this topic here I think we need something in that area can you have something on it

209anyone of you my members and superintendent and and Daniel and Daniel just email me whatever you need if I could just jump on one comment too because it was in the evaluation and it was actually one of the goals um that you sort of at least tentatively agreed to that get the board working better together and bylaws my observation only that over time sometimes the bylaws were not there to help the board work better together but they were used to or or the absence of using the bylaws was a cause of discontent sometimes and so changing the bylaws improving the bylaws working on the bylaws doesn't bad intent and not accus going bad intent necessary I'm just saying that you could use any set of bylaws and work effectively or ineffectively where you see potential

210for abuse codifying it in bylaws is probably a good idea so working on your bylaws to say how do we make it so we can work easier together and not let the rules get in the way of good discourse where you're talking now so much about we're talking to each other more we're listening to each other more don't let the bylaws get in the way of that um so be thoughtful as you go through them and Jody is a great guide for helping things through some of these processes but not to let that be just having new bylaws is going to make us work better together it's going to take the intention of all of you to want to do that and I think you all know that I've heard that several times tonight um

211any questions for the good of the order our next session will be on the board superintendent relationship I think we're going to talk again about some of the things we've talked about tonight Lanes um you know Communications who does what um Etc um I hope Dr Ry will be feel free to share his perceptions where he's comfortable uh because he's the one living through all of just like you are we're all living through this so um I think it's going to be important conversation uh Dave Irwin who will be joining us that night has has been a superintendent half dozen districts I think um been a superintendent of the year he teaches superintendent certification course at har University um he has been in several districts to fix things when a district fell apart he goes

212in and helps straighten them out um recently Region 20 um Easton when Easton had a problem they sent him in there so he's really good at figuring out how to bring things together I think he'll be a great asset to the conversation that night and that's next Monday but then we get a couple weeks before the next one um yeah um for Jody uh you mentioned there was 28 uh State mate ones that you sent over to Dr Avery and we already worked on five and then there was another set of 28 that you mentioned 23 23 mind getting those to me including and not excluding the other 23 that are State mandates that I need to get my hand time for hav any be able to get my hands on them and I would

213like well we'll talk we meet tomorrow tomorrow's my dat would it be too much to send it out to all the board members because I think they're working do3 we haven't approved any of those we approved the on they approved last week last four the two sweet three the last yeah the point like I'm just asking you want all 23 to like titles question me yes a list of the ti yeah we give you a list thank yeah because if you're going to start looking at all of them now then bypassing the policy Committee in a way why I the chair that's why I've been asking I've been trying but having the list I think is important give you IDE dep and 23 a lot so what's like a adusted timeline for this because we're

214not going to do 23 I would say I think what's reasonable would meeting and then get working with the superintend strategize um whether or not you want want to recommend the board W the bylaw to just adopt it or to do the in respect to everybody I'm there's two sets so there's 23 that are missing there was 28 State mandate those should be kind of like like he said I would be kind of like you know there State mandate there's something that the state is telling us to do so those kind of like that we can decide as a board to decide to uh to skip you know to skip the second meing a thir read one you guys have them I said out five or whatever last time when I met with that a

215back in the early January was he said I can give you four will and I challenged him I said give me five and then I got an email and we went through our progession to try to get those five on the tap and um right now we're holding on two that should be going to the next my next meeting and going through the full board but I would like to see them then we can strategize but I've been ask yes I would like to have them the way she work is again the superintendent meets with the policy chair and and comes up with a strategy for getting those policy devel so it's a it's a collaboration es especially since guys me took great pains that told us these are mandated policies that we should just

216get them in place and not t tamper with them too much that we can potentially hear more than five or six at one meeting V them fale issues at the committee meeting recommend the full board adop these because we found them acceptable and the state mandates this doesn't need to take that much time because there will be no debate because they're mandated by law and they've been vetted by the policy committee so it's not like each one's going to take the first secondary because if we push it to the full board to have a but that's not the way it's been happening the the PO mandated sorry interrup you there I'm sorry but um the last two was pushed for one meon the year delayed it's going to come back is going to be approved

217Mr Medina is saying he asked for all of them he just stated that he asked for all of them if he had all of them he could decide to have more than one Community the way I understand it is what he asked for more than he got is you creating a lot of he's creating a lot of work but what you have we have to go and update all of those we do we do all the updating and providing drafts to the board committee to be able to but but guys we we have a whole lot of other things we've been doing so you're changing what C presented to us no you got no I mean to get the stuff for committee all the policies to commit it they created a package that package needs

218to get to the committee and the committee needs to vote it to the full board to get it changed just just for my observation you looking at what Dr saaki did at the policy committee he did a really my my view a really effective job of staging those policies he knew what the policies were he was able to communicate to the policy committee what they are so that you know what they are and then you were able to communicate to the full board what they are to get them approved with the without the two ratings it's but that that again that's still I think you can have to figure out what the magic sauce is around the urgency of getting those policies adopted and making sure the board has at least some level of understanding