BOE Special Meeting 7-14-2025 part 1

001All right, everyone. >> Use your mic. >> Get started. >> Evening everyone. Come on in. >> Thank you everyone for being here tonight. I just want to let people know we are using microphones. Hopefully you can hear okay. If you cannot, we invite you to come right up to the front row and sit down where you can hear uh more easily. Um and don't be shy about moving during um during tonight's interviews. Okay. Tonight, um let's get started with a panel vote. Mr. Alre. >> Mr. Arnold present. Hi. >> Here. Here. >> Here. Mira here. Brand >> here. >> Okay. Um, we're going to approve approve the agenda for the special meeting. >> I'll move the board of education approve the agenda for the special meeting this evening. I'll second. We have a motion and

002a second. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the agenda, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? >> Um, we have a period of time for public participation. Please note that for efficiency policy 254 which is our public participation um has been suspended for this meeting so that we just have one opportunity um for public participation instead of the normal two. Uh we will be collecting written feedback from anyone um at the end of each interview. So please know that is an option as well. Knowing that is there anyone who would like to speak to the voice? Okay, moving along uh to our candidate interviews. Um we have Ryan Hooper. >> You have a microphone that we're going to be passing around and we will ask that you just turn yours on and leave

003it to make sure it's easy enough for people to hear. Hopefully we don't like any water or anything. >> Okay. >> All righty. Good evening everyone. Um on behalf of Dexter Community Schools, I'd like to welcome Ryan Rutder, executive director of instruction to this interview for the position of superintendent. I'm going to take a few minutes to briefly describe our format. The interview may take up to 90 minutes. There will be 21 questions from the board. Toward the end of the interview, time permitting, we will give uh the candidates the opportunity to ask questions to the board and to make a closing statement. Um we will let you know if time is becoming an issue and there's a meeting to pick up the pace of the responses. Um for those present for this interview, we

004welcome and encourage your feedback. You may use the form provided for this purpose. Although the task of choosing our next superintendent is the responsibility of the board of education as the elected representative of our committee, we value and seriously consider the input of our stakeholders in the process and we thank you for providing written feedback so that we can take it home with us and study it. So to start, Mr. Druder, while we have all had the opportunity to review your application materials, the audience members have not. Can you please briefly review your background and share what causes you to be interested in this position at this point in your career? >> Absolutely. Uh first off, I'd just like to thank the board of education, community members, families, teachers, staff, uh students who are here

005tonight and been engaged in the superintendent process over the last few months. Uh I know how much time it actually has taken. I appreciate you being here. It's important decision that the district's making. I'm deeply honored to be attended. I myself am a student, a graduate, community member, a leader in the district. I live here. These this Dexter is who I am. So to be even considered is true. I appreciate that. But my educ my work experience begins in Allen Elementary, the Amber public schools where I taught fourth grade for five years. Allen Elementary is a long one building and I really learned and appreciated uh the value of relationships. Above all else, schools, our business is about people. It's about relationships with kids. It's about relationship adults. It's relationships with families in the community.

006And that was something that quickly and really has inspired me and guided my leadership practice. I was at Allen for five years and during that time was able to do a lot of terrific things uh in the building. I grew as a leader. I grew as an educator in terms of project based learning. It turned into a passion of mine, a skill of mine, and something that I really love to do. uh after five years my mentor at Vincel Joseph Bitzgiven had an opportunity to start skiing program. So the Ann Arbor public schools were looking to turn around North Side Elementary School which was a school that had traditionally uh failing enrollment was decreasing over the years. Uh the district decided to bring in a scheme and project based learning program. Joe asked me to

007consider to go to that program and leave the classroom and assume a role project based learning coordinator and lead teacher and that was something that was a wonderful experience for me. I was able to kind of dip my toes in the administrative water begin to understand the way buildings operated begin to understand the budgets begin to understand how schools run. That was also a transformation process. We took a building and we literally rebuilt it. That was the first of many large construction projects that I had co uh being able to teach in a building that's under construction. It's quite a task. Uh so when that opportunity presented itself here in Dexter years later, felt very comfortable and knowing that we have a bond in process and this will be in the forefront. Something I'm experienced

008and skilled and look forward to at inter. I absolutely love that experience. It was a great opportunity to build culture amongst staff. It was a group of people that didn't know each other. Uh we had the opportunity to hire folks from all over Ann Arbor and outside the organization as well. We also had students from across the district. While there were local north side students, there were also students from all over the Amber public schools that were coming to this program for the interest of steam and the interest of project based learning. So we worked really hard to build community amongst students, among staff, amongst the larger community. And being a school that had folks from all over in Arbor, that was a challenge, but one that we took on. And we did that by

009being present, by showing up for people in small moments, by building trust. Uh, and we really turned that building into something special. I left the building after two years because an opportunity in Dexter presented itself. It was the principal of Fis Bates Elementary School. Uh it's not often you see that you have the opportunity to become the principal of the school that you went to as a child. Uh that was wonderful. That was something I couldn't pass up. I was truly blessed to come here to Dexter uh where I've been for the last nine years. Hard to believe it's been nine years. It was nine years. I interviewed in this very room. Some people in this room were part of that interview. Uh Leading Bates was a terrific experience. I'm not telling you a secret.

010something you know about the big staff, the deacon staff and the whole district. We have phenomenal people. Our students, our families, our staff are just terrific. Uh so walking into that building was just everything I could ask for in Mar. I learned so much from that staff. I learned about literacy. I learned about social emotional learning. I learned about data. I learned about assessment. And they really helped guide me as a leader, as an educator as well. I was also excited to come to the next community schools because of Dr. innovative practices. I knew of Chris. I knew of some of the things he was trying to do. Uh and coming from a senior project based learning school, I was really excited to continue that here in Dexter. And it's been so wonderful to learn

011with and to learn from him, to think about innovation in these new and different ways. Uh during my time here at Bates, like I said, Dr. Timus came in my office one day and said, "Ryan, how would you like to build a new school?" And I said, "Well, I thought we were done with that, but I'm happy to do it one more time." Uh so we were able to build Beacon Elementary School Beacons attached to Cornerstone which was then rebranded to Anker Beacon. Mr. McCall and I worked really closely. Uh while the community would have liked to have think that we had quite a rivalry between the two of us, the two of us are actually quite good friends. He's a mentor of mine. Uh so we work very well together and we really worked

012hard to build some culture amongst the two staff. And now when you go into that building, it's my hope that students and staff don't think of it as two separate schools. They think of as one building, one context. And I'm proud of the work that our staff did to help get us to that level. I think that was a really important part. The construction of Beacon was no small undertaking. Uh luckily we had some great blueprints to build from. So that mean that took a lot of burden off us. However, moving a building midyear was quite the undertaking. And a lot of that work for me was informed by William Bridges. William Bridges talks about transitions and he talks about being in the neutral zone. You're a little bit lost. And everyone navigates this neutral

013zone with different speeds and different paces. And however you navigate it is perfectly fine. And the two things that we have to do that no one really wants to do when you're in transition is to communicate and to connect. And I think about that in leadership every day. If you can communicate well and you can connect with people, everything else comes. Those are the two most important things that we can do. So trying to keep the staff up to date, letting them know how things would work in terms of packing up the classrooms, what they could expect when they got to make it, what kind of supports would be available to them, setting up assembly so teachers could have time in their room to set it up. This elementary teachers get great prep. Uh in

014about two weeks here, they'll start being decorating their room for this upcoming year. So you can imagine only given the weekend to decorate their room and get it ready and that feeling like home wasn't wasn't enough. Uh we tried to do the same for the families. Uh so I see newly here for PTO president. We worked closely to make sure that the families and community understood what the transition will look like for students. Everything from pick up and drop off protocols to recess. Everything was new for our children. So working to support them. Being at Beacon was great pride time. Uh and really just starting to uh establish myself as a leader in the Dexter youth schools. Four and a half years ago. Dr. Timus came to me to ask me to consider uh applying

015for the executive director of the instruction position. And I remember I I laughed and I told him I have the best job in the district. No, thank you. I'm very happy where I am. Uh he said, "I want you to sleep on it." I said, "No problem. I'm happy to sleep on it, but my answer will be the same thing." And he came into my office the next day. He said, "Ryan, I'd like to consider applying to be the executive director of instruction." I told I said, "Chris, I told you yesterday I don't think it's the right fit for me." And he said, "I don't think you understood." And so I understand now taking this role has been a big change. I miss kids dearly. I truly do. Uh one of my greatest passions is

016being with students. Being a student center leader is forefront. Uh but I've been able to see that I've been able to have a bigger impact in terms of some of the things I've been outside of curriculum instruction which I think we have done a lot. I've also had the opportunity to collaborate with many different buildings and many different departments across this organization. I'm proud of the work that uh protect department and I have done together in thinking about DD our AI tool. Dexter is the first district in the state of Michigan and possibly the country to develop and host their own AI tool with student data, student privacy and we presented at multiple conferences about this and we've shared how to do this with over 30 schools now across the nation. So we're becoming a

017leader in technology and in the data space. I've worked with Rick, our tech director, to think about technology grow up, make sure that we have giving our students the best devices on a regular schedule, making sure that we're uh the business office. I'm so fortunate to have them around the corner to meet. Uh we are together every single day. Uh during my time as executive director of instruction, I have become the primary grant writer for the district. uh and during the last four years uh from 11T to 23G 35 J 35N 35 M 97 J uh 104H 99E 99D and any other combination of alphabet soup uh I have written the grants for and we've written over a million dollars in grants here to support those have been terrific uh they've helped support innovation we

018call support literacy uh we've had a huge literacy movement in our district. As many of you are aware, I've had the opportunity to speak to the board about some of the changes. Some of that learning was informed by people in this room who pulled me aside and said, "Ryan, we can do better. We can do more for kids." Uh, and so that was a huge undertaking and thinking about changing not only our literacy programming, but our literacy philosophy here at the Dexter Schools. Uh, we are seeing some nice changes and we're seeing some nice uh, excuse me, projected growth with the work that we're doing. uh things from assessment practices to structural practices. We really work to put the whole package together. I've also had the opportunity to collaborate with all of our different departments

019and leaders. Uh I've taken a leadership role within our administrative team as well as a director team. I put together our weekly agendas. I facilitate those meetings. I'm in charge of communicating decisions to the group to make sure that everyone has information they need to have. in the executive director of instruction role. I've also worked hard to improve professional development. If you go to any district across the nation, one of the biggest complaints from teachers is professional development. It's not able. And they're not wrong. Uh it's the system that is not set up for continued learning. And while I would love to say that we make these huge leaps and bounds and we're making huge uh strides, we are limited with the schedule that we have. But we started to make some small changes that

020I think teachers are appreciating. I hope that they're valuing for example starting to pass teachers what do you want to work on what do you want to learn asking them they know these folks are experts uh two themes that emerged from a staff survey several years ago uh were the ideas of vertical and horizontal alignment so making sure that what we're teaching across the board in third grade and what we're teaching in second third and fourth name a given area mathematics is in alignment many of you had students that have come through the Dexter school some of you had multiple kids in the same grade. And while it's perfectly fine and we want teachers to have their own unique flare and individuality in their classroom, the learning experiences and the learning outcomes should be right.

021They should be similar for all learners in terms of the outcomes. If you get teacher A or teacher B, your child should still have access to the same high quality education, reach those high level outcomes. The other thing the teacher said is they want that autonomy to be able to do what they do best, the art of teaching and we had to work with staff because at service those two things can be in conflict with one another. Uh but there is a way to thoughtfully do it and this past spring we've communicated to the staff a three-year plan to address that. So this first year we truly will be looking at what we teach in every single grade in every single uh content they're in. We want to know what are the learning outcomes for

022every level. Essentially, what deems credit? Year two, we're really going to start to think about what are the assignments, what are the assessments that we're utilizing to measure them. How do we know it's working? And then year three, how do we better communicate them to students, to learners, and to families. Uh we have much growth to make. And I think by giving a slow logical approach and a kind of systematic way we can make these obsessional growths. Uh I have some other things I'd like to share but I know you have questions so I will try to share the link. Thank you for the introduction. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Um so what do you believe are the two or three most critical long-term priorities we will need to address and how would

023your background and skills help us address these priorities? >> Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, one of the priorities that emerges is the bond. Uh, our community has entrusted us with $242 million to make some great decisions for kids, great decisions for the community. I had the opportunity to sit on the bond steering committee and to hear from the community what it was, their hopes, and what were their aspirations for those funds and how we would use them. Uh, $242 million is a large sum of money. It's no small undertaking, including improvements to security across the district, creating two distinct campuses with our young five through sixth graders, our 7th through 12th graders. That also including a building, a new construction over uh across the street at Creekide, improvements to all of our athletics, arts,

024music, our clubs. So we have a lot of work to do in the next seven years or so and making sure that the community is a part of that process, informed in that process, knowledgeable about what is going on, I think it's going to be essential. So I think proper stewardship, proper communication of the bond funds will be will be critical academically. Uh I'm not telling you anything you don't know. We we are a terrific district. We absolutely are. You look at any metric whether it's SAT scores, college or graduation rates 99% our college fouryear success you look at any metric across uh academics and we are leading in Michigan we are leading in Washington County in all types of leading nation SAT scores tend to be 100 points higher than anywhere in than the

025state average than the national average and the same is true for our MSTEP scores and yet I want more of our kids truly I want students who will graduate Dexter High School and I I jokingly say to staff with needs and those needs are either to be uh enrolled in a college and university to be employed to be enlisted or to have a plan to explore. I think if we can provide students with experiences that will inform one of those four choices that's one of them. Those choices should be informed by our profile of learn, our nine competencies that our community has put together to say this is what we want for our kids. More than graduating kids with a transcript with a bunch of great numbers and letters, I want kids who know themselves.

026They know who they are. They know they're an effective communicator. They know that they're a creative thinker and they know that they're interested in exploring this space because they have those skills. That's something I would love for our children. It's a vision shift. It's going to take some community work to be able to get us there. There's no reason we can't do both. We can't have that same high level academic rigor and be able to support our well-rounded students. I think that's of the utmost importance. Uh finally, another priority that I think is going to be important in I'm going to specifically say this way is the retention staff than the recruitment staff. We have terrific people and we need to make sure that we're retaining our terrific staff. Uh we've had more retirements in

027the last few years than many and part of that can be of the demographic and looking at when people are coming over retirement age. But the other is the way that we're supporting our teachers. So one thing that I think we have a huge opportunity and that our instructional team is looking to change for next year and this has been in collaboration with DEA with union leadership is we're going to provide mandatory coaching for all new to Dexter profession teachers. No choice. You are new to profession. We need coaching right previously coaching has been a voluntary model. We think it's essential that we partner not only coaching but mentoring with our new professionals to make sure that they have the supports necessary to be successful in this career. So retaining the staff I think making

028sure that we're keeping up with compensation in every aspect of the word staff is important historically been able to do that and I hope to be able to continue to do that too with the flip side that is making sure that our budget can support them. Budgeting is a really difficult thing to do knowing that every July we're asked to make a projection over the next year based on a student count that we roughly have an idea based on a foundational allowance that the state teases but we won't really know until later this fall based on a miper rate that we have an idea that we can approximate and not exactly know. Uh, and so when we take all of those things and we put them together, we're doing the best that we can to

029estimate and we've been very fortunate in the past. We've been a financially healthy district. In the last few years, we've started to dip into that fund balance. And I don't think it's anything to worry about yet, but we need to start to level that ship. It's not a trend that we can continue for for multiple years, but we're going to put ourselves in this difficult position. We're going to have to make larger programmatic changes or staffing changes or something. But by recruitment, we're really fortunate that there are people that still want to go into this profession. It's a tough tough job. We need to make sure we're getting out there recruiting these people to our district. Dexter has been on the forefront in some of the pathways to get people certified for education. So whether

030it's parent to teacher or career changes, we have encouraged and supported numerous people. Uh we have a teacher that just this last year did one of these alternative pathways at WY Elementary who will be teaching everywhere this fall. Terrific. I think we need to do more of that and support people to come teach in this district to show them what we're about, who we are, and welcome to the extra. >> Thank you. >> Um what specific qualities and capabilities do you bring to this position that may set you apart from others? >> You know, I' I'd like to think that I hope that I leave the leader. I think that's something that's super important to me. Uh I do my best to listen to be honest uh with individuals. I think that integrity is something

031that like trust is built in small moments is continuing to show up to do what you're to do what you say you're going to do. Uh to have a high moral compass and lean that way is to be honest with the board, be honest with the community. I think that when people talk about this idea of transparency, that's what they want. They want honesty. Folks understand that the board of education, the superintendent, the district has to make hard decisions. There's not a decision we make that the 100% of people will like. We jokingly say that on days where they're 18 in of snow, there's still someone who's upset that we can school. It will happen. When you give people a rationale, when you explain the process, I think that they can understand. I think that

032that's something I would hope to be able to do, something I have done in the past. Uh I think relationships are a strength of mine. I think that I really try to be a people person. I learned that not only from my early years in teaching but from my mother who was a longtime administrator. My mother taught me what it means to build community to build community amongst me. So to listen, to be heard, uh to be seen, to be validated was something I've always tried to do with staff, students with families. One thing that I talk to our staff about is our district vision is to champion learning, develop, educate, inspire. I think that we've done well as a district to define what it means to develop, to educate, and to inspire them, but

033we haven't done as well defining what it means to champion learning. And what I pose to staff is when we say champion learning, what I really think we mean is champion learners. And the way that you champion learners is to know every student by name, by strengths, by interests, and by needs. And when we can do that for our students, that it's an incredible experience. So that's something I think that I hardly do. Students names come naturally to me. I've learned students names. I've learned family names. I like to think that I hold on to them. I will admit as they get a little older at Mil Creek sometimes I have to do a double take. Uh they're also less likely to interact with me as they get older. But uh I think knowing students

034keep me connected with students someday is super important. I think being able to lead with clarity and conviction is a strength of mine. Uh, you know, one thing that I quickly assessed when I took this new role was we were doing a lot of things. We're doing a lot of things well as a district. Uh, but it felt like we were at initiative low. There were way too many things that were perceived as new and we had a real opportunity to connect some dots and to show people that these aren't new things. These are all pieces of a bigger puzzle. And so I have talked to staff and I've literally put dots in front of them in front of professional development and said this is how this is connected to this. So whether it's our

035teaching and learning framework and thinking about our learning continuum being able to show how those two things are debated. I think that's something that I've been able to do. Uh finally I think a strength of mine is being a systems thinker. Uh it's something that's always come naturally to me. But being able to pause and to ask the question uh how will that impact A or C? what will the implication be? Are we setting a precedent? What what are previous decisions that have made? Do we have policy that informs? So being able to understand the complexity of a system is a strength of nine. I think that that's a little bit strengthened by my experiences in other departments and other roles. I also serve as one of our district's title N coordinators. So through that,

036that is a great opportunity to learn a lot about local policy, state law, federal law, and the uh intersectionality between those things and making sure that we're making decisions in the most appropriate ways. Uh so I think that those would be some strengths that I bring to the table and I work to bring to the district. >> District relations. Sure. So maintaining healthy relationships with school and community stakeholders to the board of education. Please share with us how you have gone about building and maintaining successful relationships with all members of the school. >> Yeah, great question. I I think showing up for people uh being there for folks. So popping in classrooms, talking to students about what they're learning, having opportunities to families. I get that there are tried and true methods that Dexter has

037historically done well and I'd like to continue to do this fall in terms of surveys, guiding input. That's great. I think that those are super important, but so are showing them making time for facetiming to sit across the table and just to hear things that are going well, to hear their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations, to hear their frustrations, their pain points, even if you don't agree with them. I think oftent times there's a thread of truth, a thread of something that you can grab on to to build on. Uh so being able to to see people to validate people I think is something that's what we can do. Again I think effective communication is going to be really important there. Uh and I think regular communication letting people know what is going on why

038it's going on is going to be something that's important for the superintendent to be able to do. Uh you do you mind asking that question make sure I Yeah. So maintaining healthy relationships with school community stakeholders is important to the board of education. Please share with us how you have gone about building and maintaining successful relationships with all members of the school. Appreciate that. Thank you. Uh you know I think that when we study in leadership different archetypes my archetype is caretaker. Something that I talked to our leadership team about something I car it's why I went profession was to caretake for students. uh when I became available principal, it was being a caretaker for my staff, for those families, and for students. At the district level, I've really taken on the district leadership. So

039whether it was our principles, other folks, I try to be the one to celebrate successes and bring things together. Uh whether it's birthday wish or a milestone in someone's life, I think that those little things are important. So that's how I've done that with that student team as well by knowing people again by name, by strength, by interest, by need. I think for those things help inform your relationships. So while true for students, those are true for adults too. Everyone likes to be heard and managed to listen. Hopefully effective and timely communication is vital success of a school district. Please describe what type of communication students, staff, parents, and the board should expect to receive from a Yeah, I think that uh in the world and climate we live in now, multiple forms of communication.

040We can't rely on just one. We have become a culture of emails. I think that email is a really effective form of communication. uh but more than just email links to occur. One thing that we previously did and I'd like to bring back to the district not only for a potential transition but ongoing as well is more opportunity for community just to bring our Dexter green schools folks to have conversation to have that we've done that within the district level. So one thing that I established here in Dexter was the Delta team. The Delta team are the Dexter educators, leaders, teachers and administrators. They come together once a month to talk about district matters. So it really has become our district team. That's where we can have anonymous dialogue on what's going well with groupings.

041So creating spaces, creating containers for that, creating the conditions for last conversation, I think is important. I think that we're really fortunate that we have a terrific communications department. So hope you do a beautiful job of communicating regularly throughout the community. uh making waves has been a great joy to not only contribute to someone who often reaches out for different ideas, topics, things that we can celebrate here in Dexter. Uh but work with her as a thought partner, not only on content, but also to align those to our competencies. That was one thing we sat down and talked about at the beginning of this year is it'd be really nice if we started to tie these beautiful stories with our competencies so our students, our staff, and our families understand why we're doing the things

042we do here in this district. Those are some of the few ways I hope to I think school board meetings are always a great opportunity for communication. Uh we've been very fortunate that we have engaged community members that want to come out and uh speak out and support and sometimes in opposition. I think it's important that we provide a space to hear all those things that we can work on to figure out best decision that's again I think clear consistent communication is going to be best and something that I hope to be able to do super. >> Thank you. All right. I have a few questions on political awareness. >> Sure. Uh, as our superintendent, how would you advocate for political action that benefits our district and public education throughout our state? >> Yeah, terrific

043question. I know that through the ISD and legislative practice, great opportunity to be a part of political conversation to be in the know what conversations. So, what what's going on in Lancing, what's going on across the nation as well. Uh I'm a part of MASA which does a really nice job of keeping us in the know as well. So we're aware of conversations going on advancing and potential trial speech which is our legal team provides regular updates. We're aware of different case and case study and regular reading those to make sure that I'm up to date and that I'm making decisions. Uh recently the Supreme Court has made a few rulings that are going to have implications here at school. So just this morning at cabinet meeting we started talking about what do we need

044to think about? probably we need to talk to the board about concept form process. Uh I aspire I hope to be able to advocate the same way that Chris does for our district. Chris is in Lancing regularly. He's built those relationships and is able to have conversations and start to make some meaningful change. Uh that takes takes time and takes relationships and something I hope to be able to do someday. Uh right now I'm part of a few organizations that are doing some really important work. One is the future of learning council which is really starting to think about what schools look like and think about innovative practices. I'm guided by the question and it's on my computer as well. Uh schools have always been defined by time and learning is the variable. So we

045make time the constant and that's based on the quantity unit. We say it takes max number of hours to learn biology and whatever a student learns in that time is variable. And I think we really need to consider the opposite. How do we make learning come soon that all students are learning the same outcomes? How do we start to make time learn? That is a lofty idea. It's going to take us time to go there. But through groups like the future learning council who do have advocates who do have people in land advocating for funds to support this work. We're able to start to make some change. So I know Dr. Timus has been working really diligently on getting a line item for the future of learning council so they start to make some larger

046changes and through some private donors they've been able to receive support to start going out and try a lot of the work that we have done here in Dexter has been formed out of that future council so we will sit in a space with other innovative districts and innovative leaders to support and uh and it's quite a support system that helps us when we get there so I think that you know whether it's here in Dexter and showing up to council meetings or showing up to being a part of local government or at the state level being an advocate when possible. I think that there are definite opportunities and it is important for a superintendent to be on the board or behalf of district behalf system. >> Right. Uh superintendents are often faced with the

047challenge of making decisions when there's no clear right answer and community members are split on the right path forward. Talk about a time when you were faced with a difficult decision where you knew that there would be a group of people unhappy with the decision no matter what you chose to do. How did you go about making that decision and keeping people on board with the decision that you determined was best? >> Yeah, I can think a few of these. Uh in school districts and any organization these do happen. You have decisions that are comprehensive. One that I have taken a leadership role on is the district sex education advisory. As you can imagine, sex education was quite the polarizing topic. They have a variety of viewpoints and experiences that inform how people believe sex

048education sure will be taught in schools. When I stepped into the role, we were coming out of COVID and during COVID, unfortunately, our reproductive health advisory committee, which we call it at the time, disbanded. Quite understandably, we had a lot of other priorities on our plates. But it was important that we reestablished that sex education advisory board. We put out an all call to the community to make sure that anyone that was interested in participating had an opportunity to we assembled a group uh and and folks in this room for this board helped review applications. We assembled a group of people with different viewpoints because we knew we needed to have representation from all different parts of the community in this important work. Uh we reformed as a team. So we started to make sure

049that we had norms, we had bylaws, we had some guiding documents and guiding principles that would inform our work. Then we quickly realized we we need to survey the community. We really need to reach out and find out where the community stood. So we sent surveys to the larger community and we're able to parse out families of the Dexter schools that are community members that don't have students in RO and we also sent surveys out to students. Obviously we communicate everyone that we surveys were helping out voluntary and we were able to get a variety uh through monthly sex education advisory board meetings and guided by state law and then we work collaboratively to develop uh some guiding principles the work that we hope to do. We've worked to evaluate our current sex education programming

050and then later this summer we'll be coming to the board after an opportunity for public commentarian public review of proposal for some changes. We looked to the community survey data. We looked at the community priorities to help inform those decisions. We knew that the way we picked there would be folks that felt that it wasn't enough or it was too much. And whenever you have a polarizing with all of that, it's really important that you don't overreact on one that you grab both polarities and pull them into the middle who work collaboratively to create an agreeable situation, an agreeable um viable solution that's going to address everyone's uh hopes is going to address both fears. And and above all else, I'm go back to it being t-shirt again, letting people know the information, being upfront,

051being transparent. So through regular updates through the board, through CFOs, and then through an opportunity for community review, I hope that folks will see that what we've come to as a team collaborative process. Truly was a team process. Did we have a unanimous decision? No, we didn't. When we vote to bring it to the board of education, it wasn't unanimous. However, there was favorable support because we were able to put together an option that uh met the need and so different viewpoints bringing them together really working collaboratively for the problem. >> What impact has the use of standardized testing had on our education system in Michigan? >> Yeah, standardized testing is a tricky one, right? It's easy to sit up here and do standardized testing, but at the end of the day, we all take

052it. It's a really important measure to see how you stack up. Uh I think standardized testing is a better reflection of the organization than of an individual, right? We all have had tough days. I can think of days I wouldn't have liked to have taken a really important test and that was going to be reflective of my mathematical ability. I think that that's representative of a student's math, ELA, or social studies by any means. However, as an organization, if we can zoom out and look at organizational health, I do think standardized test is super important. We can start to see trends not only within our own organization, but across the state and across the nation as well. So, perceived dips, perceived bumps in uh standardized testing in stores, those are trends that we can look

053at, we can evaluate to see. One way that we use standardized testing is to look at what we call tier one instruction. So part of the uh MTSS process, MTSS process, excuse me, the multi-ter support system, we want to make sure that we assure all guilds get tier one access. Meaning if it's a core curricular resource with core programming that we provide to all of our learners. And the hope is when we do that well, roughly 80 to 85% of our students are able to meet success with just that tier one support. We know that not all of our learners meet benchmark. We're going to need to provide you in tier 2 supports. So things like reading interventions and target and differentiated instruction. Those are things that we're going to do through those individual or

054smaller groups learners. Additionally, there'll be roughly 5% of students are going to need further support whether that comes in for the the likes of an IEP or a 504 just some sort of individualized plan to help that one to be successful. When we use data as tests, we can better assess tier one is what we're doing. here one that was successful. So some of the changes that we have made in literacy here in the district schools have been informed by standardized test. I do think that they helped they give us value there. Uh I think that we do have an opportunity to better utilize data. One way that data can be really tricky is that teachers have too much data. We talk about being data rich information poor and that's no fault of our teachers.

055It's just it's it's everywhere. One thing that and I have done and something I'm quite proud of not only for Dexter schools but also housing different uh districts here in Washington County. Uh we've partnered with a company called schools. Split does a lot of really interesting things for us. Uh two of the biggest features is one it serves as a data dashboard for all our students in the organization. So very quickly we're able to synthesize data from different sources. It can be a Google document that a teacher fills out. It could be the MSTEP score. It could be which is EL learner score. It could be their state score, their SAT, their attendance records, behavioral records. All that data is synthesized. We can get a visualization of individual. At a teacher level, they look at

056their whole class to start to see what trends are emerging. Are there behaviors? Are there things that they want to support? uh at a building level we can look at our whole building to say we need to have a conversation about name the topic or name the area concern at a district level I can also look at building and district trends to see how are we trending are there dips in different grades are we doing things really well capitalized students so being able to provide data visualizations and data analysis in different ways something that we haven't had easy access to and now with we have more access to The second part of it is one of the most beautiful things about our district and one of the biggest frustrations of our district is the number

057of transitions our kids have member of employees. Uh one thing that becomes really difficult and maybe you've experienced this as well and I know I have as a building leader by the time we really get to know a learner and really understand how to best support them and transition that next building. Right? It might take a year or two to really understand how Ryan can be supported as a leader but we're trying to figure it out. they're going off to why they're going off. We put together a digital portfolio of sorts that tracks students supports so that a teacher can really quickly see what has worked for that child in the past and what has not worked for that child in the past. We can also upload documents. One area this has been super successful

058is students who benefit from social stories. It could be a fire alarm that provides a trigger for a student. A social worker and teacher may work around to put together a really nice social story for that child. Well, unless we transition that to the special area teachers and unless we give that to the next year's teacher, we're starting back here because when the fire alarm goes off, the next students probably have that same reaction. So now any kind of support is documented. students as old as 12th grade, you go back in time and see their multiple years. So right now we have four years of data put in the schools. Eventually we'll have all 13. So you'll be able to go back and really look at those students full comprehensive time here in Dexter uh

059with standardized testing. >> Thank you. The next uh question areas will uh focus on your leadership qualities. Can you please describe your typical style of leading and talk about situations in which you may vary from that style? >> Okay. Uh I think that my leadership has really been informed uh by my time here in Dexter. It wasn't in the classroom setting. It was actually on the athletic field being a soccer player. Uh, I played soccer from early age like most kids do and I happen to be a fairly tall human and I was as kindergarten as well. My dad goes to the soccer coach and when you're the tallest kid on the team, you end up in full because no one wants to play when you're a foot and a half taller than one is

060quite advantageous as well. Uh, I quickly realized though that being a goalie in soccer and being a leader and being a school leader, there are a lot of parallels. There a lot of similarities. as the school or excuse me, as a goalie, you're the only player on the field that can see the whole field. You can see everything happening. So, when you think about strategy, you have the ability to see all pieces. You have the ability to see the game at all. People that are playing midfield may not see what's going on. I also quickly realize I didn't have to be able to do everyone's job. I had to understand what their jobs were. I had to understand how to support them, right? I don't think there's an expectation that your next superintendent has the

061same skill set as your CFO. Our CFO is very skilled, highly competent. However, it is an expectation that this person understands how to support the CFO in their role. They have enough uh instinct. They have enough knowledge to be a great partner to the CFO to support CFO in their child. Same thing is true in soccer. If I can help each player be their best. If I can create a team culture, people want to be part of that culture, it's going to help lead to the overall success. So being a goalie, I have the ability to create a positive environment to create a positive culture for a team. And ultimately being a goalie also means that when the team wins, the team wins. And sometimes when the team loses, it's because I right. It's being

062able to follow the sword. to be able to take responsibility when things go wrong and I understood that and and while my dad and I would disagree after the game about whose fault will go what is then at the end of the day I let them go and take from them so I try to lead in that same principle being there for people individually coaching folks being able to understand what their role is to help them see their role in the bigger picture and being able to help them be the best that they can I will never sit in front of you and tell you that I was the best teacher teacher. I think I'm a really good teacher, but I would like to think in the hope that I'm able to help people become

063better teachers. It was said really a time that I've had to step out of that role. Boy, uh you know, one thing that I think Dr. Jimus and I have a really beautiful partnership on is you all know Dr. Jimus well enough that he is a go person. And as I've shared, I'm a sister. I'm a slow down. Let's think about the implications there. Chris has really taught me that there are times that you just do have to act at times of the essence. And so there have been examples when I think that I've been able to learn from him and I've been to develop that muscle to act on that instinct and to know that to trust your instinct. So I think that there are times while I love to gather all the information

064situationally it doesn't allow. You need to make a decision right now and you need to trust that you're making the best decision for the organization. you're making the best decision uh for the school district. So, while oftent times there aren't those types of emergencies, they do occur and I think that being able to do that and step out aside of one's leadership style is so important. Uh because there are things about this role and this responsibility that just need to be done. Uh, what is the most difficult decision you've had to deal with in your career in education and how was it resolved? >> Um, there there have been numerous decisions. I think as I previously shared as a title N coordinator uh some of the situations that Leonard and I have had to interact

065with our point of their their point of nature and the content and they're not only difficult because what has allegedly occurred but they're also quite difficult because we're looking at district policy we're looking at district guidelines we're looking at uh state law we're looking at federal law and policy as well and making sure that we're doing everything by well we're doing everything right. I think that those decisions can be really challenging and leveraging not only each other but leveraging outside the council making sure that the decisions that we're making are in the best uh interest of student and and that they are allowable decisions to be made. Uh those decisions can be really difficult. I think personally for me some of the most difficult decisions is sitting across the table from colleagues from staff members

066from friends and and telling them that there's been a change in their position. Uh like I've shared I've been able to write a number of grants in the last five years. Those grants have brought on a lot of new and different positions for our organization. And while it's really helped us move the ball down the field, the challenge with these brands is that they sunset the money runs dry. And so while people go into these roles knowing that at the end of the year it may not be a possibility to continue this. It's always hard to sit across the table from someone to say everything being done is going to be boom. We just don't have the funds to fill this position. That's hard. That's really hard because this job is so deeply personal. It

067makes us better. Again, I think by having relationships, by being transparent, by being honest, it helps make those decisions just that much cheaper. What are the key elements needed to establish and maintain a good working relationship between you, our staff and our board? >> Yeah, I think being visible uh being visible is super important. It's being visible not only when times are good. So, showing up to classes when things are fun and celebrations to football games to field hockey games to rob a robotics or orchestra concerts. I think all those things are important but showing up when things are tough too. We are community. Communities are families. They experience loss. They experience grief. They experience tragedy. And to be there for one another during those times, I think is super important. But I also think

068that Amy, can you read the last part of the question? I'm sorry. >> Sure. key elements needed to establish and maintain good working relationships between you, our staff, and the board. >> Yes. >> Thank you. So, I think being there for people, providing opportunity, providing space to be a listening to affirm folks is super important on the board component. I think that that's something that only some of you would truly understand and that there's a lot of behindthe-scenes work that occurs to make this district go to make the board of education real. And so whether it's one-on-one meetings with the superintendent and the board of education, whether it's show up and being present, being active, participate in committee meetings where the three of you are leading and facilitating those groups. Uh whether it's board updates,

069making sure that you're aware of what's going on in the district so that you can help lead and make important decisions, being there for each individual board member and being there for the board collectively if he is something that suits them important. uh being able to build trust in a relationship where we can challenge each other professionally and we can work to the best possible decision. I would like to think that we'll always agree about everything but that's not going to be reality. We're going to have disagreements. I think that those disagreements then make our district stronger. I think that we all have the best interest of children. You know, all best interests of Virginia schools at heart. When we keep that center, we'll make some really great decisions for kids. Switching to uh instruction

070curriculum. Give us some examples of educational change or reform that you initiated in your career that led to improvements in student learning. >> Yeah. So had a chance to speak a little bit about it, but I'm really proud of our district, the literacy work that we undertook. I'm really proud for a variety of reasons. The biggest reasons I proud is we were ahead. We we took on literacy when it wasn't popular to do. I remember and a few of these folks are in this room today. I remember a group of teachers would come into my office and quite rarely we'd have these really in-depth conversations about this high level philosophical pedagogical conversations about what is what should we be doing with literacy for children. And I I would listen ask questions. I was outside my

071wheelhouse. I felt really comfortable with four, fifth, sixth graders and students literacy. But teaching a four, five, six, seven year old to read was something that I had opportunity to grow. I think that I put in the work to do that. We started to talk about making some changes when test scores were good. In fact, they were a little bit uh when you look at our metrics, I mean really suggest why are we talking about literacy? We should be talking about something else. But in reality, we really realized that the assessments that we were utilizing and informing our decisions weren't the right assessments. They were measuring the wrong things. So we had growth to do not only pedagogically in terms of what we believed about education philosophically, but also with our assessment practices, we brought

072on new assessments. We brought in new curricular resources and title them. He started to look at the common four states stand what is it that Kim needs to be able to do in terms of being a reader being the writer of speaking listening and he put in the time you put in the energy multi-year process and you get a lot of involvement from multiple stakeholders one thing that I really believe in is that people will support it if they have an opportunity to go and so by having as much involvement as we did definitely slow down process. But when we got to the finish line, we had more support from stakeholders than ever before to be able to make that transition. And after we and the board supported the purchase of new curricular resources that

073aligned with the new line of thinking in terms of literacy instruction in five through fourth grade, the state then came out and said, "Hey, we'd like you to consider the new curriculum system." That's really critical our district for being headed forward. It created some different challenges in that the state gave us a big wealth of money to purchase curriculum that we had just purchased. So we had to be innovative. We had to be hired. We have been able to utilize those funds to support coaching to support professional development. I'm really proud of our teachers. They've taken on and beyond as they always do. I've had opportunity to speak to them both previously about letters training which is often marked as the gold standard of literacy training. And we have higher percentage of letters training individuals

074and high performance. It's just astronomical number of people that have put in additional time. We're not talking five or 10 hours. We're talking about 160 hours on their own time of literacy professional devel. And the one thing I can say is there hasn't been a person yet that has finished it and said I didn't. I think all of them will say that changed me the way I think about literacy now. the way I think myself got a chance to take the letters and administrators taking the letters for administrators. So, it's really made that big shift for us. This last year over at Creek Side, we wrote through the LA review as well, which was a little bit of a different experience. We're we're departmentalized at Creek Side. We have people that specifically teach social studies

075typically and language arts uh versus our elementary buildings where people are teaching everything. So, we've got real, you know, adapted our practices a little bit there for Creek side. Uh but I pretty staff came together put their heads together. One thing that I'm really proud of is that it's quite unique and I saying John way here you do things a little bit different here. Well, we're proud of that. Instead of adopting one curricular resource in young five through six, we actually will have three different resources. And on surface that seems really strange. Um, but it fits people because our teachers really worked to understand what kids needed at each and as we evaluated all the different programs. We realized that there wasn't a one-sizefits. There wasn't so well. If there were, all districts would have

076it. But what we loved about the program that we picked at K12 just didn't feel right. Nice person. And so we knew that supporting our staff and supporting them, trusting them as professionals and their efficacy around the critical resource to this line of thinking, our kids will be successful. So far, we've seen that pay off. So I say our literacy instruction, our full comprehensive literacy support, feeling to mention the incredible work that our coaches and our interventions have done in that they've completely reimagined and reinvisioned what intervention support looks like. Previously we were using poor tools to identify kids that need reading support and we were giving them a broad spectrum over what a third time and we quickly realized we need a diagnostic tool to specifically understand where the reading deficit is and then

077we need to provide a curricular support that's going to fill that void. Uh so we've been able to really reimagine a reading intervention program getting kids in and out of intervention uh quicker sooner and more kids make sure that people have the supports that they need. Once the state came out with all these statements we became a district that people wanted to visit want to see what you've done, how did you do it? Was it a perfect process? No. But I think that when we're honest, we were transparent. We tried to communicate to everyone throughout the the process. So when we reached conclusion, there was no shock. It was no surprise people with explore people had a collective commitment toward that issue. >> Thank you. Um turning to the older students, how would you ensure

078that our students are well prepared for um postgraduation meeting the needs of college readiness while also providing high quality and relevant career focused uh opportunities. >> Yeah. You know really proud of the number of pathways and opportunities that we do have. starts we have a variety of pathies whether it's a traditional pathway I need this year we had 16 students go through with the IV diploma which we need students taking IV type classes we have a number of classes which are majority of our kids taking [Music] we have so many wonderful opportunities one thing I think that we as middle schools are looking at and evaluating a great opportunity is CTA. The board has been super supportive to support CTE initiatives here in Dexter. So last year bringing back Wilshshire has to fall in tremendously

079district process and through leadership high school working to get that high certified build to see uh brings along some different requirements and also provides kids some opportunities for credentialing certification participate. The way that CTB happens in Washington with Dr. Chase to kind of share a little bit in theory it should work and in practice it doesn't students are reluctant to get on the bus to travel particularly schedules creates a huge deal. If a student is interested in participating in a CT class offsite they often have to fork with a number of opportunities here. We do have kids participating in CT and they love them. We also have an opportunity to offer more CT. So I think that that's something we like to uh earlier this summer I had a chance to attend an IV conference

080that I conference one of the topics. Wells there's a new I certification that is CTB adjacent. Uh so there's another path in the diploma. I do think for our district it's pretty easy lift or we're doing a lot of the right things. We just would need to be able to rely on board your experiences for kids. I have had the opportunity to sit on the ISD CTE advisory committee part of a multi-year process. So Dr. role it's coming on a committee that's facilitated by him and John Norman superintendent IB and really starts to think about CCP as a whole as well as this concept of experiential work providing kids with authentic experiences that they can demonstrate not only content knowledge but in larger level the competences that I think that when we can do that

081for our we can really help kids gain experiences and things that they like things that they might want to be support and and for you all as families and parents that are probably supporting a child or with their life decisions. Uh I think it's important to figure out that they don't work. We have a number of kids that go to college thinking that a career pathway is best for them and they've never really experienced it to the extent that they need to to understand that it may not. So I was wanting to be a medical professional and this is true for myself be a veterinarian being a veterinarian not doing well a little earlier before I started to think about my colleges and universities all meth but I think that there are things that we

082can do in our K12 young 512 students particularly our high During the bond, we have allocated funding at least four more CTE spaces which would help support the CTE opportunities that we do here have here at Dexter High School. Some of the technology is quite innovative. We need to update with fresh. I also think that there are some creative things that we can do with other districts. An example would be right now we're sharing resources with all across Washington County with us and kids across the county today for a kid again us come back the number of hours that school day is passing Chelsea is right there similar size district facing similar challenge they offer some really beautiful CT classes that we don't and vice versa and might it makes sense in the future to

083explore some small partnerships so districtra and Chelsea pair off and maybe whether it's shared staff so Mr. Smith teaches here in Dexter in the morning and goes to Chelsea in the afternoon so students don't have to or if a lab will prevent a child from uh you know or prevent the teacher from traveling back and forth because the the amount of capital it will take to establish that lab busting a student to and from Chelsea. So I think that there are some things that we can actually do. The other thing that makes me think about is one of our goals and our strategic plan in terms of extended learning. One really important thing that we've learned in co is that previously student market and learn if you want to learn you went to school. I

084think that in the digital change and and through co virtual learning we learned that learning occurs in other places too. And while did occur in little so as a school of the learning that some of our students are doing outside of school sports activities right now we say it's really nice that you're part of the robots program but we can't use that to count toward the physics why they're similar skills they're similar concepts why are we making a student take a test on something that they're doing every single day as part of the robotics so again long term I love a little bit first we have to set some foundation You have to understand what the box is before we started outside. >> Just a quick time check. We've got a little less than 30

085minutes left. So, a little less than a third of the time. A little bit more than 30 questions made and we want time at the end for questions. And finally, probably just a little bit. Well, >> moving on. What's the biggest risk you've taken to do what's uh right for children? >> Uh I think a lot of the risk that ting for children happen behind closed doors. The things that will never be public facing will never can be public facing. There's a decision that I was on the same side or a different side. Uh it's being able to sit across the table from someone with positional authority and challenge their thinking. Uh and it's understanding that when a decision is made by the board, by the superintendent, whomever, it's supporting that decision and understanding why

086a decision has to be made. Uh there have been decisions that we have made in this organization at times. I don't always 100% agree with and we've had that opportunity in a private appropriate setting to really think through the decision and challenge one another. Uh that's one thing I I deeply respect about Chris. He is open to that feedback. he's alone being pushed in that way and I also really respect his partnership that when decision is made in China or support so I think I could give you a lot of examples but the the most challenging ones obviously is having behind closed doors and and I'm sure there are topics that you can assume but just having that opportunity to have some dialogue Still me, what do you believe are currently the biggest challenges with

087special education in our region and state? How should those challenges be addressed? I think one of the biggest challenges and I'm really proud of our district for starting to address them. We still have an opportunity to grow is providing students the access to the weaker restraint. Essentially making sure that children are getting the supports that they need to be successful without over supporting. Uh I think that because we as educators and we as a community, families, professionals, we want to do what's best for kids, we at times have a tendency to oversimplify support or it's too much modification or curriculum or assignment. There are things that we can do differently to better support learners and keep them in uh a learning environment. removing students to verbal ticket to get time with the teacher consultant. What

088have they lost by being out of the classroom for those 30 minutes during that time? So, I think I'm really proud Dexter voluntarily participated in a LE least restrictive environment audit this year uh and and did fairly well. They did really well, which was terrific. These audits will be coming through uh Washington County and through the state in the near future. Uh so it's possible it would be a real district of anxiety. Like I said our marks were really good but they also identified some opportunities for growth. So I think that that is challenge. I think the other challenge and I previously spoke about retention is just you know improving and attaining really great people. Teaching in general takes a really special person. Special education takes a very special person. So it is a really

089challenging at times thankless job. So being able to support our folks is something that I think that me better dealer I'm gonna ask about finances. Um please describe your experience with budget development and financial management citing the largest budget you have built and maintained and how would you ensure that we maintain a balanced budget? >> Yeah. So um as principal of BET I had an opportunity to develop a building budget. that building budget wasn't was in the range of a couple hundred thousand dollars, but I don't know that maybe the largest budget I've had will be over $500,000 and that will be the 35J budget. That will be a secret grant that we had to allocate in April. That one is really interesting because it's a restrictive grant. So they're very specific about what we

090can spend funds on, what we cannot spend funds on. That's different than the building budget. Building budget really has within the different needs and different supports that are necessary. whether it's for curriculum resources, experiences for kids, uh classroom supplies, materials, textbooks, but working with teachers and working with leadership teams to develop those budgets. It's been something that I definitely have experience with through the grant management and through every year all schools and the primary writer for ours, they complete something called the consolidated application. It consolidated applications an annual process that gives us access to title one, title two, title three, title four as well as our foundational funds. So that number that comes with this file. I've also not directly but indirectly had an opportunity to participate in the esser funds which were multiple millions

091of dollars of funds uh as well as the followup 11 funds which were given to district 64 as based on so I manage grants as small as $3,000 to overund thousands of millions of dollars but I've had quite the experience I like to think I'm pretty good numbers. I I feel very comfortable in the spreadsheet. I developed a skill to anticipate the hidden costs. A lot of hidden costs and things that we do that we don't anticipate. Uh so hiring a teacher for example, it's not just looking at the salary that we offer that teacher. There's a lot of additional costs to turn. So healthcare like everything that goes into it. So working with Christie, working with the business department is something that I have a lot of experience with and something I'm able to

092do. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, have you had success in procuring additional funding for your school for our school or district and beyond what is normally provided? Um, and what ideas might you explore to raise money for Dexter schools? >> Yeah, I won't spend a ton of time talking time on this. I've talked about a lot of the grants that I've I've written. I'll share one that I just submitted last week. Uh it was a grant that initially came across our table. Alaska called categorical grants. This one was a literacy categorical grant. Uh 35 annual is an innovative practice grant. You would think that that a district like Dexter would be all over this one. Uh this one has some interesting components to it which made it a little challenging to get behind. there were

093a lot of there's a red tape and groups that we would need to jump through to build these grants. Uh but you know what it was worth the work because it gives us some possibility. So this innovative literacy practice is a grant that I just wrote that would look to improve literacy support in grades three through six. Uh and those are grades that we have less uh reading intervention than our young 52. So really thinking about how we can support in this grant which would be uh potentially a first round grant of $187,000. We would look to uh support literacy coach particularly rings five and six. Uh and we also look to provide some innovative reading support. The past few years through 23G we have supported uh virtual reading instruction over the summer. Uh there

094are schools across the nation, Mississippi, Texas. So these studies are actually providing the same virtual reason during the school day. Uh so you'll see kids on headphones on their iPad that are getting one- on-one literacy coach from someone across the world. Uh so we wrote this grant uh to see if Dexter could become right now our capacity for reading intervention is limited at preside based on the new staff are available by being able to provide literacy intervention at any time including virtually uh we would be able to more than probably about six times the number of kids that ride intervention to your parent. So that's what I'm really excited about. If selected, we would be entered for a second round. The second round is $375,000. And if our practice studied by the state is deemed

095most innovative, we be awarded $500,000 and the state will be able to scale that across. So grant writing is something I feel really comfortable. The grant management stewardship. Okay. And what opportunities do you believe budget limitations present in tough financial times? What are your top three priorities? >> You know, 85% of our budget is people. So, it has to be people. Has to be making sure that you're taking care of your people, that you're being really thoughtful about the decisions you make. Previously, we talked about some of intentions when you have competing interests. Some of those competing interests are buildings like to have commoning time. You have common planning time and that all teachers of a given content area are able to sit down around the table and work together. You have to be able

096to send kids to a space so that it can release those teachers. In the elementary building that often looks like specials and languages, right? You can only run so many specials at a given time. I'd love to be able to hire more P teachers. We have space in the budgetary restraints which means we can only release so many teachers at a given time competing interest. Uh so that is definitely something that we we work to overcome. As I previously mentioned as well, part of the challenge of school is that our fiscal year is different than the capital year, different than the legisl. It's also different when the state gives us money. You can expect the foundational to so stepping back to make sure that we have the funds to successfully do to do. But I

097will definitely prioritize staff and making sure that keeping class sizes next always been really good about keeping management class sizes in advantageous. Uh I think that we've done well to absorb positions by attrition. So as people have retired, we've done really long position. We've been really creative at the high school to combine and co-e some VP and IB classes and she's worked really well. She's had a thirst. Uh I think taking a look at programming and making sure that what we're doing will appropriate. It's not to say that changes will occur but I think it's always important to evaluate to I think one area that we have an opportunity within our budget to better evaluate is over the last few years in education things digital and digital subscriptions just like in your personal life are

098really easy to sign up for and forget the third term. Uh so the number of things that we're paying for and just to really pause and evaluate and say are people still using this are they using it at the level that we need it and so to be able to think that through other vegetarian restraints previously talked about it's a bit of a crystal wall near the sun thinking about the head we're making our best guess when we're making our best conservative guess based on a little from the legislature and then we come back in November we make those revisions. We've always been able to be creative in our thinking support our folks and being sure what we get to do. But it's important that we keep our eye on district finances to make sure

099we continue to provide the same wealth. Does that answer everything? Thank you. >> Moving on to staff in person. Now, how would you re um interact with other administrators in our district? Striking a balance between giving them the support and autonomy they need to lead effectively but while also holding them accountable as appropriate and necessary. >> Yeah. You know, I think working with our administrators is very similar to the finding the conditions I previously expressed in teachers as well in terms of setting an expectation but allowing them the autonomy that they be themselves with it. I think that I'm really proud of our administrative team's culture and and how close we've become and would like to think that those people mean a lot to me. Uh the two other candidates that are applying to this

100position, they mean a lot to me too. We all care deeply for each other. We are a really close-knit team who want to collect success. Knowing that this year we have a lot of new administrators here in Dexter Union. However, the superintendent search shakes out. There could be more new administrators here in next community schools. I think making sure that we have coaching and support for those individuals. It's crucial. Uh previously, we've supported people with outside consultants and outside coaches, outside thought partners. I'd love to bring them back. Think that there's nothing better than being able to call and just get walking with someone and to have them provide some different vantage points, some different opportunities be something that I will retain. By being superintendent, you're evaluating your administrators. And I think that just like

101when we're working with teachers on teacher evaluation, it's being present, showing up. It's giving feedback constantly. The process itself shouldn't be a surprise. Evaluation should be ongoing. Everything we do is formal assessment in terms of we're always watching, observing, giving positive praise. We're also giving constructive criticism by change for growth. Uh our administrative team has worked really well. of being able to come together and put our heads together challenge whether it professionally and then when we go back to the Dexter community to be a unified. >> Thank you. >> What would you suggest in terms of a comprehensive professional development plan for educators specifically what would be the key priority priority areas as well as the delivery system? >> Yeah. So I I think I just talk about it but this big thing back there

102is my unit. uh every year I do this I put together a big foundation uh and I think it helps teachers and he helps administrators but it really helps them think through what is our cadence of where do staff meetings occur when the opportunities to touch base for professional development we do this in partnership with the unions and we're able to work with Jess and John and their leadership to make sure that all this makes sense and that far wall is our cadence for professional development for this I previously had a chance to talk to you about this idea of culture so really thinking about what is it that we expect students learning outcomes in any given grade horizontal vertical one. That's a big undertaking. Because it's a big undertaking, we've dedicated half of our

103professional development time to provide space for teachers to have these conversations to provide protocols, coaching, and support to make sure that that time has been meaningful and effective. We also have there's an orange tag up there. It's our teacher symposium uh who's really proud of our teaching staff and there are several things from that symposium. uh we turned over the professional develop to our teachers. We said pick a topic that you're passionate about and share that uh share that passion. So we had we post 40 different sessions and teachers have the opportunity to sign up for two different sessions on that day. Uh so we'll be doing that fall. The other days are for building based professionals. Uh every building has their own Google initiatives and things that we need to work on. Uh so

104for example this year at Creek Side there will be a lot of work with ELA with mathematics. you're going to need as much time as possible to do that. The really nice thing, and I've worked with our special ed department, is that some of these opportunities create containers and create pockets for some of our really specialized individuals to get their specialized supports at that time as well. So, one thing I've talked to, I've heard from our orchestra teachers, they love to collaborate with other orchestra teachers in the area, you know, have the opportunity for our speech pathologist to say, "Hey, I'd really love to get some professional development." we now have find the space to be so really proud of that and that I think is only of quality because we surveyed and ask staff

105we continue to ask staff what do you want don't you need what is working and we continue to refine and prove that process to regard too >> how would you assess the current culture and climate of our district and as our superintendent how would you positively impact our culture and >> yeah you know Our our people are just wonderful. Uh I truly knew that. I used to tell me several times. I would brag about them as teachers because I always tell people they're better teachers. Not saying a lot because they were great teachers. I I think I speak for most education right now, not just the district. It's a difficult time to be it's a difficult time to be an educator. I think that we continue to think about what can we take off teachers

106plates because we continue to put more things on staff bulls and teachers too. I think being present for staff showing up being in classes connecting with individuals connecting with students to hear what's going well. Generally, I would like to think that the overall culture of our district positive but you know there's always opportunity for improvement. I think that any one of us myself including different leadership style I'll have different strengths than Dr. Timus I'll experiences in Dr. There are things I hope to do differently. There are things I hope to emulate. Had the opportunity to work alongside and for years. Learned a lot. Like any position and like any of leadership, we try to harvest the things that work well. We take the things that you want to do differently. I think that being able

107to lead with clarity, conviction, positivity, with strength is something I hope to continue to capitalize. Thank you. So we would like to take a few minutes and um provide you with an opportunity to ask any questions that you might have. >> Absolutely. Uh so with some I guess curiosity briefly also like a moment to close as well as what strengths the next year schools do you feel must be emphasized as we consider the next chapter district? >> That's a good question. Um, I think that one of the things the board has done over the last two months is that we've worked really hard to think about what is going well and we've talked to a lot of people, staff, parents, administrators, community members who either went to the schools or used to have kids in

108the schools. And I think one of the things we've done is really work to build this profile of who we're looking for. And I think it really does speak to some of the things that we want to emphasize um to nuance. So I I think some of the conversations that we've had just in the last couple of months around the board table um we've really talked a lot about academics and academic success and that being one of the primary reasons that we're here. In the same vein, we've also said we understand there's lots of learners and how do we make sure that our students are graduating and ready to go to whatever is next. >> Um, and I think all of us come with very different backgrounds to all of these things, but we were

109very much aligned on on these um on these pieces that we added into the profile. So I think you know things like full child, things like you know mental wellness, things um like you know emphasizing just strategic planning and systems thinking. Um I think there are things that the district I think the feedback we've all had from the community and from staff is that we are on a good path and people generally like the path that we're on. So I think we wanted to embrace that and say what's next at the same time. >> I I appreciate that very much. One thing I've often thought about, I previously talked about being part of a school district where we were transformed. Dexter is not a district that needs transformation. We need a pause and we need

110to find there's so many things going well in this district. I think we would really benefit from pause, take stock of where we're at, where we want to go, and making sure that we're aligned. Uh, with that, I'd like to leave you with a couple things. One is uh our district mission is to develop, educate, and inspire. And I put together a transition plan that I'm calling educate, develop, inspire. I think about the next seven months. Uh you all are extremely generous to be thinking about hiring a new superintendent right now. It will give that person, hopefully myself, seven months to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Dr. Tims. And I've started to think about what that will look like for myself to work with Dr. tanks as well as to transitioning event to a new executive director

111of instruction. So you'll see what it looks like in terms of community engagement in terms of prioritization of goals. Uh and then thinking about development developing a plan working with the board to set goals where do we want and then February inspired inspiring spiring that you'll also notice I listed some priorities. These are things that I've identified that things like us as a district to think about. I say us as a district because I'm going to lean on the district. We have terrific leadership, terrific folks here. One sole person won't be able to address all these requirements. One board of education specials and following folks to make sure that we have collective leadership opportunities to address these nine areas and opportunities. Uh finally here I left you with a few letters of reference and recommendation

112to review. I I I just want to thank you for your time tonight. Uh this opportunity means a lot to me. Being a graduate of Dexter Kenny schools, being able to work in cities, to be in schools, to live I live in the community of two children school. So becoming the superintendent of Dexter Schools is not only something that is a professional aspiration, but it's deeply personal to me, too. The success of this district means a lot to me because I'm from this community. I understand the role that the school district has in the community. I understand the role community has school district as how those two things work to do. What will you tell me? Yeah, it truly will be an honor and I thank you for your time soon and I thank you

113for participating in this touring process. Look forward to a future opportunity to share further. I realize the things I didn't share today that I'd love to share in the future will always be that way. So, thank you for directing the shoot. >> Thank you. >> Um before you hand those out, let me just say that um we appreciate your interest in the position. We are interviewing three candidates this week and we will let you know after our meeting this Wednesday, July 16th, where you stand in our search process. Um, thank you for your participation in our interview. >> And to our guests, um, if you don't have, we do have fevers for you to fill out. We will be taking recess at this point to stretch their legs and complete. Are we short? >> Yeah.

11410 minutes. We should definitely try. >> Hey, look. I'll get >> so