001good evening and welcome to this special meeting of the Board of Education data today Wednesday made 15 2019 this meeting is now called to order mrs. Smith may we please have here here here I myself here thank you oh and we have I'm sorry and we have Mariam also here have miss wings here through skyping sorry they do have excellent thank you very much and please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all their motion to approve the agenda I move that the Board of Education approved the May 15,000 19 special meeting ii thank you we have a motion to approve the agenda by mr. smith's I
002can it bind the swings any discussion all in favor the agenda moving into announcements tonight we will be interviewing three of the seven candidates for the superintendent's position dr. William Smith dr. pamela campbell dr. robert herrera for those in the audience tonight there are feedback forms available in the back of the room for those viewing at home this forum is available on our website under the superintendent search please feel free to provide your thoughts on the candidates for our consideration those in the audience we ask that you turn in your feedback form following each candidate to dr. green for those viewing at home we ask that you also submit yours after each candidate so that we can have them in a timely manner prior to our deliberations if you find the form online difficult to
003use you may just send an email with your statements to the board of education via our email after the last interview this evening we will take a short break to review feedback forms we will then reconvene to deliberate and the selection of candidates that will move forward for our second-round interviews which are currently scheduled for May 22nd public comment requests cards are available in the back of the room if you would like to speak during public comments please fill out a card and place it in the ceramic bowl next to trustee welcome oh please remember to silence all cell phones and electronic devices at this time in addition out of the courtesy of those in the audience we ask that you refrain from sidebar conversations and that you step out into the hallway if you
004feel the need to carry on a Congress we thank you for your cooperation moving into our next item on the agenda it is our superintendent candidacies and we Ozar with us to introduce our first candidate back the first of our interviews this evening is with dr. William Smith who's the assistant superintendent for instructional services oh can I see you no I did not receive any questions about dr. Smith directly it's my understanding that some of you may have heard some things from folks in the district because this is a candidate who worked in the district previously so my guidance to you on that is that you should be looking for facts right so you need to sort through kind of fact from opinion when you're getting that but beyond that I have no further information
005to share thank you while we're waiting for the candidate again I'd just like to welcome all of the community members and thank you for taking the time to join us during our first round interviews and welcome back to those of you who were here last night and don't forget you can come to the pate through feedback forms good evening and welcome you're gonna be seated right there yeah that's our special seat one of our board members is skyping mrs. Terry beams so we couldn't hear her but Terry could you hear him oh yes I put you guys on mute there to make sure are you going I will soon take myself off of video so you guys can focus on the candidate as well all right thank you so we're now proceeding with our interview
006of dr. William Smith welcome and thank you for taking the time to come tonight to show your interest in our district and all of our board members we'll be asking questions and mrs. Cummings will be asking two questions mr. muckle Mel will be representing two as well and so we will also go cut him in a round-robin format okay all right all righty I will begin with can you briefly tell us a little bit about your background and experience and why you're interested in this position great thank you about 15 years ago I was sitting right about back there and had an opportunity to be able to be hired here as an assistant principal it was a fantastic opportunity for me as a growth piece but it was one of those things that prior to
007that I was a teacher and it was an opening opportunity for me to be able to become an administrator and back in the day that was when dr. Bob Maxfield was here and some incredibly talented people so I got a chance to today drive around the community and meet with some people that were back from the old days and it was just a great opportunity today one of the things that I loved most was that so many things were the same but so many things are different this district still continues to have a strength in its diversity the district still has a passion for education all these great things are still here and it's just an exciting opportunity to be here and talk with you today if you've seen my resume you know that I've
008been an educator at all levels I've taught at the elementary middle school and high school level I currently am an administrator at the assistant superintendent level I teach doctoral classes and graduate level courses in diverse in school finance assessment literacy so I'm pretty engaged in in in the educational field from the instructor standpoint i sat at about every seat when it comes to administration from athletic director it's a curriculum direct superintendent to assistant superintendent my current role service about a hundred and twenty thousand students directly and indirectly and supervise ten programs and instructional services they are you very happy to be here the greatest lessons I've learned in my educational career occurred right here not by dr. Bob Maxfield how to take challenges and turn them into opportunities and have you our next question will
009be asked by secretary Smith and then we'll proceed in order please describe your leadership approach and developing an administrative team from your experience what steps did you take and what challenges did you encounter the most important part about developing a leadership team is that every person on your leadership team has to have first and foremost a student-centered mindset focus on kids and you have to be able to make those decisions that are in the best interests of children I'm not sure if you're familiar with a leadership person in snow but it makes snow has this little box this little quadrant piece and talked specifically about how to lead and avoid micromanagement and one of the components that is part of this boxes is leading through a lens of eyes on hands off and so with
010anybody in my leadership team I try to give them opportunities to be able to grow and take on challenges and in that process of eyes on hands off there's no micromanagement they get a chance to be able to take their expertise and grow with it typically the challenges in that process are limited challenge that I've ever found to engage in is that I believe in a we philosophy as opposed I we lead as a team it's a team activity but the leader in my situation in my role when we're successful or successful because the team was to fail is because I failed and and that's the process that I kind of leads through and and really limited challenges in that how do you provide staff development in your district and how do you evaluate its
011effectiveness I like to call it professional learning it for me I think it's important that that staff learn a significant difference between that I'll give you an example I've had two opportunities to professionally learn that I think have been monumental for me one is I was trained in adaptive leadership if you've ever been trained in adaptive leadership you clearly develop an understanding of the change process and it doesn't become something that's mystified it's pretty easy if if you've been trained in design thinking which is another training that I've had it makes the opportunities for you to be able to innovate and something really really special so when it comes to professional learning for staff I look at it the same way as I looked at it for myself you have to measure the gaps in
012what your vision and mission is if we have students that aren't learning in specific areas we have to identify what those areas are we have to engage staff and understanding that these are the gaps in which we have to grow professionally and you provide them those opportunities to do so the most critical part of that afterwards is to measure whether or not you it worked to measure whether or not you've closed those gaps so the key point in in professional learning for staff is to measure the impact of the investment of the training or the or the learning so that that's how I gauge it in my role as assistant superintendent for instructional services we provide the professional Learning and Development for 20 local districts about 20 charters or parochial but I've reviewed it in
013the prep four key points and I see that it's calendared out through 2022 I think it's a great opportunity whoever is hired as the superintendent a doctor learning walk through the strategic plan to be able to talk with staff and ask them some key questions how's the plan going what's going well what's not going well if you were to adapt this plan why what would it be and why would you do that I think that's a great opportunity to be able to build a connectivity to the strategic plan to listen more than you speak and to be able to grow and learn from those people that are on those committees I looked at the the different committees that you have you have a diverse committee group that's there you have staff you have community members
014it would be a great opportunity to be able to address each of those four areas team to focus on what what's gone well what hasn't gone well and as a learning opportunity for me or whoever is the superintendent here oh and build on that plan well that's one of the things that I take the greatest amount of pride in I've had many opportunities to work with leaders who've trusted me so I've had the opportunity to build innovation high school at Kennedy where it's a project-based learning school that the opportunity to be able to build a hybrid learning school called my school where students come in at two days a week and the rest is online I just launched upon a play on words launched you which is our early middle college so I've gotten a
015chance to do a lot of different things that I would say are innovative but the most critical thing I think it's capturing student voice and in focusing on what students need and what they indicate that that they would like to do what engages them and then build caring adults around that that have a similar passion and then grow those things I use and leverage a lot of Design Thinking strategies with our leadership team and our student populations to be able to grow opportunities memorable ones I was have the opportunity be able to work with four skills public schools til atte their school redesign for a specific school that they had forced Hills is a very similar district Farmington Hills only in Kent County worked on a plan through design thinking to reinvent their school and
016it gave us an opportunity to be able to listen to teachers to parents to school board members administrators community members business leaders and through that concept we developed a plan that will allow them to actually merge towards a five-year program in high school that has a gap year that they can earn an associate's degree so they're not there yet but that's the that's an example of that how would you approach the issue of diversity in the district in regard to hiring practices and providing an inclusive learning and work environment ballot that one hits home to me one of the if you've ever been in Harrison High School's cafeteria and if you're an administrator that's an assistant principal my first two weeks in Harrison there was a television newscast that came on and and I was
017you know doing my business walking around with kids and and this newscast was about an all-white prom in Georgia and it's a loud rambunctious cafeteria and it got very quiet and I talked to some kids and said you know how does that make you feel and we had a little group and we reached out and I actually called the superintendent two from this school in Georgia and the superintendent obviously you know probably there was a ton of calls and the secretary actually gave me a code to be able to reach the superintendent and talk with him and and we did it in my office on a speakerphone with several students and you know the story turned out that it really wasn't an all right white prom supervised by the school it was a student who
018selected to have their own prom because they were suspended but the media reported that regardless of that the importance was to understand the difference between what was being reported and the why behind it and from that point on I've been an advocate for diversity equity and inclusion ever since I've been involved in the minority student achievement networking when it started here I worked to secure a smaller learning communities grant at Harrison High School where we moved our student failure rate reduced it by 39% in the first year all of that was built around how we on boarded freshman to Harrison High School when I went to Kent ISD we focused primarily on how we could close achievement gaps in four core areas we've made incredible success in early childhood and one of the latest things
019that we're working right now is talent acquisition we know that if we have a diverse student or a diverse teacher base that our diverse students are going to perform significantly better and so we're launching in the fall I'm authoring a program a teacher cadet program where it's a grow your own component we are we are working with students to be able to be to enter into the educational field I've done significant work with my club New York City Leadership Academy and I done I've done significant work with leading educators a group that supports teachers and empowering them and each of those areas are about focusing on diverse school districts the retention of talent it kind of goes back to the snows principle of eyes on hands off I think the most important responsibility of the
020superintendent is to maintain and build a strong relationship with the board and that's something that would never be delegated but other aspects of leadership I believe our team orientated and maximizing the skill sets of your team is essential when I first came on board for example at Harrison High School one of the onboarding strategies there was to be able to assess your strengths and weaknesses a strengths finder and we had a three member admin team and so at that point my strengths were things that I would lead in delacey her strengths there were the things that she would lead in Randy Horne those strengths were the things that he would lead in it wasn't that he was the principal and I was an assistant principal but we worked with our strengths because the outcome is
021so much better for students and so my strategy would simply be to delegate to the person on the team that has the greatest level of skill sets you have to go about understanding what those skill sets are though and again never delegate the superintendent board relations and governance what is your philosophy of leadership because it relates to employees tell us what you have found to be the most rewarding aspect of leading others and the most challenging all right well I would say that leadership and and personnel relations it's kind of like an iceberg the tip of that iceberg is really the interaction it could be in bargaining or it could be in hiring it could be those those those key points that you have strong interaction but the best work and the most work and
022the heavy lifting is done under the waterline and that's the relationship building that you have that you work with staff and you build their their capacity and trust in you and you empower and then the opportunity to lead in their classroom where they lead in whatever field that they're providing a service in and so throughout my career I've always tried to find the passion in people when I took on the job at can I see I interviewed 168 staff and I asked them some simple questions but the basis of the questions were what are you most passionate about and I try to find where their passions are and apply those passions to opportunities for them to grow and lead in the district and as a result of that we have a very dynamic organization through
023a very flat structured style the people who have a passion for something get a chance to leave in that area the challenges with that is that you know in large organizations it's tough to meet with everyone to be able to do that so you have to develop a leadership team that models that behavior that they trust and empower others that they allow others to be part of a decision-making process that they engage in a very high level and they're allowing this feeling of risk one of the things that I stole from Farmington was Bob max fields oops card I don't know if you know what that was but whenever you got a job here in Farmington dr. Maxfield will give you oops card the card on it says oops and if you made a mistake
024here you gave him the card if you told him what you learn from the mistake you gave you a new card and those are the things that I think make a district dynamic and benefit the chameleon Schools what specific capabilities might set you apart what I looked at the resumes obviously there's some very talented people in this pool and this is a spectacular opportunity for any one of those people I think that that there are a couple things that that might set me apart from them and and with no disrespect to who they are or what their skill sets our background is but I believe I'm a tireless advocate for children all children and I debated sharing this you know because you know that you just don't want to get too personal but I'll just
025I'll just share it with you I'm like many of you and many in the audience likely education was your saving grace somebody probably in your life did something for you that made you a better person helped you achieve or overcome when I was a wasn't when I was five years old I had a sibling that died and she tied my shoes for me and so I went to school and my kindergarten teacher taught me hope when I was a third grader I had some abuse in the home and my third grade teacher taught me resiliency and when I was a 6th grader I had to take care of my sister in the back of a Fiat in a factory because my mom had to work third shift and that sixth grade teacher taught me grit
026and I'm here today because educators have done that for me and there is no one that will lead more tirelessly for your children especially those that have faced trauma than I and I believe that my journey has led me here to say that to you that being said I've had great opportunities like many of these others every place I've ever been I've had an opportunity to lead and make significant impact I've got an opportunity to be able to share and build that relationship one of the things that I value most is every place I've ever left I've left a legacy of leaders the people that I work with are empowered they lead on they continue to innovate and grow and students have always been the benefit of that outcome and so my passion for kids
027is passed on my skill sets to empower and engage in coach others is passed on and it has an impactful relationship building I would say just a tremendous feel in a district when everyone is working in the same direction with that kind of passion so that's what I would say would set me apart how would you use research-based practices to improve instruction and improve the curriculum in the district well I have somewhat of a different ID on that I don't know if you've read the book dealing with raising children and brilliance there's six C's that are associated with that these six C's have four levels of mastery and they range from collaboration to communication to content to critical thinking they go all the way on through to the last point of confidence and creativity just
028precedes that I try to I try to talk to staff administrators parents students I try to talk to them about how can you embed those six C's and everything that we do in a classroom not replacing the content but enhancing how we approach it and leveraging student voice that research that supports the six C's is brain based and it leads to success outcomes we don't know today what the jobs that will exist when our kindergarteners are entering school but we do know today that if our students leave with a capacity in each of those succeeds regardless of the job that's available to them regardless of their career interest or their or their passion they're going to be successful and so that's how I integrate research into the work that research alone is you know there's
029there's technical solutions you can use the MDEs blueprint and so forth or you can simply combine that with with these 60s so research wise that's really what I talk through is these 60s thank you most districts have had to make budget cuts tell us about the process you would use as our superintendent if we need to make cuts well if you you read my resume you know I was at Kent City which is a small district in Kent County and I was the superintendent and although it was a small district the challenges that Kent City had were very similar to districts that are a hundred thousand students we had declining enrollment we had low academic performance and we were in fiscal crisis I got the job as the superintendent two days after I got the
030job I met with the board president and the person who was the consultant and we talked about some challenges and again challenges are opportunities for me the the challenge we had was we just signed a contract that we couldn't pay we had declining enrollment to the extent that our our fiscal nature was that we were in that fiscal crisis level and we were fearful that we would even continue as a district and and so what I had to do was was kind of reinvent the district you don't do those things without strong relationship building skillsets and so as part of the strategic planning process we initiated a SWOT analysis the SWOT analysis was community based so we took the entire community and and and anybody that wanted to in large group and in small group
031and we looked at our strengths our weaknesses our opportunities and our threats we established our goals and then we said with those goals we have to make a budget that reflects that and what we ended up doing some crazy stuff we at that time you were able to have a teacher retire and you could rehire them we had the Magnificent ten they were ten teachers that were earning at the top of the scale 42 years in experience and they were about a hundred thousand each so about a million dollars of a twelve point six million dollar budget I encouraged nine of the ten to retire i rehired them back for one third of their opportunities so that they could work to the max with the savings of about six hundred thousand with that I hired
032six that are for stem teachers and placed them in our middle school so that we would improve in our scores in the foundational area math in in science I also eliminated art which seemed to be something tragic but what I actually did was move art to after school and use title funds to be able to bust kids home and then with those busing home back and forth I was able to do tutorial after school so long story short after the three years that I was there we changed and reinvested in what we were as a district we started to send far more students to career technical education they started to get far more embedded credits and college credits long story short we were no longer on the bottom list we were right around 12% when
033I left and as a district we were adding students rather than losing them but that was a heavy lift and the key point of that was I was tirelessly in the community I met with community members all the time we talked about what they wanted for their kids what was their vision and would they be willing to support a budget that that actually led to that and so I think in any district that's the process you have to follow you engage you align your budget to your priorities you get buy-in you you share the message you go deeper than saying what you're gonna do you share the why and you build consensus please describe your experience with bond issues or sinking fund or other construction projects to improve facilities more developing a facilities plan sure
034Everett every place I've ever been because of my background oftentimes of the coach background that I've had I'm I'm oftentimes put on committees I enjoy that because it gives you opportunities to meet with students teachers community members so in the outdoor facilities bond that that Farmington past I was engaged heavily engaged with denny noe in that process when I was at Kent City I successfully passed a sinking fund and most recently at Kent ISD I worked with a very talented group of professionals to pass an enhancement millage in the enhancement millage it's an opportunity for our county to collect it turned out to be about 1.2 million dollars in each of the the four regions so they were allowed to be able to we collect that money on their behalf and we do redistribute it
035back to them and we worked on messaging what it would go for and it went for social emotional learning additional career counselors additional guidance counselor's the things that their community indicated that they needed and my job was to be able to find the connectivity between what they were requesting and the ability to be able to demonstrate that the the services that they added are making an impact because our goal is to make sure that the next time it comes up for renewal that we'll pass it again because they see that we were successful and doing what we said we were going to do so I've been involved at Kent wood my first teaching role I was there for their facilities renovation so I was also there when they they work to develop a new high
036school to split that district so I've had extensive experience in in all kinds of bonds millage ah's and proposals tell us about a challenge that you faced and dressed as an educational leader well my transition out of Farmington was was bittersweet for me I was recruited to go to Howell public schools interesting the liaison officer at Harrison High School was his name's Pat sage Pat stitches wife was Joan says Joan sage was a special education teacher in Howell her best friend there was chuck grinders wife who was the superintendent and so you know relationship started to develop and I kind of had this feel for innovation and and long story short I ended up becoming the principal of Howell High School how was at the time was developing a to high school district so they
037were splitting and rebounding and you know the tension that occurs in that and and so my job was to be able to take the students that were about 3,000 and moved them from Howell to the new Parker high school the rules guiding that really simple you can only build that building I think it's about a hundred and twenty percent of what the the occupancy was so I'd moved 3,000 kids into a 1,700 student building I had about three months to do it so what I had to do was reinvent secondary instruction and it was a fantastic fun opportunity we worked through a lens of student-centered decision-making so we built had a good friend in Elson Lou from Stanford who redeveloped a scheduling program we had students scheduled we put Lansing Community College in the middle
038of that we extended our calendars so students could go to school for 10 days in the summer we moved our football practices in PE into the summer and and got PE moved out we extended the day so it was kind of like a college piece but at the end of the day our performance improved students were taking math and a larger block of time if that's what they chose it was just a fantastic opportunity teachers were able to shift throughout the year so that was that was probably the biggest challenge I've ever faced up on a napkin in Fowlerville with chuck brighter and he said you think it'll work i said well it's got to and we we made it happen and that's what my dissertation was in flexible scheduling and it was probably the
039the most impactful thing I've really ever done when it comes to educational innovation what is your definition of school culture what is the superintendent's role in cultivating it I feel like I keep talking about all these other places but um I'm just gonna I'll talk about a bug can I stay we have this model that we say at can I stay we lead learning and we are gonna be the first choice for services and we were gonna make sure all children learn every day that model is our culture everything we do and say is through that lens if someone were to say to me bill we need to do this and I will say to them is that leading learning will we be leading learning by that will that help us be the first choice
040for services so what I guess I'm saying is that your culture has to be something that everybody in the organization believes in and you have to have it set your compass and when I on boarded to Ken ISD superintendent was Kevin Kahn arska and he said bill every time you make a decision every time you talk with the staff member every time you develop a vision or an initiative apply those three pieces to it if it doesn't fit those three pieces we're not going to do it and that's our culture and the superintendent was critical in making sure that the things that we say we're gonna do we're gonna do one of the things that we face right now in in my role at Kennedy is we're looking at building a tactical house and I
041I do a lot of supervision of career technical education and we want to build a tactical house to be and you have little houses inside this big building and it allows students and criminal justice to be able to go through and and it's a great opportunity for them to learn criminal justice strategies and hit the benchmarks but it's also a great opportunity for the community and so the question is if we build that will be leading learning and the answer is yes and so we're working on whether we're gonna build or not you know we have to find the financing to do it but that's what I would say about culture it's something that everybody in the organization believes in it anchors you and it's modeled and held held to a high regard from the
042superintendent tell us about your track record for improving student academic achievement for all students okay I touched a little on that at Harrison that that we built a model there with a small learning communities grant that really really folks I mean we were in some difficult times when I came on board at Harrison we had significant discipline we had significant issues with disproportionality and discipline we had a high failure rate and we were really struggling and we had a caring group of staff Linda Stockton Smolenski Rosedale ski all these names that kind of came together and they said hey we have to there to do something about this and so we built this model called the Harrison way and we financed it through a smaller learning communities grant and we worked on building relationships with
043kids onboarding them at a significant experienced orientation and and it worked we created families for students so that they traveled to each of their core content classes with the same cluster of teachers but teachers then focused on building the relationships with the students so that was a significant change in our performance and I remember that we were rivaling rivaling Farmington and North Farmington in academic performance and that was something that that hadn't happened in a while at Harrison and then the other thing that are probably most proud of in closing achievement gaps in in Kent County we focus on four milestones the milestone one is all students will be kindergarten ready upon entering kindergarten all students will be third grade reading ready upon third grade all students will be algebra ready in eighth grade and
044all students will be career ready when they when they graduate and we really really focus on early childhood and through our efforts and I supervised gsrp and what we would call parent educators we've been able to significantly change the performance for students on their kindergarten readiness assessment the KRA and it carries over to that same group of students on their third grade reading assessments so what I'm saying to you is this that students that typically would underperform their subgroups their peer subgroups are over performing those peer subgroups it's been the most significant thing that we've done in performance in Kent County we we believe that that connectivity between kindergarten readiness leads to literacy preparedness leads to numeracy preparedness which leads to career success so we feel that in about six years the ten years we're
045going to see great gains at all of those standards and in that we continue to work on it all the time I do a lot of work with superintendents to be able to build their capacity identifying the data gaps how will you approach negotiations with our bargaining units and describe your experience in working with labor relations well I kind of like that iceberg Theory it's a lot about relationship building it's a lot about trust building and one of the things that I focus on when I talk with teachers is I focus on is this best for students and I and I found that when you have a strong relationship with teachers and you keep the focus on what's best for children that that typically you can work your way through labor negotiations I've had a
046strong history in doing that when I was when I was a teacher I was I bargained on the teachers side I have 11 years of doing that and when I was a superintendent I directly bargained the contract to can I steer or excuse me Ken city and that was a difficult contract to bargain because we had to take a cold hard freeze on wages we actually had to roll back some wages in certain groups and those things don't succeed unless you have strong relationships and you can communicate a student-centred message what is your approach to educating the whole child well I I'm a strong component of individualizing instruction no child comes to us from the same journey the same background and educating the whole child really is evolved around revolves around making sure that every
047child in all aspects that may impact their learning is supported I think it's important that you continually understand the things that can impact a child one of the things that I think is very supportive of that is is the social-emotional learning side of those things in each of the districts I've been at we've been proponents and supportive of developing what would be called a Care Council where we support the students emotional and social needs and then in working on other key indicators that would be associated to for example attendance early warning indicators for success and the biggest part of philosophy on educating the whole child is helping to staff to understand who the child is strategies to interview the child what's their passion what do they like to do those things that we work on
048we built a high school around that whole concept it's a project-based learning high school that's connecting them to careers we built the whole the whole high school is built around students and student voice and our supports for what they want to do in the career so educating the whole child starts with knowing what the child needs and wants how would you engage students and listen to the student voice I'm an old coach and I have a knack for for building relationships with kids I take I take time to meet with them and listen to them and what I mean by listening to them if they say something to me I get back to them I give them you know sometimes you know people will hear you but they don't take action even if I don't
049do what they want me to do I at least tell them the why behind that I've had a strong success in being able to do that one of the things that I like to do is I leverage social media I go around with my phone all the time I take pictures of kids i showcase their talents I love to see them when they're out there that their best and their celebrations and so forth I'll put their name out there just the other day we had our awards opportunity we have we have a girl who wanted to to more than anything go to NASA and be engaged in essence you're under Soph a scholarship that would cover her board and opportunities to be able to intern at NASA as a junior and so you build those
050relationships with them I found out that she was interested in doing that our principal at KC TCC did a great job of connecting her with an opportunity and voila there you go these are the things that I think you have to do for kids and if you model that from your seat as a superintendent others will follow and that's that's my philosophy with engaging students in student voice what are your thoughts on working with the board and communication with board members I think it's the most important thing you can do a strong governance team is is the most important thing that that can happen in a district to be able to achieve its vision mission and goals I'm a big fan of Marzano and Marzano talks about district leadership that works and it's critical that
051that the board and the superintendent builds strong trusting relations when I was a superintendent and even and my role as assistant superintendent our admin cabinet team we communicate with the board on a very frequent basis in our areas of expertise but I communicate frequently with the board individually I do a what we call learning walk so I would schedule times with board members to be able to go to certain areas that I know that they're passionate about when I on board at Kent City with each of the board members it's called a winding river exercise and you just get a chance to talk to board members and you say why are you here what are you passionate about what are the things that you like to do and I work to strategically connect board members
052with those types of opportunities and I think it's important that the community sees the superintendent and the board working closely together so there needs to be opportunities to be visible with the board and the superintendent together obviously you know in small groups but but ultimately engaging and being visible communicating whenever something happens I always communicated to the board very quickly and always reserved time for them to be able to ask questions it was a clear team initiative biggest challenge I had when I was a superintendent Kent City is that the board that hired me to the board members didn't run and so my you know the first thing that happened was I had two new board members so I actually on boarded with seven and then I on boarded with two more so I guess
053that was a opportunity and and so those are those are good times and and I've found opportunities to be able to be passionate with them as opposed to you know disagreeable during the input sessions our stakeholders told us that they would like a superintendent who is highly visible and part of the community what does that mean to you well visibility means that you are frequent at the events and the things that are that they're passionate about you have to be at football games you you you have to be at plays you have to be in the community you have to you have to go to the place where the community hangs out I was fortunate when I was a superintendent of Kansas City they only had one hangout and I would go there on Sundays
054and those were fun Sundays and and so they called it the roundtable and you know legacies that the community would have an opportunity be able to talk to you there are many different organizations in Farmington that you need to be visible and engaged with you have to listen and incorporate what they say into your mission and vision you have to be able to demonstrate that you hear them and that their voice is recognized in the outcomes of the school so visibility is is is probably the most important thing other than board relations in establishing a strong superintendency and what what strategies will you use for communicating with all stakeholders again I love with social media quite a bit I used two formats I use Twitter to kind of message out best practices in education I
055use LinkedIn to kind of communicate with staff the LinkedIn component are things that we're going to develop or we're working on and so they get a chance to be able to connect there I also do you know I communicate in our organization which is very big every month I do a video instructional services video and it's comprised of the work that's developed from all of our directors and so forth so you can't you can't over communicate you have to find multiple mediums to do so and you have to do some feedback to find out whether your audience is hearing you and so there's lots of opportunities where I'll throw out there and then I'll go and I'll ask students hey did you see that and if they didn't see it then I need a new
056medium if staff didn't see it or recognize it then I need a new medium to be able to do that but ultimately you have to be able to communicate that message in a variety of different ways in a way that is nondescript to time in place thank you very much that does conclude our formal questions for you do you have any closing comments for us well first and foremost I appreciate your time I appreciate your passion I appreciate that you commit yourself to students some of you might not have students in the district anymore but your commitment is is is valued I would say to you that Farmington is a very very special place it was very special to me it it enabled me to be able to do some things that that probably I
057could have never done had it not been for my experience here when I counsel staff especially younger staff about their career and where they want to go I always talked to them about write the last chapter of your experience your career first and then build all the other chapters to get there that's not an easy thing to do in this situation here in Farmington if I were to write the last chapter and I was selected as your superintendent it would make all of my prior chapters relevant it would make them all aligned I think every one of the experiences I've had has prepared me to do the job that you're asking to be done whether it be an innovative leader whether it be a builder of capacity of the leadership team whether it be any
058of the things that your community has asked you to look for within this superintendent search I think that my journey is perfectly aligned to this and I would be most honored if given the opportunity I know you have a difficult difficult challenge and regardless of how it turns out I'm very excited to have had an opportunity to be able to meet with you and see you and speak to you about what my passions are I apologize for the shed my heart they're a little bit on the on the caring about kids but I'm passionate about kids and that passion came in my history but I was empowered to do something about it because of Farmington and I would love to give back here thank you thank you we appreciate your interest in our candidacy and
059um as you have alluded the board is interviewing several candidates we have a very big decision in front of us but we certainly appreciate your time and have enjoyed having the opportunity for you to come home and talk to us again thank you very much hey we will now take a five-minute recess we are back in session just two reminders those in the audience please submit any feedback forms to dr. Greene those of you watching from home if you choose to provide feedback your feedback can be submitted directly from the forum or you can choose to write to the Board of Education and send an email without using that forum but please do that immediately after each candidate so that we can get those prior to our deliberations we will now be moving into our
060second candidate for the evening dr. pamela campbell again this officer will introduce us thank you who's the superintendent of columbia school district i did not receive any direct questions about dr. Campbell's background I know that it's you have done some of your research you're starting to work on kind of getting your arms around sort of size of district and I know that will be part of the conversation so we'll look forward to learning more about dr. Campbell this evening thank you hi nice to meet you dr. Kimmel we just lost want to tell you one of our board representative trustees as the Skype so she is there she has muted herself that can hear you Terry do you wanna dis away there you go I nice to meet you thank you so we will now
061proceed with our interview of dr. Pamela Campbell we'd like to welcome you to Farmington public schools and thank you for the interest in our district tonight our board members will be engaged in asking you questions in a round-robin format a couple of our board representatives will be asking multiple questions and so I will begin with the first question can you briefly tell us about your background and experience and why you're interested in this position well thank you for the opportunity to come speak with you and for the members of the community I appreciate being invited I was very excited for this opportunity and to apply for this position my background I've been a superintendent for almost 19 years we're just coming up on my anniversary and I've had an opportunity to work in large districts
062as a teacher and smaller districts and medium-sized districts as a superintendent so I have a vast amount of experience I've had opportunities to do budgeting to do school improvement to bond and renovation projects to do strategic planning and really bring our community into a collaborative group that could really succeed at anything so my my background in communication and team building has been an asset to me as I've been a superintendent and I am really excited about this opportunity and thank you again for bringing me here this evening thank you our next question will be asked by secretary Smith and then we'll proceed in order please describe your leadership approach and developing excuse me an administrative team from your experience what steps did you take and what challenges did you encounter thank you very much I've
063had an opportunity to build an administrative team a couple of times and leadership styles are really fluid I think and as you work with your administrative team you have to go back to for me I go back to when I was a coach and it takes hard work and focus and facilitation in order to build a winning team and that's what we all want is a winning an administrative team my leadership style is collaboration and communication and so those things work well when you're trying to build a team basically focusing on camaraderie and finding common goals now they those goals don't necessarily come from everybody agreeing with one another some of discourse where you might have the yin and the yang those things actually give you a better goal product in the end where you've
064had an opportunity to discuss things so first of all I think you have to lay out trust and communication you've got to build trust in your administrators and communicate effectively secondly you need to develop leadership so by mentoring and working together having one of the things that we've done is to have a retreat and day-long meetings as well as touch base meetings where I touch bases with my administrators and try to formulate common goals and the third thing I would say is just focus on those common goals and those are driven by your strategic plan and your mission and your vision those things help you build positive collaborative administrative team how do you provide staff development in your district and how do you evaluate its effectiveness that's an excellent question staff development is the mainstay
065of positive reinforcement of what teachers learned and administrators learned while they were in college however things change and so we need to make sure that our approaches are fresh in this day and age where we have competitive school recruitment and really parental I think parents who are very understanding and knowledgeable about educational practices and the community expects positive growth you have to have positive staff development so one of the things that I would do is look at the strategic plan strategic plans are laid out to give you a guideline to where your focus is so let's say in your strategic plan you have a line about culture so we want to build the culture how do you do that so you have to find someone some expert who's going to help you learn how to
066build your culture in your district into a positive cohesive whole secondly if you're I mean all of our strategic plans have things about increasing academic achievement so academic achievement there's a lot of things we can do to do professional development around academic achievement you can bring in special speakers you look to your master teachers and your principals and one of the things that we've done that's been very successful is have many many professional development so you have somebody doing something on integrating technology into your classroom and another person doing some on safety and security in the workplace so and then put all those things together and it gives teachers a great opportunity to get positive professional development now how do you evaluate that that's that's a greater question one of the things I did when
067I was working on my PhD was program evaluation and so I believe that evaluation things don't ever get better if you don't evaluate them and so we have really looked to evaluate our professional development through questionnaires asking watching test scores seeing if seeing if it's a cultural if you're doing a cultural improvement seminar is the culture improving and how do you measure that so if you don't have things set out to at the very beginning and know how to measure it it's never it's never gonna get better let's say how would you assess and enhance the current Farmington Schools strategic planner well I've had an opportunity I actually brought it with me this evening I've had an opportunity to take a look at your strategic plan it's a good strategic plan it's dynamic strategic plans
068are a living document basically so the first thing that I would do is set up annual review process where you review you take it from your goal one curriculum instruction so take a look at those things bring in your team so you've got your board your community your teachers your administrators bring in your team and evaluate that and say where are we on all these things secondly your culture goal the same thing I would do the same process so that's very important that's something that I do with our strategic plan and our school improvement secondly I would want to make sure that everybody in the district knows what it is it's a beautiful plan I mean it is it is beautiful really colorful and it's got great stuff in it but you want to make
069sure that it is reaching the teacher the classroom so they know what it is that our goals are and then thirdly I would evaluate with the administrative team progress on a quarterly basis so where are we on a quarterly basis so if you look at the first curriculum instruction goal teachers will provide regularly regular I can't talk and ongoing feedback to students so how are we doing that and how are we doing on that goal so I think that is the streets three steps that I would use when looking at the strategic plan tell us your thoughts on innovations for improving student learning and instruction so improving student learning and instruction that is the bread and butter of school districts we have to continue to improve because otherwise we're going to be we won't be
070producing the students for tomorrow's workforce so how do we improve improve student learning well number one we've got a great strategic plan and we're gonna evaluate that and we're gonna watch it along the way we're gonna look at our art outcomes so what our test scores are and then and then thirdly we're gonna check with the teachers and see how they feel that that things are going I think that's important and sometimes we we look at test scores and and we talked to parents but we don't ever assess what what the teachers feeling I feel they are happening so I think curriculum instruction the other thing I would say is as you go through a curriculum adoption process it's very important to look at who else is using this what are their results in my
071district we just adapted Lucy Caulkins which is a reading program great reading program isn't the best I hope so is that the cheapest certainly how sad but but it's going to give us results that we want we already have pretty good test scores we want better so it's it's something that I think you have to do your research you need not only your curriculum people to work on it but you need teachers you know teachers talk to their friends in other districts and I think that's how we learned about Lucie Caulkins so however it is you know wherever you are in the curriculum adoption process I think whether it's language arts or science or math I think those are important things that you look at everything as you as you go through that process how
072would you approach the issue of diversity in the district in regard to hiring practices and providing an inclusive learning and work environment diversity is very important first of all none of us come from the same same place I mean each of us have different families so we're all diverse currently I am enrolled in a masters of dispute resolution program from Pepperdine University and one of the classes that I'm taking right now is about cultural communications so I've already learned a lot about communicating with various cultures and I think diversity having a diverse School District kids come with all different you've got kids who come and they've you know they already know how to read when they come to school you have children who are coming from a impoverished background and then you have children who
073have various family backgrounds where a different lifestyle possibly so I think it's very important to make sure that our teachers are able to address the the learning environment that's going to make those children but not make them but help them to be successful secondly I think one of the things is we need to make sure that we have a diverse workforce and because our children come from different places and they don't all look the same we need to make sure that their teachers reflect who they are so that they can look down the hall and they could say I love mrs. Smith you know she she's just like me I'm gonna grow up just to be like her I think we need to make sure that we take into account and how are we going
074to do this in times of where it's difficult to find teachers and difficult to recruit administrators recruiting teachers and administrators it's very important we reach out to the people that we know our teachers our community members to help us recruit those people so that's a little bit about about hiring I think one of the things that I'm doing right now I met with a group of seniors yesterday and one of the young ladies said that she was going to be a teacher and I said come back to me next spring and we'll hire you because we do summer programs I'll hire her as the end of her freshman year of college and she's gonna start working for us then and then she'll go back to college and you know we're developing some of our own
075teachers because it's difficult to find them as as you well know so hiring an inclusive workforce reaching out using the people that we know and love to help recruit positive mission driven teachers as a school leader which administrative responsibilities do you prefer to perform directly and which do you prefer to delegate that is an excellent question currently in my current position there's a lot of things that I do from title 1 and title 2 and all the federal programs to curriculum development and strategic planning what do I really love love strategic planning love curriculum development the budget stuff I taught math I love numbers I'm able to look at our budget decipher those things that that need to be updated and work with the various groups in our district to make sure that that all
076happens love all that stuff I have a very good working relationship with our educational associations and so I really enjoy doing negotiation with them and working closely with them so those are those are the main things curriculum instruction the budgeting right now I do the federal programs I'm sure here's someone else does them but it's very interesting to make sure that you stay aligned with those federal programs because those drive things I've learned that through the at-risk program that can help fund more teachers and so I think all of those things are very important and the things that I would delegate getting called it two o'clock in the morning to answer the alarm how's that that's that's the only thing that I really that I really don't want to do but but I would so
077just I love my job I love what I do I love the people I work with and in each district district I've been and I I have loved that and we've built a team and been able to work together what is your philosophy of leadership as it relates to employees tell us what you have found to be the most rewarding aspect of leading others and the most challenging well the rewarding part is the easy part I have developed so many positive relationships with the people that I work with I got a text just before I came from a first-grade teacher just saying good luck I don't want you to go anywhere but good luck I love you and so I think the rewards so far outshine anything else meeting with those those seniors watching them
078play baseball watching them in the band all of those things going to the grocery store and having a little child run up and say ah you came and read in my classroom today you know Mom and then the mom you know who who is this you know that you're hugging but those things are so rewarding and I think as a superintendent you just can't count the number of things that are rewarding the difficulties I think it's difficult when you have students that are at risk and and in a challenging position in their life and they make a mistake that could cost them the opportunity to continue to attend school and and how do you address that and how do you help them grow through a process where they could be suspended for a long term
079or expelled and I think in the district where I am we've established an opportunity for students even if they're expelled students expelled the very next day we have an educational program for them or her and so I think those difficulties and the things that really break your heart those can become positive things and some of those kids are actually saved by the programs that we've developed so I think the rewards are immense though what specific capabilities might set you apart from other candidates specifically my background and team-building and collaboration and communication will set me apart from other candidates currently I have a blog that I write a newspaper article it's in the newspaper it's positive about my school district it's positive about education so it's something that they actually publish recognizing employees as well I
080think communication and recognizing employees one of the things we did in our strategic plan was put in a line about recognizing employees so that's one of the things that I've really focused on because there's a lot of unsung heroes out in the district and you need to make sure that you value those people the custodian that's there at five o'clock in the morning and when it snows he's there at 3 o'clock in the morning removing snow he's there on the weekends checking the doors he's he's hugging kids when they run up to him Oh uncle you know Dale I love you so much you know I think recognizing those heroes and the communication I have a set up a Facebook page I post to our website and it goes to the Facebook and tweets out
081the kids that that hear about snow days they hear about it from me first before they get the call so it's I think those are the things that are going to set me apart those are the things that I think I do over and above you know a lot of people are great with curriculum I'm great with curriculum but I think those other things recognizing employees really valuing them from from the day they start making sure that I mentor the principals make sure that the teachers are mentored by other master teachers those things come those are the most the things that are going to set me apart how would you use research-based practices to improve instruction and improve the curriculum in the district okay research-based practices well as a young teacher one of the things
082that I had the opportunity to do was work with master teachers on our what used to be called north central accreditation now it's called advanced ed and so I learned back then that you have to use research so you can't just say oh I love this program because you know Susie Smith told me about it well you have to use research so I think it's very important to use research-based strategies to improve curriculum and instruction and how do you do that well there's agencies that write about different curriculum you can use look at test scores and see use evaluation tools so my background in program evaluation has given me quite a few different tools in which to be able to assess and some of it is just digging deep into the data and looking at
083how kids are learning and how there's how you're assessing them and I think the other thing that's really important with curriculum instruction is not only getting feedback from teachers but getting feedback from parents and I would also add that it's important to visit classrooms you can't just sit in your office because you could do that honestly 24 hours a day and just be busy but you can't do that you've got to get out in the classrooms and you've got to see how this is working so how is in in in my district how is Lucy Caulkins working how is we use I ready assessments how are they working is it really working does it does it provide a positive increase in test scores our test score is getting better so is your curriculum and instruction
084producing results most districts have had to make budget cuts tell us about the process you would use as our superintendent if we need to make cuts the first day I walked into my current district I knew that the budget wasn't great within a month or so I learned that it was not only horrible but it was really horrible and so what I would do is what I have done in the past I met with everyone I did lunch meetings with teachers and staff members custodians met with bus drivers early in the morning with doughnuts in my hand I should have brought through I didn't think about it and and I asked them what is it that you think we can do to remedy this you've got people that are in your community that are in
085your school district that they see things every day the best in my current district the best example of saved over $100,000 for me a custodian came to me and said do not tell anybody that I told you this but this is what I think you should do and we did it and it produced results fabulous results you know something that a lot of people would never have thought of and so I think in my past and school districts they have to do budget cuts it's just something something of the times with declining enrollment and really the kind of hero I mean you don't want it but you have to you have to watch your budget and I think the other thing that as we as we generate the budget we look at everything I look
086at line by line I look at five years of budgeting what happened five years ago what happened so I can see the trends and I think that's the other important thing in addition to wholesale budget cuts where you're talking to everyone I think those things looking at all the lines and budgets are long as you know and are familiar with I think that's very important to check what is this what does this exactly mean and then make sure it's something that's going to improve instruction because what are we here for we're here for the kids we're here to improve instruction we've got a great strategic plan we're going to follow it and we have value value driven really it's it's a value driven organization and so we want to make sure that the budget reflects
087that please describe your experience with bond issues or sinking fund issues or other construction projects to improve facilities or developing a facilities plan well I didn't mention that but one of my loves is is facility improvement because it makes such a dynamic different for your difference for your teachers your students in your community several times I've had the opportunity we're gonna find committee this this past time we established a facility Improvement Committee and we met established goals we surveyed community members as to their priorities we surveyed teachers as their priorities and we had an opportunity to put that all together with the with the help of a construction manager and an architect and then we went for a bond door-to-door we walked door-to-door we made sure we talked to everybody I went to service clubs
088talked to you everybody I could think of went to the let's see what are they called the the township meetings and village meetings and made sure that we had an opportunity to talk to everybody answer questions what is it that you actually need and it's made such a difference in the culture the other thing you asked for was about sinking funds so in my position as a as a principal we had a sinking fund it did tremendous things it gave us the opportunity to improve our buildings without having a huge bond bond issue and I think as you go through the bond issue if you need a lot of money that's what you want to do and I think that's something that working with a board and collaborating with the board and the administration looking
089at what the assessment of the teachers and the community members you can decide whether you need a sinking fund for a for a short time or you need a bond issue and whether it's renovation or new build those are things in my wheelhouse that I've been able to do and in love and make sure that it turns out right I'm somebody that's detail-oriented and results-driven and I want to make sure that if it was my house that we were building I'd make sure that those you know the paint was right and whatever you know the tile was right whatever it was the heating system I would do no less for my school district tell us about a challenge he faced and addressed as an educational leader so the challenge I faced I kind of already
090told you this a little bit but what the budget and along with the budget was the fact that we had facilities that needed improving drastically literally the roofs were leaking the when it rained from a certain angle it came in the doors and the windows the heating systems were failing so we had a budget problem and we had and and we also had this facility problem so as we brought everybody together and talked about the budget and talked about what we were going to do and then we rolled right into a facility improvement team and we looked at how we were going to improve the facilities and assess the teachers and the community members and really worked to make sure that that we were able to address the needs that the community saw I mean
091it is amazing the difference our budget is great because we address those problems we've gotten more kids because we address the building problems the roofs no longer leak the heating systems work and no rain is coming in the doors so it's really a positive learning environment and we've gone because we did a bond issue we were able to also buy a new technology and so we've got technology in every classroom and it's an asset to the teachers and it's a positive and learning environment for children what is your definition of school culture what is the superintendent's role in cultivating it that is an excellent question well school culture is how you feel when you walk into the room so if you walk into your school everyday and you feel nervous and upset because it's such
092a negative place that's not some place anyone's what I'm gonna want to be um we want to have a school culture that's inclusive where everyone feels like they belong like they have friends they they have teachers that support them I think school school culture starts before kids enter school by having great professional development on cultural awareness I think that our teachers and our aides and our bus drivers they all play a part in positive school culture so it's important to make sure and one of the things that I'm doing currently is you know I I know that you've used the leader in me program which is a really positive program for school culture we are adopting the flip flip in capturing kids hearts which is a school culture program as well so it will train
093teachers bus drivers teacher aides secretaries everyone in how to build a positive school culture how to make sure that we get the best out of students every day how to make sure that those students celebrate their successes and and that we really work together on all of this what is the superintendent's role first of all I think the superintendent's role is a leadership role we have to make sure that we always have a positive attitude because positive attitudes help build positive cultures and so as a you know from the time I started coaching until now I've always felt the positive attitude so I come into work every day and I'm always ready to go sometimes they get there really early and sometimes not quite so early but whatever time it is that I that I
094walk in the door I always have a positive attitude and so I think cultivating that positive attitude the recognition program that I talked about we have a superintendent's a word that we gather and an Teacher of the Year and you make a difference it's a word those things help build positive culture and your staff the other thing and I can't say this enough that our bond issue providing a better learning environment for our children that is build a positive culture and it's such a shift I would never have guessed that we would go from really when I arrived and things honestly the roughs were leaking they had buckets in the hallways it was horrible the culture then and kids thought they didn't know one cared about them because they're rough slate and they're heating you
095know it was 48 degrees one day in a classroom we can't have that and so the culture just isn't going to be positive and I think that bond issue and just all the things that we've done together and the camaraderie and the teamwork that we've built with our whole team no matter who they are has really helped improve our school culture tell us about your track record for improving student academic achievement for all students so my track record has been that as a new superintendent we had an opportunity to work together on on a curriculum and instruction improvement process and one of the things that we did was we did curriculum mapping and since then I've done that several times and that was very important for Institute proving instruction and for improving for all students
096so looking for the gaps looking for the holes in your program I think that's very important and I know that school districts have done that I think it's it's a continual process because as we as the state puts more and more on us I think it's very important and you know we've got next-gen standards and social studies standards are coming out and we've got all of these things and so we want to make sure that we don't have gaps and I think that's essential as to as to work so what was the results of that well first of all the the first district that we did that the results was a Golden Apple Award so that was a big thing if some of you will remember that and the second district was an award of
097excellence from the state and the district where I am and now we have received all sorts of awards awards from the US News and World Report Awards from the state and just March right on down very important to make sure that and it's and it's not only about the awards but it's about seeing each and every student improve setting goals for each and every student and one of the things that how that has helped us is we adopted the I ready program several years ago and it's really helped us as we set goals and is similar to nwea as well setting goals for every student giving them an opportunity to say I am gonna get to this goal this is gonna be my my goal so improving student and all students and I think one
098of the things Pam when I heard you say improving it for all students I think about the students that really struggled to learn and I think we have to be innovative and creative when we think about ways to address their learning needs and make sure one of the things that I did several years ago was we had some students who had very difficult behavioral issues and they weren't identified but it was really really difficult for the teacher and so we have facilitated some additional behavioral aides and that has given those children and the other children in their classes an opportunity to learn in a positive inclusive learning environment how will you approach negotiations with our bargaining units describe your experience in working with labor relations well I have a great relationship with my educational associations
099so it's not just those six or seven days that you negotiate that you need to have a close tie I talk to them regularly we meet often we I mean I'm friends with them I think that's the most important thing is how are you going to have a relationship with people and so I've really worked to communicate and build relationships and build trust and transparencies with our educational Association one of the reasons that I entered into the Pepperdine University masters of dispute resolution was just to build my skills in negotiation and and and resolution of any kind of concerns of disputes and it's given me an opportunity far and above ever anything I ever thought really it's about a wee mentality and I think about ten years ago I was in a in a community
100where we really worked on a wee mentality and I think I've been able to carry that through with the district where where I'm in it's it's not us in them when I negotiate it's we we're working for the best we want the best for our students we want the best for our teachers and and we're gonna make sure that we only give the best what is your approach to educating the whole child well as you know different things make different children want to learn so certainly we need to be able to address the whole child and that it's kind of a buzzword but it's really very important I think some kids you know when I was younger I got turned on my mathematics and science oh I loved math and science you couldn't like pull
101me away from it history not so much my kids love the History Channel and they're they're very you know they love that and they love listening to all that stuff so how do you reach those kids and find out what makes them tick I think that honestly is the question of the day we want to make sure that we have various opportunities for children to succeed so in in my current district we make sure that that the children get technology opportunities they get opportunities for all sorts of camps in the summer and all sorts of they they have choir and music and art and phys ed because you never know which teacher is gonna reach that child if they love the phys ed teacher we have an elementary for that I don't know 63 or
10264 and all the kids they're always grabbing his legs and hugging them and stuff you know who is it that's gonna that's gonna reach that child so educating the whole child is very important make sure that we reach kids where they are making sure that we're creative and we think out of the box when we talk about educating them I was in a classroom while a couple weeks ago and the for some reason the technology everything was down well the teacher had planned a technology lesson so she had the kids working she had tadpoles that somebody had brought in she had hermit crabs and she had something else a snake or something and they did they used that opportunity to do a compare and contrast between the different life forms you know having teachers that
103are able to think on their feet and really work with those kids you know the kids were so excited much more excited than whatever they were gonna do I think and she said it turned out so well and I think when we give teachers the tools give them what they need we're gonna be successful in educating the whole child how would you engage students and listen to the student voice well in my district we have partnered with the Kiwanis Clubs and we have from first grade all the way up through senior high we have the opportunity for students to be part of Kiwanis so that's one way that they can have a voice and they are making a difference and and then another way so I told you that I met with some of our
104seniors we give the opportunity for kids I mean I'm in the high school my office is at the back of the high school so I'm in the high school every day but to listen to students and I think it's important to give them student government opportunities and you get the kids who are elected to student government one of the things that we've done is we've opened up our student government so that any child can be part of student government you don't just it's not just the elected one elected ones so through through our Key Club and our builder's club and and all of them that we do with Kiwanis and the other thing I think one of the things we do is that we survey our students and we probably should do it more often
105than we do but we survey the students at least once a year and we give them an opportunity for feedback so okay let me just do a check sure mrs. Weems are you there this is Wayne's okay gotcha good okay mm-hmm we were hearing it feedback on this end we thought maybe we lost okay thank you so it's important to engage students the other thing I mentioned that I I hire students as they exit those that are going to be teachers as they exit from school you know you've got to hire them early because you want them to be vested in your school district and some of them some of them run lawn mowers in the summer some of them work in the office all the things so as we engage those students I think
106I've learned a lot lot from them and I think we we need to listen to kids I had an opportunity as I grew up to be on the junior board of education in the Lansing school district and I had an opportunity to really I felt make a difference on the district-wide stage and to be voice in the instructional Council and in a district like Farmington that's large and has a lot of kids I think those things would be a real positive thing for students what are your thoughts on working with board and communication with board members well communication with board members is very important because we're a team you know we are working together we spend a lot of time together we need to make sure that that we're on the same page and we
107need to make sure that if we have different ideas that we can come to a consensus and then we can work together to solve any of our differences not only that you're the ones on the front line people your neighbors and your friends and they're the ones they call you sometimes you know about things even before the superintendent knows about it and it's very important so the things that I do I mentioned that I write a article in the newspaper that informs my board as well as the commune and make sure that my board members hear from me often if there's anything that is earth-shaking a big concern a safety concern somebody that instance where someone could end up expelled or a long term suspension where people are very concerned about I make sure I
108call all my board members I text them and use email to communicate things that are just you know just general so I think it's very important because the board is the face of the community and we I need to make sure that you have the information you need so whether it's data student test scores attendance data winning awards who's who's doing a great job new hires all of those things are important and we need to make sure that we communicate and collaborate daily weekly it's very important during the input sessions our stakeholders told us that they would like a superintendent who is highly visible and part of the community what does this mean to you well I told you about being in the grocery store and kids coming up and hugging me so I'm highly
109visible I go to basketball games I go to the prom I go to baseball games I go to softball games go to tennis matches and and even junior high track mates field days I mean honestly some of the best things you hear are from parents at field days I I think it's important to be visible and it doesn't matter what size district you're in the superintendent is getting feedback all of the time when they're visible you see people you hear positive things about your community I get things that I put in my newspaper articles by by being visible and I think it's so important to be out there I have a jacket with a emblem on it couple of jackets with our emblem on it you know t-shirts my husband has t-shirts I definitely if
110you gave me the opportunity to work with you and lead your district I would live in the community I'd be a community member I'd shop here I love to shop so that works out well and you know I just I think you would see me see me and the people would see me everywhere what strategies will you use for communicating with all stakeholders so one of the things that I do well is communicate with stakeholders so I use Facebook I use Twitter I use we also use remind in my district I have a remind I'm not that graded that's the only one that I'm not that great at we use a website post we have a news feed and a line feed it goes right on on the I can do that right from my
111phone those are very important things in addition to the things that go out to the community so it's important to keep your community because you have people that live in your community there are stakeholders and that you want to be supportive of the district but they may only hear the negative things so we have to tell our story we have to tell it transparently but we have to tell the positive site as well and so the newspaper article the blog we do a newsletter that we send out to all of our homeowners what renters I mean box holders I guess they're called those are strategies that I strategies that I use to communicate with our stakeholders and it's very important as well as face to face we invite people to be part of our strategic
112planning sessions what a lot of people aren't gonna come you know my mom's 90 and she would not go to something like that she just she would love to I mean she'd love to be part of something like that but she she's not able right now to do that and so I think you want to make sure that those people that live in your district who've been supporters of the district for years and years that they know what's going on they know that we're having princess camp and it's a princess science camp so we're gonna have little princesses that are in a science camp they know that we have electrifying science camp and robotics and all the other fun things that we're going to do this summer we want to make sure that we use
113everything available to come communicate with our stakeholders Thank You dr. Campbell that does conclude our formal questions do you have any closing comments for us well thank you for having me here this evening I've enjoyed the opportunity to get to converse with you and thank you for all of you for coming really I grew up always wanting to be an educator I love my job I love what I do I love the people that I work with it's it's a great thing to be able to see the as kids you know you walk into a classroom and the teachers teaching you know that day with a the teacher who had the Polliwogs and everything just to see the glint in those kids eyes and to see how excited they were to learn to see kids
114on the playground and you know it's a really great thing just a treasure that I get to do this every day and so that positive spirit of communication and collaboration that's what I'd bring to your district if you decided I was the right one thank you so much we've appreciated our time with you as well as your interest in our position as you know we have several candidates we are interviewing but we will be in contact just a reminder to our audience if you filled out a feedback form please give those to dr. green those watching online please either fill in the feedback form and submit it immediately or you may also send in a email to our board address with just your comments and feedback as well thank you we will have a short
115break we are back in session and we are prepared for our third candidate of the evening we will be hearing from dr. robert herrera and this is here to introduce dr. Herrera thank you very much this is our third and final interview for the first round of interviews for superintendent of Farmington Public Schools as you mentioned we will be visiting with dr. Robert Herrera who is currently the CEO of button Harbor area schools the only question we received about dr. Herrera was early on just people seeking clarification on the nature of the CEO status and so just explaining that he was recruited vigorously by the state for that position because of his experience with school turnaround I have been in contact with the state and also from the the Union in Benton Harbor and hoping
116that he doesn't get this job because he's doing important work there I mean I obviously the situation though is that the contract the contract between the district and the state expires June 30th and so that puts the entire arrangement into into a different light so that's the reason why I think that he has applied for this vacancy and beyond that obviously we will get to hear more from him this evening and get more information thank you thank you thank you good evening doctor here and welcome I do want to let you know that we do have one of our trustees viewing via Skype and participating so okay great she's she's there she's just hiding there you got it thanks teri and we'd like to welcome you and thank you for your interest in our district
117tonight all of our board members will be asking you questions kind of in a round robin style two of our board members will ask you two questions to each other back to back though - so can you briefly just tell us a little bit about your background and experience and why you're interested in this position certainly well first I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to meet with you tonight I consider just sitting here privileged so well worth the drive over just a little bit about my history as it had happened to glance at my resume have fairly broad and diverse broad inverse responsibilities in districts a teacher - principal assistant principal director of instruction in other words more like assistant superintendents for instruction superintendent positions and then also I kind of unique positions
118in terms of a transformation specialist for Adrian public schools I wrote there sig grant and administered that and then most recently I am have a very unique position as the CEO of the harbor area schools I am very you know happy with the opportunities I've been given throughout my career and I believe I've learned quite a bit from those for me it's been not just the responsibilities and learning the technical aspects of the job it spent more about the work we've done and as I reflected on the work over the past 20 years 20 plus years I think it's given me a much broader perspective on on education and it allows me to see things a little bit differently and then a lot provides me an opportunity to maybe take a different approaches to solutions
119and in moving districts forwards so those experiences I think are have been invaluable to me and how I see education in the role of central office administration as far as the district concerned the interest is I mean you have a lot to be proud of is you look at the programming very high quality programming all the way from the IB to the CTE program programs you have you have a you know you have a very robust strategic plan I believe what what I enjoyed reading in the strategic plan were were that the areas of strategic focus I believe as a as a school in a community or focused on the right areas and the right initiatives I also was you know it was the easy reading the fact that I believe your values and what
120I saw in terms of outcomes and opportunities and experiences you want it from your students we're a good match for my values and beliefs I think as a school community if you can produce students with those skills and experiences you're doing them a very big favor as you send them out into the global world on a personal note hi I am married my spouse is Jennifer if I were to make it to next round I'm more than welcome when you're back here and introduce you to her so I'm just gonna be transparent at this time and just let everybody know I certainly married up and she she's she's she's been the the main reason I've been able to manage this career and all the different roles and responsibilities she's been so helpful in terms of
121you know protecting my time with the family when I got home she's a therapist so inherently it comes natural to her to take care of folks might have also two children Chris and Claire they're both in college so this was our first year as empty nesters actually Chris attends Kalamazoo College he's a junior and Claire's a freshman at Michigan State and she just actually returned home so I been enjoying my time with would see my daughter again so that so basically that's a brief overview of my career my history and a little bit of my personal life thank you our next question will come from secretary Smith and then we'll proceed in order please describe your leadership approach in developing an administrative team from your experience what steps did you take and what challenges did
122you encounter along the way I think as you you look at a district level administrative team that would include principals central office staff you know maybe other key personnel in the district you you you take a look you you first focus on the group's ability to work together collaboratively come together with common goals and and in a in a in a manner of communicating and working together which would include trust and open and honest communications the the challenges that typically come with teams is going to be within the individuals individuals have different strengths weaknesses some are experienced administrators some may be inexperienced administrators so there's a there needs to be a focus on you know helping each helping each individual on the team grow as professionals and their their needs may be different they may
123have different interests and so in order to keep them involved and keep them interested and keep them part of the team you have to you have to also look at ways to to grow the administrators so a lot of mentoring may occur giving giving administrators an opportunity to take on additional tasks or responsibilities also is helpful functioning as a team well a lot of times our administrators will actually mentor and help and support each other either because they've been through the prior experience or just because it's better to work collaboratively with somebody on an effort thank you how do you provide staff development in your district and how do you evaluate its effectiveness I think the staff development would come through a process you know focused either through school improvement or the district improvement plan
124and you know upcoming initiatives or a review of our data where we know we have to address some some weaknesses or some deficiencies the the model I've always used for staff development is is more job embedded and it's an it's always been collaborative so we we we will do our we will get our sit and get and we'll learn the technical aspect of it but then where the return on the investment comes is our ability to apply that within our classroom setting effectively so we we always focus on a co-planning co-teaching and and in providing feedback with teachers and mentor teachers and I've usually committed to instructional facilitators or instructional coaches for support and so what that typically transpires in is you know teacher will actually sit down with another teacher clos plan they will
125go in and deliver the lesson and they'll watch each other give each other feedback later the instructional coach may come in and observe them give them feedback as they're delivering the strategy principles that have play a role of monitoring the effectiveness of the strategy and the implementation of the strategy so they do that through their their classroom walkthroughs and then we we always come back together as a group report out and we we talk about next steps and and how well we believe that the strategies been working and usually that's through some collection of some type of benchmarking data after the fact and again what you'll probably hear repeated from me tonight is that I'm due to probably to a fault I'm systems minded and so we we always embed things in a bigger system
126that way we get sustainability so professional development would be a big part of the school improve a planning process in the building and the building would then reflect on that through their own school improvement and work within their staff grade levels and departments how would you assess and enhance the current Farmington schools strategic plan well that would be a tough one just you know being a new visitor to the district you know what I like I've mentioned earlier you know I think the strategic plan need areas focuses were perfect for certainly a school district the size and and and it was robust in terms of wanting to reach you know hiring goals and and it also had some future focused initiatives in it and opportunities for innovation or at least to take risk for innovation
127so I think you know the first thing to do would be to gauge at how far you've you've gotten on your strategic plan and you could typically do that through focus groups or working with the goal area committees and once I had a good handle on that then I believed that then I could figure out you know what my role would be to do an you know continue moving you forward on your strategic plan what areas we need to recommit to and bring back the life and move forward what areas we may have reached a certain level of implementation so that there's sustainability and then we can redirect our work so I think the the first part of the strategic plan would be me being on a learning curve doing some fact-finding figuring out what's
128occurred over the last four or five years and then working with the board to develop a plan on next steps and setting priorities and then talk and developing you know extensions to those goals and working through the committee's I think my my leadership capacity and my experience and you know in areas of strategic planning and certainly the areas of focus that you have would allow me to quickly you know catch up with a group and and figure out next steps tell us your thoughts on innovations for improving student learning and instruction well then that would go right along with the strategic planning um I think one of the things that schools struggle with at least in my experience and working with schools has been the this concept of you know comprehensive school improvement and opportunities
129to be strategic when you think of school improvement planning you know in that whole SWOT analysis we usually think about strengths and weaknesses which are the beginning part of the you know the SWOT and that that drives you know the school improvement process which is most likely an internal process strategic planning is typically an external process because we've been to talk about opportunities and threats and that's where we talk about the future of the district and what we would like to see our district become and grow into within the building though there's there's not a lot of opportunity for for strategy or innovation within those two areas so I think I think buildings and building principals building administrators and central office need to be very strategic on creating opportunities for the buildings to to pilot
130to experiment and to you know figure out what the next innovation is and then that and then determine whether it's a good match for the district and whether we can grow it that way it's controlled we have a good handle on I was will work and I will impact the district and we'll be able to you know again from a systems point of view figure out where it would fit into the bigger picture and you know how we would support it and sustain it how would you approach the issue of diversity in the district in regard to hiring practices and providing an inclusive learning and work environment you know I think that's that's a question probably for every school district right now in terms of the teacher you know recruiting teachers and bringing them into
131the district some of the strategies i've used in the past have been to you know have a strategic team that's actually out recruiting Future teacher's you know we we certainly can you know post positions and and try to make our positions attractive and and make sure we're very transparent of the demographics of our our community but I think the the best weight for you know making sure that we're very intentional about bringing teachers in and targeted is to get out there and recruit to look for you know opportunities to you know partner with universities to you know begin to offer you know mentorships or internships for potential teachers to grow our own teachers and to to just look for strategies above and beyond the typical approach is to you know just just posting positions on
132particular websites the bringing teachers in the the struggle is is when you bring teachers into a new community you know how well they they adapt and settle into the community so I think that we would have to be very strategic and supportive of you know doing what we can to retain our teachers when we when we get them in the district and and making them feel like they're part of the culture and part of the community so that's just that a whole onboarding process that I think comes along with HR and it comes along with the building administrator and in the team in the building to welcome our teachers and make them feel comfortable and make sure that they're they feel like they're immediately part of the culture and part of the school community so
133I don't I wish there were a model out there you know a specific way to to bring those teachers in and create more diversity in schools and I think the you know I think the goal is that you know your teaching staff should be a reflection of the demographic you that you serve but that's that's not always the possibility I'd also like to point out though that my experience you know non instructional staff or instructional support staff often time adds to the diversity and they play key roles of the district and they actually help to they add value to the culture and the climate of the building in terms of bringing a more diversified group in as well so it's not always just teaching staff but it's it's the all the adults in the building
134that can help add to the diversity and including them and school improvement and bigger decisions in the district as a school leader which administrative responsibilities do you prefer to perform directly and which do you prefer to delegate well I I'm not sure prefer would be the right term for me but I would I would delegate responsibilities that that have to do with another positions content expertise I usually like to honor you know our staff that are in other positions and and are responsible for holding certain you know that are you know performing certain tasks and and following through on those if you were just consider delegating tasks from from my office or my desk because they were there were things that you know as a matter of being busy or or a matter of providing
135opportunities for staff to grow professionally I think there's really two ways to delegate the the first way to delegate it to ask would just be if it's just a technical task you know say we were working on staffing and or we were working on collecting or fact-finding in some area of legislation or something like that if if one of the members had our staff members had an interest in that we could easily delegate that task there a lot of decision-making then that it's mostly fact-finding and bringing back information to be considered at a later time those are probably more delegating other times you would delegate as opportunity for professional growth in the sense when you delegate those then I would still like to you know take on the role more of mentoring helping set parameters
136helping coach and maybe guiding the person through that so it wouldn't be you know complete delegation but there would be supports and continued conversations around that so again that that may be more around you know the person maybe want experience around collective bargaining person may want experience leading a curriculum effort or or you know a data initiative or some other initiative in the district so they can begin to explore what it's like in central office from the building level or or maybe a central office staff person would like to see what it's like you know actually sitting in the superintendency what is your philosophy of leadership as it relates to employees tell us what you have found to be the most rewarding aspect of leading others and the most challenging this was very easy for
137me the hits and it had educators the most rewarding thing is after we've you know started initiative and and followed through with initiative it's just a sense of efficacy you know I I see teachers you know feeling very proud and and and even willing to take on more responsibilities and take on additional tasks when they have the sense that they can they can actually make a difference in students regarding their performance and and their growth their academic growth and not just with academic growth it's also social emotional behavioral growth I you know when we build teachers efficacy around creating classroom environments that that address those behavioral and emotional needs and students grow academically that that's also a success the from the administrative standpoint you know as you you talked about you know you know the
138the collective efforts of the building you know they're they're very proud of their building and they like to you know celebrate their accomplishments and and in the end that that that sense of accomplishment I think really brings folks together and not just with the efficacy piece but also feeling like they're they're part of a school community and and they've earned this sense of pride and respect for each other so I think I think as I mentioned in you know a lot of my past positions we've we've had a lot of successes and we've accomplished quite a bit as a team and you know all the way from the building level to the central office just happened and even with the Board of Education and so I think that's been the most rewarding thing is as
139we look back at our accomplishments and think about what we've done for the students in the community what specific capabilities might set you apart from other candidates again I'm gonna have to say it's more of the system's piece that I seem to be you know noted for with with the groups I work with you know and I and I don't I don't know if you know that's that's Paul or not but it comes with you know certain challenges in terms of the way my mind works so I um I'm one of those folks that really think in terms of frameworks conceptual maps very theoretical abstract and then I typically rely heavily on my team to you know put those in more manageable steps and it helped to communicate those as we implement and then you
140know also begin to address you know the different types of you know staff we have out there not all staff just believe in you know ready fire aim approach let's just do it for the sake of doing it some are more relationship someone more value-based some are more emotional and I think we need to consider the needs of all of our staff as we bring them through a change process or or work towards you know a goal for the district so that level of communication I rely heavily on my team to develop support and communicate how would you use research-based practices to improve instruction and improve the curriculum in the district okay I think that question goes right along with the professional development piece you know there there are clear evidence-based practices that we know
141if we apply them effectively in the classroom and there will be a return on that investment and again I think that just comes to a commitment and making sure that that our teachers are aware of you know why and how the strategy works and and they understand what the demonstrated behavior of the student should be if the if the strategy is working effectively and we should have a you know a way to bring staff together that in the end through the school improvement process to be able to talk about and share ideas and strategies and on how it's worked and how they've implemented in some of the challenges they've had with us so they can learn from each other and grow so the you know the in education what I see is I see basically
142leadership facing two different types of challenges or our problems what are technical problems and technical problems have solutions there are evidence-based strategies or in a management position or financial position there are specific protocols and strategies that you use safety the specific protocols and strategies used to resolve situations but when you start thinking of more future focused pieces like digital learning environments and in personalized learning and you know more competency-based type activities there there's no model for that and so those are more adaptive type of leadership traits that you would have to have to to go into moving the district board and in addressing those types of problems most districts have had to make budget cuts tell us about the process you would use as our superintendent if we need to make cuts I you know
143I think the the one thing about budgeting is is I know for for Boards of Education the budgeting piece is seasonal but I think for for central office staff certainly the CFO and the superintendent it's it's a weekly monthly activity so so monitoring the you know the cash flow and the expenditures and getting a good handle on where we may have some known variances and have some areas where we could we could bright size you know throughout the year I think isn't very important to keep score and keep track of those so phase one for for me on on budget reductions or when you face budget reductions would just be that right sizing and that's just the CFO superintendent and the building administration and central office staff working hard to make sure that we were
144running a very lean ship and making sure that we were we were making the most of our you know a budgeting phase two would be if we if we realized we're in a position where that wasn't gonna allow us to balance the budget then I think we would have to begin to set priorities work with the Board of Education set priorities and talk about areas for reductions and what that means and we might the process I've always used as we asked the board to help us set priorities and we we set priorities we talked through those we go back and we bring the board scenarios I hate to bring boards back single recommendations because it's it makes it it makes it seem like you didn't consider anything else and I think the budgeting process and
145when you make reduction needs to be transparent and they need to know everything that was considered so we bring back scenarios we talk about implications to those budget reductions and then unfortunately that puts the Board of Education whose responsibility is to finally make the final decision on allocating those resources we hope that we can give you enough information and give you enough options that you feel comfortable making that decision I'd also like to add though as part of the budgeting process that would go on that isn't seen by the public is you know we we also need to keep an eye you know and I work very hard to keep in you know a two-year budget in place we're always one year out because when you when you get in a position where you're going
146to have to make budget reductions that are going to impact services and programming and opportunities for students then it's much better having a year being a year out to focus on how you're going to make those cuts how the programming can evolve what what you could do differently rather than sitting there and you know March April and May and saying oh we just have to cut this money and and we're forced into cutting this program without any creative thought so again working with the CFO and the inabilities administrators we'd always be planning for the future looking for areas that we could cut in the future if needed or you know be very cognizant of areas that were you know placing money that was a reoccurring expense if we didn't have to I have to say
147I I wish I had your note-taking skills if you need me to repeat something to her slow down I'll be happy to but please describe your experience with bond issues or sinking funds or other construction projects to improve facilities or developing a facilities plan the and that's a that's a good question I think that was one of my you know my one of my most notable experiences and shocking experiences when I when I was hired in Southaven they had just had two failed bonds and Southaven had some some academic problems and some financial problems when I arrived to the district so there was this community perception that there wasn't a lot of support of the high school in high school was probably the the building that needed the most support infrastructure and hadn't been touched
148in years so so we you know so the board immediately wanted to try to run loved another bond I'm like I'm new to the community you know we our high school graduation rate was just in a low 70s percent we were not retaining kids in high school there were school of choice in on us I don't know how I'm gonna sell you know a thirty million dollar bond proposal to the community for a high school that's got this you know level of perception in the community like yeah we need to do it so so so we went to work on that and we you know by good fortune you know I had the you know we were able to recruit the the most you know talented citizens group that went out and helped promote this
149from our ends what we did was you know we we had we had to give the public in the community a reason to support us so we we piloted programs and created these transformational spaces so we we brought community members in you know just nonprofit organizations quanah's rotary you know the W Women's Club and other key community stakeholders some business owners and we we showed them what those transformational spaces look like where we could do more project-based learning where we could infuse technology and when we showed them to difference between those classrooms and the more traditional 800 square foot classrooms where the kids were just tightly sitting in desk and there was very little technology so they you know they we had an overwhelming support from the community when we we did you know you
150know place the bond out for a vote or Lily's out for a vote so then came the real work we we had the opportunity to put actually another I think it ended up in 38 million dollars 36 million dollars we ended up putting 28 million dollars of renovation into a high school you know I continue to send positive notes to our superintendent on the construction management side of it because they actually had to they they they changed the entire blueprint of the high school without actually making any changes to the outside so all the renovations occurred inside out and so it was a the way they phased it in and the amount of work they put into that and the art to actually bring in that building to life as we had students in the
151building was amazing community's very proud of the building now I'm very proud of the building we we got to work on you know creating truly transformational spaces I had the opportunity to just join or become part of the future ready schools which meant that we we had access to folks you know in the know so we brought in a gentleman named Thomas Murray who was on Washington DC he was the the state nation's digital an online learning director brought in a colleague of mine named Aaron Klein who was absolutely brilliant on creating transformational spaces and then we brought in a couple of practitioners and and they helped us you know design this from a comprehensive end and then we also work with technology and and the construction management group but we we literally have you
152truly you know innovative high school in terms of the space our guiding principles were that we we knew curriculum was going to change we knew technology was going to change so all of our classroom spaces had to be flexible and adaptable just to support any type of learning out of that came a 15,000 square foot integrated Learning Center as well where we could we could offer personalized learning opportunities small group learning opportunities and all the way up to housing professional development or community events for 250 people so again it was a you know very successful endeavor even though it started out with a lot of concern on my end tell us about a challenge you faced and addressed as an educational leader would that be addressed successfully or that what met with opposition I have
153to say that the biggest challenge you know and and and there's you know I have to be honest there's there's not a lot about the work I'm currently doing in Benton Harbor that would be relevant to this school district it was a it was one of those you know I was recruited for the position it was you know this is conceptually this agreement that would partner Department of Ed and Department of Treasury and myself to really try to reform the school and bring in outside resources and supports to help support the school that probably wasn't in position to turn the school around itself unfortunately due to some legislation and and some change in leadership at the state level you know the cooperative agreement will no longer be in place which means that I will no
154longer be the CEO the board will come back and that's kind of what the papers mentioned but the reality to the situation is is that due to the loss of the cooperative agreement we don't have access to all those additional supports from MDE and Treasury right now and those are a must for the vet and harbor school district if they want to ever get out of debt create a sustainable budget and be able to provide the academics to the students that they deserve so I find myself in a tough position because you know I was appointed so I'm not extremely welcomed by the community as an appointed state employee because they really haven't had control of their district for about ten years it's been governed by the straight to some extent I think my position
155was really the the final of that because I ended up with all the board's full authority and so so right now I'm working very hard to lobby at the state on behalf of Benton Harbor to to you know have access to those and to you know let Lansing know the sense of urgency and then the true need for Benton Harbor at this time so that they can they can take advantage of those and they continue to get support I'm not saying that Treasury in the governor's office and you know the Department of Ed won't come through but time is of essence in Benton Harbor and somebody needs to make a decision here very quickly so that's been the biggest most recent challenge I faced you know on a personal level and professional level honestly what
156is your definition of school culture and what is the superintendent's role in cultivating it yeah interestingly enough I would say with school culture I would say the governance team and district leadership team create certainly district school culture with with the school culture within the buildings that that's obviously due to the teacher leadership in the building but we we create school culture by the drivers we choose to influence or move the district forward from a leadership position so if you if you think about this we could choose drivers that just call for accountability and compliance so what is your what are your schools look like when you do that versus what if we choose drivers that increase capacity and try to improve capacity to get things done what if we you know choose a driver that
157just focuses on individual accomplishments versus choosing drivers that provide structures and supports for group work and group effectiveness that actually determines what the culture looks like and I believe that that sends the message about how central office feels about their employees and how we you know how we want to empower them how we want to work collaboratively with them one of the biggest drivers right now is the one just about everybody every district talks about and that's the technology driver do we really is technology the driving force and we just want to make sure devices are in all the classrooms or is our focus really on instructional delivery systems that address the needs of students and you know all students to learn in different ways through the use of technology so again it's the message
158we send this the drivers we choose that will help shape the culture of the district on the other end I think you know we also shape culture in you know by who we are and how we serve the district so you know my role out there you know you know networking you know developing relationships with staff at the level that I possibly can and being visible and supportive at it gauged in in the know about what's going on in the buildings I think also helps develop a school culture from the district level tell us about your track record for improving student academic achievement for all students well I think that you know that's that's probably the era have had probably the most notable success at at least in terms of accomplishments you know interestingly if
159there has been a balance to that though and I'm just what I would like to mention this is you know I've had some success closing achievement gaps and raising proficiency scores in districts with you know without a doubt but I just would like the board to know that that always you know is paired with innovation and future focused programming I mean you don't just want to go into the district and focus on closing the achievement gaps on lagging indicators although that does allow students to move forward and have more success in schools but it's it's not a comprehensive enough reform for the school so if we we were to talk about Adrian public schools for a minute when I when I arrived in Avery Adrian dot the high school was on the priority list and
160and they were at the bottom third percentile in the state in three years we had them up to the 91st percentile in the state okay but tagged along with that was the implementation of IB in the district I know you're very familiar with that program it was also with the implementation of one-to-one devices so it wasn't just you know the direct instruction the curriculum management and for improvement it had to do with actually growing and in developing the capacity of the building to provide not only instructional deliveries that are those evidence-based practices that we talked about that we're going to ensure students learned and learned in a timely manner and at the rigor that they should be learning but it also gave students an opportunity to explore other ways to to to have their learning
161needs met through some innovative programs and use of technology no I'm glad you did how will you approach negotiations with our bargaining units and describe your experience in working with labor relations sure the you know again it's kind of like the budget thing labor relations don't start at the table they start you know you build a building relationships with the leadership of the unions collective bargaining agreements right right from your first day in the school system so I I think you know that that collaborative work you know allowing or providing an opportunity for for the leadership to be to be part of the discussion is in an in the know of what's happening at the district level and and in a timely manner not just after the fact or you know a week before the
162fact so they have some opportunity for input and can give their perspective or share their opinion I think what the the more we can consider their perspective in our in our decisions and and go back and be able to respond to them and rationalize why the decision came out the way it did if it wasn't reflective of what they had hoped to to have I think you know just earns us at least credibility and I think the credibility will take you a long way when you get to the table so my experience of that is that I've you know I've led negotiations before set at the table and I've just negotiated with with the staff I've negotiated with you know serv directors and there have been situations where we brought in chief negotiators to actually
163you know you know work with chief negotiators from the Lavery units the the end of that is is remember with the result of the negotiation I think one of the things we see most is you know the impact that that could potentially have on you know the financial status of the district and that's again in the media that's what's published the most but remember these labor agreements are really the working conditions and so you know a lot of thought and attention needs to go into what these working conditions are so that we make sure that we can you know still provide the sports and level services and and create the positions or or you know had the opportunity to staff in the in the what we believe is in the best interest of the district
164so it's it's a lot of thought that goes into those working conditions as well during negotiations not at just the give-and-take er quid pro quo at the table what is your approach to educating the whole child well that is one of the top 10 and 10 so you know we've got to say that but I do believe in it and and I think that the the fact that the Department of Ed is considered that and provided guidance on it has been very helpful as a matter of fact the the person that that wrote the are produced the curriculum for social emotional competencies for the Department of Ed is actually working with with us in Benton Harbor to help provide those supports and train our teachers on those those competencies so we can build the capacities
165and our students and and so yeah I think this the whole child approach is I think something that we we always knew we should be doing but I don't think we had really the the hands-on guidance around it and the resources and the supports for it and so I you know I I really and you know and I joked at first about it being one of the top ten and ten but you know I find myself going there for resources and in looking at the guy the guidance from Department of it on that a one of the interesting things in my career is I had just happened when I got in Southaven to come come' about finding and probably the one of the most innovative and creative and talented food service directors that you could
166possibly find in the state or endure the nation honestly and what I saw was is the the amount of nutrition education that went on with our students was huge you know we we had you know we had farm to school there but we also had fresh fruits and vegetables we had salad bars starting at kindergarten all the way through high school you know I still joke to this day of you know I look over to Maple Grove Elementary and they would try to convince me that the number one item on the salad bar for first graders was cottage cheese and I just you know I I never could just grasp that maybe maybe because of how I feel about cottage cheese but nonetheless the the the the the food service staff could could get our
167students to try all these food items and they would expose them to a variety of food items and and they they certainly helped our kids make better choices and I know that had an impact on our students throughout the day and so I I i firmly believe I mean the food service department was was truly part of our culture and I know they they added value to our students learning so I I am a big fan of the whole child I I think we need to take a comprehensive approach to making sure that that all of our you know all the needs of our children are being met and that there and that was we move past some of those barriers and challenges that they may face then they're going to be more ready to
168learn how would you engage students and listen to the student voice that that has been not a problem for you know majority of my career up until a year ago because my children were in school so I had you know with the you know walking the buildings and and you know the weekends you know I was always getting you know advice and and comments from the kids so so you know because my children were involved in the school and sports and things that I you know I'm very visible and and I know a lot of the kids and I know a lot of the families you know starting from the feeder programs on up so that that's just been you know part of the job that you know was was a you know kind of
169a benefit as a parent to be that involved in that and have a part of your job and actually be part of the community so now it is different though you know I don't have children in the school any longer so making connections with with students is a little bit tougher and in in organizing and and figuring out what where their needs are and how they feel about the school is has been a challenge I would would like to say that you know I've had a couple opportunities to meet with the students and in Benton Harbor and and that would be my first experience strategically getting out and meeting with students other than just being invited to National Honor Society and their meetings and being part of those regular routines that students are involved in
170but but you know that's that's where my heart certainly goes out to the to those students in terms of you know the challenges they face is within their school environment they're there they're just like any teenage student that we would know and they had the same hopes and dreams and wishes and to to at least acknowledge the fact that that that that we're working to address their needs to provide a higher quality education for them so that they can feel that they're being treated the same as the students and neighboring districts has been you know heavily on my mind so that the kids have been great honest upfront with their comments and they they actually have taken a lot of initiative themselves to help change the perception perception of the district as a matter of
171fact we had four students at the board meeting last night that produced a music video and and so we'll begin to air that and it was very well done and it was you know they had professional support and is designed in filming and so a very talented group but the but the kids need to do kids need to feel like they have a say in their school and they feel like they they need to you know to be part of the school and and what's happening to them certainly and I I would have to say at this point in time I haven't addressed that you know their needs is and concerns respected really as I I wish I could what are your thoughts on working with the board and communication with board members well I
172think the in as I sequentially think through this I think with with the Board of Education I think it comes first is trust and mutual understanding and then I'm assured that I'm going to get honest and open communications so and I and I think that's the ultimate goal working with Boards of Education you know the the very first thing that we do is or I try to facilitate a discussion around is you know how how you'd like information and what what information you expect to have and when you expect to have it I've had board members you know just him I'm fine with you sending me that Friday board brief if I have any questions I'll give you a call I've had board members that you know really like to sit down and do face-to-face
173meeting so you know to make sure they have a full understanding of things so I I will address you know what their needs are and how they like to receive information so really you know I work at the will of the board and to keep you fully informed and equally informed is my duty it's my responsibility so I would defer to you on how you'd like that communication coming you know the timeliness of it and and then we can sit down and talk about you know what levels of communication will actually come your way so you're not flooded with with too much during the input sessions our stakeholders told us that they would like a superintendent who is highly visible and part of the community what does that mean to you for me it means
174that I I don't go to a football game and sit in the stands and watch the game and then we have an opportunity to talk with folks about it on Saturday I think I positioned myself in a highly visible spot and I agree people when they come in and introduce myself and I make myself accessible to the community I think it's also being involved in community organizations I know this is a fairly large community but typically they're you know they're spots reserved for for you know community I mean superintendents when I was you know when I was in South Haven you know there didn't seem like there was a non-profit board seat that I didn't sit on and I said on the chamber of Congress the LDF a brownfield the South Haven area of recreation
175authority I mean there was no end to my involvement in the community so you know that would be one thing I think you know getting out and offering offering times to do you know like coffees and and community forums are extremely valuable and and it allows me to have more conversations than presentations and I think if you know obviously you know I think I've been in here for about 4550 minutes now I mean I don't think would take any more time for you to agree that I'm probably much better at a conversation than just presenting information so for me it's it's getting out with small groups and having those conversations and being able to answer questions and clarify things and and so there's a there can actually be a connection with who I am and
176and maybe a little more as a person than just the position so in my experience that's what communities like they need to feel comfortable with who you are they need to feel like they've made a connection with you at some level or or they they have to feel that you're approachable and accessible what strategies will you use for communicating with all stakeholders and I think that's got to be very strategic you know I think we you know we would need to sit down and I'd you know I can't I can't tell you the plan right now I can tell you how I'd go about developing the plan and targeting groups but but you know social media is gonna be a big channel for communication you know what we communicate on social media and how we
177target groups through social media I think is one thing face-to-face communications as we just mentioned in terms of my visibility and accessibility in the community and at events would be another thing I think you know your your board meetings are televised that's another channel of communication out to the community so in the communication plan you know I think that's where we talk about what our strategic initiatives are that's where we talk about what we need to be transparent and what we what we what we want the community to know and what we believe the community needs to be informed of in a timely manner and then I embed those in a plan and we figure out how to best get those out through those channels to those targeted audience in an appropriate format in a
178way that they can understand it the the one challenge to the communication plan typically is is that level of two-way communication so so how how do you provide opportunities for two-way communication and you know what to what extent would the board feel that that needs to occur in on what issues and to what targeted groups so it's the two-way communication that's typically the challenge the one-way is a lot less time-consuming in system at our publications and in getting the word out there dr. Herrera that concludes our formal questions for you do you have any closing comments for us yeah I do not have any comments tonight in terms of questions for the board you know I would like to mention that I appreciate your making this very non-threatening situation I actually felt comfortable there for
179a few minutes as comfortable as I could possibly be but but again I just want to thank you for the opportunity to meet with you tonight again I know this is a you know very very challenging task for the Boards of Education and I wish you the best you know in public education and the kids in the community deserve good leaders and effective leaders that are good matches for the district as well so I so I do wish you the best in your efforts there and and I also like that I know this is the the second evening of a two nights and I'm now the only one standing in your way I'm making way home so I I will I'll keep like any future comments to myself at this point time again thank you
180so much for interest in our district your time coming out tonight and as you know where we've interviewed many candidates and we are going to be moving into our deliberations and if you were selected as one of our finalists we will be in contact with you but again thank you so much for coming out No thank you it's very nice thank you just a reminder in the back of normal if you have a forum please get that to dr. green if you're watching online please submit your forms either through the forum that's online understood from Talent Search or you may send an email directly to the board and we will be gathering that feedback information thank you so much we at this point anything you need to say down we need to move to public
181comments okay and our next item on the agenda is public comments whoops I'm so sorry dr. Herrera do you want to go [Music] all right so to go into formal we're gonna take a vote is there a motion I move that we go into recess while before deliberations okay support there's a motion by mr. rich that we go into recess we entered deliberation supported by mr. McMullen any other discussion do we have a time frame I know that we're gathering data and feedback or feedback I should say from stakeholders that might want to share I don't know how long that's going right and when we meet right gather it and read it maybe long enough to get to a pub and then just kidding just so anyone watching on TV will know you know check
182back at roughly 30 minutes motion to adjourn for a recess I'm sorry approximately 30 minutes