001All right. At this time is uh 7:44 and we go to regular session. At this time, I make a motion to approve Miss uh to accept the um the letter resignation for Miss Do I say the do I say the name or no? Mario. Motion by myself. Second by >> no recision is >> to accept resision of of letter >> the resision of letter >> the resision of the letter of resation resated for Miss Marota. Second motion made by Miss Ramos, second by Miss Martinez. >> I >> just for the record, that means that she's not retiring in December. >> That's basically it on executive order. >> Yes. >> At this time, we're going to keep the meeting going because of the team of eight. And at this time, we have Mr. Ramos. >> Evening
002everyone. >> Evening. >> My name is uh name is Dr. Hinto Ramos Jr., but please call me Sinto. Uh, good to be with you all. Uh, want to make sure that we're short, sweet, and effective. That's all right with you. Want to encourage you to have something to write with and write on. Want to ask you questions on Did we get You got the print out. >> Awesome. Thank you, >> Mr. President. Members of the board, you have a red folder. It says team of eight training December 8, 20. >> So, I don't want to make any assumptions. So, I I I really would kind of like to get a little bit of a baseline of what your grasp is on this. First thing I'd like you to write a little note about a sentence.
003What is the role of the little time to do a little self? What do you believe? The role of the present I'm laughing. I'm trying to write my notes as she's looking at. It's okay if you don't have the right answer. That's why we're doing a work. >> Give it your best shot. >> Once you've gotten that one, number two, finish. What is the role of I guess I should relation I was about to ask that. The third and the final one I'd like to ask you on uh is what percentage of the time of your board meeting do you currently spend monitoring? Give a percentage roughly. What percentage of time of your board meeting are spent on monitoring? Give it a Okay. Who would like to share first on first one? >> Oh, sure.
004>> Ro of the board. Yes. >> Okay. So, as a board member, I'm here to serve the community that will positively impact students, teachers, and staff. I'm always going to keep in mind that students social, emotional, and academic well-being is the main goal and mission. Keep the students at the center of every decision make sure >> I believe the role of superintendent is for him I mean the Oh, the board again. We're going to the board again. >> Oh, I thought we're going to number two. Okay. Uh no, we're I think our role is said to support our students, teachers, administration, and staff and uh in any and all things related to education and the best of our school. Um the board's role is to make sure there is transparency in district decision and to
005make decisions for the betterment of the district entirety which positively impact our student. So the role of the board is work together for the best staff and I know they mentioned about about working together and and support student but also we have we we also have a responsibility when it comes to the finance for the district and getting the stuff for the students that need to resources I put to oversee that adequate decisions are made for the school district that listen to the community's needs. >> Community We're not cheaters. >> Oh, I'm I'm going to give you the cliff for the sake of time. I um I'll I'll I'll trust that I'll that that you'll take a look what the A character one of the things that I love to do is bring you not
006only the research but also best practices that align this is actually notice from the National School Board Association. This is a 2008 publication still super relevant. Here's here's the dangerous part to that too though. There's not a ton of research yet. There's a lot of research a lot of research development when it comes to school boards. is not a lot of and what we do have we're building this framework that that I'm going to work off today comes from the council of the great never heard of it have 79 of the largest urban district Miami Los Angeles a lot a lot of those cities right and there was a conversation that was had like in 2013 where board members were asked why is your student achievement data etc. And then they also asked the superintendent.
007Guess what happened? >> We're not going >> one one big one. What happened is board members I was in a room board members started blaming the superintendent and then the superintendents weren't blaming their bosses but they were blaming other board members. superintendent said, "If the board members just got out of my way, I could actually probably board members said things like, "Well, if you listen to us from the from there, we probably would better off." And what we uncovered at that conference that time is that we needed to one tackle the mindset of the individual leader that we're going to get rid of this mindset that it's everyone else's fault. All that I'm pretending that everyone else has more power to bring about change. But we what we wanted to do was implement this mindset
008which is getting a little bit characteristic. I am the genesis that I have the power and the ability to now not later. The question then is how would you do that with frameworks that exist in governance but weren't producing those? How would how would a board member do that? And so we went deep into the research and I'm going to tell you that I got so geeked out on this conversation. That's why I went back to school. My dissertation involved schoolboard. I was a school board member. Here's a quick version of that one. Put a pin on. I was on a board of forward school district. You don't know what you're tell storyline. I give it to you on timeline. When I got off the board in 2022, I could see what was coming because
009our board decided to pretend that we didn't want to do progress monitoring. We didn't want to live into our biggest role as board members. When I got off the board, the very next board meeting, there was no more discussion about that. Mind you, we're coming out of the what happens now as you fast forward take over happen the pretending the mindset of the board that dared he didn't pulled away from doing what it knew to to be doing. It's one thing to say that you don't know any better. That's like I always say give yourselves grace if you don't know any. It's a different conversation when for me I failed too because I didn't ingrain it in my school board within $750 million budget pass the $1.2 billion. What do you think the majority of
010the board meeting and the focus on start all of those things? No more conversations about academic achievement. So then what happens is academic achievement starts falling and it's going under the radar because no one at the table is asking questions and the superintendent is chasing down pet projects individual board members but we're there's nine of us. So, think about it. What you're going to go through here, what I'm going to go through with you, this idea and this notion of what is the board's role? What is a superintendent's role? I'll answer I'll help you answer the questions today. The number one thing in the research, now to go back to that, that I learned the hard way, role confusion. It's when board members don't know their role and they unintentionally and accidentally dip into their
011their role. And the same thing, there are superintendents being developed around the country that they're saying, "Well, your board members, you know, they they're going to act a certain way." Most superintendents around the country say that they have a good board. When they say, "My board doesn't get in my way." What I'm going to argue and submit to you today is that that's not a good answer. The answer is exactly what y'all said here. These are all connected, working together. Can you believe that there are boards that work really well together and they still have poor academic performance? You imagine that because they don't know their role. They don't know what they're supposed to focus. We can all get along great, but I would submit to you as well, you know, again, let's get advantage.
012We all get along great, but if we're not focusing on what we supposed to be doing, then I would probably put on the table. So that's what I want to present with you because when I was a board member, I went four years my first term. Had no idea what else was. You best believe you can find video of me on YouTube. You best believe that I acted really good. And I can also tell you as I walk you through basics in a bit, my community thought I was the best board member ever. I'm not bragging, just a testimony, but I can also tell you that I wasn't doing had to go on an apology by you. Now I know better won't fail you. Are you curious a little bit about what your role is?
013Clarify them because you've got most of them. I just want to make sure you walk out with research how powerful you really are. How it's not tomorrow. What questions, thoughts, or wonders do you have before? Let me walk you through this. Yeah, let's dive right in. So, I like to start here, and we're not going to read them all, but again, I really do encourage you to take some time to read it. It's not a long scholarly piece, but it's still so good and it's still cited in a lot of the dissertations and research still coming out right now. There's some books that I'll show you that I would recommend for you to check out. I used to be on the TASBY board. Uh my friends at TASBY have been reading this book, Governance 2.0.
014And then this one is the OG. I come from a neighborhood we used to have a lot of gangs back in the day. That's OG term gangster full of gangster. This book right here talks about why we member district why we have a large four-ear term right all of that stuff is explained in this book cover. Curious as to how and why school boards were designed all of that. This is all So I want to ask who will read the first characteristic of the eight characteristics on page three. >> Yes. >> Effective school boards commit to a vision of high expectations for student achievement and quality instruction and define clear goals towards that vision. >> What do you think that is board? vision. Quick question. You don't have to answer. I just want you to
015know from Do you know what your vision for progressive? You have a memory. >> You do have a vision. Can anybody have it anywhere nearby? We have it. We have it on. >> I like it. >> Beautiful. Let me help you out board. What we did is we took this this we added all the new research. What this number one is talking about it's that boards are to represent two main things to their community. One, you are to represent the vision of your community. What we mean by that is what are the goals that you've established? What are the goals that you're monitoring for student achievement? Texas is the first state in the country to require school boards to get training. Surprise surprise, most states in the country still require zero hours of training for
016board members. Yeah. The second thing is Texas has a law, House Bill 3, that requires board to adopt three goals. Any idea what those three goals are? >> Okay. If you don't know, you could ask, >> but I glad you asked. >> The first one, House House, is early years literacy. Early years literacy. Most boards usually identify third grade. Why do you think that is? >> Start testing. Yes. Do first and second graders get start testing? >> No. third graders do. Right now, let's talk about it real quick. What happens if a kid can't read in third grade? >> Falling behind. And if if you've been in educ >> Oh, you're giving me chills because >> Yes, you're g chill because this is this is the reality of what we face. If you're not monitoring
017progress of your third grade baby, it gets harder and harder every year to get them caught up. And so as board members, you might want to be asking questions when you're monitoring your goals. What are the strategy? Okay, so tell me what it is. So for example, you don't have to answer now because most board members don't know it. So I'm throwing a pop quiz that I don't really want you to say out loud, but what is your third grade? meets her not approaching meet or high school third grade. And it's okay if you don't know because first time I ever did this kind of work. I was bragging about the football program and the perf that I had gotten my my colleagues to vote on. I was proud of parent engagement programming that we
018had. I was proud of the mariachi uniforms because I was tired of all these districts in the valley. So I was like, man, you know, I got to get my kids all their new mariachi outfits. Got to get them the new instruments. Those are the things that I was proud of. But when the facilitator asked me, "What is your third grade literacy?" At that time, 2017, it was 34%. When the pandemic hit, we dropped down to 20. Right now, we're at 37. What does that mean, though? What does 30% literacy mean? That's also education. >> She's a principal. >> Come on now. Now I think now I'm connecting the dots because And what does that mean if you're explaining it to the local person? >> How could I get a tighter education plan, >> right?
019The other thing is that for the everyday senor senora in the community that may not understand how school operating, this is the way I've broke it down to them from that point on. Well, you know, first of all, I say, you know, you know what the the literacy is? I'll just do you got turf now. We got mariachi out. They call meto what that means, is that about seven out of 10 kids, what that means, seenor, is that they're they're going to fall behind. They're going to struggle with math. struggle with science and struggle with social studies because they cannot comprehend what they're reading much less be prepared for the other what I'm telling you is that when your child should they choose to go to a university go on to something like that they're
020going to need a lot of intervention and what that means senora or senor is that when they get into that university they're going to have to take a lot of remedial courses we are failing your child I am failing your child that's the way the conversation because when I internalized this word I was like you know what my board was focused on? We're focusing on contracts. We're focused on athletics. We're focused on mariachi and we never talked about the education. >> That's what number one is talking about. >> I do have a question. Um along those lines, you know, as a learning experience as we go through the process of having the board meeting, um we presented the results back in September. We we presented the plan of action uh all the different strategies that
021we're going to use. Then we're taking a benchmark in December. So in January we're presenting the results for for that benchmark. What do you suggest we do? Okay. So in September we presented the results. Um December we have the benchmark. So from September, October, November, what should we do with those results? present them again, you know, ju just give a followup. What would be your recommendation there? >> I think you I think you gave me a good segue to giving you the inputs, outputs, and outcomes. Love to call the ABCs of school for governance. And again, we designed these at the national level from Washington DC. I don't know if you know a lot of people have a lot of feelings about Lonear Governance, as did I. When I first went through it in Fort
022Worth, I didn't like it. And I tell you that I'm a nationally certified trainer now for a reason. changed changed me as a human being, but it gave me so much clarity as to what I was supposed to. I didn't want to leave that role not having done the best that I could. So, I'm going to give you the anal the analogy of the question you just asked. We're going to this how we're going to merge it into the training. Save us time. I want you to imagine that you're the owner of a major league football team. >> Come on now. And I'm so glad you said that because >> I'm so glad you said that. Because Jerry Jones is going to become relevant in this conversation. >> So, what is the outcome that you
023want? >> Super Bowl. >> Yep. >> You want to win the Super Bowl. >> Yeah. >> I mean, I don't know if we're going to get it this year, >> right? The odds are kind of against us. >> But there's a chance. >> There's a chance. You are a diehard Cowboy fan. >> There's a >> So, the outcome that we want is that we want to win the championship. This is all going to connect back to what you asked. So before the game even starts, what do I need in order to win the game? >> Team practice, >> weaknesses, assess them, >> espansa. Got to get that. >> A good coach. >> A good game plan. Game plan resource. >> Yes. What about like when you say resources, we got to feed the team too,
024right? Got to transport them. I mean there's so >> yes so all of these things we call inputs somebody please read what inputs are for >> resources and activities invested in a particular program process or strategy usually knowable at the beginning of a cycle >> yeah you said resources you got to know do I have the right coach do I have assistant coaches do I have enough players do we have all of those things are important we call those inputs they got to be known at the beginning. What do we know at halftime? >> What adjustments to do? >> How do you know what? Why do you know that you probably need to score >> the score? If we're winning, what are you going to do? >> You're going to keep going. >> Good. >>
025Defend so that they don't score on you. Defensive. >> That's right. Because you still got to get a strategy, right? Because they're also in the halftime, they're also looking to make their adjustments. We got to stay on our game. >> What if we're losing? Got to make changes. >> That's right. So, the score is important in order for us to know what we're going to do and how we're going to move and how we're going to navigate. I bet I bet y'all don't know, but you're doing schoolboard governance outputs. Would somebody read what outputs are of a particular set of inputs and the cycle measure of the process Let me tell you, there's only three words. Inputs, outputs, and outcomes. We've already gone through two. Inputs, resources, you got to know at the beginning. Outputs
026is important because if I don't know what the score is, then I don't know what to do. >> Sense. And then what do we know at the end of the game? >> Yeah. >> There you go. If it >> What's that? >> Yeah. We at Man, y'all give me chills because this is fun for me. You see, I'm geeking out on this. >> If if if at the end of the game, yes, that's it, right? There's no more adjustments to be made. It's game over. Like, it's the final result. So, it's the impact that you know at the end of the cycle. >> If we won, we're celebrating. If we lost, we're like, "Oh my goodness, where did we go wrong? How does this connect to school? And then when you see that you and
027it goes wrong, you regroup. >> That's the key. Like >> usually it's blaming this person, right? Or the people the team. >> We are very we are very very particular in the way we design these modules. Washington, Texas. Texas was the first state in the country to do this governance. First little curiosity why little fun fact guy named Mike Morath sat on the Dallas independent they were releasing these modules but one of the first ones in the country to go through this guy named Dr. Mike Cast he loved it. Not too long after that gets appointed it as he said we will be the first in the country to launch a governance over oversight governance infrastructure. That's where we've been at all 100%. No make believe. There's no we think it works. We don't incorporate
028anything unless it's just getting better. So here we go. Inputs. Now I get to answer your question directly. Inputs are the things that he is doing because in this analogy, you're the owners. He's the head coach. Make sense? The questions are he's bringing you inputs on these agendas. He wants you to approve or he wants you to vet them. So your your role, this is how we can define the roles. His role is the inputs. His role is the teachers, professional development, finance, all that stuff. But then here's the question. Then what's your role? If that's his job, then what's your >> prove everything? >> No, not because >> if you know if if it's clarification question where he's coming from with those evaluated. There you go. Evaluated. >> Your your your biggest superpower as
029board is definitely to ask questions. I'm not saying reject it, right? Let's be clear. Let me be on the record. I am saying though, reject it if you're not keep rejected if and this is where boards get in trouble. Boards that rubber stamp agenda items will later catch themselves in a pickle and then say, "Well, I trusted you, so now I'm going to blame it on you." What we submit to you is, "No, play a big role." Or again, some basic healthy characteristics of boards. You read your board package. You submit questions to him ahead of time so that you don't catch him off guard here. The worst thing to do is throw him a curveball at the boardw for the sake of looking good on camera or to get a video clip to send
030out and about or usually what I'll tell you be honest with you I don't I don't play around as a coach when I watch a board member throw a curveball from the dice I'm like oh they didn't prepare andor somebody got in their ear right and what it does is it deteriorates the trust so there are things that are very technical and there are things that are very adaptive that can be discussed and unpacked Bottom line is that's his role. You have a role. His job is to do the hard everything he's been doing. He's been doing the homework. He's been meeting with his team. They prep for the board meetings. Huh. But he's got to be con and you got to be convinced that the inputs are good. What questions, thoughts, wonder you have
031about inputs? pretty much >> trusting. >> Yeah. Yeah. And there are ways that you can build that trust. Meet with him before. Don't just wait to do it at the board meeting. He's okay with you to talk to him. Let him talk to you. Walk you through. Let bring his team in. Hey, we got you know the worst thing to do is to bring you an explosive topic and you're going to unpack it as people. That's not there are a lot of technical things that you can do to build that trust. It's great when you have the trust because you can play a lot of offense. When you lack the trust and don't let it get there, it would it's usually because of the role of confusion and the role overlap and then when a
032board gets sideways with the two gets bad around. Let me let me give you one more. it trickles throughout the rest of the organ. We call it parallel processing. A board that's disrespectful to one another and disrespectful to superintendent. What I say is don't be surprised if the superintendent turns around as disrespectful to their team. Their team turn around disrespectful to campus. Campus leaders turn around disrespectful to teachers. Teachers turn around disrespectful to students. Students turn around disrespectful to community. I subscribe to this leadership mindset and model. You are the leader. You are the representatives of the true owners of your community. You are elected to represent them. Two main things you're supposed to do is the vision and we haven't talked about second one called the value. I'm glad that you said Dallas Cowboy.
033Let me go through outputs before I go to Carrie Jones. outputs. What does that look like in a school system? What could you equate to a scoreboard? >> Star scores. >> Hold that one because that'll be for the last one, but close to that. >> Ability climate. >> Yes. Yes. They're not the final results. They are Yeah. We usually call those formative assessments. We call those all kinds of diagnostic assessments. Outputs is you you don't want to wait. This one really answers your question. You don't want to wait till the end of the year to figure out if you're going to win the game or lose it. The biggest mistake most boards make is they don't do these two and they only do this. So when your star scores come out, if you have no
034idea if you're going to win the game or lose the game, it's because you left your two biggest superpowers on the table. So what can you do? Every board meeting, what we recommend should have academic achievement not at the bottom of the agenda, but at the top of the If I want to move my kid to progressively independent school district, and I'm familiar with this kind of work, I'm looking to see where you going to talk about academic achievement. I'm not talking about the bad things. I'm talking about just monitor. Like most of these times is to celebrate. >> Yeah. >> Good work that's being done. I looked at some of your data. I was sharing with you. I was like, y'all pretty good. Y'all pretty good. But y'all ever read that book Good to
035Great by Jim Collins that good is good. So when you got so much off Good. Oh, I got a ton of books I can recommend. Yeah, that one you you you have the ability to be on the verge of breaking it when you fully understand your role. He knows his. Imagine how powerful it's going to be when you live in your role. He's living his own head coach. What I'm not suggesting is to get rid of your head coach. You got a good one. Here's the problem with Jerry Jones that I've said all over the country. Gary Jones likes to go into the locker room, tell players about the he likes to go into assistant coaches meeting and give opposing direction than from his head coach. I know I've taught at TC my players in
036one of my former kick return wide receiver call him turf forward won't say too much on camera but this Jerry Jones that people hear about a very real Jerry so can you equate that to the behavior of board members that may be conducting themselves as if they're many super board members that go to campuses and give opposing direction than what the superintendent board members that go and meddle into the weeds of the inputs. And can you imagine how that might play out for school system? So this is why the role is important because here's the thing I told you that this is the main role of the superintendent. Your job all the inputs, all the recommendations, your job give them quarterly updates on each goal. So I didn't give you the other two goals. First
037is early literacy. Second is early years mathematics and third is college career military readiness. There is no middle school one but it's the reason why a lot of boards do put a middle school goal based on what the data tells then he is job his job is here. Then whose job is the outcome the board or the soup? >> All of us do. >> That's that's a good full answer. But I'm a real talk kind of a guy who's primarily responsible. Why the school? >> Come on. Hit that before it hits you. Yes, ma'am. I heard you, too. Hit that before it hits you. Got chills. I did get you. Because when a board can understand your role, if you don't meet these metrics, most boards want to But when you're doing your job during
038the year, there's no surprising, you're going to know by way of him presenting output data, use NWP map or I ready or any of those tools, right? It's his job to make the recommendation. It's your job to say, is that the best possible output tool that's predictive of the outcomes because we don't want to get surprised in the right now. I'll share with you have a prime opportunity coming out of the holiday going to be you might want to know how are we looking towards the three house three goals that requires on that's a great introduction conversation and because you get along that much more powerful and that much more collaborative you were a busted board like where everybody's at each other's throat It would be hard but it wouldn't be a problem opportunity a
039lot of offerings. Now let me take a pause what questions thoughts wonders about inputs outputs. >> Dr. Ramos let me let me mention something reason why I asked that and I have to defend my board. U there there is this misconception that student achievement is always about percentages. It's always about what you just asked right now. Okay. Third grade literacy. Obviously they didn't know the answer. they don't have it in front of them. Um, if they would have known that that question was going to be asked, I'm pretty sure that it would go back to the notes. But I do >> Thank you. >> I have to defend my my board. But I do want to to mention that student achievement is not always about a specific percentage. We've been talking about blue bonnet. We've
040been talking about uh changing administration, changing principles. We've been talking about investing in in uh reading intervention. So what I want to say is we do talk about student achievement every board meeting uh but a student achievement is not always okay reading 37% 40% >> 50% etc. Does that make sense? It's not numbers. It's not numbers >> referencing counseling. >> The counseling. >> Yes. >> Uniform. No eventually will >> have an impact on the student achieve. >> So I would push back a bit in this. If if I am not connecting what inputs are connected to which outputs which outcome, then I'm just practicing. Let me give you the example. I played basketball as a kid. When I go to the north, when I go to the recreation center and I'm practicing, I'm shooting hoops.
041I want to make them, but nobody's keeping score. But when I played against another team, best believe I showed up with my game face. What we submit is and and yeah, we're going to cover here in a bit like social emotional. We are definitely not saying that this is the only thing, but we are saying it is the main thing. Here's why. Because think about what people ask ask you when you when they stop you at the grocery store. What do they want to talk to you about when you're at a place of worship or at at your child's school? Are they coming to talk to you about third grade literacy, mathematics, college career, military readiness? Thank you. We're being real. So what we know to be true is that academic achievement falls to the
042background that the assumption is made that it's being done. admit to you is that when you take a deep dive into your data and stay in your data coming up in a minute and speak to what you just said when we say that student outcomes don't change in adult behavior because it's adults that are overseen. If my kid happens to be part of that 70% that's not getting their you add these other variables special education any of those other ones that people want to make with I can tell you that I love working over here in region one I love these boards north of here that say well those Spanish speak kids ain't got no t now got evidence for you been to the valley ever been to the 956 have you ever looked it's
043the mindset said that if I believe a child lacks capacity and ability, which come up here in a bit too, I'm already allowing the future to be written for me without me even giving these kids a fighting chance. What I'll submit to you too, when we first started this, we didn't have enough evidence. Now, we got a lot of evidence. The research is is basic, but it's hard to do because what do people come to talk to you about? everything under the sun except academics. And what do most people in my community, like I told you, you're doing a great job. You keep it up. And after so much of this training and internalizing, I'm like, telling me the data was flatlining. I got off the board, I could see it going down. The board
044was losing its focus. four years later got a big district board lost sight what is sense if you're not having board meetings where you're connecting your agenda items then you're just practicing right that's as tough as that might be for you to hear you cannot connect it to an outcome that you have prioritized as a board and a superintendent team that it's like random acts of equity they're just random OM as a principal I would I would assume right that everything every input that's coming into your campus has to be connected to some type >> yes and this is what I'm saying to you board that what principles know really well at their campuses they speak this language you have data and you cannot take it off the table so parallel processing when the board
045does the same thing you force the whole system to recalibrate the focus but if you Don't do that. Your data starts to go down or you don't know why you're functioning at the level that you are not. >> That's a good question. Here's what I'm going to do when I'm done. And I'm going to send you I'm going to send you two videos, two boards that I've coached that not only is their academic achievement going up. You'll get to see the the structure of their board meeting. We have this thing figured out 100%. And I also will send you a couple of scholarly articles for you to read and see how much president. I'm I'm fully I'm I'm that one board member that I didn't want to do any professional development unless I knew that
046it was going to my time because you're doing this for what we say free.99. You're not getting paid to do but why waste your time. The same with me when I got when I found my coach who's still my coach by the way. I learned how all of this was so important that when I wasn't doing this I was pretending. That's the thing that we want to get rid. You want to get rid of >> here's the reason why too and I'm going to connect let's just go through them so I can make it >> yes absolutely I like that the way you do that >> but you're talking about data and this is what I was trying to tell you can you present in January present but it was comparable right so there put
047data inputs output comparable data that's talking >> you want to see the difference between before the inputs and after the output >> 100% We call those progress monitoring reports. You will have the previous year's data so that you know if you're moving up, if you're flat, or you're going down. >> And I think I think if I remember correctly, third grade something that's >> on the approaches, but he was asking >> they passed It it counts positive towards accountability acceptable. >> I have hope of making growth. >> You know what? >> Uh so so I get my my question is in September you know plan of action the results uh we have the benchmark. So in between what do you suggest like to to present uh quizzes scores to present >> report cards? Before I
048leave here in a bit, I'm going to pull up an example of a board other state to get a visual. Um, but my question to you and your team would be what are the best outputs that you have that are the most predictive of >> you said blue bonnet, right? >> Yes. >> Let me help you. Let me help you with this. This is what I learned from another superintendent nearby here. Won't say their name. It was pretty powerful with coverage. The superintendent is a big data person. said, "I am not excited about what we currently have with Bonnet formative assessment." This superintendent doesn't think that they're predictive. Um there's not enough questions to to her opinion and her world experience. So, she is bringing in another tool that costs a lot of money, but
049is is historically more predictive of target. What you don't want is you don't want to be funding and you don't want to be overesting. Let me tell you that way. You may overtest kids if you have the wrong output tools. If you don't have the right formative assessments and if you allow campuses too much uh leeway or right there's big districts that each school has their own output tool. Somebody might be using I Ready, somebody might be using NWA map, right? But then when you don't have predictability across the district, then don't be surprised at when one campus is doing better the other. Here you have the opportunities to streamline everything to think and and talk to your principles, talk to your teachers, which are the outputs that are producing best dividends for it. That's
050how you get rid of too much testing. That's how you narrow down to things that are predictable that are working because each quarter you would have data. So you had your beginning of the year data. You hopefully have looked at that and then you're about to get middle of the year data and then going into the star exam you're going to have that third quarter. That's the analogy. So right now at halftime if you get your NW map or I ready or whatever it is that that tool that you may be using you as a board want to know so are we your question is simple coming out of the holiday. Mr. Gonado, are we on track to win the game or lose the game? And he's going to break it down to you. If
051he tells you that you're on track, what are you going to do? Yeah. Show him. Show you the data. And what else? >> You're on track. You're winning the game. Okay. >> Cheer them on 100%. reinforce. >> Reinforce the questions that are being asked at the board meetings is what's working and what's not working, what needs more attention. That makes it easier for you to come with items, inputs, say we need more inputs. I need more instructional coaches here. I need more resources over here. I need a sped teacher over here. Right? Because he's giving you the connection how it all comes together. and preaching thought that help. Let's finish the rest of these and I think it'll connect all the dots. Somebody read the second one for us. I won't I won't veer off
052too much though. >> School boards have strong shared needs and values about what is possible for students and their ability to learn and the system and its ability all children at high level. >> Yep. This is how we translated in the framework. You are to represent the vision and the values. These are goals specifically student outcome goals. These we call Guard rails is social emotional. Guard rails is safety and security. In other words, guardrails are topics that are not student outcome focused. Doesn't mean that they don't they don't matter. They matter a lot. The question is, what do you as a board identify as one to five non- studentent outcome things that you want him to focus on? See, the thing that's real clear on research, you give him too many goals, he's not going
053to get them done. CVY's research saying that you focus on one to three goals, you're likely going to get one to three. You focus on up to five, you may get three or four. Let me break it down real simple. One, two, three, four, five, six. Let's say that each one of you have three individual campaign goals for three individual court. You're social emotional. Well, I want us I want a fence all around. I want turf. I want mariachi. Right? You see how they add up? If each of you has three, how many does that equal? >> 21. I just told you the basic research. What is the probability he's going to get all 21 done? There you go. >> And let me tell you how the politics. >> We only need 70%. >> We're
054gonna give >> you only need 70%. >> Here's how here's how you may unintentionally bring in the politics. That's my favorite word. >> There's politics. I can handle politics. Politics is when it gets conniving and deceitful. There becomes a majority and a minority. How do you avoid that? Do good solid governance. you discuss as a team what are the one to five student outcome goals you want and what are the one to five guard rules and you want it rooted in your community's feedback community listen to communities need this is one of the other ones that's left on the table that most boards leave to the superintendent to do all the community engagement and outreach break the news to you it's your biggest role there's districts nearby that we've been doing a lot of community
055engagement and outreach They they wrote out what they thought their values were and they come to find out that they didn't have them right. That's okay because they went and listened to their community. Their community told them, "Okay, student achievement, please take care of that. But we're concerned with safety. We're concerned with buses." Heard you talk about buses, right? The thing is when you write them down and you let him present measurables on how he's taking care of it, those shouldn't take more than one to three years for if he has the money. This also makes it easier during budget season. Right now, if you have no more than five goals and no more than five guard rails, you've given him plenty of work to do, but be careful to not add a whole bunch
056of other things to his plate because you're stretching him out. This is the way I can give it to you. a board that has 21 different objectives and doesn't have an infrastructure. You're a mile wide only in you're not going to get much of it done. But a board that narrows its focus to no more than five student outcome goals, no more than five guard rails, you're an inch wide and you're a mile deep. You're going to be tempted to want to bring all these other topics because Dona Maria called me with a complaint. But if you're doing community engagement, Don Maria's voice isn't the only one that you're listening. Get to see what the patterns are in your >> Yes. That's what I was going to ask because uh not so long ago, we
057just made our list because we said that that we want to do a lot of stuff and we need to >> prioritize and we did that. But then when things arise, how do you >> put them on the side or do we skip a one and move it down and then put that one in there? >> I call those whirlwinds. You're always going to have world with the research and we're going to keep going through this. The boards that are able to stay disciplined more likely to get their objective met than when you lose focus. Don't hard hard you are the closest elected official but probably arguably precious. So that I would say would be a motivating driver for you to become this. It's hard. >> Yes, we noted that. We noted it and we'll
058get to >> let let's keep going through because then I think it'll enhance what the message I'm read number are accountability spending less time on operational and more time focused on policy. We figured that a board that spends 50% of its board meeting talking about student achievement has a high probability of actually impacting people makes sense. No, what I give my time and attention to likely going to be done. The mistake that a lot of boards make is they really want to talk about all the adult inputs and adult issues at the beginning of the meeting or they want to talk about contracts and vendors and then at the end of the meeting they want to talk about student achievement. Basically, let me give it to you. How the dangers of that right now? You're
059probably fading on me. What part of the agenda are we on right now? The beginning or the end? The end. So, let's just keep it 100 as the young people say that what I put towards the front of the beginning of the meeting is likely going to be where I'm going to have the most energy. I got a I watch a ton of board meetings all over the country. I work with a lot of boards all over the country. When I see a board member standing up and leaning over the chair, we have gone way past the threshold of what an effective board meeting. Everything that we do and we designed would design for you to have an average of a two-hour board meeting or less and that you're effective come take care of your
060business. You get to go back home earlier than what you used to and you've been monitoring. Send the message throughout the rest of we care about and by the guard rails. We care about the other five things. Make sense? 50% is is the goal. Not everybody gets there, but at least you have a number in. And again, the board meetings I'm going to send you, you're going to see how easy it is for them to spend at least 50%. Because the other thing that you probably I don't want to make an assumption, but most boards don't know how to do progress monitoring because what kind of questions am I supposed to ask? I know to ask better questions around their budget. Do we have enough money or not? I know how to ask questions about
061transportation because I know if my kid didn't get picked up or somebody else's kid didn't get picked up. But if I haven't been an educator, then how do I ask questions about academics? That's a big part of the framework. All right. Who read the next one for >> support to inform and engage both internal and external stakeholders that >> there it is what you're doing here when he's presenting the data and the information and everything. It's not just for you to retain it here. It's designed for you to go back out to the community as a team and educate the everyday person who's not at your board meeting or watching. It's opportunity for you to go and talk to your teachers and instructional leaders and hold two-way communication with him, right? But you're leading it.
062That's the biggest thing in this framework. You're supposed to lead the listening. You're the representatives of the donors, right? Guess what? You're also supposed to go listen, right? And it's not a lot of people get concerned. Well, are people going to be complaining all the time? That may be part of it in the beginning, but they're not used to board members coming to them listening. >> Yeah. Because you can't fix what you don't know what's wrong. >> And then when you speak the language of the ABCs of governing, that actually something we call inputs, that's his responsibility. So everything you're bringing to me about get rid of this teacher or hire this person, you know, that's actually not my role. Trust me, they don't like to hear it. Over time, when you have consistencies of
063board, send that message very, very directly and often, people will start using the chain of command versus trying to skip the line by those behaviors are dangerous. I can tell you that guilty is charged on that one. It's a bottomless pit. I was the board member out of the nine that made myself so accessible, I almost lost my day job because the complaints wouldn't stop. The principal got really savvy with their work orders that would file for months and months. They would invite me to come and do career day. Then after career day, I say, "Thank you so much for inviting me. I really enjoyed my time with your kids. I'm going to head back to the office." "Oh, can you walk with me real quick over the auditorium?" "Sure. What's going on?" And then
064you see that leak over there, Mr. >> It's been here for years. >> And what did I do? Didn't know my role. What's up with you and your teachers? Why are you ignoring the principal? I mean, mind you, we had 134 campuses and I as a board member had not set a guard rail with my colleagues to say fix the operation, the work order backup that we have. When you write it and you give him a very clear directive and guard rails, guess what he's likely going to do? They'll go take care of it. But if I'm bombarding him with two or three more things on top of that, he only has so much time in the day to follow community. That's the big one. Number five, >> but is it okay to still let
065him know? Because then, like I said, if he doesn't know, how does it get fixed? And then people think you're not listening. So it's like we we told them, "Oh, we're going to be listening to you and advocating for you." And then how how do you know? >> That's a good question. >> How about we ask him ask would he like >> yes I would like to know because if I don't know then um and I think that's part of of the team of a process have that communication sometimes parents are going to open up more so to the community leaders rather than to Okay. My hardest time on the board was educating my they thought a good board me had to find a way to do it. I I in my I was in
066my church. We would have my priest would hold regular meetings for me, talk to the parents when I started doing it. Those were some of the hardest nights because the last thing I was like, I'm about to lose vote. Quite the contrary, I went two more election cycles. Example, it cost about 90 to $100,000 to run. Thought I wasn't worried about not being able to raise. Yes, I was worried about I was worried about losing support. The opposite happen. opposes happening with district country doing this work takes time to win over your community have trust when they trust you that much better you know what also happens so independence not only are they great in football they're one of my favorite I'll send you one of their less watch January this year was the first
067time over a decade that not one board member was to do so much community engagement and outreach that the pastors came to the meeting and said, "This board, leave them alone." I don't know what they're doing, but academic achievements going up. We're state champs in football. This board community, leave them alone. Not a single one of them. There are benefits to doing it the right way. When you bring your people along with you, other one that comes out of this, when you do a schoolboard school and you develop your next round of potential board members, you can do two things. You can tell them, hey, oh yeah, this is actually what our role is. I almost forgot that's not what I want to do. I want to go in there and tell him what to
068do. I want to tell him which principle or which coach to get rid of. That's actually not our role. A lot of people that go through those professional development before the filing deadline, they say, "No, but I don't want to do that. have that but if you don't educate your community don't educate potential candidates this won't live it'll die with you I did not incorporate that final thing we now have evidence I'm going read the next one board SI they brace and monitor data monitor moni monitor data even if the information negative thank you part even if it's negative put it out there what did y'all say transparency >> betterment of the district if the data isn't good own it stand with him stand with your leadership and give them tell them we are getting
069organized as a team I love that you're looking at professional development We are looking to get organized as a team. We're going to be laser focused. We're going to adhere to these characteristics. We're going to bring transparency. We won't get to work. Guess what? We need your help, too. >> Yes. Educate the parents because sometimes they don't understand when you want to hold their kid one year back because they're not ready. They're not learning at the grade level they're supposed to. I don't know why parents see it as bad thing and they get defensive right away that no, like, you know, pass them. But like you said, in third grade, it's about strategy. So they're just trying to copy the strategy, but they're they fall behind because they they don't learn how to their grade
070is too late already. >> This community engagement piece again, right? The tool that we have, it begins and it always ends. The other thing that protects the superintendent and it protects you data savvy got to know your data. Number six, >> effective supports align professional development. No. He's bringing you inputs, recommendations on professional development. We want to know how's it working out because we want to keep you want to keep asking us to fund these things. You'd like to have an update on how these professional developments are working out. What are the what are the instructional leaders say? >> Yeah, that one's pretty pretty common. What's number seven? Effective school boards lead as a united team with the superintendent each from their respective roles with strong collaboration and mutual trust. >> Yep. >> Now, how
071does that get done? I'm not going to give you anything subjective. Somebody read number eight for us and help us out. >> Effective school boards take part in development and training sometimes with your superintendent to build shared knowledge, values, and commitments for their improve improvement efforts. One of the things that I just liked the most in my earlier years of service, I served nine years. I hated the passion. I was like, I could be at home watching my favorite nolla, my kids football game, breaking bread with my wife. What I came to appreciate more than anything was when I had high quality professional development. It didn't feel like it was an hour that I walked out like feel empowered. I feel like I know what I'm doing. Feel like we've got a great team that
072direction. That's what this You don't build trust by accident. You don't build it artificially. The only way to do it is the right way to do it. Dedicate your time. Do the work. And I know that's a hard ask when you're doing this. Like I said, 3.99 what I submit to board and unknowingly may not know it actually biggest mistake I made especially when I was president. president for my n first time I was president I had a board member come and say we need to focus on students I'm like we are I got march talking about but there was no direct connection to how mariachi was impacting over the three years before that our data was flat for the I couldn't explain it neither but when we started to focus on that parallel processing
073enforce the whole system power that you have I am the board member incorporate things of nature things that you have keep working on them things that you don't and you have a little clarity what are what are what are items like I said I'll send you board meeting a little bit of research part you can have some visuals. I was a visual guy. I wasn't an educator, so I didn't understand output. I leaned on my colleagues on the board that were educ for homework. Let me let me show one more thing. Who has questions before I show you the final piece? We're not going to go over too much, but I wanted >> out of curiosity. What happened with TA? Why did they take over your district? >> That's what I want. Yeah. >> Something
074new. >> Oh, really? I didn't see it. >> What happened is one of the campuses hit the five-year mark of low performing. So, what that means is when I was on the board, I knew that that campus along with others were low performing. But when the board lost sight of what it was supposed to be doing, year two came, they were still there. Three came four came. Year four, which was last year, could have done something. the board owners. We've had three superintendents since I left it. That doesn't So, you want to be mindful that the research of like 3.1 is the average year of tenure of a superintendent. You get a good one. This process makes it easier to reward them because the data tells you to reward. And if in year one or
075year two the data isn't moving, it's not his fault either. What I'm going to say is be humble enough to say we got we're the owners. We're the ones responsible for the outcome. So we do give windows to superintendents to get it all together. What you want is to be able to leave your board meeting to know why you're at where you're at. And then at the end of the progress monitoring, you want to know what strategy out of the if you're not in a hole and you're doing great. This process also also allows you to go whether it's celebrate you celebrate your students and your teachers and your instructional leaders on your goals third grade literacy bring all the third grade babies that are doing great teachers that are doing wonderful principles your instructional
076leaders when you're doing great you want to sound the alarm and let everyone know just the way we celebrate athletics in the arts we submit to you celebrate the academic Another question. Show you an example. >> I'll answer the change. >> Yeah. You know that that's the reason why I wanted to ask. I didn't know it was five years, but that I've been telling you guys. Well, you were not here three years ago. >> Thank you for the support. >> How long has the high school >> two? This this is going to be the third year. So that AR award that you give now you can invite >> I was >> measures of academic progress going back to this eventually we're not I have a question that have one and then for the card >>
077it's one to five for both >> one to five for both >> but state already gave you three >> which is the mathm Yeah, we've been talking about CCMR since we started. >> We're working on it. >> We're owning that. We did a lot of work. >> That's good that you know it. >> Oh my god. No. Don't. >> I know they're in the news. >> But I wanted to show you >> I want to show you that academic. >> This is their monitoring calendar. Every month these are the progress measures every month community and the board knows what they're monitoring and they also know when they're going to monitor their data. They also evaluate themselves everybody because I always ask words I don't again I don't want you to answer I'm pop quiz without
078answer what is your contract state the other question I have let's say always recommended formative don't wait give him a things. This is when you do progress monitoring for do and we also now add this is what I mean by This is their first measure. Think about it. Have your data. So 2025. Think about what kind of questions you might ask. 2025 they hit 42. By middle of the year 2025 they jumped up to 51 because they're monitoring. They're not they're not waiting to the end of the year to find out if they're going to win or lose the game. And then here's the target that they wanted to get to 58. So if we started here and we're here, what kind of question might a board member ask? >> Come on now. >> What
079else? Oh, y'all y'all know how to do this. And those are the questions that the leadership team had to answer. I'll share with you that May, the next month, the numbers had dipped on the other goal. There were big dips and the board was nervous because the star test was already being had already been taken. The staff knew based on their assessment kids were going to do better than what the initial than what that report had had to put out in the future. But the team didn't hide it, put the put the data out there. It was scary and the board was nervous. And then comes June, they exceeded their goal. So they this summer, they were celebrating at the campus goals were met and no, the board was so happy with that, right? Leave
080all the other stuff on the side because this one right here, the board here is spending about 20 to 30% of they're not at the 50 But this they're not confused on noticed I'm in after we train the campuses. We don't want to put the campuses data out there until they were brought into the conversation. But that tells you right there which campuses need more help. And so the questions the board members have is if these are doing great and they're on track, what do we need to do to support them here? It makes it easier for the superintendent to say I actually need more inputs here, here, and here. And these are the ones that I need cuz the board remember you have this kind of monitoring. You're clear. Let me give you one
081more on this one. Superintendent straight up telling them what's working and what's not working. Talk about transparency right there. You know what they started doing there? Some of the other local districts nearby, they're all learning from each other. They started going to the campuses and asking the principal, "What do you need? What what are we not giving you enough of or or what areas that maybe we need to fine-tune?" This is direct feedback from the campus to the superintendent and then to the board. So when it gets when he brings you items on consent agenda or action item, we're not having arguments for discussion because everybody has clarity as to what, why, how everything helpful. >> I have a question. Dr. Can you go to the first um first page, the one that has the
082percentages? That one right there. Something interesting that I saw on this one, the goals were not created on a year-to-year basis. Do you have a one year, a two-year, a three year, a four year, a 5year goal? Great question. We actually have the target goals. So, we started here at 43. by 24 they said we'd be and you you also have the target goal annual target goal for your goal progress measure because you don't want to wait to third grade see your third graders thriving this is what I mean like so here you see what their output is the map so here they are looking at map even though they don't take the star in second grade that's not an excuse we need to know how are those babies doing how are we receiving them
083in kinder first and second and then how do we move them up? So, this is showing that they're working with their their kindergarten and they're going up. We're not making excuses that we I've heard it before. We got a bad batch of kids. No, it's a mindset thing. Don't say that out loud. There's no such thing as a bad batch how we receive them. But you get to have very real conversations. So, yeah, you have your annual target. Sometimes you hit them, sometimes you don't. But what's important is that this goal that by the time they get to that five years, this is jumped up to 60. This will be above the state average. They get >> and those come specifically straight from administration or the board has to say so as to you know
084>> back to the roles board. This is your job to set the overall outcome goal. These are the outputs. his job. He's got to come and tell you what are the one to three things that he's going to do to implement to get. So their job is this. Yours is here. Now your job though board when he brings you these you don't rubber stamp them. You got to ask them. So how predictive is map of the star when right? Because you don't want to be wasting time for teachers, students taking assessments and tests that are not producing dividend. So that's the kind of questions you get asked. >> The reason why I asked that is because uh as the board knows uh we're moving towards uh blue bonnet and last week we had the presenter
085at DTMS and he was presenting and he said well this year guys you might go down 20%. So obviously all of us started panicking like what what do you mean? Oh it's a transitional period because of blue bonnet the rigger and this and that. So, uh, when I met with the principal, I said, I'm not going to go to the board and tell him that excuse. Oh, guys, because we moved to Blue Bonnet, we're going to board 20% lower than what we did last year. So, uh, everybody started panicking. That's why I was asking, >> yeah, that's the exact conversation that's happening everywhere else. The the key is that you're being honest with them about what other Well, again, the two-day workshop that we do, we unpack this mindset a great deal. I love your
086mind. Scared us, but we're still going to move 100 miles an hour in direction. We won't have that big dip because those districts that don't have that dip like everybody else, they get to brag a little bit about. But the question is going to be, do you know how you got there? You have an infrastructure. You can very clearly articulate to people what it is that's happening and why it's happening. So for you to be able to tell the board that, right? That way if it does happen it's well we were told that these are the strategies we're looking to put in place counter it because if we're going to lose the game I don't want to go into a season we're going to lose the game. I love what you're saying. We're not going
087to come in with that mindset. >> Do everything that we can >> it way. >> When I heard it, I was like, what do you mean? >> We still have Sher Wells there. But >> what other questions wonder >> for math? We're using paralyzed math. like for for the assessment like >> we use the paralyzed math assessment. >> So we we're taking the middle of the year benchmark that's what we're going to present in January. So in back in September we presented the results beginning of the year what we got in STAR. Uh that's why I I wanted to ask okay in October what we present pro progress report. Yeah, in the earlier part of the year, it's it's usually that um the beginning of the year data, but you're also fine-tuning your fine tuning
088output. So, the cool part is that when you go to the summer, let's say you won the game, I highly recommend every board that I work with, we do a data walk every summer. You want to unpack your data. Where did we win? Where did we not win? What's the plan? What's the strategy? That way when you're coming into the new year, you may find out that one of these outputs is not working for you. That's the time for you to make just like a head coach can make changes during the year. He has the ability to make changes during the year coming. But most boards will try to hold you to what you said. That's why we we emphasize on the ABC. That's your purview. That's your right. You obviously don't want to change
089in third quarter because it's already towards the end of the year. But like around here, if you come back and your data is not looking really good half at halftime, probably have some good questions to ask. You'll probably have some strategies you want to present. >> Yeah, definitely. Up. I mean, in October and and November, we presented uh different strategies for CCMR, which has been one of our weaknesses and and uh right now talking about transparency, we let the community and the board know that everything that we're doing for CCMR is not going to have an impact. this year's accountability system gonna have an impact on next year. Uh yes, because we should have done it last year. Um anyways, we're going through a transitional period, but we do have those convers before I get
090done. I want to ask for one word to describe our time together. One word. >> Winnie, >> blessings. >> Compromise. >> That's the fun part of when workshops go harder. You will find yourself building a muscle as its work. It doesn't have to. But if you have a strong enough team that's going to do work, you'll leave a legacy. Actually, let me rephrase that. One of my other books that I love is called the 21 irrefutable laws of first law is the law of the lid. Goes back to professional development. You can only do as much as you invest in yourself. Your lid is the lid that you put on. More you learn, the more you grow, the higher your lid gets. Last one, the 21st law. The law of legacy. And the law of
091legacy is not about what I leave behind. Law of legacy that I work towards my mission and my purpose in life. rest of the I would submit that to you that boards that are winning winning for the community make a commitment hard work that's a decision that you as a team make whatever that looks like I'm excited that you're exploring all kinds of options my friend Dr. wrote a book called balance governance some type of governance better than no governance so whether you're exploring anything time that was a short and condensed version Mr. President. Uh last I'll send you certificates, training number. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate. >> All right. At this time, I make a motion to adjourn. Second. >> Motion by M Ramo, second by Miss Martinez. All in favor say I.
092I. Motion. Uh motion passes. Meeting has been adjourned. 911.