001Hi, everybody. Welcome to this special workshop of the Hopkins School Board. Today's date is... February 13th, and it is a Friday, which is auspicious for us all. And the time is 5.33 p.m. We are starting with a special training by MSBA, which we are a member of, hiring the right superintendent. We're getting a condensed one-hour training from Barb Dorn. Thank you for being here with us this evening. And we will go ahead and get started. Our clerk, Sarah Wilhelm Garbers, was unable to attend this evening. And I'm not sure where Johanna is, but I'm sure she will be here shortly. So thank you. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Is my mic on? I'm good speaking at this volume? Okay. Thank you, Chair Andreessen. Really looking forward to working with the Hopkins School Board. Thank you
002very much for partnering with MSBA on the superintendent search. The agenda tonight will be the workshop first and then the planning meeting. Typically, this workshop... can stand alone from a superintendent search. It is intended to be generic enough for our members, so if they did go through this training, they could then choose to either conduct their own search, work with a different search firm than MSBA, or work with MSBA. However, since we know that MSBA will already be supporting the Hopkins Board in your search, I'm going to customize the information in the workshop specifically to this district, so it will not be as generic as it normally is. The other thing I always tell school boards is that this information will become far more apparent and relevant as the search process progresses. Basically, the superintendent
003search process is this booklet over the course of about two and a half to three months. So there are some things that I will touch on in here and let you know that we will speak more specifically about it during the planning meeting immediately after this workshop. So there will be some... relation between the workshop booklet and the planning meetings. So if I skip over something or say this is going to be addressed more deeply in the planning meeting, that's okay with everybody? Okay, great. So I'm looking forward to this because I appreciate the fact that this board wants a foundation laid in terms of the specificity of steps involved in a superintendent search process. That really speaks well to the board's interest in learning about the process and following an appropriate procedure and ones
004that adhere to all of the Minnesota state statutes that are connected to the superintendent search process. So we will go through this foundational information first. Before I begin, are there any questions from board members about the process that lies ahead, or are you pretty much willing to go through the workshop booklet and bring up questions again during the planning meeting? I'm okay with either. I'm good with doing the training first. Great. These are your booklets to keep, so please feel free to take lots of notes, take them home with you tonight, read them at your convenience, but these are yours. So when you open the very first page, the first item in here is simply the table of contents, except for on the bottom of the front page, the do's and don'ts of hiring a
005superintendent. I'm going to give you just a moment to read those things that are in the gold area. And I want you to share with me if any of those jump out at you, either a do or a don't. Is there one that resonates with you or you have a question about? I always want to find out how the board's feeling about those overall do's and don'ts. Chair Andreessen? Yes. Just one question I have was when you say don't hire the best of the worst, I understand what that means conceptually. you know if we're at a point where we know our Current superintendent's contract is gonna run out like what do you do if you're in a situation? Where you feel like that has to happen? You always have options and I would suggest an
006interim if that were the case So for example in terms of the search process what this is also saying is please don't settle Don't feel pressured to hire a superintendent that doesn't feel right for Hopkins if for whatever reason the pool comes in It's not as robust as you might like we can certainly reopen the search for another two weeks See if additional applications come in there are multiple points along the process that you as a board can pause and pivot if you need to. So what this is saying is if you just aren't satisfied and it's getting close to the end of the fiscal year, you are more than welcome to say let's pick this up again next year and hire an interim. We'll help you hire that interim at no charge. I've got
007a list of folks that are always happy to step in and help districts for a one-year commitment. And then we'll pick it up again without any charge next fall or next winter and do it again until you find the right person. Yeah, thanks for that clarification and the answer is very reassuring too. So appreciate it. Thank you anything else you notice on here that you either wonder what it means or You have a thought about it. Sure and reason yes. Yes. Hi I think maybe also a don't when you say don't give away the right to select the new super. Do you mean? Like listening to one faction or another or what does that mean exactly? Thank you. That is a great question because what often happens is, well, what always happens is when the
008names are public, because they're going to be interviewed by the board, you will be lobbied very intensely for and against candidates. It is simply a part of the process. We want you to listen to your constituents and thank them for the input, and we want you to keep an open mind because not everything they will share with you will necessarily be true. So this specifically is addressing the idea of a very traditional methodology, for example, in searches used to be setting up a hiring committee or a selection panel. And we get very concerned about that language because what that does is it sets up unfair expectations for that hiring committee. or selection panel because the only hiring committee is the board and the only selection panel is this board. So sometimes if you want input
009from constituents at different points of the process, we'd recommend calling them input committees, advisory groups, input forums. There are ways to involve people and get their thoughts without... You relying on them to tell you who to hire or giving them the impression that they're going to get to tell you who to hire So we want to be really careful about expectations with anyone who's involved in the process. Okay. Thank you for asking that director job Chair and you soon. Yes a question. Thank you for being here So I have a so I have one about another don't where it says don't overlook those already in the school district Is there a typical? process or I won't even say process, but is there a preference to, do you see for more board members to like specifically
010hire within their district first before looking outward or what are the patterns that you're seeing around that, around that typical don't? Great. Thank you for asking that. Typically, if there are internal candidates, they will go through the exact same process as external candidates. There's nothing different between being someone who already works in the district and has a license or being outside the district and has a license. So typically, the board lets that process evolve, and they are part of the larger pool with no leg up at all. When it is appropriate, however, I will say that occasionally there might be people within the district that the board is very interested in visiting with. First so we could conduct an internal search first, which means we post it We invite internal candidates to apply you as
011a board could review those applications choose whether or not to interview those folks Before you post it externally that is an option and for some people if they have folks in the district that they are very Confident in that they could see in the chair of the superintendent. You certainly could conduct the internal search first It will delay your timeline by probably at least two or three weeks because you'd want to give a window for internal folks to apply maybe at least two weeks, interview any folks that you might be interested in, open it up, and then have it open for another at least two or three weeks for external folks. So it does set you back, and it's the middle of February, so we wouldn't want to take too long to do that. But
012if there are very strong internal people who've expressed interest in that, you have that option. to do that first and then post it externally. You still might get some internal folks throwing their hat in the ring with everybody else because maybe they're not comfortable going first because if you interview them and choose not to hire them, that says something else. So very often boards will say it's just easier to have everyone apply at the same time. Thank you for asking that. Anything else on the do's and don'ts? Okay, thank you very much. All of these things obviously are best practices. They are not requirements. We will help you with a leadership profile because the district's needs will be very unique for Hopkins than they are for any of the other searches currently occurring in Minnesota
013here. I'd like to talk about consensus just for a moment. You as a board can hire a superintendent on a majority vote. As long as you have a quorum. a majority vote will hire a superintendent. We encourage people to think about building consensus, even if there is differing opinions on who is the best person for Hopkins. If you can freely speak about the candidate you might support. and perhaps consider voting with the majority so it is a unanimous vote, that goes a long way toward building unity in the community, and it does go a long way for the candidate as well. Even if there are disagreements about who might be the number one choice, consensus is always, if possible, a very positive message to send to the candidates as well as the community. So you
014can think about that, but again, it is certainly not a requirement. Okay. Just wanted to follow up on that. I haven't been part of MSBA running that part of the process, but at 287, the Executive Search Committee was really involved in the process to get the board to consensus. Is that something you facilitate, MSBA, helping us with the process? Three officers, three or four? Who is your executive committee in Hopkins? We have four. Okay. So those would need to be open meeting, for one, unless you've adopted 213 that says that it's not subject to the open meeting law. We certainly could, if that's something that you think you have time for. It does mean... many more meetings for the executive committee because you need to be at the six meetings for the full board as
015well as whatever individual meetings the committee wants to hold as well but if that's something you think would work well here absolutely will help facilitate whatever process you want to set up so i'm going to need to go back then so um Where are we arriving at consensus? Is it the full board or just the executive committee? I was speaking at the end of the process when you are down to potentially two or three candidates and you hire one person, we'd love that to be a unanimous vote. But by law, that's not required. So is MSBA skilled in guiding the whole board through that process of getting to consensus? Yes, that'll be part of the interview training that we conduct about midway through the search. We also do have some suggested, I hate to call
016them scripts because it sounds very rigid, but it's not. It's a guideline the board can use to work through those sorts of things. There's a script for the board chair to facilitate the conversation. And we have some deliberation scenarios that we'll go through during training and explain if this happens, what would we do? If this happens, what would we do? And very often it's when there is a split vote, how to move toward consensus. So that's a part of that interview training. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. All right. I'm going to move on to the next page, beginning the search. Much of the first page at this point is not relevant. You've made a decision to work with a consultant, so none of that at this point is relevant. It does have a four-month timeline
017on the second page. When I started here seven years ago at MSBA doing searches, it was a six-month timeline. That's what was in this booklet, and that's what searches often took. That has significantly shortened. If I were to redo this booklet this summer, I would say it now needs to be a three-month timeline. Everything is speeding up. The Internet is part of that. Social media is part of that. The competitive nature is part of that, with candidates having multiple choices. Everything is simply faster. I have done searches in the last two years, though, that took six months because there just wasn't the right pool, and we're happy to keep coming back and working with the board until you find the right person. We also have done searches in four or five weeks. The entire process
018is scalable. to how long you have. And you don't have unlimited runway if you are interested in someone starting July 1. So we'll go through the timeline during the planning meeting, but you will have approximately six board meetings to fit in between now and when you find a candidate to make an offer to. So I would speed this up myself if I could redo this, but your search, nonetheless, between now and the end of June, we'll have plenty of time to find some really great candidates. That's the timeline. Again, this makes a lot more sense in about an hour when we do the timeline specifically for Hopkins. Page three, this is if districts want some help identifying hiring criteria. I want to thank each and every board member that took that survey. That was really
019helpful because from those individual responses, we were able to build a suggested leadership profile, and I want you to be able to customize that during tonight's discussion in the planning meeting as to what you want to represent to applicants that Hopkins is specifically looking for. So we really don't need page three. other than the conversation about involving members of the public. So there's two times when members of the public, staff, parents, guardians, community members can be involved in the search process. One is up front and one is toward the end. So up front is what we're going to be talking about doing over the next month or so. involving people in the survey, for example, the search preview meetings, the Q&A sessions, if there are focus groups or listening sessions. That upfront gathering of information
020from members of your public is really important. Then there's a bit of a pause, and there's an opportunity toward the end to again involve people, and it might be in round one. More typically, it's in round two, the finalist interviews of only two or three people. Part of that is because you may have five, six, or seven people in round one. asking staff or parents to be a part of the individual process when there's six or seven people, you're asking to commit ten hours or so to the process and people have very busy lives. So it usually fits people's calendars better to be a part of a two or three person. round, which is typically round two. And there's many ways to structure that. We have some of them that we'll talk about tonight in
021the planning meeting. But we're also going to wait and make decisions on the specific involvement of people in the round two interviews until you've seen the report that comes out of the public engagement summary. because things shift and information that comes to you as a board could help shape your decisions. So we don't want to decide everything tonight about what round two might look like as far as people participating in that. So we'll get to more of that. But it is important to involve the community in any way that you can in any way that is appropriate so that they don't feel as though they're the school board because you were elected to run this search and make this decision. But we do want their input. Internal applicants, I answered that question already at the
022bottom of page four. They do go through the exact same process unless you'd like to run the internal search first and then conduct the external search. You can certainly talk about that later if you'd like. Page five, screening the applications. So I can just tell you up front that you will be screening these applications as board members. You'll have access through a secure link in the cloud. You'll set up your own username, your own password, and you as individuals will be looking at all of that data. It will be cover letters, resumes, letters of recommendation, transcripts, licensure, all of that, work history, all those things. You are not required, however, to do a deep dive because if you have 15 or 20 people in the pool, it takes a lot of time to weed through
023all that information. But you're welcome to if you want to. It is private data, so we're going to ask that you be extremely cautious about where you look at that information on your device. Please don't look at it in a coffee shop or your kitchen table with your family walking behind you. All of the information that is included in there could identify who you are looking at on your computer. So private data will be extremely, extremely important. But we'll get there, so you'll screen them. Simultaneously, so will we. Our service providers will go through and compare the folks in this pool to your leadership profile and to the results of that public input summary report. We'll bring recommendations to you. I will send you a list probably two days before we present those recommendations to
024the board. It will give you enough time to contact me with questions because if we wait until the board meeting and you ask me, why are you not recommending candidate D or candidate L? I have to be extremely vague because if I share anything in a public meeting that might indicate who this person is, I've broken the Government Data Practices Act myself. However, you will know at least two days before that day who we are recommending. So if you have questions as to why or why not, you can call me individually. I won't contact you, but you may contact me and say, I just have a few questions on the pool. Let's get those questions out of the way so that when the meeting comes, you're not frustrated by how vague I am being. relative
025to our recommendations. Make sense? Any questions? Okay. I just did have a quick follow-up question because as you will see, one of our amazing student board reps is here this evening. I'm assuming that it is just the elected members of the board that can have access to that private information. The elected members of the board. Okay. Thank you for asking that. I just wanted to make that clear. We love having you here, but there are certain things we can't share with you. You're welcome. Thank you. So at the bottom of page five, there's a brief blurb on salary. We are going to talk about that tonight in the planning meeting as well. There is a new law in Minnesota. It's only been in place for about 12 or 13 months that you must publish a
026salary range. You no longer can simply state what the current superintendent's contract is, which is a very... fact-based, simple way to do it. So we will be coming up with a range tonight to put in the brochure because you're required to post that as part of a new law in Minnesota in 2025. Page six talks about the media. It's wonderful to loop in the media in any way possible to the search. So we'll be talking about press releases. We'll craft those, and I'll share those with Natalia and the chair. after the announcement of the semifinalist, the finalists, and the lone finalists. We'll have press releases that we can share with them, and then you distribute it through whatever media channels you want to. But we'll be talking a little bit more about that tonight as
027well in terms of who speaks for the board when the media reaches out about your superintendent search. Typically, it's either the board chair or it is your director of communications. Your policy might state who speaks to the media on behalf of the board in that same policy. procedure would relate to the superintendent search also. So because you are in the metro area, there will be heightened interest in this position. You could be covered in any number of the newspapers or any of the TV stations, radio, online sources. Social media likes to follow searches as well. So please keep that in mind. And I would just ask that whatever you as board members share relative to your search, typically it's best to share the official. information from the district because Toya will be working on communications
028pieces and links to the survey and things like that. If you go out on your own and try to create your own post and all those sorts of things, it can just unintentionally get skewed and maybe it's the wrong link or maybe the link doesn't work and it gets frustrating for board members. So if you are interested in sharing on social media, I'd recommend that you use whatever official information the district has put out as well. Any questions on the media? And again, I'm going through this more quickly than I would normally because we know we're working with you and we have lots more to talk about specifically to some of these things tonight. So I'm not being very generic on purpose. I did just have a quick question about, I know that when I
029took the MSBA training. a new board member. There was a lot of information about the use of social media as a board member, and I'm just wondering if you could just briefly go over like what would be the recommendations of MSBA beyond only sharing the official district communications for the use of social media during this time in particular. I'm going to open it by saying I don't do the phase trainings for MSBA, so I'm actually unfamiliar with what they may share relative to social media. I do know we want you to be very careful because as elected board members, you represent all constituents in this district, and we want to make sure that you are not going to get caught up in any kind of... misinformation that might be floating out there online. So be
030careful as board members not to do that. Some board members actually choose to agree amongst themselves to not post anything on their personal social media pages and simply let the district do the talking for them. That's an individual choice of every single district. If that's something you think would help, you can do that. Just be very careful because I also want to acknowledge that a change in leadership creates high anxiety. in all corners of the district. And we don't want to add to that anxiety by sharing misinformation or creating situations that don't have to have drama and attaching drama to them. So we just want as steady and level of presence online and in the communities by board members as we possibly can. I don't know if you want to share anything that MSB does
031talk about in phase trainings about social media because I don't do those trainings. I'm sorry. No, I mean, we've all been there and heard it. I just wanted to know if there was specific guidance, and it sounds like there is, around this phase of board leadership because most of us haven't been through it before. So knowing that it can be really tempting to, you know, hit a like on somebody's you know social media posts that's about the superintendent and then it becomes like you were just saying this this huge drama and everyone's talking about it and like well this board member agrees with me and it can become social media can become unintendedly very contentious so just wanted to Know if you had any recommendations. Yeah, thank you for raising that because the other thing
032is not only will you know community members see this and they know that we have seven different voices, which is the strength of a board. Diversity of thought makes a very strong board. They know that. The other folks that will be looking at your social media feeds are the candidates. So we want you to remember that they are going to be interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. And we have had candidates apply. We're looking through their application materials and they change their mind and withdraw before their name goes public. So please do keep in mind that you are being monitored by candidates that want to work here. They think they want to work here and they're going to make that decision as the deadline approaches as to whether they really want to
033work here. So I think social media is a big part of that. Thank you for the opportunity to talk that through a little bit. Chair Andreessen? Yes. I would not be opposed to and I'm just throwing this out there for everyone to consider if we all agreed to only share official communications on our social media. So official communications coming from the district, the official, whatever they post on social media would be acceptable to repost and share specifically those links saying here's the superintendent survey, very neutral language. At least for me, I think that sharing your personal, anyone's personal opinion specifically, like vocally on social media during this time could be problematic. And also there could be pressure from certain constituents to post certain things to try to influence the process. And so if we all
034just agree. that we're only sharing official communications from the district, then it's very easy to respond to someone that's asking you to chime in on social media that, no, we've all agreed and I will not do that. Right, and I think I was hearing from the recommendation. Yeah, and I think we can and we all we are all individuals we all have our First Amendment rights and I Wouldn't want it to be part of a public meeting that we agree to give up those rights So I think that maybe offline we can all maybe discuss have some time to think amongst ourselves about where we land personally. And I think that all of us are hearing the recommendation and I don't imagine that, I mean, I'm not really on social media, so I don't see
035what y'all are doing there, but I don't imagine it's that kind of. We're also all adults. Right. So I really appreciate the recommendation and I think. I don't know of anyone who's opposed to following that guidance. And certainly Sarah isn't here to weigh in either. So thank you for the thought. And I think we will take it under counsel and our own individual counsel as well. But I don't see anything wrong with it. Chair Andreessen Paxson, question. Thank you so much for that. That was very helpful. And thank you so much, Chair Andreessen, for also, you know, talking about the First Amendment rights. I really appreciate all of the dialogue that's happening here. If there is a candidate, right, who may have had a, you know, troubling past, you know, their social media, they can,
036I started Facebook back in 2007. As a high schooler, I don't know what I said back then, right? But you know that folks are going to probably say some really crazy things back then. Brand for public office, though. They probably would have come out if you said anything really bad. So just wondering, like, how do you all handle a situation where someone's past may come up and they're like a selected finalist, where it may be... seen as like disruptive to the district or that it may seem like it's you know may cause like a conflict how how is that addressed because again with social media things just come up People don't always disclose like if they have maybe been terminated before things like that but someone may screenshot and say look you all are interviewing
037this person and they were convicted of shoplifting or something. I don't know but I don't know why I said shoplifting but just thinking. That's a really great question and unfortunately some of that information can affect a candidate's chances at a position. And what we would always say is don't believe everything you hear. Let us check into it. We do a social media sweep of all the folks that we're recommending to the board. Oftentimes there's something that at first glance looks pretty bad, and we look into it and we find out, you know what, it's not what it looks. The headlines do not tell this story. Recency also matters. We do think that we should give people some grace for who they were. earlier in their life, depending upon how long ago something was. So we're
038not going to look back 20 years into what they posted or who they were, things like that. So relatively recent developments we will always look at, headlines we will always look at. The background checks that we conduct through a national firm will include a social media analysis of their current footprint in all the different social media areas, and if there's anything concerning in that footprint. That to me is a pretty good indication of who they are as a person, what they post, what they follow. It's not though down to a gnat's eyebrow like someone I used to work with say, it's not down to a gnat's eyebrow if they liked a particular post in 2009 or something like that. We don't do that because we do know that social media has changed superintendent search, some
039for the better and some for the worst over the last 10 or 15 years. So we take it with a grain of salt, but we do look into it. However, the first part of the search before you have named your semi-finalists publicly, we're limited in what we can do because their names are private data. So we can't reach out to anyone about this person who's applied for the job and get to the bottom of a rumor because that anyone might not know they've applied for this job. So there's some bit of limitations on how much we can learn about folks. We can call the references they provided. We can call the folks on their letters of recommendation. We can't, however, personally investigate through word of mouth, which is sometimes the best way to get to
040the true story, until their names go public. then we're able to do that. But when it is a private data issue, we're limited to only talking to folks they've given us permission to talk to. The long answer, I apologize. No, that's fine. That was a perfect answer. I think just because what we're seeing just in today's current society and just like our social media trends, things do come up. And so just was wondering like how would the board, like if someone's background came up, like would that be a conversation with the board to decide to want to continue with that person? Or is there like a background check that already disqualifies them? There will be some things that are disqualifying. Correct. If we uncover some things that obviously exhibit poor judgment on a regular basis
041or dismissed from a position with cause. I mean, there are things that are definitely a hard stop for some candidates. I just know that some candidates in the middle part of their careers to the latter part of their careers, they're required to upload all of their transcripts, you know, graduate degrees and undergrad. And every once in a while, they'll say, when I was 20, you know, which might be 25 years ago, they want to make us aware that I didn't get straight A's in college. I was a little distracted by something. So they're worried that their grades 25 years ago will impact their opportunity. And it's simply like, you know. All of us were 20 years old at one point, and if you're in your 50s, we're not going to go back and look at
042your transcripts and consider that as a part of our decision-making. We want to be reasonable and recognize that people are human, and everybody has made mistakes. Some are public and available online, and some are not. So we do want to just offer that grace to everybody who has an interest in this job. Can I ask one more hard question? I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. We only have 25 more minutes for the rest of this content. Oh, do we? Just a reminder. All right. This is a challenging question. I want to just be very honest with the public about this question. But there was a superintendent who was detained and was just wondering, like, Is that a consideration going into this process about citizenship status or are we looking at that being that that was, that
043happened, I think in, I can't remember the state, but Des Moines. Yeah, that is. Unfortunately, it's a systemic issue because the I-9 form is not something that the background check company nor a search firm are able to do. Verification of eligibility to work in a school district because you are eligible to work in the United States is an I-9 form that only the employer can do. So the employer, the district, Hopkins Public Schools, would go through the I-9 process with a candidate. And if they had proof, which in this case they did, proof that they were eligible to work in the United States, The HR department in Des Moines said, okay, filed it. And it had been working in the United States at several jobs before that, including other superintendencies. So we're not going to
044be able to do anything with an I-9 verification. It's just outside of the purview of the search firm or even the background check company. But it was something that people became heightened awareness of. without wanting to target people and make assumptions, but that I-9 is not a part of the process we'll be able to screen for. And we do have an anti-discrimination policy based on national origin and immigration status in this district. So I would feel that that would be not appropriate. Thank you. All right, on page seven, it's just a sample screening form. If you have 15 applications to look for, I'll work with you at the time. You don't have to look top to bottom through everyone. You usually can take a quick look at their cover letter, their resume, their letters of
045recommendation, and the answers to the questions that you ask them in the application. That'll give you a good sense of if they are a yes or a no, or most likely in the middle as a maybe. If you want to dig deeper, you could use something like this if you want your own rubric. Some board members don't really want to look through any of those applications until they find out who we're recommending. Then they go look at those people. But that will be entirely up to you as individual board members. The interview... Won't spend a lot of time on this because we do focus on interview training with the board. We're going to talk about protected classes. We're going to talk about deliberation scenarios when the board is not reaching consensus. We'll talk about interview
046questions. All of that will be a part of our process in about four weeks. We'll get to that specifically. But we will not... facilitate the interview for you. For example, we empower the board to run this search. We'll give you that information you need to facilitate. We'll go through and answer your questions. We will always be in the room, maybe off to the side. We're keeping time. We're greeting candidates. We're helping the board if you get stuck in some way during an interview. But this is your search, so we don't want to come in as an outsider and ask the questions of the candidates or... keep you out of the loop. This is yours. So we think it's important that you wrap your arms around the interview process as well. We will get there, however.
047Lots of interview questions on the next couple of pages. I wouldn't worry about that. We'll develop those interview questions specifically around the community engagement report and your leadership profile. We'll give you probably 30 to 40 questions to consider broken out by categories. And then in a public meeting, you'll discuss the questions. We'd like you to talk about questions one, two, three, four. without reading the questions aloud because anyone watching this will then know what those are. So we'll be a little careful, but you'll want to winnow them down to 10 to 15 questions from the list we provide. There are also behavior-based questions, so they don't just ask what would you do if. They are what have you done evidence to support the answers that they give you in the areas that are important to
048the school board. Also, the application questions, which we'll discuss tonight, are fairly broad. Round one is a little more specific. Round two, you get into very specific questions because that's really where the rubber meets the road and you're going to have to make a hiring decision based on some of those answers. So it's a funnel in terms of the questions and how deep they go, how specific you want the answers to be. So lots of questions in here. Again, not necessary because we are working with you on the search. Page 12, the don't ask categories. This is, again, a really important part of our interview training that we'll do as part of the search. Any of these protected class categories you cannot ask about, you also cannot consider. We'll do some bias conversations in our
049interview training to talk about the role of bias in an interview process. And any of these things, assumptions you can make about people, should be... hopefully wiped from your mind as you make a decision. So we want to talk about leaving bias at the door. There's many different kinds of bias that can enter a hiring process. But specifically, these categories, they may offer up something about these. They'll share with you personal information during the interview, even if you don't ask for that personal information. We would like you as a board to disregard those things and not be swayed by... Stories that infringe on some of these areas. It's it's tricky But we want to make sure that none of your candidates will have a claim against the district because you hired someone Because of a
050protected class that they shared with you same thing with your notes as you take notes during this process You'll take notes on the applications. For example, you'll jot things down during the interviews We'll have a rubric you can use during the during the interviews. Be careful. What you write down is professional and appropriate and does not touch on any of the protected categories at all. Okay, because your notes are subject to a data request. So you want to be careful that whatever you're jotting down as board members does not violate any of the protected class categories either. This will make more sense in a month when we do interview training, I promise. But for folks that hadn't hired us yet to do a search, I would spend quite a bit of time on this during
051this workshop to make sure they understand the HR implications as an EEOC employer that you can't do this. Can you just tell me what is genetic information? I've not been asked that question before. Have you ever had an ancestry in me test? I don't. Yeah, maybe. Okay. I've just never seen that before, so I don't know. I've never been asked it. Nick, do you know? I'm going to ask. It's referred to as genes related to what you're... It's very, very unlikely that you would ever get into it. Okay. But usually it's more on health-protected data, protected health information. Do you have a history of Huntington's or something? Yes, it does. Thank you. Like if you have the breast cancer gene or something like that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for asking that and thank
052you for answering that. I learned something tonight. I have not been asked that before, so thank you. I ask Nick everything. That's wonderful. It does make sense. Thank you for asking that, Chair. Page 13 and 14, again, we'll go through all of this with you as the search unfolds. I mentioned earlier the candidates are watching you. During the interview, they are watching you. They will ask you questions at the conclusion of their interview. We will talk about how to answer those, but I'll give you one example of how savvy candidates are getting. These questions are sort of standard, right? They're getting a lot more creative with it. And I was in an interview situation last year, and the candidate asked a very specific management-oriented question that if it were a governing board, you know, the
053governance model with governance versus management, if it were a governing board, board members would not understand the specifics of that question. And they asked the question, and too many board members knew exactly what to answer. and that candidate chose to withdraw from the search after that interview because to them that indicated this is probably a micromanaging board and as a superintendent they're not going to let me do my job and run the district they're going to want to run the district themselves so it was a way of learning about the board's role in the district to uncover whether it was a good fit for them or not So it was very savvy, and they did withdraw from consideration because the answer was not to their liking, and they realized that it's not the right board
054for them. They were looking for a governing board. So they'll be interviewing you. They will only have perhaps 10 or 15 minutes at the close of the interview. However, just keep those things in mind when they're asking you these things. You won't make any of these mistakes, I promise, and we'll go through it again. Yeah, we'll go through all of the interview information during the training. Here again, the interview form. You could use any rubric you might like. We do suggest a three-point Likert scale, exceeds meets disappoints, which is just each of you as individuals listen to the answer a candidate gives you and just, as your lens permits, decide if that answer exceeded your expectations, if it met it, or if you were disappointed in that answer. At the conclusion of the interview, it's
055in electronic form. We'll get that pulled together into one PDF, give it back to you as one tool to consider. It's not going to tell you who to move on to the second round. It's not going to tell you who to hire. It simply will indicate as a board, this candidate had a lot more exceeds expectations than another, or this candidate. concerningly had a lot more disappoints from it. So it's one tool. So we'll get there. But if you had a different form you wanted to use, we could certainly visit about that. This has been one that is pretty simple and it allows most board members to feel comfortable that they as an individual have their voice heard in the rubric. And then the conversation, of course, is where you really do get down to
056deciding and discussing who's the best fit. So it's one thing, but I do want to make sure people aren't just listening to the interview. taking a few notes and then talking about it. We want some measurement in the interview process. Okay? I mentioned checking references. We will do that as part of our initial vetting to get the pool down to perhaps a recommended top five or six people. We'll have to be careful who we call so that we aren't outing their candidacy to folks who don't know that they've applied. After round one, it is often a really great idea for one board member, maybe two board members, to make some additional phone calls because once their names are public, you can talk to people who aren't on that provided list. And you are very connected
057within the world of education. So we do hope that one or two board members volunteer to do some due diligence on behalf of the board before round two. The other thing that we have found over and over again is people will tell you something as a board member that they will not share with the search firm. They are sometimes far more guarded sharing their thoughts about the candidates than they would be with a fellow board member or a fellow community member. So that's one of the reasons that the due diligence pays off when board members perhaps... assist with it. We don't want you all running amok and everybody making all kinds of calls. Candidates start to get uncomfortable with that because it feels like you're trying to dig up dirt on their candidacy and you're
058not doing that. But we do want a formalized approach for some reference checks between round one and round two. Does that make sense? And again, that will come as well. Making your choice. I'll just tell you that site visits in seven years I haven't had one board do a site visit. It used to be the way things were done. Automatically if you had a top three people, the board would either send a couple of folks or you'd all pile in a van and you'd drive to their home district. You'd walk around the buildings, talk to the administrators. You'd go on Main Street, go into the coffee shop, talk to folks and find out who they are in their own district. Like I said, it's never been done in my seven years of this now, partly
059because candidates are coming from further and further away. They're not always in the next-door district or within 100 miles. Sometimes they're much further away, and it's inequitable to go to some districts and not others. So you have to do it for everybody. Also, things have sped up remarkably. Site visits used to be a luxury when you had a six-month timeline. Maybe you had... two weeks in between round one and round two or three weeks and you had time to go do that. I haven't seen that ever. It's moving much more quickly than it did back then. If though you want to do site visits, I'm going to allow the board to say this is a priority and I'll help you set up site visits if it feels like the right decision for Hopkins. So clarifying
060question as I'm reading through this it sounds as if the site visits would be us going to Their site. Yes. I immediate. I just assumed it was the other way around like having the candidate come to our sites And that will definitely happen. Okay. Correct. Usually the day of round two or the day before round two, we're going to set up building tours for candidates to get familiar with your buildings, talk to some administrators, definitely, because they're going to want a tour of the community and the buildings. So that will occur. This was board members going to their home districts to do a little extra investigating on them. Interesting. Okay. So that's something we should think about if we want to include? I would think about it. It will make a lot more sense if
061it's even feasible once you pick your semifinalists. If you have semifinalists from out of state, it will probably preclude you from doing site visits. You certainly could, but we just want you to treat each candidate the same. Okay. Thanks. On page 19, you can see some of the questions that people used to ask when they would go up and down Main Street or into buildings asking about the administrators. Page 20 is a really important part of this process, and that is how you speak about the candidates in an open meeting. All of the folks that you'll be interviewing are coming and interviewing in good faith in a very public place while they hold other jobs and may be dealing with difficulties in those districts because they're also coming to Hopkins to talk to you about
062the opportunity. So we want to be very respectful of them. And so when you begin discussing their candidacies, we will encourage you to talk about strengths. Reference things that you liked about each of the finalists, for example. Everyone say one or two great things that you noticed or answers you really liked. There is no need in a public meeting to bring up deficits for your candidates. The only time I would say it might make sense to bring up someone's... Weakness, for example, is if you are in a tiebreaker. If you need a tiebreaker and you have two equally qualified, outstanding people and you just can't decide, technically you could go to areas that one is stronger than the other. And it might be, well, you know what? I think they're amazing. I do think that
063Dr. Jones's financial background is stronger than Dr. Smith's. You're not dissing Dr. Smith at all. You're simply trying to break a tie. But if there's no tie, it's not necessary to say anything in a public meeting that might be negative. It's a courtesy. Obviously, if you're comfortable talking about weaknesses in a meeting, that's okay. We just want to watch out for the candidate's role and the vulnerability that they bring to the process themselves that we don't want to criticize their performance or their experience in a public meeting. So that'll be a part of the interview training as well. But your interest has a quick question. Yeah, it says candidates for a high-profile public position Just question just for curiosity. Do you think that this one is more of a high-profile? High-profile this right Hopkins ID
064feel like our candidacy like search is more high-profile like I know that we get a lot of Candidates but just wondering like I know all your searches that you're doing. Do you kind of look at the high profile? This would be a high-profile district Yes, this one people will pay attention to this search Okay The employment contract, we have the MSBA, MASA model superintendent contract that both associations support. We would suggest using that as a foundation for your contract. However, very often in the metro area, it is preferred that you work with your council and your HR director. and a board chair that those three folks negotiate with the finalist and sometimes there are considerations in a contract that are not in our model contract of course local control matters to msba so you will
065create the contract that fits you i'm assuming you will also lean on your experts when it comes to contract negotiation but if a district needed somewhere to start we would provide you with that contract as well And then the rest of the booklet, we are just about done, right on time. The employment contract and retention, you have all been in the phase trainings, I know. You've talked about the importance of strong board team relationships. So the superintendent is an ex officio member of your board, non-voting. However, you do need to work together for the betterment of the students in this district. So we will return in the fall to do a transition workshop with all of you. It's included in the search package. There's no charge for that at all. But what we'll do in
066that workshop is talk specifically about the first year. What priorities do you, the elected board, have for your new superintendent? Because they cannot do everything right out of the gate. There's a pretty steep learning curve sometimes when you're new to a district, possibly new to the superintendency. So we want to make sure your expectations of them are realistic and that they are prioritized. Because there are so many things in the job of a superintendent that matter, right? Every day, this is an enormous job. So they can't read your minds. And we want you as a board to discuss what's most important, of the most important things. And then that's what we'll design the performance evaluation process around. Because you should, halfway through the year, have a mid-year evaluation and talk about... how it's going, what
067progress is being made toward the goals, and then you should do the summative evaluation at the end of the year to see how things landed. So whatever performance evaluation process you're using, we can weave into that transition workshop. If you aren't using one, I'll bring the standards and goals-based process that MSBA recommends as well. So we'll continue to make sure it gets off on the right foot. We just don't want that first year to go sideways. It's too crucial to the long-term health of the board team. Okay? And I think that is it. There's lots of things in here about foundations for relationships with your superintendent. That's from the phase trainings. You don't need a sample vacancy announcement because we've created a draft for you to review. You don't need an employment form because they'll
068be applying through Revelis, through MSBA's application database. You don't need to worry about letters. We do take care of contacting all of the applicants to let them know whether they were selected for an interview or not. After the interview, we call everybody you spoke to and let them know whether they're being moved forward or not. So you don't need to worry about any of the sample letters on page 28, 29, or 30. 30 is the interview schedule. We'll take care of that too. Herein ends the booklet, but that was a lot faster than I normally do it. However, I think it's great that we get to be working with you on it, so it'll make a lot more sense. I know that it felt quick, but have any of you been through a search before
069as a board member, a superintendent search? Just the chair. Okay. It's a lot to absorb. I would recommend trusting the search firm and trusting the process, but questioning it. Because again, I want to be really clear that this is not MSBA search. And so we are there to help the board conduct your search. And so don't take everything I say with blind faith and say, sure, we'll do it. I want you to ask questions. And I want to make sure that you understand your options. Every decision you're going to make along the way is going to have ripple effects. And some are good and some are bad. But you are going to have times that you're going to be moving and changing. So press me on those things to make sure that you're comfortable as
070a board with what you decide to do at every step. Are there any questions on this booklet any further before we jump into a planning meeting? I'm here if you need me. I wasn't a part of one, but I've watched one. That's why I was asked about the high profile because the one that I watched, it was like every step of the way, like they were like reporting on it, like every, like every process. And it was like very contentious. So I was just wondering like if Hopkins was at that point. So yeah. And high profile doesn't always mean contentious. Yeah. And contentious doesn't always mean high profile. It is, it is a process though. And people. as I mentioned earlier, feel anxious about change. And it's worrisome because you can't control it. You can't
071control who's going to apply. You can't control the outcome. You are one of seven people on this board. So we understand that. And I'm here if you have questions at any point. I will very often suggest, let's just trust the process and see how this feels in a week. But when the names go public is when you as board members will feel the most pressure. You will and I just want to make sure you're prepared for that and comfortable thanking people for the input But don't go down the rabbit holes or you sometimes won't be able to sleep. So just We want you to sleep so that you're able to make good decisions for the kids in Hopkins. So it is hard. It's a big big decision. Yeah. Yeah, but At the end of the
072day if the process is right and everyone has fully contributed the decision pays out and Just speaking for 287, the superintendent is amazing. We're lucky to have her. And I think the process fed into that confidence of the whole board having in her leadership. And the leader feels that then when they come on to the... into the district and they feel confident to have the conversations and to make the changes that need to be made and to do what they were hired to do and so I'm Confident that MSBA will get us to that place. So but it's it's hard to get there. It's not easy Sometimes you have to back up a little bit or turn in a different direction, but ultimately the search process is very, very good. I'm really excited to share
073it with you. Are we ready for the planning meeting? Yeah. Do we want to take like five minutes? I just want to grab a water. That would be great. Are you okay with five minutes? Absolutely. I'll distribute these while. Yep, that's fine. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I have to adjourn. Well. Welcome everybody. Thank you for being here this evening. Joining us virtually if you are. This is the special meeting of the Hopkins School Board for Friday, February 13th and I call the meeting to order on at 638 PM. Our first order of business is to approve tonight's agenda. Do I have a motion? So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye.
074Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and the agenda is approved. And we will now turn it over to Barb Dorn from the Minnesota School Board Association Executive Search Committees to talk us through tonight's Agenda, thank you. Thank you chair Andreessen. It's nice to see everyone. Thank you very much for being here I always want to open a planning meeting by thank you by thanking you very much for Selecting MSB to support the board in your superintendent search We're honored to work with you and look forward to the next couple of months Helping you select your next leader for the students in this district. The planning meeting is truly where everything starts to rubber hit the road. Lots of things need to be decided tonight in order to get this position posted, to begin collecting community
075and staff involvement, all of those things. So we have a lot to talk about. I want to encourage you to ask me questions throughout. I like to keep this relatively informal. If there's anything along the way that you aren't quite clear on, be sure that you do stop me and allow me to explain a little further so that you're comfortable with what we're going to be leaving the meeting with after tonight. Typically, it's about a two-hour meeting. We've sometimes gone less. We've sometimes gone more. I'm committed to staying as long as you need tonight to be ready to launch this search. So the first thing I'd like to do, if you wouldn't mind doing a real quick round of introductions, if you could just share with me. Your name and how long you have served
076on the Hopkins Public Schools School Board. That would be wonderful. I can start over here. I'm Kai Thompson. I'm starting my third year, and I have three kids in the district. Thank you. I am Rachel Heartland. I have three kids and eight snacks, and I have been on the board for five years. Did you say snacks? Snacks. I have eight snacks and three children and five years on the board. Five years. All right. Thank you. She's well-provisioned. My name is Shannon Andreessen. I have... I'm a graduate of the Hopkins School District and a senior this year, and I have been on the school board for seven years. This is my seventh year. Thank you. Hello, my name is Brooke Roper. I am in my third year, and I have two incredible children in the district.
077Thank you. Hello, I'm Jeming Zhao. This is my third year as well. I've got two kids in the district at Xing Xing Academy over here in Eisenhower. Thank you. My name is Johanna Hyman. This is my first year on the school board and I also have two lovely children in the school district. Thank you. And unable to join us tonight is Director Sarah Wilhelm Garbers. Clerk. Clerk. Okay. Thank you. So what I really like when I hear the answers to this question is that you have a real breadth of experience on the board. You have folks that have been here five to seven years, as well as folks that are in year one, two, or three. I think that bodes well for a search because, again, your perspectives are different. That's what I really enjoy
078is when everyone is coming from a different area of thought and experience on the board. So I've been doing this now seven years. I am Barb, Director of Leadership Development and Executive Search. All I do, full-time basis, between November and July especially, is superintendent search work. It's kind of consuming during high search season. I don't have any other responsibilities other than occasionally a superintendent evaluation workshop. During the rest of the year, superintendent evaluation is a regular part of my job, including the transition workshop, which we'll be bringing here to Hopkins Public Schools. So I feel very fortunate to work in MSBA. I love the work I get to do. Leadership development is extremely important to me, and I love the variety of school boards that I get to work with, and I get to meet
079and spend two to three months working on finding the next leader for their district. So very honored to be here. Thank you. In terms of the process review, you do have a planning packet in front of you. I want to spend just a moment, high-level review of process. I'm not going to get through the specificity because we'll get through that as the packet evolves. But the role of statute is really important and board ownership is really important. So for example, in terms of statute, the Minnesota Open Meeting Law and the Government Data Practices Act will apply to this entire search. What that means from the Open Meeting Law perspective is you cannot close a meeting for any part of the superintendent search. It will all be done in open sessions. So the open meeting law
080is paramount. However, you're also going to be having to adhere to the data privacy laws in our state government data practices act. That says that the names of the applicants are private data until they are selected to be interviewed by the school board for a position. So we want to be very careful at the meeting in which you are discussing private data in a public meeting. And we'll talk more through that as the time comes. As people apply for this position, you as a board, when the applications close, will see those applications. That is all private data. And one of the reasons that we're able to do that is we trust school boards. You handle confidential information on a regular basis as a member of this board. This falls in that same category. So please,
081I appreciate your help in advance keeping the private data private so that we can keep including board members in the entire process. Board ownership is also important and what that means is this is going to be a search led by the school board. I will always give you guidance, alternatives, options, information, and recommendations at times. You, however, will decide and discuss as a board what is best for Hopkins. Whatever you decide, I'll support you in that decision as long as it falls within the bounds of the law. There are some legalities here that I'm going to have to occasionally say, no, we can't do that. For the most part, though, whatever this board decides is right for the district is what I will continue to support until the search concludes. Any questions on the board
082ownership piece of things? I think sometimes people misunderstand the role of our search firm in that we're not going to run the search and tell you what to do. That's not the way we work. So I hope you're comfortable with the other direction. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. I did just have a clarifying question on open meeting law and private data. I think I understand how this works, but I want to make sure that it's crystal clear for our community. So the names and identity and qualifications and applications of all applicants are private data until They themselves are listed as a finalist, correct? So it doesn't then, once we list our finalists, make everybody else's information open to the public. Correct. Statute defines a finalist because only the names of finalists go public. However, statute says
083finalist means someone who is selected to be interviewed for a position by the school board. What that means is if you're going to interview them in round one, technically it is your semi-finalists. However, if they're going to be interviewed by the board, their name will go public as a semifinalist because you're interviewing them. The names of everybody else in that pool will forever remain private data. And some candidates will tell people they've applied. So you might want to be prepared for people to walk up to you in the grocery store and say, hey, Sue Jones and Bob Jones, they told me they applied for this position. Is that true? And you as board members have got to say, I have no comment. That's private data. So if they choose to share with folks that they're
084in the pool, that's their prerogative. It is your job to not confirm or deny that and just stay out of the weeds. Thanks for asking that clarifying question. Thank you for that clarification. Appreciate it. Yep. Timeline is the first thing we want to tackle tonight because timeline we're going to set all of the meeting dates and times for everything and it can get sort of Sticky because you have very busy lives. There are a lot of things to consider in a timeline But what I'd like to do is just first walk you through the overall timeline So you understand what the meetings are and how long they might take I've offered some suggestions As far as timeline, if these dates don't work for you, we'll look at something else. So I hope you brought your
085calendars because we are going to finalize them. So first I'll just walk through the entire timeline and let you know sort of what each of these steps are. Tonight is the planning meeting. Obviously it is a special meeting. I'll change that to 6.30 since we did the workshop first. I'll change the time of the planning meeting to 6.30, special meeting tonight. What we are suggesting is opening the survey on February 18th, which is this coming Wednesday. That's the same date we are suggesting posting this position. We'll talk more about that when we get to the vacancy brochure. However, the survey itself and any focus groups you want us to conduct and things such as that, we're presenting you with a window of February 18th to March 15th to allow all of that community engagement to
086occur. After the survey would close or the focus groups wrap up, we then need to gather and collate all of that information into the public engagement summary report. So we need a little bit of time to do that before I send it to the board. I also want to send it to the board in advance of your meeting so you have time to read it and digest it before that meeting. Because that meeting would be, right now I'm suggesting March 24, 27, 30, 31 or early April. So I just want folks, sometimes people say, well, why can't we leave the survey open until... March 20th. Well, that would give us potentially four days to write the report, send it to you, and read it, and there just won't be time to do that. So some
087of these dates might shift as the dates underneath of them kind of unfold. There's a cascading effect to this, and so depending upon what dates you pick, I might have to shift some of these anyway. But right now, I think that's a solid month to five weeks for public input. At this time in search season, that's pretty reasonable. We could lengthen it, but it will push your timeline back by a week or two. The search preview meetings are something that I have reached out to Natalia about. We'd like to meet with your internal district leadership teams, if that is okay with the board. We want to loop them in as early as possible because those groups are very connected inside the school walls. So we want to speak usually to two groups, administrators and leadership
088of the bargaining units. Sometimes the leadership team might be broken up into the cabinet group and maybe administrators and principals or something like that. So that's something that someone inside the district can guide us on. But is it okay with the board if we meet with internal leadership teams just to share the information about the search? We talk about timeline, brochure, survey, and we ask them to get people involved in the process to take the survey, come to the groups. Can I go ahead and schedule those with Natalia next week? Yeah. Talk to her about it. And I know our principals in particular and assistant principals will be instrumental in getting the word out via our school newsletters and all that kind of stuff. They're dialed into parents and those that we need to hear
089from that we traditionally don't. So I think they're key to get on board as quickly as possible. Great. Does everyone agree that I can meet with those groups? Just to clarify, the search preview meeting isn't an administration level focus group. It's just we're presenting you with information, so you're looped in, you understand what's happening, here's the timeline, et cetera. Absolutely correct. Okay. I'm good with that, too. I did want to mention that as we are looking for public input, the survey and we're conducting focus groups and listening sessions, it almost exactly coincides. All of it, all of that time period is during Ramadan. So I think we need to be incredibly intentional and careful about when we are scheduling things and how we're seeking input because that is one of our major cultural considerations in
090the district. Certainly. Halfway down the agenda, it does say review search agreement, and we're going to get more specifically into the focus groups at that time as to who, when, why, how, all of that. So we'll revisit that, but thank you for pointing that out. Absolutely, we'll be very careful with those things. So you could suggest lengthening or shortening any of these timelines. Again, this is your timeline. This is just what we are suggesting as a starting point. The informational Q&A session that is very similar to the search previews, but instead of being with a group of leadership of bargaining units, for example, it will be online. We host it as a Zoom meeting. We record it because not everyone can join us at 4 o'clock on a particular weekday. We invite people to send
091questions to us in advance about the process because if they can't join us live, I'm going to answer all of those questions. online anyway and then when it's recorded it'll go on the district website people can watch it at a later time we get lots of views of the q a because it is accurate transparent information about what's happening when these things happen and why they're happening that way And then we'll answer any questions about the process. That seems to make people feel more comfortable with the process, that we're willing to take those things at face value and say this is what it is or this is what it might happen or that's still to be determined. But that Q&A session is not a board meeting. In fact, we'd prefer board members not sit in
092on that live session. Sometimes the positional power of a school board does inhibit the questions people are comfortable asking, even though they're anonymous in the chat box. We don't need board members on that Q&A, but we will ask you to watch the recording. at a later time. So then the next board meeting would be the one where we are discussing the public input report and conducting that interview training. We'll also have interview questions prepared for you based on that report and your leadership profile. So this meeting, which would be the next board meeting that we would reconvene here, could be a long one. That does tend to be at least two hours long. It can go longer if there's a lot of discussions. So this meeting will be pivotal. The other thing that occurs this
093night is you will decide what to do with additional input from your constituents in round one or round two of the interviews. So once you've seen that public input report. That's when I say, okay, now you have all of this information. These are all the people you heard from. These are the themes that emerged. What do you want to do next? And we will give you options about involving people in round two of the interviews. You'll decide if you want interview committees or if you want meet and greets or input forums or Q&A sessions. There's lots of options for you, but you will be deciding that at that meeting so that we have time to arrange them before the second round of interviews tentatively in the middle or end of April. So that's a big
094night because a lot of people, one of the questions that I always get on the Q&A is, will we get to be a part of the interviews? And it's coming from staff groups or it's coming from parents. Do we get to interview these people ourselves? We don't know yet. We will wait and see what this report shows and what the board decides and discusses at that meeting. So that's one of those points where you pause, listen, hear, inform yourselves, and then decide this direction or that direction. So that will be a fairly long meeting. You do see that we are proposing a March 29th deadline. We would advertise it next Wednesday, the 18th, excuse me, in February through the end of March. If that's the deadline, it's an electronic format online by midnight. Everything needs
095to be submitted. We would then look at them on the 30th to ensure that they're complete and give access to board members on the 31st. And so you will set up your own username and password. There's not a group. that you go to. It is individual access only, so we can tell who has access to the applications and when. So of course you won't be sharing any of your login information with anyone. If this timeline fits well, we would suggest you start reviewing applications on the 31st of March and then we would select finalists. perhaps the second week of April. Potentially, this is a short meeting because we have, by this time, sent you two days before the list of semifinalists we recommend. You know, if there's 15, A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
096we'll highlight the five or six that I'm going to come to the meeting and recommend. So if you have questions, you can call me. Therefore, sometimes this meeting determining semifinalists, potentially a half an hour. Maybe a half hour, 45 minutes, maybe longer if the board feels differently. If you don't like the slate we are suggesting, you are welcome to interview people that we're not recommending. The one thing is if you do select someone that we are not recommending as a semifinalist, which is your prerogative, if you hire that person, the guarantee does not apply. Because MSBA has found stronger people in the pool, so you're welcome to eventually even hire someone that's not on our list that we are suggesting you interview. But if you do, the guarantee is void. Does that make sense? I
097also want to be sure people are clear on the search guarantee. For whatever reason, if it doesn't work out in that person's first year, we'll do another search, but we'll have to charge for it. If they're on our list, we'll do another search for free if they leave within that first year or you ask them to leave, and there's no charge for it whatsoever. So I just want to be clear on that. So that meeting might be short. Can I ask a quick question? What is MSBA's process in making the recommendations? Is that based upon looking at the leadership profile and the public input survey results and all the data we've collected and then basically filtering the applicants through that lens, essentially? Yes, partially. So both of those documents are key to the first go-through.
098Also, we do a social media sweep of all of them and investigate things that concern us. We also do pre-interviews with those we feel are strongest. We might pick 10 that we want to get to know more about. So we'll do pre-interviews with those folks over the phone. We will check references and talk to their references. Between all of those... activities, we then reconvene as a group and say, okay, you talked to those two, you talked to those two, you talked to those two, you talked to references for all those folks. Now let's try to get it to a solid six. And then that's who else I'll present to the board. Thank you. Chair Andreessen. Yes. I have a procedural question. Should we refrain from talking about the candidates at this point, right? Like if
099I were to talk to any, in passing, like, oh, I liked whoever, we should try to stay away from that at this point? Or when can we talk to each other about, or is it never? You talk to each other about it at the board table on this date. On this date. Okay. Correct. We want to be really careful during the superintendent search process that there are not serial meetings occurring. Right. You know, either conversations offline about strategies or everything I send to you via email, you'll always be BCC'd, so you can't reply all. We just want to really be sure that the process has integrity and you talk about the process here at this board table. You can talk one-on-one with me anytime, any of you. We just don't want you talking to one
100another about that. Does that make sense? Yep. I just wanted to make sure. Thanks for asking so I could clarify that. If you name finalists anytime between the 7th or the 15th, you could conduct interviews beginning as early as April 11th. These, again, are just some suggested dates. Typically, you want to reserve spots for six people. And it might be two evenings in a row if you are not available to meet during the day. It might be evenings starting at 4 or 5 o'clock. Do three people each night. It could be an all day on a weekday. It could be all day on a Saturday. Many ways to do this, but we do want you to hold space for six people in case it's a strong pool. You could interview seven if you want. I
101would not recommend eight or nine. You will be exhausted if you actually conduct one-hour interviews with eight people. Six will be a lot. We'll try to get you the strongest six, and if you want to bring in seven or eight, that's the board's call. So maybe two evenings, maybe one long day, and we'll get there. You could then conduct the second round of interviews, and in between those two rounds is when we'd like one or two board members to do some reference checking. Again, you're not bound by their applications at this point. You can talk to anyone about them because their names are public. And potentially... In mid April you would have round two. This is when possibly you'd have additional input from your school communities about the finalists. Typically two, maybe three people. Sometimes
102if it's a very strong pool, I would suggest bringing three people back because it's possible they are also eyeing some other opportunities. Every once in a while someone will withdraw before the second round. And having three people. if they're all good, because you don't want to bring someone along just to have three, but if they're all strong, it will prevent the possibility of one person dropping out and you only have one person left to interview. So three is a good number in round two, but certainly there's no requirements. And then I did want to ask quickly about negotiating the employment contract. I made a note here that as soon as that round two is done, if you've found the person you want, again, don't settle. If you've found the person you want, you want to
103enter negotiations very quickly, have a contract ready to go. How will you be doing that in this district? Will the chair take the lead on that or your HR person or your assistant soup, your council? Who will take the lead on that? Will it be a subcommittee taking the lead on that? That kind of affects the timeline. I would assume that for negotiations, we would empower our... HR team. We have an HR committee of the board that we could utilize for this process. And Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot kind of does all those things. So I would assume that it makes sense to me that that committee could then be empowered to do this as well. Is that okay? Great. So in that case, what I'm going to do is change the timeline. It would then say
104board designee begins negotiations. If the HR committee were going to negotiate, for instance, depending upon your open meeting interpretation with Policy 213, you may have to arrange a time for that subcommittee to meet with a candidate, and that slows everything down. But the HR committee would be a great place to get the contract ready to go. So it's, you know, whatever date you've done, it's here it is. So that HR committee should start working on that anytime between now and April to have some contract with some parameters already in place. So I'm going to remove committee and parentheses. Board designee begins negotiating, and then I'll remove the time to be determined if it's a committee. Okay. All right. Then you would potentially approve the contract for Hopkins. I apologize, wrong district in there. And on
105July 1, they would begin work in this district, and we will then come back in the fall for that transition workshop before the end of the year. We also do make our search guarantee contingent on you participating in that workshop. We think that conversation about first-year expectations is that important, that if the board says, nah, we don't need that workshop, that's great. You don't have to go through it, but we won't guarantee your search. That's the timeline. I think what I'll do now is turn it back over to chair Andreessen to hopefully with our calendars open, find some dates and times that work for each step of the process. The dates in yellow are what we at this point need identified by the board. Chair Andreessen, can I just ask one quick question first before
106we move to calendar? Yeah, absolutely. Really appreciate this timeline. It's obviously been thought put into it and it makes a lot of sense to me. Just the one question I had is I feel like I had heard rumbling of like, could the superintendent start sooner so that there would be some transition time overlap with our current one? I just see it as July one here. So I was wondering what you say about that. That's a great question because sometimes you can. It usually depends upon their own contract in their own district and whether they're board or whatever contract they hold at the time, whether it's a different position than superintendent, if they can get out of their contract early. What often happens, though, because I think that overlap can be very beneficial, is they may
107take vacation days or PTO in order to shadow the current superintendent for a week or two weeks before they start. If that's something that the current superintendent and the board is open to They can use vacation to come here and get a head start Occasionally someone will start in April May early June, but it's always a contractual issue as to whether or not they can do that. Got it Thank you. Okay, so this then takes us to are scheduling for us the school board to meet and thank you for having possible dates in here. I think that helps a lot for us to kind of be able to look at what we have going on. But I did also just want to reference for the board and this would then be a question. For you
108Barb as well. So one of the dates will some some of the dates that you have listed the very first one actually is March 24th, which is a scheduled board meeting on our calendar. So wondering. You know, we still have time. That agenda is not set. Would it be appropriate to maybe have a longer workshop so we can do the interview training in that piece? And then, like, what would be, how much time do you think we would need to do that? I'm wondering if we can put it in front of a board meeting so we don't run into this. situation where we're trying to find a day that works for people. You certainly could do that. You certainly could. This meeting typically takes about two hours. So we could do it at like a...
1094, 4.30, even 5. And I think the fact that you've been through the Hiring the Right Superintendent workshop also might mean that the interview training won't take as long as it typically does because you had some questions tonight that we were able to address. So it potentially could be an hour and a half meeting as well. We'll fit in whatever works. So if that's easiest for everyone since you have that night blocked off, I'd be happy to come that afternoon whenever you need me here. What are your thoughts? Excuse me. That would be my preference, even if that goes long. I had it on mine, yeah. Are you saying March 24th is a school board meeting? Oh, is it not? It's a Tuesday. Oh, it's a Tuesday. Oh, yeah, sorry. No, not this year. I
110have it blocked out in my personal calendar. So, no, we don't have a meeting that day. Shoot, I was hoping to catch it. But that would be a date we could consider. People are open to it. Works for me. And do we want to do the earlier, like 5.30 start time? I don't think Sarah sent her dates that she can't do it. I think that one was fine. I'm trying to find all my open tabs. So if you choose March 24th, I just want to point out, then we definitely need to close the survey on March 15th to give us nine days to write that report and let you look at it before the meeting. If you chose one of the later dates for that meeting, we could extend the survey deadline or focus group
111deadline by a few days or a week. No? Okay. So am I hearing March 24th on a Tuesday? Are we feeling comfortable with that? I know that many board members have expressed. That this is the most important part of the process for them is this public input and having focus groups So do we all feel? That a month a little short of a month across the entirety of Ramadan will be Enough time to Collect that input chair Andreessen. Yes, if we if we do it, um push that meeting to March 30th which is a Monday I Do worry about that because that is the first day of spring break. Oh Okay, I I was just thinking how would that line up with Ramadan and would that allow us to extend the survey out? past Eid
112well Ramadan and on the 18th, I believe March 18th so I think the meeting, like would we get a couple of extra days? Like if we added a couple extra days to the time frame, we'd still be in Ramadan. So I don't know if the 30th would help. And then we're kind of pushing out, like all these dates here, except for the 24th and the 27th are during our spring break. Chair Andreessen? Yeah. One question I have is, so this is a... survey you could take at any time and how long would it take for somebody parents and stakeholders to take the survey some people spend two or three minutes on it because they only want to answer a few questions if you answer all of the questions I'd probably set aside ten minutes no
113my Part was wondering about if we're going to conduct focus groups and or listening sessions just being mindful and I do know that you know There's there's very little I just know that evenings are not the best time During that time. So just wanting us to be aware that there will be probably less ability for our families that practice to show up in a space if we're asking them to do that. Chair Andreessen, I think it's critical that we get as much public input as possible. And I mean, Barb, you're the expert here. If we, you know, we're talking about Tuesday the 24th or Monday the 30th, would that... How much extra time would that allow us to gather public input? If we're talking two days or something, it's probably not worth it. But if
114it's going to... I do want to just do a pulse check on everybody at this table. Are we all going to be here over spring break? Oh. Yeah. I don't think that's a viable option for us. I mean, we could do it virtually. Or we could do Friday the 27th and give it three more days. The 27th is an option as well. And we can do virtually. Sure. But three more days added to the public input timeline takes us actually to the end of Ramadan, not almost the end of Ramadan. So it still is. It doesn't make a difference. Yeah. That last day, I mean, Another option is a morning meeting, at least one public input. For focus groups, yeah. Yeah, it's a 7.30. Yeah, I think if we're creative and intentional and we're acknowledging
115it in the space and we're ensuring that there are accessible listening sessions and or focus groups. Plus we do have the survey, which is going to be in our top three languages, correct? I'm only able to get it in Spanish and Somali in addition to English. Okay. I have this sheet here. We tried to get our tool to work for Hmong, and it does not work. The drop-down menus won't translate or anything. We might have some resources. Okay. Anyway, rabbit hole. Okay. So I think we're going back to the 24th. I think the 24th is a good date. Great. And I think, too, this is where board members who really know our community can start pushing out the ways to have input. Um, Karen, do you see a quick question? Will there be, or in
116you two as well, but will there be like a coordinated message? So as we're talking about kind of going back to social media and we are pushing out like surveys, will you have like just a general message for us to share on our social media? So we won't have like, everyone has like a different message. I mean, that also goes back to like first amendment stuff, but. Yes, we have something called a communications blurb, which we have ready to go, and we just drop in the links with the survey and the Zoom call and things like that. I'm talking to Toya early next week to get that to her and just send it out through all your channels. It could be social media. It could be e-mails, e-mail blasts to parents. It could be e-mail
117blasts to staff. All of that communication will be provided right away first thing next week, and then at regular intervals we ask her to send out reminders to boost it. the biggest bunch of responses to the survey come right away within the first three or four days. And then there's a lull. It's always interesting if we allow six weeks for that survey. It's busy for a week and it's very, very quiet for three, four weeks, even with regular reminders. And then there's a big bunch in the last three days because an email goes out. This is last chance for input. So sometimes a narrower window for the survey generates the same amount of interest as a longer one because there is such a thing as too long. The only concern with the narrower window. are
118fitting in any of the in-person focus groups you want me to do. They need to get scheduled next week because then we only have two weeks left or three weeks left to fit them in. So I'd be working pretty closely with Natalia and Toya probably next week to schedule those based on whatever it is you want me to do. And we'll talk about that as well. And this is open to everyone. This is not just preference to like district, like parents or families, right? Like, is there like a, your preference? Anyone who cares about the students in Hopkins Public Schools is welcome. Okay, so the 24th, did I hear 530? 530. 530, okay. And then the next one is the board meets to determine semifinalists interview questions and procedures. So we've heard from... Sarah Wilhelm
119Garbers about that the 7th and the 10th are not great days for for that So then that leaves us the 13th 14th or 15th This is more observance of religious things in our community Do you have a board meeting on April 7th? We do. Is that what I heard? Yep. The selection of the semifinalists sometimes takes... 15-20 minutes. Oh really? Half hour? This is a fairly short meeting because you already know who I'm going to be recommending. So if we allotted even a half an hour for that, could we build it into your regular board meeting on the 7th? We could absolutely. Are we going to need to have any action items there or can we have it as a workshop? That is an action item because you will be selecting candidates A, B, and
120C to interview and that motion has to pass. Okay. Oh, okay. Let me look at prior years. Just what we had on that. I think that actually would be a great meeting because I don't think we're going to have a lot of, at least at this time, we don't traditionally have a lot of action items. So I think we can fit it into this board meeting. Hopefully, fingers crossed. We'll reserve it for that. Just to clarify, did Sarah say? She cannot come on the 7th? No, the reference was to 4-1 at sundown to 4-9 is the Jewish holiday of Passover, and then additionally 4-5 to 4-12 is the Christian holy week. So I can speak as to Passover. and I don't speak for everyone in the community, obviously. From my perspective, the most observant nights
121are the first and the second night of Passover. So, yeah. We're good? Yes. Okay. From a Passover perspective, I can't speak for Sarah from an Easter perspective. When is Easter? As far as... I know I don't see any conflict, but I'm not an incredibly observant. So April 7th would be a part of a regular board meeting? I would not call it a discussion board meeting. Yeah, it is part of a regular board meeting, and so it's already been on the calendar, and I think it's fine to keep it. Okay. What time do your regular board meetings start? We usually have a workshop at 5.30, and then we start at 7 p.m. So this would be a part of your regular board meeting at 7. Okay, I'll put 7 p.m. Okay, great. Wonderful. Then we get
122to the exciting part, which is board conducts the first round of interviews. I had crossed off the 11th and the 13th, but I think that we could maybe just start the 13th, reserving the 11th for... Holy Week the 13th is a Monday and then we have the 14th 15th 16th I would not suggest the 15th it is tax day I know people get stressed even if you've done your taxes already I don't know why it feels like a stressful day but but we could do it and should we break it into two If we have six people. I think we should reserve two. That was the recommendation. If you're meeting in the evening, yes, I would reserve two. So do we want to go ahead and reserve like the 13th, which is a Monday, and
123the 14th, which is a Tuesday? Personally, I'd prefer Tuesday, Thursday, but I guess honestly, whatever. I mean, I am looking ahead in that the board, the next. Scheduling item is board conducts reference checks and hold second round of interviews. I don't know if we want to reserve the 16th for second round. Does that even give us time to do reference checks in between? Did you say the 15th? So 13th, 14th round one, 15th round two? No, it would be the... The 14th round one, no, the 14th and 16th would be reserved for the first round. And then that would be then hold us, we would have to do the 20th or the 21st, which is probably fine for next week. I think you can make, you don't need to check a lot of references. It's
124usually you try to reach two or three people. So it doesn't need to be a heavy lift. I'm just going to make sure. No, I don't have 287. So the 14th and the 16th would work for everyone? Yeah, just to say it looks like the 21st is already a board meeting if that was the round two date. But yeah, I think 14-16 for round one sounds fine. Would you be able to meet at 4 or 4-30 on those dates? Or is the earliest you can start 5-30? I mean, I could make 4.30 work. I would prefer not to. I get off at work at 4.15. But I can leave early if that's preferable to everyone else. What about you, Brooke? I know you work, too. What day is it? The 14th? Yes, 14th and 16th.
125At 4.30? Mm-hmm. Is a 4.30 start, the reason you ask, is that better for candidates usually? It just gets to be a really long night if you have three people and you deliberate the second night. So I'm doing math quick. So if you do start at 4.30, you'll have an interview at 4.30, an interview at 5.45, and an interview from 7 to 8. And then you could go home that first night. And the next night, if you start at 4.30 and do the same thing, at 8 o'clock after the sixth interview, that's if you have six, we'll need at least 20 minutes to a half hour to compile the results of your rubric. And you would start deliberations at 8.30. And if it's a quick decision about who you want to move on. You might
126only be around for an hour, although at the conclusion of the round one deliberations, we also have to finalize round two questions, also finalize the reference checking process. So there's some homework to do at the end of this meeting. So even starting at 4.30, if you do three one night, three the next night, you'll probably be here until at least 10 o'clock the second night, although I've been with boards until 2 in the morning. Because they just were not able to arrive at a decision as quickly as they thought they might be able to. I definitely will. So do we want to try for a four? Is that possible? Chair Andreessen? Yes. Just an idea. And I don't want to make anyone use PTO or vacation days or anything like that, but is there any
127precedent of doing this, Barb, in like over one full day? Oh, yes. So we could do just all of us commit to... like a PTO day or whatever from work if we have enough. I think we have enough notice here. Is that okay with candidates? Yes. Okay. The date for the interviews is published in the vacancy brochure, and they will block on their calendars. The night their name would go public, they block round one and round two, and they block the second round if they're fortunate to make round two. I mean, the thought of just knocking it out in one long day sounds great versus coming two nights and staying late one of them. That's just my gut reaction. I was actually going to suggest that to Director Hyman, so thank you. I think that
128would be a better preference as well. I think more candidates may be able to adhere to earlier interview times too. Plus the kids would be at school, so we don't have to make a bunch of arrangements. The 16th is a digital learning day then and the North Middle School early release day. So don't do it the 16th. Are we thinking the 14th? Or there's tax day. I can't share the point about it. Being stressful. I could do either of those days. My only hesitation with that is that it does become a long day. And I wouldn't want us to be like the last two people. We're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my only thing with having a full day of interviews because it can get to be exhausting by the time you get to
129deliberating. And we would schedule breaks, food breaks. Also, we just say go outside and walk around for 15, 20 minutes because that can happen. We also want to ensure that the people who are later in the day get the same exact experience as the people who are earlier. So we have you do calisthenics. No, we don't. But we will work to make sure that you are still as sharp at the end of the day as you were early. To be fair to candidates, you're right. Okay. Is there any chance we could do the 15th as opposed to the 14th? We've got a step-up night at North starting at 5.30 on the 14th. I just would have that hanging over my head. I'm fine with that. What about the 13th? That works too. We take that
130whole day? All right, let's do that. So starting at what time? What time would you start it? Some boards choose 9 o'clock, some choose 8 o'clock, some do 10 o'clock. Depends on how cranky you want me to be. 10 o'clock. 10 o'clock. That's fine with nine. So would the board need to get here maybe like 30 minutes before each candidate for prep, right? So if we say we start at 10 o'clock, the interviews are an hour each? Correct, and a 15-minute break between each. So could we anyone be I mean I get a five every day Would anyone be opposed to starting at 8 and then having candidates start at 9? You really only need 15 minutes So if you call the meeting to order at 8 45 the first interview could be at 9
1319 or even 8 30 8 because the the things I want to cover with you before the candidates come in and start interviewing takes 10 15 minutes tops so you could Start call to order quarter to nine, interview at nine o'clock. Or call to order eight, interview at 8.15. Yeah, if we start at nine, we would be out of here even with two hours of deliberation around 5.30. That works. Or we could do 8.30, split the difference, and have our first interview at nine. Whatever you'd like to do. 8.30? That works for me. Okay. And you're back on Monday, April 13th? The 13th. 13, okay. That is a great idea. That just feels way more palpable than two nights with one of them going long. And the call to order is 8.30 a.m.? Yep. So
132then... April 13th. So then we have the next round is hold second round of interviews and then board selects the lone finalist and sets negotiations process So we could do it as Like what kind of turnaround like I don't feel like we could then be like hey come back tomorrow We have a board doing that this year. Round one is Monday and Tuesday. Round two is Wednesday. That's pretty tight, and you will be exhausted. Yeah. But there is a board that could, that's all they had because everyone was so unavailable. As long as you have, I would suggest, two days between the second and first rounds, that gives whoever's doing reference checks two days to try to reach a few people. Doing what? We're still doing long days that same week. So we could do
133the 16th. Yes. Or. But it won't be six candidates. Right. It's just one. One to three? Yeah, one to three. So. Yeah, this is the second round. 16th is that digital learning date. That's tough child care wise. Oh, were we thinking of doing another full day? Because I was assuming this would be evening. This would be evening. You'll have two to three people. This is also the day that possibly you'll have representative stakeholders participating in your second round of interviews. So in case you had 10 or 15 people that were going to be doing their own interviews or listening to your interviews and providing feedback or building tours would be occurring on this day as well. So it could be at night, yeah. It can be at night. Round two can be at night fairly
134easily, 4.30 or 5.30. So if we're doing building tours, they're not in school. The middle school or the high school? Right. The digital learning day. So I'm feeling like, I mean, I kind of want. Is that a requirement for them to do the building tour? I think it's a good idea. Yeah. So then we have the 20th. Yeah. Do we feel comfortable about the 20th? And then. Barb, you're, yeah, would we want it to be during the day, though, so that they can, like, they would, well, our interview could be in the evening, and then we could have stuff hosted at sites and with community members and or students during that day. Correct. The 20th? Okay. I like it. So we wouldn't be there for their building tour, but we would only be there for
135the interviews? Yeah. It would just be the interview with us. Because, yeah, typically board members aren't there for the tours, right? No. You would not be a part of the tours, nor any input from community members during the day. You could start at 4, 435, 530, just as long as you leave room for three people to interview. But we do get that. input. If you choose to do that, yes, you'll have some input in one form or another to consider from the folks that met with them earlier that day. It's just a matter of how we formalize it and what format it takes, but you will have that for your interview that night. Okay. So the 20th, am I hearing consensus? Yes. Okay. And did we want to do that at the 5.30 time so
136that if it goes long, it's not too late? All right, so April, Monday, April 20th at 5.30. And I do not believe, yeah, all those dates work for Sarah. So that's good. Well done. So just so you're aware, then, if you do start at 5.30 with round two, if you have three people, you'd have an interview 5.30 to 6.30, an interview 6.45 to 7.45, an interview from 8 to 9, and you'd start deliberations at 9.30 about who to hire. Do we want to do 4.30? 4.30. 4.30? 4.30 on the 20th. Then you'll start deliberations at 8.30. Okay. If there's three. That's good. That gives them time to, because the high school is out at like 3.30, then that would give them time to grab some CD, regroup, and then come here for their interview, as
137well as give us time to get the input. All right, I like it. May I read my notes back to you to make sure I've got this so I can correct this over the weekend? So this is what I wrote down. So tonight's planning meeting, 6.30 p.m. special meeting. Public input survey and focus groups, February 18th to March 15th. I'll schedule search preview meetings with Natalia. I'll talk to her first thing on Monday. The Q&A session I'll do on March 3rd. I like to do it on March 3rd because that still leaves almost two weeks for people to fill the survey out, and we just want to keep reminding folks to do that. Position we posted February 18th to March 29th. March 24th, 530, special meeting. interview trainings and public input report. March 29 deadline,
138March 30 to April 7, we look at them. March 31 to April 7, you look at those because April 7, at a 7 p.m. regular board meeting, you will determine the semifinalists, and it's a very quick review of questions and procedures. It's kind of a housekeeping sort of thing, but that should not take long. But a regular meeting, 7 p.m. on April 7. First round, April 13 at 8.30 a.m. full day and April 4th, excuse me, April 20 at 430 round two, April 21 negotiations start from the board designee. And then do you want to try to set a time in April or May to approve the employment contract or do you want to just leave it as to be determined to approve the contract? Yeah. Nick, do you have an idea? You may be
139able to negotiate within a week. I just didn't know if you had a regular board meeting at the end of April that you could. And if you don't have one done, but if you don't have a regular meeting at the end of April, then you might as well just. The 21st. Oh, the very next day. Yeah, you wouldn't have one negotiated by then. But then we have May 5th. Do you think that's enough time? Yes. Or too long? Yeah. Okay. May 5th. You have a regular meeting on May 5th? We do. Okay. Let's put May 5th. to approve the employment contract. And again, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's a target date for candidates to know that's when you want to approve the contract. And that would be a regular meeting? Yes. At
1407 p.m., correct? Okay. All right. Thank you. I will make all of these changes this weekend. What I usually do is, unless you all want to see it, I usually write it to the chair, and Natalia's not here tonight, but you could put eyes on it, or I could send this to all seven of you to look at before we publish it next Wednesday. Which would you prefer? It's fine. I can look at it. Okay. All right. Wonderful. That usually takes the longest. Well, productive. Quick question. So you just said that you'll publish it the following Wednesday. So this will be published up on your working with Toya, just so the community understands. The schedule will be transparently available online, right? Yeah. Okay. I know that Toya is working on creating a superintendent search landing
141page on your district website where everything will be posted. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Thank you. That is a heavy lift. That timeline can be difficult. So well done. So the vacancy brochure is next. This is a draft, hence the watermark. I will put all of the... application deadline, search timeline, all of those things I will put in here according to what you just decided. When this is printed, I think the font is dark blue, but online, which is electronic, that's where people view this as electronic, this pops so it won't get lost. But when it printed, I went, oh, that doesn't look very good. I saw that on, yeah. Electronically, it's better. Digital, it looked great. Yeah, thank you. So this won't be that dark, I promise. So when you look at this,
142it's important, I think, to have that second page. with your vision 2031 in there so people know who you are, what you stand for, what your mission, vision, and values are. And the third page is the proposed leadership profile. We also need to talk about the salary and benefits and some other things. My first question, and I want to thank you for having looked at this already, is on the front page, are there points of pride, what you want in here? Are we missing anything that really makes you unique? Chair Andreessen. Yes. Yes. So one of the things I, and these are all great things, but one of the things I think I take special pride in is our college rate is very, very high. 80, what, 84%, something really, really high. And I think
143that is, we don't talk about that enough, but it's something that I certainly want to see continue. Are you talking about the 84% for four-year colleges? Yeah, right. So we probably have room because some of these, like the second line, there's a lot of white space. I can take out things like we have or we offer and I can shorten some of these up to create room for another bullet point or two, or we can eliminate something. But how would you phrase that? How would you phrase the statistic that you just mentioned, Director Zhao? Well, I mean, I would rely on the experts maybe to. 84% of Hopkins graduates. Attend a four-year or two-year college. Go on to attend. It's higher for four and two. If it's four and two, I think it's like 90%.
144No, I think it's 84% with both. But whatever it is, it's very high. And I think we should trumpet that. And we should also hope that the next superintendent can keep that. 84% of Hopkins graduates. I would also, like, it's part of our vision 2031 that all 100% of our graduates are ready for their post-secondary pathway of choice. I don't want to... Hem anyone in to four-year college because that isn't for everyone So I would say that yes, that's a great statistic and We also have students who are going off to do amazing things. That isn't necessarily a four-year Degree, I do think that there are all there might be a statistic from 2025 that 100% of students that graduated in 2025 had a post high school plan, which I think is a great statistic.
145I don't think it was a hundred percent, but I think it was really high. Okay. But I also think to Director Zhao that that is a It's a really good metric, right, that should be highlighted. And I'm not quite sure how to do it. It could be whatever statistic we can get. If it's like 90, I think it was like 98 or 97 percent. Graduates have a post-secondary plan, comma, including 84 percent attending the post-secondary college of their choice, right, or something like that. But yeah, not locking because more and more kids are choosing not to pursue. Yeah, for sure. Could you say that one more time? I'm going to get the correct statistic on Monday. Yes, thank you. Definitely fact check us. So like 97% of graduating, of graduates have a post-secondary plan. including?
146Including 84% attending the college of their choice. 84% of which? Sure. Of which seek higher education or attend college? Attend college. Because I think it is two and four year. Of which attend college? Yeah. Okay. So no two year, no four year. Just attend college. 97% of Hopkins graduates have a postsecondary plan, including 84% of which attend college. That might mean I need to shorten a little bit of this up. Can it say 84% attending college? including 84% attending. Nice. 88% attending college. I can say that. 88% attending college. 88% attending college. Okay. So if I need to make room, I also could make the mission statement a little bit smaller to create a little extra space. Do you see anything in the other eight bullet points that we could shorten or? because it's not
147different enough from other districts out there. But if I want to create room for this, it's a pretty long one. The 97% or whatever number so. I think the mission statement can be a little small like we could make that smaller so to add a to add a bullet I can do that. One other thing, and at my work we're talking a lot about ADA compliance for documents. Is this posting going to be compatible with all the readers and the ADA compliant? I'm sorry, will it be? It's echoing a little bit. Oh, sorry. Americans with Disabilities Act compliant. Oh, ADA compliant. I'm assuming the sites have that, but that's an assumption. MSBA, I don't know if we do, but I would think the national sites would. AASA and many of the other ones that it
148will be on would have that. It would just be like if this, I know what you're, if this mission statement is solely a graphic, then the ADA readers won't be able to read it. Oh, if it's a graphic. Yes. Okay. Because they may have a reader that just reads the text. Well, it can only read the text. I mean, some are better than others. But if, I think that's what you were asking. Like if this is wholly graphic and like, but if it's a PDF, it can be read. It's a PDF. Okay, perfect. I know that. Then we're good. Then we're good. I mean, the vision, this vision one does seem PDF-y or graphic-y. So I don't know if they can read that. I think that is a PDF as well. Oh, is it? And
149then it can be read. Okay. Chair Andreessen? Yes. One additional highlight that I, and I don't know if, you know, maybe one of these other bullet points or by the numbers or somewhere else we can fit it in. But, you know, it says district buildings maintained 13. This doesn't say anywhere and maybe it says somewhere else in here that You know how many elementary schools middle schools and that we only have a single high school Like the breakdown of the buildings What do you think is that? Most folks will look at this and the intent of this is to pique their interest to learn more. They'll go to the website. They'll go to your website. They also go to MDE's website and do a lot of research on the district and the reports that have
150been filed with MDE. So some of those specific things they will find on their own. Your budget, they'll go looking at the budget. They'll look at your audit. They'll look for things that aren't in what is really more of a sell sheet to attract their interest. So I think you're okay not listing those specific things. I think what I really like about this is that it talks about how we're unique, which I think is great. The one thing I'm wondering about is from an applicant standpoint, do we feel like there's anything in here that people would get excited about? Like that's my one like because this is essentially please apply correct so just wondering if that if it screams that to people or if That's just what I was thinking when I was reading it.
151I was like, oh what I get super excited Not that I'm going to be applying for a superintendency But it would be awkward, wouldn't it? I also know of many people that are going to apply without glancing at this. This is, I mean, right. People will look for location, salary, and reputation. High profile districts. I think this is in some ways not necessary for many of the applicants that are interested. It will be for the out of state folks when we recruit nationally and say, have you heard about the opportunity in Hopkins? They'll look at this and go, hmm. Then they'll look more. They're going to look much deeper themselves. But for the most part, many people don't need a lot of facts about you to be interested in this job. Okay. If that makes
152sense. For out of state then would be in a ring suburb then, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I do kind of want to, like, would there be, like, could we bold this portrait of a graduate? Sure. Because I think that's something that resonates nationally and something to get excited about. And then maybe the immersion, because that's a particular skill set we'll be looking for, and I think it's a draw. for people that they really see the value of that those two things so bold the words portrait of a graduate and on the third bullet point which words do you want bolded Chinese immersion and Spanish immersion do you want the word and bolded no thanks okay should we say Chinese and Spanish immersion and have the three in a row highlighted, it doesn't make a difference. It
153just is one less word. Do we have Spanish preschool, Nick? No. Yeah, I didn't think so. So we're going to want to change this. Good catch. So it should be we offer... Chinese and Spanish immersion. And Chinese is going to start preschool, right? That's happening in the fall. Yeah, maybe we just want to stop it at Chinese and Spanish immersion to remove starting everything so that we aren't like What if we say through high school? Then the beginning then the starting point is vague There you go. Yeah, he's in Spanish immersion through high school We have that, correct? Yes. I don't know about that. We do. Do we? Yes. Yeah, the Juntos. You can go through Xinjiang and Juntos all the way through. Okay. But it's not fully. It's not a separate, like you're not
154doing all your classes. Once you hit middle school, you don't have, it's not full immersion. Yeah, I was going to say it's not full immersion. But we're not saying full immersion. No, we don't want that. Yeah, I think less is more. I think so too. Just ended at we have Spanish and Chinese immersion. Yeah, so then people won't guess. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and we might hear some feedback on that too if we say through high school. Yeah. So did you remove one of the immersion words? You want to say we offer Chinese and Spanish immersion? Oh, but if we say that maybe. We offer Spanish and Chinese immersion? Let's do, yeah, we offer Spanish immersion and Chinese immersion. Yeah, I think. Because I wouldn't want anyone to think they're commingled or anything. Okay, got it.
155So we offer Spanish immersion, bolded. And you can keep the order. I think Chinese is more unique. Okay. So we offer Chinese immersion and Spanish immersion done. And I'm bolding the four words. Chinese immersion, Spanish immersion are bolded. Not the word and. Not the word and. Got it. Okay. I'll make that change as well. Isn't it crazy how grammar is just, you got to be very particular about it for sure. Yes. Otherwise, are the points of pride good? We'll add that one. I'll make the mission statement smaller so that we can fit that one in. I'll add a couple of words. We have room for like among the district's points of pride. I'll say among the district's many points of pride are, I'll put the word many in there. I'll do some of those things
156too. Just beef it up a little bit. By the numbers, we proofed those against the numbers that Natalia sent to us from the staff that did all of that. So I would hope someone in the district can confirm we got the numbers right. I'll put in the search timeline district financial highlights if someone would proof that for me against the district information as well. That would be great. On the bottom of this page is the link. When I said I'll let you know where to apply, if you know people interested, it's that blue link, hyperlink in the bottom paragraph. MyRevellis.com. That's how they can apply for this position. And then on the very best page, third page, at the bottom. I'll fill in all the to be determines with the dates and everything. And then
157my contact information is right there as well. And I always tell folks in the Q&A and the search previews, You can call me. You can email me or text anytime. It's not just applicants and board members. I want people in the community and staff to feel comfortable reaching out to me as well. So my contact info is on all of these. The two things we have left to do are the leadership profile. and the salary and benefits. Chair Andreessen, yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Kai. Go ahead, Director Thompson. Sorry. Oh, well, thank you. I just had a question. You know, we're devoting the second page to Vision 2031. Do other districts that you're putting these together for devote a second page to something? Yes, it's usually a strategic plan a one pager of some type.
158That is the strategic roadmap, but you don't have to Some of our smaller districts or Greater Minnesota districts use a two pager without the middle page It really is dependent on how you what what you want to highlight Sharon Dresen. Yes, my comment was also our question I guess was also around including the vision 2031 roadmap Obviously this is the current strategic plan under this administration and I think we talked about during interviews how a new superintendent is probably gonna wanna come in and put their own flavor on either improving or expanding or changing or whatnot, a strategic plan. So I just want to ensure that, you know, I don't know how superintendents, people applying for these jobs, look at these and consume these. So my concern or hesitation, I'm not concerned, hesitation about including
159it is saying, this is our vision. This is our strategic plan. You are going to come in and do this. And I'm pointing to the Vision 2031. You know the vision 2031. I don't think the strategic plans been reassessed since I mean we we get updates on it, but it it was established in 2019 and so It's probably time there a question. I'm yeah the question is Does including this vision 2031 imply or implicate or I guess, does it indicate to an applicant that this is the parameters in which we are expecting you to work within? I just don't want to dissuade someone from applying that may think Vision 2031 is great, but I want a board in a district that's going to be open to rejuvenation of a strategic plan. I wish I had
160an answer to that because I'm not a candidate. I know that they do like to see who you are and what you stand for, and this will be on the website as well. I think the fact that it says 2019 is helpful, so they know that it is seven years in progress and that it is sitting six years out in the future as well. I don't know that it says this is who we are and it's never going to change because that's a pretty broad strategic plan. Most plans are three to five years. So to have one that's 19 to 31 is a little unusual. I would assume a candidate would look at this and know, oh, that's a little unusual. It's that broad. Lots of things can change. I'm sure that no one anticipated
161the pandemic when this was adopted in 2018. So most administrators understand the flexibility that's required in a strategic plan this long. But again, I'm not an applicant, so I can't speak for them necessarily. But I think they do want to know who you are and what you stand for, and they'll garner that from the website also and from talking to other folks about Hopkins. Ultimately, though, it's the call of the board. We can put in here whatever you do or don't want. And I think, too, it's important that this strategic plan is approved by the board. So it's not like it's been imposed by the superintendent upon the board. And this is our governing document. And it's important for anyone applying for a job to know what. the strategic plan of the district is. And
162so I advocate most definitely for keeping it because it is our governing document. It is approved by the board and something that we need to either adapt as we go or, yeah, I mean, it is standard practice. from what I've seen in all districts that there is a strategic plan when the superintendent comes in and it's part of the hiring process. You might get a new one in a few years, but that certainly is a process that the board does alongside the superintendent and the community. It's not just something the board decides we're not going to follow. If that makes sense. And I think it says great things about our district. I agree. These are great core values. Yeah. I think that anyone applying would find a lot of things to resonate with in this
163plan. Anyone else have any thoughts? Well, I think hearing that other districts include a graphic of a strategic plan, you know, it seems appropriate to have it in there. I think it says great things. As long as we don't think, you know, if it's standard practice and as Director Thompson noted. Chair Andrews. Yes. Well, one thought is, you know, especially for the out-of-state applicants or even somebody that's not steeped in what Vision 2031 means per se, I mean, would we want to do like a little preamble where it's like, you know, here's our strategic plan, which we call Vision, our current strategic plan, Vision 2031, and kind of explain a little bit about... It's our current thing, right? And it's not set in stone, but it's our guiding principles. I think maybe something like that
164would maybe bridge that gap between what we are and where we want to be. That would just be a question for someone who understands graphic design better than I do. How are we going to fit that in? Anything's possible. We just want to be sure to publish this on Wednesday of next week. So a redesign. I didn't design this. One of my staff did and they could work with Toya on it if you wanted to redesign the second page somehow. We certainly could do that. I don't think it needs a lot. I think maybe just current strategic plan, which is Vision 2031, and then maybe even just saying current strategic plan. Then people know, oh yeah, it's what they're currently doing. Then it explains a little bit about what it means. Just a header? Yeah.
165Yeah. I like that. Okay. Or just strategic plan. Or just strategic plan. Yeah. Current strategic plan. Yeah, it doesn't really say that. Yeah. It's like, what is this? Yeah. Yeah. True. I would go with current strategic plan. Or Hopkins current strategic plan. Yeah, something like that. Or if we could just say Hopkins strategic plan. I don't think we need to say current. I think that's assumed. Okay. And less is more. Yeah, how typically was a lot of words on this page. How typically long are like the like the packets like when we're when Can answer are reading them like how long are they because I know that's over here I'm sorry How long are there what like how long like so when the candidate goes to like apply for the position and like we have
166something posted like how many pages is typically in like a Packet or kind of like the visuals. I just know that sometimes like folks if it's like 13 pages people may start getting a little bit not bored but a little bit like It becomes too long. So what get what's good? What gets posted out there? Yeah, like what gets posted out there for candidates to read about a district. Like for readability, how long is that? Three pages. Just three pages? Just three pages. And some sites don't take the three pages and post it. They pull the data off of it and put it into like a long Word doc. But this data is exactly what would go in there. It wouldn't be any more. It wouldn't be any less. Okay. So Hopkins strategic plan header
167across the top of this. Yeah, what we want. Okay, and I think the word current would be good too Just to let us know that this is what we're sitting in right now I'm just gonna say it's redundant like it's our strategic plan It just is I mean, it's not like we're gonna be showing them the strategic plan from 20 years ago This is our strategic plan I'm inclined to agree. I mean, it is the strategic plan, and I don't think that anyone who's going to be applying for a superintendent job, if they are like, I have never heard of a strategic plan, then I don't particularly, I'm not sure that I would be that excited about a candidate that's like, what? What are you talking about? And so I feel like this current, adding
168this current is trying to, Give a nod to a candidate that they can change it if they want and I hear that we are trying to be very responsive to community and I know that there is community. You know thoughts and feelings about vision 2031 and they're going to get to give their input into it and superintendents can and a new superintendent can and may suggest. alterations to it and that is is just a thing that we will face and I Feel perfectly happy with labeling this our strategic plan Thanks for naming that yeah, I think I think adding current yeah, it is redundant and That's fine by me for me. It's semantics Okay, that change I think I can even make. Hopkins strategic plan. I think I can make it a PDF, so I
169should be able to do that over the weekend. So I'll put that at the top. It is clarifying. I think that's really good because it does not say the word strategic plan on here, nor Hopkins, which is great. We'll put that on the top. Then we'll move to the last page of the brochure, and I did double check while you were speaking. We've done three metro searches this year. All of them do have a central page, a second page that is. a snapshot of the district in one way, shape, or form. So I think it would be out of step with the other Metro searches if you didn't have that second page. So I think you made a good call on that, everyone. Thank you. The leadership profile was developed from, if you look at
170the page after the brochure that has some yellow highlights on it, those are your individual results to the hiring criteria survey, which we used to create this proposed leadership profile. However, again, this is something that this board needs to... be very comfortable with. You can reword this any way you'd like. We just wanted something for you to start with. And this, again, just to remind you, is used as the kind of the guiding light for us when we're going through applications, in addition to the results of all of the input from your community and staff. So this is one piece of the puzzle. I'll turn it back over to the chair to facilitate the conversation around the leadership profile as we've proposed it. Sure. I do appreciate that you included this results and that you
171put the traits, the attributes in the order in which highest to lowest votes. So thank you for doing that. And I think it feels very much. like conversations that we have at this board table and also in the community. So yeah, any input thoughts? I just have to say I was not surprised by any of these and how they laid out. So. Chair Andreessen? Yes. I did do a little bit of a writing exercise. I shared this with Barb that I... did a little bit of a writing exercise in the proposed leadership profile and I actually printed just the opening paragraph. And so I just printed it out and wanted to share it with everyone just to consider. It's a little bit more descriptive and less redundant of the bullet points below. Like I think
172the opening paragraph says what the bullet points below already say. And so This is more like our Hopkins flavor, at least kind of. So I'm confused as to, are you saying this would replace the paragraph at the beginning? The top one. And yet we would still have all the bullets? Yes. And we can take pieces of, you know, if there's a sentence or pieces. I just, when I read this, I felt the introductory paragraph. felt like it was You know, it says inspires trust and then the second bullet point is trust So is there something more we can say? to draw people in Like the redundancy of like some of the the wording yeah, so like, you know for example, like I the one I rewrote doesn't It's more of an intro like a like
173an introduction. Yes to the points Do you know I mean should we read it for the public for the people watching? I can read it. I can read it So this was the proposed leadership profile I drafted because this is what I do in my free time you guys The Hopkins School Board seeks a principled and collaborative education professional to serve as the next superintendent of Hopkins Public Schools. Our next leader will help envision the future of our schools by building trust, strengthening partnerships, and guiding the district with integrity and accountability. We seek someone prepared to continue and enhance programs that are working while actively addressing current challenges to improve outcomes across the district for all students. The next superintendent will sharpen our focus on the educational future through research, effective implementation, and ongoing data
174assessment to ensure measurable progress and equitable outcomes for every Hopkins student. Thank you. So then would we eliminate some of the bullet points that's covered in this new? Shorten the bullet points. Well, one of the things that I've... struggle with is that I don't see I see things in here that were not part of what we all voted on as our profile our attributes so I I think that we all participated in what was generated here in the MSBA leadership profile before us and only you participated in this one and I see things injected into this that are not reflected in the full board's input. So that's I think that this opening paragraph is directly comes from the bullet points underneath. which is the point and it every single board member had input on that.
175So I'm leaning toward this introductory paragraph as it stands just because it's part of all of our input. I mean if there are things that you would like to propose putting into this we can certainly discuss that. Chair Andreessen. Yes. Yes. Well, and one thing I was actually looking for in the qualifications was something around execution, which Director Hyman wrote that I didn't see that I would have maybe voted for. So, I mean, I don't know. And monitors progress and outcomes, holds self and others responsible for results. It's that accountability piece. I think that's... Number one. Talks about maintaining accountability. I mean, is that where you would want to put something like that? Director Zhao, the executes, is that what you said? Yeah, or something to that effect, right? Executes with accountability or something like
176that? Yeah, something like that. Or do we? put something around like that can be measured measurable yeah like a measurable execution i don't know if that's possible but is there anything in this um barb i'm asking you in this 24 list that you think would have speak spoken to that i mean i see lots of There's like pieces of it. Yeah, it's all in different areas. So like experiencing implementing practices that support student safety and mental health. Follows the board's chosen educational philosophy. Provides written understandable administrative procedures. Like all of these are execution, but they're cut into different. Different. Because I was even looking at number 21 where it says like understands the effects of poverty on student learning and achievement. But then to me that also goes into number 12 which is knowledge of
177an experience with equity leadership challenges and opportunities. Yeah. So it's like I feel like some of these are like sub so it's like hard to choose like which one is a priority when they're like the same. And to me knowing about it is different than. improving it, right? Like, I mean, that's why I didn't select that one per se. I was just like, okay, understanding is not enough in some places. Director Zhao, I mean, I like your idea of, and had I seen execution as well, I probably would have put it as well. I mean, I almost wonder if under the accountability bullet point where it says delegates authority with clear expectations, monitors progress and outcomes, Delivers on execution? Just throw it out there. Yeah, I think it belongs there. I just can't figure out
178how to say it. Like I wonder if delegates authority with clear expectations and executes with clarity. Executes with clarity, yeah. Clear and clarity then in the same sentence. Hold self and I feel like hold self and others responsible for results is executing Right, you know that's cute in a manner that holds self Just in a manner yeah Self and others responsible for there you go. Yes. What did you say? execute for the last part of the accountability. In a manner that holds. So, if another's responsible for results. Director Hyman, I don't mind your first two sentences as like a straight swap for the initial paragraph. I think that your wording is possibly slightly smoother there. To my mind, I do kind of echo chair and reasons that there is at least some wording, some implication
179that does deviate from what the rest of the board picked here. And think that we can bring in some of those themes about execution. Because like we actually didn't collectively pick. Like the data one for yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at like the data one. Yeah. And so I, um, I don't know, to my mind, at least completely fine with, with your first two sentences. Um, I, you know, there's potential room for like progress and equitable outcomes for every student. You know, there's potentially room to put that. In equity advocacy, so I think there's room here That's kind of lengthening bullet points that rather than subtracting them I would say though that one of the things that isn't in these first two sentences that is One of our top it's actually in the top three is
180equity minded and that needs to be put back You could switch out the word principled for equity-minded. Seeks an equity-minded and collaborative education professional. I really want a principled one, though, too. Yeah. I mean, those fit. All the things. Those fit. Well, I'm wondering about if... I like what Director Zhao said about kind of like improving. Is there a way that we can utilize the word improving infrastructure or something in... I like growth mindset a lot. Yeah, growth mindset. What's happening? Where are we? Yeah, what's happening? Yeah. But I still want it to be something. I mean, it's still accountability, but I do think that it's really important for us to be able to measure. Yeah, like to like measure the success or like measure. What am I trying to say? For us to be
181able to measure the progress of the superintendent in areas that would be helpful for us to govern. More effectively so like let's just say if there's something that's not improving then we could measure the like the data points by stirruper The improvement is in the equity bullet point Data driven is in the last Yep and I mean I guess to a point there. Oh, yeah, technically systemic all land you know it's data there and not even necessarily a very minor minor small minor change that might satisfy that is in um the accountability uh bullet point we could say monitors and reports on progress and outcomes we could put monitors Measurable. Monitors and reports on measurable goals and outcomes? Like something like... Yeah, something. I mean, would it be appropriate to add the word data somewhere
182in there so we can know what we're looking at in monitoring? Like, would it matter or would that be a word salad? Yeah, I feel like it's getting, and it might be because it's late, but I feel like it's getting to the point where... We're just throwing words. In my mind, it's starting to lose meaning, if that makes sense. Even adding goals to strategic partnership, because that does talk about engaging with the board and data-driven. Even adding to develop goals, policies. and recommend data-driven solutions to develop. To my mind, that doesn't add 14 words to the above bullet points because we do talk about systemic improvement. We do talk about data-driven. So under strategic partnership engages with the school board to develop goals and policies, provides options, and recommends data-driven solutions. You could add two
183words. You could say engages with the school board to develop policies, set goals, provide options. It should be provide, not provides. Provide options and recommend, and it should be recommend, not recommends, I think, data-driven solutions. I'm fine with that. I was doing it. Engages with the school board to develop policies, set goals, provide options, and recommend data-driven solutions. Probably be engage with the school board then. Yeah. Engage with the school board, set goals, provide options. recommend data-driven solutions and maybe I'm grammatically wrong because the rest of the bullet points are actually active. That doesn't make it an attribute. We're talking about attributes so it has to be engages with sets goals. We need all the S's back. This is the best board meeting. We are all English teachers at this point. I know, right? Is
184this normal or are we unique in this? Be honest. It's a little unique. Okay. Let's move on then. Okay, let's move on. It's unique in that you're having a very important conversation to this board. I don't know that a candidate will wordsmith to the point that they're going to be interested or they're not, regardless of what you say. However, I think the conversation you're having is extremely important to the process. So it is unique. Most people look at it and go, yeah, that sounds like us, and it matches this. Okay. I think, though, this is really important that you hear where everyone was coming from with some of these really small details. So not a bad thing that it's unique. I think this is really healthy. Intentionality. We do need to set salary, right? Yes.
185What did you change? I didn't take notes because it was changing too much. I have the last one, strategic partnership. I have it written down. I have it written down. Will you let me know what they changed? Because I think Anne executes, I have some of that. I have it all. I'll get specifics from Chair Andreessen then. Otherwise, it's good to go. The one thing that's not in here that I wanted to point out is at the bottom of this. Page was whether or not they should have a super superintendent experience and you had two that said yes five that said no So we purposely did not include previous superintendent experiences preferred or preferred but not required. We simply left it off But we can put it in there if the board wants to I
186just wanted to check because of that last one How do you feel about that not being included? I think that reflects results Agreed. Okay. Chair Andreessen, it seemed like we just had a couple just minor tweaks. Could you just read what we got? Yes. So, well, actually, I did an edit all on my own because this is what I do in my life. So under trust and collaboration, the third line, it says valuing differing perspectives, and I just changed it to valuing different perspectives. just because it sounds better. So then we talked about under accountability, third line, it would start with executes in a manner that holds self and others responsible for results. And then under strategic partnership, second line, it should read school board to develop policies, sets, goals. Yeah, we added sets, goals.
187Is that good? That sounds correct. Thank you. Are there any changes to the opening paragraph? I don't think so. I hear what you say, though, because the opening paragraph does replicate a lot of the words down below in bullet points, so thank you for doing that. That's a lesson for us. I mean, did we want to go with... This other the first two the Hopkins School Board seeks an equity minded and collaborative education professional to serve as the next superintendent of Hopkins Public Schools Our next leader will help envision the future of our schools by building trust strengthening partnerships and guiding the district with integrity and accountability Do we like that better than the Hopkins School Board seeks a principled, collaborative, and equity-minded leader who inspires trust, communicates effectively, and works in partnership with the
188school board to advance the district's mission? Ooh, I like that, advance the district's mission. Anyone have a preference? The only thing I'll just say I like about mine is the envisioning of the future, like really thinking about progress and where we're going. Yeah, so I just, that's the only piece that I personally really like about my first two sentences, but I'm me, so. I kind of like Director Hyman's. I think it would be very easy to put, seeks a principled, equity-minded, and collaborative education professional to serve as the next superintendent of Hopkins Public Schools. I'm trying to think of if our next leader will help envision the future of our schools by building trust, strengthening partnerships, and guiding the district with integrity and accountability. Principles and integrity are mildly redundant. I'm trying to see if
189it's possible to talk about advancing. Our next leader will help envision the future of our schools by advancing our mission through building trust, strengthening partnerships, and guiding the district with integrity and accountability. Envision the future of our schools and advance the district's mission by building trust. So it says our next leader will help envision the future of our schools and advance the district's mission through building trust. Don't mean to be a good about that. I don't mean it. Can we just add equity anywhere in there? That is it's at the beginning where the hobbies? Good Hopkins School Board seeks an equity minded principled and collaborative. Okay. There we go. We're good All right, I got that in notes too Will you share with that me chair and or share that with me chair and recent?
190Thank you. Can I sent a note to? our Business Services team to quickly help me proofread the financial highlights and I'll get back to you. I think it's very close, but I'll double check. Looks like the audited 2023, but I'm not sure about the general fund balance. Came out of the 2024 numbers or sorry 2024 numbers. It is. We built all this off of that data set. 2024. So we verified all that information. Okay. All right. Yeah, if you guys agreed that those are the numbers, then that's fine with me. Is the general one that high? Okay. That's unassigned. So the next page is the compensation language for the vacancy brochure. And the only change as listed in here in statute is the requirement to include the range and to help you determine a range
191to publish. There is another page in here, landscape, that does have some comparable districts. The only requirement really is the range, salary range. And there's kind of a sweet spot. You don't want such a small range that you're narrow, but you don't want such a large range that it's open to a complete interpretation. So this has been a challenge for us in the last 14 months to come up with ranges that districts are comfortable with. But this might prove helpful. And then we can put as much or as little about the benefits package as you would like. Many districts are simply saying additional benefits are also available. without specifying some of these other things unless there's something really unique in your benefits package in hopkins that you want to call out for applicants otherwise you
192could keep it very general but you do need the range do you have a recommended range no i'm going to stay out of this 220 to 280 maybe that that captures the low i mean i'm just looking at the numbers captures the low end on here at 224 and doesn't go quite as high as Minnetonka, but goes up to Eden Prairie. The one thing that I was careful to look at is the size of the district. Right. And we are actually high when you compare comparable district sizes. I mean... And Minnetonka is one of the highest paying superintendent. We all saw that. I think in the state. We all saw the Star Trib article. So I think that, I think Minnetonka is inherently an outlier. And then, you know, Eden Prairie, they have, they're a
193larger district. Then again, Robbinsdale is a larger district, even that, and they're less than us. Yeah, I feel like we're at the high end already. Are you suggesting something more like 230? Because it depends on the person's experience, too, right? It's like 230 or 225 to 265. Like, what are you thinking? Yeah, like I'm feeling like I don't want to go much higher than our current. Yeah, I'll just say 280 felt too high to me. looking at these numbers. Maybe 270. Barb, can you tell us a little bit about how candidates see this, right? If we say 270, are they going to be like, eh, I'm not going to apply? How mercenary are they? Everyone will think everything's negotiable. Okay. And one of the things I was going to ask, how long has Dr. Mary
194Perry-Reed been your superintendent? Eight years, nine years. Nine years. Okay, so sometimes what happens with a longer-term superintendent is their compensation has not kept up with market rates. So, for example, when you look at third from the bottom, the base salary there. The vacancy brochure in that instance, they needed to bring it up to meet market rates significantly over the current superintendent's salary or people would not be interested because the longer someone's been in the position and if they've gotten slight increases each year, you know how it is, sometimes you need to change jobs to get a big bump because you just incrementally increase. So I do want to share what was settled in that instance. So in that range. It is now when you see the base a third from the bottom what the
195brochure says is a range of 280 to 295 and that was to bring it to market rates Which is what these compensations really try to reflect and Their board figured out the market rates by looking at this correct What's not in here are some of these contracts have performance incentives as well, which are a complicating factor and they're an option, not for a contract that you're not prepared to offer. Though it needs to be very well thought out and a lot of research done if you're going to include any sort of performance incentives. But some of these do have that on top of the base salary. So I have a question. So this is, again, like an amateur question, right, for the first time going through this. So, like, if we, let's say, was to
196set the superintendent salary at $275,000, right, like would they stay at that base rate? And if we approve their contract, then they will get a raise, their second contract? There's usually increments each year. First year, this amount. Second year, this amount. Third year, this amount. And then in the third year of the contract, you can negotiate one for the next year. So a three-year contract does have annual increases built into it. Okay. It's not like a... I'm just thinking about budget, right? I think it's usually like a two. So we don't want anyone to not apply because it's too low. But we also can't negotiate. Yes. If we have a range. We're kind of playing that. We can negotiate or we can't negotiate? We can. We can. Right, like you could say 295 and offer
197250. Right, but we have to have a range within which to negotiate. Correct. I mean, would a person with no superintendent experience, Barb? Who came? Would we really be offering them Dr. Mary Perry Reed's salary or would we be offering that person $250? I guess I don't know. Maybe. The other thing is there is a new law this year in Minnesota that you cannot use someone's current salary to determine the salary that you're going to offer them. It's a pay equity issue. So you mean an applicant's current salary? Correct. Correct. Applicant's current. Correct. So there are instances, for example, where someone coming into a district as a superintendent, they might be making more money in a larger district as a cabinet member than they would as a superintendent in a smaller district. There's a lot
198of factors at play. But if they are making less money elsewhere, you simply can't say, oh, let's. offer them just a thousand dollars more than they're currently making that whole thing has gone up i totally understand that i just have a hard time being like going from your superintendent with nine years of experience being like okay you get paid more than that that would not feel good to me right not so treasurer hartland i i um oh go ahead director you're good i was just gonna say um from just my experience working you know With starting seeing and understanding starting salaries at like law firms, for example Yeah, it's crazy what what new Attorneys are coming out making I mean they're making and I'm not comparing this position to an attorney position But just with
199the time that's gone on Whether it's inflation or expectations or competitiveness or what? whatever it is, the market rates are crazy high in the Twin Cities. And it's like, you know, there's first, second year associates making more than partners at firms now because that's like market rate. And it feels, like you said, kind of, it feels yucky, but it's like. You can't control either what market is, you know? So, Chair Andreessen, I was just going to say, so, I mean, it sounded like that third from the bottom sort of figured out market rate by looking at this data and whatnot. And so I just tried to divide salaries by the ADMS. And, I mean, we're certainly on the higher side. So, I don't know. I think my proposed range would be something like... You know
200and knowing that there would be room for negotiation but like I don't know 225 to 260 or that's what I would throw out there keep in mind that the contracts public information and Anyone interested in this position can get a copy of dr. Mary Perry reads contract And if the top of your range is less than she's making right now, there may be some questions about why that's a good point Because you're not as awesome Well, yeah, I mean, for real, eight, nine years of... It doesn't matter. Yeah, because you don't know the person coming in could have eight, nine years. Yeah, they could. Yeah, I know. Like, I think, like, are we all kind of agreed on the low range, like in the 220s? Like, is there any... That seems pretty low to me.
201Or does that seem too low? I would, I mean, I... We posit 250 to 280 maybe. But then we have to. Don't we have to pay at least 250? I mean, if we select somebody, they're going to be good, right? So I would argue. I would think you'd have to pay at the lowest of the range that you stated. Yeah, I don't want to box us. I have you really rude to be like We meet the minimum that we set right? Yeah Could we do 245 to 285? Yeah, could we do 240? Yeah, like we do 240 to 280 because then what would be creeping up to the highest pay superintendent though? in their district is larger than that? I don't think I should be talking money. That feels so high to me. I know.
202I wish our teachers were saying that much. I mean, it's really not that much in the large scheme of things. A private employer with a staff of this many people would be in the millions, so it's not that much. Yeah. Let me think about the 24 years of 24-7 on-call, too. Yeah, that's true. So, Barb, is 240, 280 competitive? I think so. It's a large range. Most ranges typically are 20,000 to 30,000. But you're giving yourself a lot of room there. Give yourself some room. And, again, I think a candidate isn't going to not apply because of the range unless... the top of the range is $50,000 less than they're currently making. I think it's a guideline for candidates, but like I said, they all know it's all negotiable. And when you look at the
203benefits that are available, the total compensation package is what they're going to worry about. Total compensation package. So there's a whole lot more than just this base salary. But you want to be attractive enough, but you also want to be able to afford what you are advertising. And then it's all negotiable. So the lowest here is 224 at the smallest district, right? And then the highest is, you know, 300 with not even the largest district, which I find interesting. So I feel comfortable if we're in the middle of that, right? Like neither lead nor lag. And so, I mean, do we feel comfortable with like 235 to, I can't believe I'm going to say it, 280? If we started at 235, we'd go like 270, right? Just to lower the range a little. Our spread
204is big. Yeah. Is there anything wrong with having a big spread? We also have a whole bunch of bullet points. Okay, so two. 240? 240 to 2. I mean, I think we have to be very mindful of the bottom because we can't offer below that, right? What if we have this really great candidate that comes in without actual superintendency experience that is, you know, only worked at smaller districts? I mean, I think we have to think about are we boxing ourselves out of? hiring someone that would be great but we maybe don't want to have that high of a salary i don't know sure i could be wrong that's a good line of thinking so 235 270 does that feel too big not high enough 235 to 275 sure 35 75 240? I'm willing to
205go up 240? I say 240 to 280. Because, yeah, there's one, two, three. There's only three districts that have a superintendent at 240. We do have to go higher. I mean, but if we're considering, like, the additional benefits provided by some of the districts, right, like, you know, relocation and cars and, like, housing. Would that that will also would that be something that we're gonna be considering as well as a benefit? So I'm just looking at some of the additional benefits that are provided and I if I know I don't know if Barb if we get some someone who's national is it mandatory that we cover their housing cost? No, it's not mandatory. Okay, so but that's an incentive that a lot of districts cover right is housing cost we could easily with housing Cost
206the way that it is now could easily be an additional a lot. I don't even know I don't have a price night like a price so I mean if we're thinking of Additional benefits that we're going to be adding. I think the 240 to 275 range would be decent plus additional benefits which Bear high costs in this all do we do housing right now? I don't know. You meant relocation, right? Yeah, relocation. Sorry, yeah. Relocation. I'm just saying, but if we do get a candidate who's from a national candidate who ends up getting selected, right? Relocation would be something that would be a benefit that would be a costly one. I'm going to rent a U-Haul. I've got a relocation bill. Okay, so I'm losing where we're at. And I want to say, YZ is
207searching right now. We have to be competitive. Yeah, I mean, if YZ is saying, now granted, they're a bit bigger. They are bigger. So they're bigger than we are. Can we say the name? Sure. Okay. I looked it up to make sure it was published publicly, and it is. So sorry, I should have. No, let us know what's the range. Yes, they publicly They are also the largest district so there is that and Barb told us it's 280 to 295 and there I mean, they're almost double our size. So I mean, I think we need to keep that in perspective too and I Know at least for some candidates the size of Hopkins is a selling point And, yeah, I feel like we probably have to go to the, at least to their starting range,
208right, to be competitive. Is that what you're thinking? At least to $275,000, if not ending at $280,000. And, like, when it gets to be a $5,000 difference, like, I do not want to be losing out on really good candidates because we stopped at $275,000 instead of $280,000. So then are we starting then at 250? Is that too big of a range? You got me up to 250. All right. Okay, so latest is 250 to 280. I feel like you and I, Kai, are the ones who want it lower. I'm fine with that. It's just I just think you have to keep in mind the ADMS column. And, like, I hear what you're saying about be competitive, attract the right person, but, like, at the same time, we still have some degree of, like, fiscal responsibility,
209I think, based on what that is. And we're already, when you do the ratio, we're towards the higher end. That's just gonna speak my piece So Barb I heard you say that if we have a range that's a lower than what our current Superintendent is making people will go what? It's the top of your ranges below your current soup salary. Oh questions. It's a top of your ranges below So we would be okay with having a starting below our current Sure. Okay. I heard it differently. So significantly below will cause people to wonder why if you're in some financial straits and money is really tight. So if it's significantly below, they might go, I wonder why that is so much lower. Are they running into money troubles or will they try to. So 250 to
210280. 270. It hurt you to say it. It does hurt me to say it. I'm sorry. I'm from North Dakota. We don't spend money. Let's rip the band-aid off and pick a number. We still have a lot to do. Let's do it. 250 to 280. Should we go around? Yes. Yes. We don't have to meet the 280. We don't have to go to 280. Right. Yep. Sounds good. All right. Let's do it. 250 to 280? Yep. 250 to 280. And then as far as, do you want to say additional benefits are also available or an excellent benefits package is also available? A really excellent one. Really excellent. Excellent benefits of package is also available. I do have one question. Vice Chair Roper brought up a national candidate, so I just want to plant the seed
211about national candidates. Would it be okay, thinking ahead, you don't have to decide entirely, to conduct their first round interview virtually? Or do you want them here in person? Is that non-negotiable for this board for first-round interviews? No, virtual. Virtual, I think, would be fine. Virtual would be available? But not required. You wouldn't do all six people virtually because one or two national people want to join virtually. It's a little bit of an unlevel field, but the other option is... Yeah, it is. It's a little on level. There's a disadvantage somewhat to being virtual. However, then if they are going to fly in here, they're going to ask me if you will reimburse their travel expenses, which might include hotel. And then where do you cut it off as far as reimbursing travel if someone's
212driving from a neighboring state versus flying from four states away? Do you have any thoughts on that yet? So do we want to do all of them? Is the question do we want to do all of them virtual so that it's a level playing field? I mean, I don't want to require people to fly here because then we do have to pay for it, and I don't want to pay for it. Like, we're not letting anyone travel right now. You don't even have to decide tonight. You can see who's in your pool. Your semifinalists might all be local. But if you have a few that are national, you might want to think about requiring everyone to be virtual in the first round. Or... You just have a couple virtual and a couple in person. Okay.
213Down the road, just want to plant that seed that it does cost money to get here. And yet, I've had boards say if they want the job, they'll fly here. Great. Do we know what Dr. Mary Perry-Reed did? Because she was out of state, right? Yeah, she was. I'm sorry, Nick, you got something? Oh, does he know? I negotiated it. Did she sleep in your basement? No, I did it on the stairs, actually. Yeah, okay, great. We gave her the offer of some relocation component and the board agreed that they wanted all in-person candidates and she had family here so but when we did that we did not reimburse last round we did not reimburse for travel expenses across the board that was just a board decision at that point in time with that but
214we certainly could have. Did we do relocation if candidates were looking out of state? We didn't say that we would do that to encourage national candidates that way. So what about the first round interview? Was that travel? Or those in person? The first round you get here, if you're going to be a finalist. Okay. We also came across that bridge. Yeah. Yeah. Once we get there. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah, it is an equity issue, though, too. It is. Okay. Okay. Just wanted to pose the question, so I'm glad that now Nick was here to provide some insight on that. It's nice when you have precedent and it makes some sense. So the brochure is now done. Does anybody need a break? We don't have a lot left, but it will take probably an
215hour, half hour to an hour. Okay. Quick break or not? Quick break. I regret all my questions. I just got up and did the break. I'm taking my own break. Good. To review for the board, we'll be doing that Q&A, which is recorded Zoom meeting, and I'll work with Toya to get the word out and questions in advance and all of that. The search preview meetings, you said, were okay to schedule as Natalia with those two groups, two or three groups inside the district walls there. The community and staff survey is what I want to go over briefly here as well. This is... What we use I don't have the version for students here, but when you look at this survey If someone were to click student it takes them to the exact same survey,
216but in plain language So some of the things in here for example that say fiscal responsibility the student survey says money We still quantify everything along with everyone else's we just break out responses by staff students, etc And so the plain language survey is a part of this. It's embedded in here The question I have to open with is what self identifiers do you want on this survey? The district partner is highlighted because some districts do use that, some don't. Some districts completely remove the first one and only have five categories, but traditionally community member, parent, staff, parent, guardian, staff, and student are the typical self identifiers. Are we missing anything or do you want to add or delete any of these? This is how we'll slice and dice your data for the first part
217of the report. I would just, I would advocate for the word guardian to be replaced by caregiver. Caregiver? Do we want business owner, district partner? I like district partner because that includes then our people like Resource West and everyone that... Do a lot of partnerships like move forward which is right next door I like that language. I think both Are good. Okay, so business owners slash district partner you want that remaining as is yeah, I like that and Replace guardian with caregiver all one word Replace guardian with caregiver. Okay Any other changes to that? Okay Sounds good. When you look at the second page, you'll recognize that because that's the hiring criteria the board took. I really like that page in the survey, and most people will take this electronically. That's just how they do
218it. But I like the apples to apples of this page. So people do not have to complete the entire survey for their answers to be included. It's not all or nothing. But I like that page because we can compare and contrast it to your answers as well. Can people take the survey multiple times if they take it from a different computer? Yes I'd say that might only be applicable if they feel differently as a staff person for example than they do as a parent or a caregiver Some people will take it from their home computer One way and then they have a slightly different perspective and take it from their work computer so they can We're not a market research firm, so we don't have a way of keeping people in certain zip codes out.
219It is an indicator of how people are feeling if they care about the Hopkins Public School District, but it will be a very good source of information for you. We're really excited about these surveys. Did we... We didn't get to do the areas of expertise. No, you just took that second page to get the leadership profile developed. I would encourage you as board members to still take the survey, though. Additional input is welcome. Yeah, and I think, like, all of us, we're board members, but we're also parents, right? Correct. Many people are two or three of these, and you're all community members, so it's just you choose the one that you feel like best represents who you are when you're taking the survey. We will have hard copies of these available. However, the district office.
220The first part are all the qualitative quantitative stuff. The same question about having previous Superintendent experience. We're asking everyone by respondent category and then there are four open ended questions. Again, they don't have to fill those out. They can type nothing or they can type paragraphs. There's no character limits on any of this. We do suggest when people take it. In fact, if. It doesn't say it on this hard copy, but if you go to the electronic survey, it does say if you're taking this on a mobile device, we suggest you use a device with a larger screen. Some people have said it's a lot of scrolling if they use their phone. But that's in there as a disclaimer. Most people probably still use their phone. But it is completely anonymous, and again, they don't
221have to answer everything. The questions about choose the top six areas of expertise are not weighted. care what order they're in and you don't even have to pick six. So up to six of this bucket, just let us know what's a priority for you. And it'll make a lot more sense when you see the report, but this has proven to be a really strong survey for us. We will have it in English, Spanish, and Somali. Do you want all three of those language? And I'm sorry we can't do it in Hmong. I know 1% of your student body speaks Hmong, but we'll do it in all three of those. Good? Okay. I actually am. I do not like that we cannot ascertain district residency. Yeah. I understand what you're saying about that shortcoming, but that
222really makes me uncomfortable. What are you concerned would occur? Our district has repeatedly. made rounds on certain news sources and Reddit community boards for one policy or another for a party or another. I don't know. I'm just... Do you think someone posted to Reddit the link? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's 100%. It's happened before. We've had to have our emails diverted and screened for... And I think, too, like we've also, I think the issue, I mean, you can look at, like there are lots of people that weigh in on things that are posted on social media or whatever, like Reddit, that, you know, live in Florida or Canada. And you're just like, oh, okay, well, I. I guess I don't take what you have to say seriously. And then not being able to screen that out
223for this feels problematic to me as well. I agree. Can we ask for a zip code? They could put in any one, but yeah. At least that's a little bit of a barrier. Like if I opened something and it asked for my zip code, I'm like, if it... I'm not going to go look on Google to find a zip code. I mean, that's, yes. And that's part of, like, why we started asking on our email form that people identify what school you're connected to. Because then that's a screener, right, for, okay, you actually are a part of this community. I think that was my earlier question was asking like if this is open to anyone, right? Because if I put it on my social media, then I'm going to have, there may be potential folks
224who want to do, who may be out of district, who may be thinking about coming over to the Hopkins community. So that was one of my main concerns. But then also I'm thinking of. How can we legitimatize the survey so it cannot be mimicked and folks sending out a survey that they have created on their own and folks getting potentially confused about which is the actual survey? Because folks do create their own surveys in our community and post them online about the district. So I want to just make sure that if there's someone that we can add like a badge or something that would... verify that this is the correct survey to take. I know that may be a lot, but can we add like a special picture? I don't know, something. The link will
225say, you know, Hopkins Superintendent Search Survey, Superintendent Search Survey. The challenge with these surveys is we can't keep ahead of all the technology and all the people that have ill intent. If you had a market research firm and you had $30,000 to spend on a survey, they would be able to put all those guardrails in place and reach out to people within certain zip codes and they have margins of error. As part of a survey like this, the guardrails are just, we use SurveyMonkey. We aren't professional market research folks, so we tend to rely on the good of people. We did have one instance where there was a survey that was spammed by outside forces, but we were able to figure it out because of the timing of the responses and the similarities of what
226was being said. So we filtered out those, but that was a long time ago. That was like four years ago. Since then, all of our surveys have been pretty representative of what school board members expect to see. There haven't been any anomalies. that have caught folks off guard. I'm not saying there would be or wouldn't be here. It's just one tool. And technologically speaking, we don't have the capacity to make it a pure market research limited guard railed survey. We just don't. Well, could it record the IP address? And at least we could kind of collate it to at least Minnesota relatively easily. That would be a SurveyMonkey question. That's beyond my staff's capacity. Do you pay them for that or does it we just have a SurveyMonkey license? Yeah, I mean if you pay
227if you if you're a customer there's you could put in a ticket and ask I don't know Yeah, I understand that you're limited and that you do get In SurveyMonkey you do get the IP address of all people that complete. Yeah, I don't know how you would necessarily Yeah, anyway, yeah, I mean like we there's there's methods that we could write very broadly be like okay at least it's Minnesota or at least us ish Right. Yeah, or if it's the same IP then we'd be like, oh somebody responded like a hundred times, right? If it looks wonky we could look into we could look and yeah, if we had the logs we could look in it Okay, we would welcome that if you want to if you see something wonky I think we also want
228to be careful that we don't frighten people away from taking it because some people are very concerned about the anonymity of the survey and is it really anonymous and will you track me down and know what I said? And we don't want people to be fearful about taking the survey, especially marginalized communities. Sometimes they're very nervous about taking something from their own computer. And we want to assure folks that it is completely anonymous. We don't track responses. We simply try to categorize the quantitative side. get the themes of the qualitative side. And I think too, knowing all of this, we can control for like what you said, if we see something coming through that we're just like, that's not my experience. We can just be really intentional about having focus groups. you know, making sure
229that we are having like listening sessions or community input that we know we're getting from people who are actually invested in the community. And so I think that knowing these limitations, we can then be thoughtful about making sure we get multiple points of input and we're not just using the survey to guide our search. Do you want me to add the question that says what is your zip code? And people would just enter a number? Yeah. Or does it? Will students know their zip codes? Because we don't want students to not take it. That's true. I mean, we already have the question of who you are and what school you're affiliated with, correct? No school. Not on here yet, no. So can we add that? Portion just to... Sure. For parents and students. Yeah. And
230then have that, and maybe have an option that says, like, I'm not affiliated? Yeah. Or maybe like a... Oh, parents, students, school associated, everybody else zip code. Is that possible? I don't understand the branching system within SurveyMonkey, so I don't know. Okay. I think it is. You must if you have different questions. But... I'm going to tell you a little bit about the survey and why we do feel it's an excellent tool to gather community feedback and staff feedback. This used to be an afterthought. The survey was just when traditional methodologies were being used in searches five to ten years ago. The survey was, oh, of course, we'll do a survey. What we're really going to do are focus groups and listening sessions within your community. That's where we're going to get the meat of
231the information. Yeah, we'll have a survey out there. That was sort of how things... We're done. That's how we did it. Everyone did. So then the pandemic came and everything had to go online very quickly in March of 2020. So for 2020 and 2021, we had to pivot and the survey became the primary tool to collect feedback. We still did focus groups online. only for one search season because what happened is people would join us online and I remember one group specifically, I had 34 people on this call, I was very excited to hear what they had to say. It was before contract hours with some staff. And by the end of 45 minutes of those 34 people, only four people had actually said anything. Everybody else were lurking and listening and then they went
232to the survey and filled out the survey. So what we started doing is we no longer offered online focus groups or listing sessions. We started offering search preview meetings because people were coming for information about the service, less so than to tell us what they think. So we started driving people to the survey online. Hard copies didn't really help until people got back in school buildings, but hard copies obviously need to be made available in every language. We noticed a trend. The numbers of survey responses went way up. We got a lot more people taking the survey when it was the primary driver of participation. And the responses became more candid because they were completely anonymous. In the focus groups, people were reticent to say what they really thought because they were with other people.
233So we got what I thought was more frank information through the survey because of the anonymity it allowed. We have continued to offer this and it's been the best tool for our reports. I know community engagement is extraordinarily important in Hopkins, so we want to design something that's going to also work. Other districts have chosen. the survey over some of the in-person opportunities because of the barriers to participation in the in-person sessions. Not everyone will have transportation or childcare. You all know this. You are an access-oriented district. Childcare, shift work can get in the way. Language can get in the way. So it's up to you to tell me what you need us to schedule as far as community input and staff input. I just don't want to discount. The benefits of the survey that
234is 24 seven access is in three languages. It's hard copy and online. And it's anonymous. We'll still gather all of that other input and weave them all together. I just want to make sure that when you next on our agenda talk about focus groups that you help me understand what we need to do to truly reach people and not just the voices that are able to participate or that are comfortable talking to school board members through me. Some people don't want. to do that. They'd prefer to remain not anonymous but quiet. So let's talk about the focus groups. What do you need on top of the survey? I can add a field that says what is your zip code? I could try to add these other things. I just don't know the value it's going
235to bring or if it's going to prevent people from messing with the survey. We haven't seen a survey messed with in a long time. I'm not saying it won't happen and I know you've had some experiences It's always the first time we still think the people that care deeply about this district will be the vast majority of people filling out the survey Yeah, and I think like if you think it's going collecting that information is gonna have a chilling effect or It's just gonna be one more hurdle. Like I know with surveys if there are too many Hoops to jump through people just right exit out like we have to be mindful of how people interact digitally And we do we've said over and over and over again that we want community input That's our
236main priority in this process. So I think if in your experience if adding an extra box to fill in is going to You know initiate that X out response then let's not do it. I don't think I mean I hope people have better things to do at this point in their lives than mess with a survey or try to sway the the superintendent search to their benefit but I also think that if we are pairing it with targeted known quantity inputs, then I think we'll see a pattern, right? Is the survey totally skewed away from anything we've heard? Then we'll know to not maybe give it as much weight, right? So I think that that's good. And thanks for helping us through that. The finalist interviews we're not going to discuss in depth because you'll
237make that decision after you've seen the public engagement report. And you have lots of options for finalist interviews to engage community at the end of this process. So then to the focus groups, everything under search agreement is included. That's why we put it there instead. You'll have focus groups if you'd like those. In district meetings, I'll be here in person for everything. All of the national advertising sites, all of the diversity boosting through AASA, all 31 of those jobs boards are included. And background checks, national background checks on all of your semi-finalists are also included. So none of those are any additional fee. The focus groups, though, I'd love to hear what you would like us to arrange because we'll need to start setting those up immediately next week so we get them done before
238March 15th. Well, I would definitely like us to see having our affinity groups as... either one focus group or their own. I think that we have large input and staff and also parents in those groups. Those would be important to me. Certainly making sure that we are reaching the students that are not always the typical engaged. students, the ones that we're used to hearing from. Those are the big ones for me. And even, again, I feel this is where principals are really going to be key. They will know the parents at their buildings that don't typically engage. And so I would like them to get those parents to get an invitation to a focus group. And it could be at their school where they feel comfortable being. It could be virtual right now. We've got
239a lot of families that are not coming. They're not leaving their homes. And we need to be mindful of that. So those would be, like, I think it's essential that we reach the parents and the community members that we rarely, if ever, hear from. Chair Andreessen? Yes. Just because Adina was here and she had to leave. And so I just wanted to pass along a message from Adina that she had thought it would be a good idea. And I told her I would communicate this to have a focus group with, or to at least have the student board reps. And maybe, I think, did she say student council? She started with student board reps, and then I suggested that sometimes that's who we work with, but a school board student member reps might represent a
240broader coalition of students. But it's dependent upon each individual district. Sometimes there's a superintendent advisory committee of students that I could meet with. Sometimes there's advocacy groups, or the clubs and associations have a regular meeting for clubs and organizations and curriculars and things like that. Just passing it along, what she told me before she left. I mean, I guess I default to them being involved because they are. They're sitting at the table. And I think to, like, yes, student council. And again, I know at least at the high school, and I hear this at the middle schools as well, it's a popularity contest, right? I think that, you know, some... Elementary schools are very intentional about choosing students to be on their council that are representative of the school community. So again, I would kind
241of default to the site leader to know that culture and absolutely our board reps. I mean, they know the job of the superintendent, right? Like they're going to be able to give us really good specific feedback. Do we feel like They would be ones that might not fill out the survey. Who might not fill out the survey? The student board reps and student council. One of the things we found out that works really well with students is to work with the high school principal sometimes the middle school principal and have Time available during either advisory periods free periods whatever they might be called in your district To allow students up to 10 minutes to take 15 minutes to take the survey if they want to it must be optional But we have in some recent
242survey had seven or eight hundred kids fill out the survey during the school day left to their own devices to do it on weekends or at night they won't do it if it is something that is part of the class classroom we're getting some really great stuff from students but it does need to be coordinated with the middle school or high school and making time for that i think that's good that's okay and our student board reps can definitely help get the word out about that stuff okay they're really good about that Quick question. What is involved? What does a focus group or a listening session look like? Do you have predetermined questions that you're asking and hoping people will speak up? How does that go? Yes, so it's similar to the online survey or
243hard copy survey, but we go deeper with the questions. There's a difference between focus groups and listening sessions in that focus groups tend to be a particular focused group. It might be all of the PTOs at a certain time or something like that or a senior citizen center. Listening sessions are open to anyone and they tend to be at 6 o'clock Wednesday at the middle school and then one on Thursday morning at 8 o'clock at the community center and they're open to anyone. The listening sessions are notorious for people not coming. They have good intentions of coming. They want to come, but their lives are so busy. I can't count the number of listening sessions we've offered, and one or two people show up, and it's disappointing. So we've done online listening sessions. Join us
244online. We'll be online at 7.30 in the morning for staff. Had one person in a big district come to a 7.30 online listening session. We've done them after hours. The general cattle call to just come and tell MSP what you think and Barb's going to ask you questions and pull out of you what you really want. Only people who are really comfortable sharing their thoughts in front of other people will really tell me what I... to go deeper, but that's the intention of both the listening sessions and the focus groups. What it often does is it makes people feel heard in a personal way, in a way that they don't feel heard in the survey, but we do want people to do both. I don't want attendance at one of these other in-person events or
245online events to replace the survey. I want them to do both, but with our busy lives, we just really struggle to draw people to the in-person activities. How many of these do we get in our package? A reasonable number. A reasonable number. All right. And I don't know the district well enough to decide who holds which groups with whom. So I really do need to lean on the district, someone in the district or someone on the board to work with the district office and set these up. I'll just send, I'm available all this day from 8 a.m. until 10 at night. I'm available this day from noon until 7. I'll send those blocks of time. and someone inside the district needs to connect me with those groups. And that's a bit of a coordination. I
246don't know if Natalia has time to do that or if in conjunction with Dr. Mary Perry-Reed they could identify the groups to just book me with. You just book me with all the groups you want. I'll be here. I generally end up doing in a district this size six to eight group meetings. A reasonable amount would be probably 10 or less, and we only have until March 15th. I'll do more if you have more. I just want it to be worth the person's time when they come. And I'd like it to also be something I'm going to learn from people. Language groups have been helpful, specific through cultural liaisons, where we have a group with Spanish-speaking or Somali-speaking or any Hmong-speaking. We have them come in and work with the liaisons in the district, and
247I'll be there. They don't know me and trust me, so why would they tell me anything? But they can certainly work with the people they do trust. And maybe it's a survey. You fill out the survey one evening, and we come and help you fill out the surveys. Or we just could do a focus group and it's a translator. The challenge for people often seems to be they feel uncomfortable speaking for the group that they represent, right? Because they want to also be seen as individuals and individual families and representing an entire population because of... who you are can sometimes put undue pressure on some people to participate. Not everyone by any means, but not everyone's comfortable sharing. So we want to find a way to make them feel more comfortable sharing through whatever mechanisms
248the district has. I want to help and support in anything that will help do that. I think that's the affinity groups. I was talking about before they're also... cultural and language groups. And I just wanted to make sure that that clerk Wilhelm Garber's input was shared because she had lots around this topic of having it be a community accountable process. And so as we're collecting input from community. She wants to ensure that we have community listening sessions with students, teachers, staff, and administrators, parents, caregivers, and other community members. And she feels it's important that we share in our work how it is that this feedback is shaping our process, which I would agree with that, so that we have a way of saying, okay, this is what we heard, and this is how it's shifting.
249And that the survey and in-person community sessions, if they do surface other themes, qualities different from what the board identified, then we report that to community and change our analysis of applicants. And then she also says that community means all of us. Capital and in bold. So that we can ensure that it's built into our process that we are getting the input of as many of our community constituent groups as possible and she did call it specifically that we have if we have Spanish-speaking community advocates who can do grassroots and grassroots networking and follow up with Spanish-speaking parents community members and I would say that also for Somali and Hmong parents as well and then that students of all ages are included and she speaks specifically to including our elementary and early childhood students, which
250might make the student facing even more simplified. But I also think that That also and she calls this out to work with principal and school leads for how they might solicit and collect feedback from those students and I think a lot of our elementary schools in particular have Student councils that we can tap on for that So I just wanted to make sure that her input was also part of this conversation I don't think any of us are seeing anything that we haven't heard So what do you need from us tonight then? You're going to provide us a few days worth of availability. I need to know who to send that availability to. It's typically someone inside the district like a Natalia or Dr. Mary Perry-Reed and or a board chair to just get these
251meetings on the calendar. Okay, yes. That would be... It would be Natalia and Rhoda, and then they can disseminate to the school leaders. Okay. Because I think it will be the school leaders that will be driving a lot of this. Okay. Are we supposed to, should the board be, I don't know if there's actually any difference amongst us between wanting PTO's staff? Teachers are non-licensed, right? These affinity groups, maybe preschool, a couple for students to make that list explicit to... Do you want an explicit list? I would guess that Natalia and Dr. Mary Perry-Reed might want some direction from the board about who you want. me to meet with. And then they're going to need to figure out how to make it. Because the challenge is ideas are easy. The implementation is tricky. And I
252don't want to bury Natalia under a scheduling program. I'd like to keep it simple but reach as many people as we can. I will weave all of those results into the survey report with the open-ended questions. In terms of meeting with staff, sometimes it's easiest to meet with the leadership of the staff. I don't know how many bargaining units you have and how many people would be considered the leadership of the bargaining units. If there's eight to 15 people, they could be the focus group for the staff. I think an open call to staff will result in very low numbers. They'll want to come, but they are overworked and overbooked and might have families. And it's just very hard to set aside half an hour to talk to Barb when they can go take the
253survey also. So it's a challenge to line all of these up. And I want to do everything I can to help it succeed. But I'm going to acknowledge it's going to be a challenge. Yep. So a bargaining unit, leaders, one for the staff. Yeah. That's one of them. Yep. Okay. Bargaining units. Affinity groups. And the thing is, is these can be like, you know, affinity groups and PTOs can be one focus, you know, one session, right? Like we don't have to have a separate meeting for each. And these are better in person. Focus groups are better in person. The search preview meetings I can do online because I'm just sharing information. In this case, if I'm trying to draw people out in person tends to be far more productive. We are going to need to
254offer virtual sessions for our Somali and Spanish speaking. Sure. The focus groups? Yes. Okay. That is a necessity right now. Yep. My hesitancy with PTOs. I mean, nothing against them. I belong to a couple, but those would be the parents that we do hear from. That's true. They will be filling out the survey. I don't know. I'm just trying to think about that problem. Could we reach out to the BSU at the high school? Yeah, so for students, we want to do our board reps, council. Student leaders? Like if they, like is there a? Student clubs. Like a student club president? Like a different? They each have like a leader. A leader? Is that what you mean by BSU? Like the contact person. Yeah, but one of the staff members worked closely with them. Somebody
255reached out to that staff member. Yeah, I think we want the students though. Oh yeah. board reps, affinity, yeah. So student clubs are, and then I would also then have site leaders identify students to hear from. I do like that having that principals go to each of their within their communities and identify five students or so to join the call. And I think that would also be good. So parents. So we have our affinity groups and then also have site leaders ID. For some of the bigger groups we could instead of doing like a focus group. We could do a listening session like a parent K through five listening session, parent K through 12. Just kind of open it up online, I'm thinking. And it would be kind of like the Q&A. It would just
256be. Here's the process now after a half hour of listening to Barb and team talk. Here is the survey to fill out. I was thinking more like the transportation listening session. Like if you invite people in to just, you have two minutes. For like the board or? Because this is MSBA is going to be running these. Yeah. No, I don't know. I don't think it needs to be with the board, but it can just be the listening session is a little bit different than a focus group. They might elicit different kind of feedback. I'm not a survey or research professional. So I'll be asking the same questions in the listening sessions and the focus groups. Okay. I anticipate very low numbers will attend the listening sessions. Okay. Okay. So do we feel comfortable? So was
257that question like you were thinking of let's just host a free-for-all, like come tell us what you think? Like no targeted invite? Is that what you were? It might be nice to have one catch-all. Yeah, I was thinking just like one open mic night. One all you all. Okay. That would be really fun. Yeah, that would be nice to have one all, I guess, because who knows if any of these people might be on a trip or something and not be able to attend it there. Okay. I feel like we have a list that we can share then, and then the right people will help coordinate all of it. Okay. I will send, I'll try to block out. five to eight days on over the next we only have till March 15th so I'll skip
258next week because I think they'll be busy trying to line these up and then the next two weeks I'll try to block out five to eight days from you know eight to five or noon to nine at night to give some variety for early morning afternoon and evening sessions and I'll copy you on that chair Andreessen I'll send it to Natalia and Rhoda and copy you Okay, all right. Thank you that it's it's a tough decision because I don't know the inside of the district You all know the inside of the district and so coming up with a list is a lot of work so I appreciate all of you contributing to that and thank you very much for Facilitating passing that on and and I will get them dates. I'm open. So thank you
259All right. The rest of the agenda is relatively short. We're down to some housekeeping items The role of the current Superintendent. I just want to make sure we go on the record with the board as to do you see a role in the search for your current Superintendent? I will tell you that typically there is not a role for them in the search process other than to serve as a district ambassador cheerleader. If they're willing to take phone calls from people that are curious to ask about the job, but otherwise they usually don't come to the meetings. They obviously don't look at applications they don't. Recruit they don't do anything, but I want to see if you see a different role for dr. Mary Perry read then but The only thing would be was it
260just one meeting that it's our regular board meeting Yes, where we piggybacked something. I think it was the canon semi-finalist selection. Yeah, so she's usually at our regular board meetings. So that would just be an instance where she would be here because she's a board member. Yeah, so you'll have to sit through the half hour or so it might take you to name your semi-finalists. But yeah, that's great. Otherwise, do you see anything that you want her to do? Or has she indicated she wants to be a part of this process? Okay. No, I mean I at the beginning phase I really valued her input because she was a candidate for superintendent so I just wanted to make sure that we were doing something that candidates feel comfortable and Okay, so no role for the
261sitting superintendent. I mentioned earlier school board spokesperson. I just want clarity on who might, if the media comes calling, who might speak on behalf of the board. Is it the chair or is it your communications director? Do you know in your policy who speaks for the board? We usually defer that to our communications person. Okay. Yeah. So if everyone's comfortable with that, we can leave it. The board spokesperson would be Toya, correct? Okay. And that just reminds me, I would just ask that if you get inquiries, please don't give a quote to a newspaper or something because we want the board to act as one in this process. And if we start splintering off and doing individual interviews or... comments or podcasts, that can defeat the idea that you are one board. And we want
262to show as much unity as we possibly can during the process. So thank you for that. And I'll make sure that Toya, when I talk to her on Monday, is aware that if questions come in, they'll be deferred to her. Okay? Thank you. Ground rules. Just a few quick things. If you are asked to write a letter of reference, for this job, please don't do that. It puts you in a really awkward spot to write a letter of recommendation for one person and it might be 20 people in the pool. Similarly, if you're asked to be a reference, I would also politely decline. You may know people who want this job and you might think the world of them. It just makes it uncomfortable for everybody else if a board member is a reference for
263one or two people in the pool. So I would request that you not serve as a reference for your candidates. It's not against the law, so you certainly could do it. It just creates this weird dynamic where you appear to be favoring one candidate and you don't even know who else might be in the pool. So just keep that in mind. Please let me know if you see someone you're related to. I mentioned that, I think, in the interview because that does... trigger a special voting circumstance and you might be related within the fourth degree. Education is a pretty small world. It's happened twice to me in two years now. So we just want to make sure that if you recognize someone by blood or marriage, let me know that right away. Also, please do
264not directly recruit people. You may simply tell a candidate, have you seen our application for superintendent? Go take a look at it. You might say that it's intent versus impact what they might hear is I Had a board member asked me to apply. I have a leg up on this job And so they get unrealistic expectations about their chances and it could skew their application as well So we want you to be feel free to pass on the vacancy brochure Feel free let people know about the job Maybe put it on your social media. I don't know but Don't be very careful of when you talk to people that it doesn't feel like you are recruiting them You're the decision makers here So you have to be very careful to stay above the fray in
265every way possible So candidates don't get don't misunderstand your intent in encouraging them to look at it if you get questions Feel free to give my phone number to anyone and everyone. I don't want you feeling like you have to answer every question about the process. That's why you hire a search firm to take some of that load off of you. Once the Q&A is recorded, I will ask that you all watch that so you know what I've told people, but you also know what your school communities have asked me about the process. Try to speak with one voice and remain positive about the process. We'll talk about consensus building as part of our interview training. Generally speaking, just spend the next couple of months being the very best version of the Hopkins School Board
266that you can be. People will respond to that, and word does get out, and you do have interest in this job. We've received phone calls. When is that timeline going to get published? When is the leadership profile going to be public? So I'm excited for you. I think you're going to have a very good pool of candidates. So those are the only do's and don'ts I have for now. There will be more, but let me know if you have questions. Random questions on weekends, call me or text me. This is not a five-day-a-week job. It is seven days a week for a couple of months, so I'm accessible if you need anything, okay? In-district contact person, I've been communicating with Natalia as my point person. Will that remain the same? Okay. A confidentiality employee, we
267need to know who to give access to the applications when the search is complete. They'll need to download all of the applications and keep them in accordance with your data retention policies. I'm guessing it might be Nick. Confidentiality employee. That's the man. Okay. May I put him down as the person that we will send HR stuff to? Yes. Okay. Nick Lightfoot. Okay. The last thing is to look at the very back page in the packet and it has some highlighted questions and this is This provides 15 examples of questions. You can ask in the application process There's room for two in your application. We always ask based on the leadership profile Why are you a good fit for this district or something like that? That's always in there. But then the things in yellow are
268categories of stuff that people like to ask about in the application. If we can narrow it down to two or make up your own, you don't have to choose these. This is just sort of a shortcut. It's the wrong time of night to ask us to make it round. I wish we could have voted on these. Did you write something? I didn't write something, but I did look at these. I like number 12 just because it asks for a specific instance, and I think that... requires an applicant to really think about something specific and not give like some vague answer. Like I like a concrete example. I liked number three for the same reason. Yeah, I like that too. Number 15, I think it's important that we have someone who can maintain their well-being throughout
269this. this very well-intentioned job. I really like that as an interview question as far as two questions that they get to answer during the application. Some of these could be interview questions if you like them also. They don't have to stay application questions. Oh, are we selecting our two final questions right now? No, it's the screening questions. Oh, it's on the application. So people will... Be completing this when they fill out the application. I also liked 13 I did like to Number six I like just that Yeah, tell us about a time when you modeled and upheld your district's values and policies I feel like you'd get real answers for that one too because it's hard to Make up a BS story on that one of six Yeah, I like six. Okay. I like it
270better than five Yeah, I like it better than seven You'll also notice these are relatively broad. Remember I talked about the funnel earlier? They're relatively broad questions because you want to save the real specific questions for the interviews when they're in person, and you obviously want concrete examples. But this is meant to be, what do you need to know about them that would intrigue you enough to want to interview someone? This is your first blush of who they are as a leader. So to interview them, you need to know what. I do also like number two. it kind of is in line with the leadership profile and I feel like it's pretty broad because it asks about collaboration, trust and respect with everybody, staff, students, families, community partners. It's a multi-element question. I like that.
271Well, I actually kind of like to bury what I want to hear. But the thing that I like about this question is that it includes students. You can reword these too. These are just examples. So you can wordsmith and change and make up your own questions. I like two as well. Yeah, I like it too. Will the candidates get questions ahead of time, like interview questions ahead of time? That is something you'll have to decide when we get to the interview point. Most of the time they don't other than 15 minutes before they sit down with you when they first come in and they're escorted to a waiting area they might get 10 or 15 minutes just to glance at the questions. Sometimes a board will say We want three or four questions sent to
272them in advance because we're looking for a much more in-depth answer, and they want to give them time to do the research. Maybe it's something relative to your student test scores or your strategic plan. Those you probably want to send in advance, but everyone should get the exact amount of time, like 48 hours before their interview. For the most part, though... Boards don't send questions out in advance so when we talk about them in this meeting these will be public because they're in the application Everyone that fills out the application will have to answer one or two of these questions or something like that But your interview questions will try to be very cryptic So people don't hear us discussing the questions in this meeting or it gives a big advantage to people who are
273watching So to be determined vice chair Roper. So are we are we leaning toward 2 and 13? I like 11 too, but 11? I like 11 too. They are all good. I do like 11 also as an interview question and then maybe this communications one is also a better interview question than a screening question. So I like kind of 13, 6, and 2 as everyone's got to answer them screeners. 13, 6, and 2. And we get 2, right? Correct. All right. Do we just wanna, are we comfortable with two, six and 13 being our three and we need to pick two? Everyone comfortable with that? Okay, now we can do, hmm? Like raise your hand if you want to. Yeah, like we're gonna do a thumbs up, medium thumbs down, right? For two. Where are
274we all at with, I'm at a thumbs up. Which one? Two. Two. Are you a medium? Okay. What about six? Tell us about a time when you modeled and upheld your district's values and policies. How did that action influence those around you? All right. That's a no. So then we're doing, I would assume, 13. Describe a time when you promoted equity and inclusion. Alright, we got our two. I kind of like number one, too. Okay, I'm just saying. Stop liking things. You can ask all the questions in the interview. No more liking. I know. Vice Chair Roper, I'll just take the money. Two and thirteen. Two and thirteen. Can we wordsmith them? Yes. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I thought we were on to something. You do not want to do that. What if we merge
275them? Excuse me, Vice Chair Roper. I do actually really like question 15 that you called out. I think that that is a really important question and is something that's often on my mind as I think about the role of our superintendent and indeed all of our administrators. And so I think that that will be something important to keep in mind. And you also called out. the data and that decision making, I think that this part has shown that that's a priority and definitely things that will carry forward in the interview process. Yeah. And I was also thinking too of like, as I like number one, we were talking about like the vision 2031, like, like what is their vision for future of education? I think to kind of get some of their perspective. So they're
276all good. Thank you, Barb, for putting this. I think that would be good. Which ones? One, three, six. How many questions did they get in the first round? Probably 10 to 15. I'll propose about 40 and you're going to have to winnow it down. Round one is 10 to 15 questions at the most for a one-hour interview. 1, 3, 6, 11, 15. 1, 3, 6, 11, 15. Okay. You know, I think this is something I really like that you did. You selected 2 and 13. For the applications, especially question one. and 15. We have had questions that are more generic in other searches, and wouldn't you know it, there are a couple of candidates that had almost the identical answer. And how do you think they came up with almost the identical answer? AI. So
277we're learning to screen out AI-developed answers. And 15 is a phenomenal question. You feed that into chat GPT, you're going to get a great answer, whether it's true or not. If you ask it in an interview, They have to be authentic in their response or you're going to know. Oh, yeah. Oh, you all have? Questions two and 13 are good ones. Two and 13 are good ones because they are asking for specific examples from their experience. Yes. They can't chat GPT that. That's true. But I think one in 15, they could get you an AI answer that's going to be really good. So that's, I like that you picked the two you did for the application. So I have a quick question. So for the second round interviews, are those more kind of like? accountability
278measured questions. What do you mean? So like are those more so questions that will ask about you know I would say outcomes and like something like they're out like more like data driven questions for them are more so kind of like questions about like accountability and things like that. Yes. I don't know. I'm just trying to just think about those second round questions. Would those be more intentional to understanding the effectiveness of this candidate's leadership? Yes. Because these are more, I like these ones, but I think that will kind of get to the nitty gritty of what they're going to bring to the district. Absolutely. Round one, you could include a question about measurements and data, and maybe if it's one they haven't seen in advance, you want to see how they come up with
279it. Round two, you could even ask for a presentation on something that you did that had measurable impact in this way, and you allow them maybe 10 minutes to present that. So that's pretty specific. And then you'd also see their presentation style and how they put together material. You can lengthen the interviews to an hour and a half in round two and ask for 15 minutes of this, or you can have a transition plan presentation. That's in round two, sometimes real successful also. But you're absolutely right, Vice Chair Roper. You're getting down into very much specifics because you have a big decision to make in round two, and you want to know as much about them as you can. So that's what you'll be doing. I just have a quick check-in question. Are we done
280with our to-do items for this meeting? Yes, unless you have questions for me. Okay. I would like the presentation, though. Like, I think if we can maybe agree with that. Yeah, we can talk about that later in the process. Yeah. You got a lot done tonight, but it was a big agenda. Planning meetings are draining, but congratulations. I want to thank you because it was very thoughtful. I just need the opening paragraph for the vacancy brochure. I will route the vacancy brochure and timeline through to you, Chair Andreessen, to look at second set of eyes. And then we will, if it looks good, get a final copy to the full board. I'll send it to Toya to get on the website and we'll get it posted on Wednesday and launch the survey Wednesday as well.
281So thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And with that, I would look for a motion to adjourn. So I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye. And this meeting is adjourned at 10.04 p.m.