001And hardly ever pleasant. I'm not either one right now. All right. Could we stand for the approval of the agenda? Do I hear a motion? So moved. Any discussion? All right. I just have it. Approval of the minutes. All those in favor say aye. Aye. I just have it. Do we have any public comments? So let's head into it. The board workshop. board member roles and responsibilities. Mr. Issues. There's no such thing. Well, since we're in still technically public comment, anything you'd like to, what brings you here today? That's right. We've met a number of times. Yeah. So cool. Google. Good morning, everybody. We are loading up. Radio voice. Sorry. I apologize. 95, five KLS radio. So we're loading up the presentation now, and I apologize. We had... some tech issues a little bit earlier.
002But really kind of combining three topics today, the board's really continuation from our last session. The first piece was just a reinforcement of roles and responsibilities of the board. But as the gentleman mentioned, there's this ongoing discussion. And I'll go back to the roles and responsibilities, too, as most of us seen throughout our state and our region. this increase of, for lack of better words, partisan politics in education. And so how do we continue to move forward and have really good, transparent discussions without being manipulated, for lack of better words, into areas that are really not what's best for our key customer, which are our students. And as we started off today, we talked a lot about enough of the challenges that we have, but how do we continue to lead? And unfortunately, and I'll
003thank your tech department for helping me out with this. So how do we continue to lead where all of our stakeholders, and I mean all, not just the ones that we agree with, the ones that align to us, but how do we lead with a lens of inclusion and belonging? And that means your parents, your students, your employees, all stakeholders feel like they belong and are part of that process. And moving forward with that. Hello. All right. So we'll also do a little bit of, so we'll talk about the roles and responsibilities. We'll talk about how to build with an inclusive culture. And if we have time, we'll take some of those things. And I think some of those pieces will come out as we move forward and we will get into goal setting. Look
004at the lovely board there. Very, very, very cool. Great picture. You're welcome. But I always, when I look at these vision, every district has a vision statement and every district is different. But when you think about committed to serving every student. every day. That's what it's all about, right? That's why we're all here. And it doesn't matter what district you're in. That's who our key customer is. And anything, in my opinion, I'm sure in your opinion, because this is your vision statement that falls out of that, the question is, why are we doing that? And school districts are being challenged to be everything, right? Do you guys feed students in your district? Do you? provide transportation for students. I mean, you think about all the things, mental health issues, not just reading, writing, and arithmetic,
005right? It's all the things that districts are being challenged to do that help those three R's, but we're all being asked to do a whole lot more than we've ever been asked to do before. And as we talk about the governor's budget, 35 billion reasons why we even have more challenges and concerns. So, and this is, I'm going to try to make this as interactive as I can. So, when you think about this, let's just have an open discussion first. And your thoughts, are students driving our decision-making process? And talk about where you think they are and some of the big things that you're facing. There has been, on the educational side, to create a student-centered or learner-centered focus that everything we do is based on that. We've actually created our vision of a child
006goes K-12, what skill sets they should leave us with, right, to give them choices and things. And then on the other side, I mean, we are doing a ton more focus groups with our students. I do one every month, and we visit, and even the board has done a really great job of going out to sites and talking to students and saying, hey, what do you like, what do you not like, and all that kind of stuff. Talk to me a little bit from a board perspective to board members. When you're out at these sites, what are you hearing from your community, and what concerns are they expressing? As Dr. Weinstein pointed out about the groups and the meetings he's had with students, and even Trustee Ornelas is very involved with our students, I see,
007even for my own daughter, I hear more feedback from her where staff is more accessible. They do feel like... The district is listening. They know they have a voice and that they can come to meetings. But they are very busy with their own schedules. So the fact that they have, you know, just computers now since COVID that they can email their professors and they respond, I feel like there's that communication for those who use it. And I believe staff is more aware of the ones that don't, reaching out to them more in the wellness center. It's a very good start. Thank you. Anyone else? I've mostly been at presentations where, like, the student input for our new gym at the high school. And so, you know, it was more sort of a presentation. So it
008wasn't, I didn't get any questions. But we've definitely been respecting the students that way and, you know, valuing their input. That focus group that the kids did was based on our architects that are designing the new gym actually working with those students and coming up with concepts that the students feel that the gym should serve. and then come up with designs with the input from the students. So that was really interesting. And the students did an awesome job. I mean, they looked at everything. They did a really, really, the presentation was great that they did. That's fabulous. It was the end of a dual enrollment program with Ventura College where the kids were taking AutoCAD classes. And so it really was. Wow. excellent example of, you know, the kids were outside of their element big
009time, but asked some wonderful questions and had good input. And giving them a chance to actually make comments on something that, like talking about making it live, right? You've got this, they graduate from high school with this college piece. And then you're getting their input on how it's going to impact not only them, but future generations. Yes, sir. Sorry. No, I appreciate it. So, you know, from the staff perspective, I know they're excited about the new learning modules that are going to be rolled out for next year. A little bit nervousness, but I think from what I'm hearing from staff. From a parent perspective, I'm definitely hearing a lot of concerns when it comes to school safety because I think that's just our global climate, you know, what's going on in our world. And so
010a lot of parents are concerned about that. You know, I'll ask them about, how do you feel about academics and where are you at with that? you know, with your child's, you know, student learning, whatnot. It says, oh, no, I feel good. I love my teachers and whatnot. So that's, that connectiveness, I think it's there in our community. But the school safety is a big issue when it comes to parents' concerns from what I'm talking to in the community. Yeah, thank you. If I forget, I want to come back to the safety piece because it's, I think it's one of those high areas that everyone's referring. Ben, on just another note, so. I had a student advisory council meeting, and for those of you who don't know, it's on Zoom. It's 42 students randomly chosen
011by staff to give input. And we ran all the things that the board discussed about safety and all the things we're thinking about doing or doing. We actually ran it by them and said, so for instance, an idea was. do you have like wand metal detectors at the entrance that, I mean, it got us doing that. And they're like, no, no, no, you need, you know, the, the gunpowder sniffing dogs. That's, that was their thing. They were like, no, we don't want metal detectors. What we want you to do is to bring in the dogs as much as possible. And so that we feel safe. And it was just like, but it was very interactive and they very much had input on it and understood because they were looking, the big issue with them is
012they were looking for a balance between school safety. and not feeling like they're going to a prison to get educated. They want the warm fuzziness, too. So, yeah, we talked to them about it. I mean, we did not hold – I don't – it's a very closed session. They can say anything they want. And they gave some great input. And then on top of that, just so you know, so the – Lydia Oliva, Dr. Oliva is taking over our alternative education. And she – It really has changed the culture where a group of those students, and I get students emailing me literally almost every day. Sometimes the questions are very random. No, sometimes the questions are like really random. Like one, I think on Thursday, I went, why do we have education? Why do we
013have mandatory education in the United States? And I'm like, okay, this is going to be a long answer. We have to connect. But this group of RHS students, Renaissance High School students, they asked for a meeting with me. And so I said, sure. And so they all came, sat in my office, and they were representing their student bodies saying, We want the RHS graduation at Renaissance, and we don't want to use the large high school for it because that's not our high school. And we don't feel like we, you know, that we're not connected to that. And there was a big deal, and they also wanted other things within their graduation ceremony and stuff. And really, we, I mean, I. Talk to my leadership team and they were all for it and went but it
014was driven by the students. That's that's impressive I mean usually they are the last ones to be asked so congratulations on that I it's And they're more connected and more engaged and when they come back there They're working there and then you get engaged as well, and I apologize for my cold this morning folks So if I get really congested I apologize So we we do this reflections piece. I always think that kind of, you know, level setting. Why are we doing what we're doing and why are you busy and why you're here this morning on a Saturday morning? So take a few minutes and we'll go around, but just take a few minutes and write down. We have, or what are the three most important issues to you as a board member? All right,
015who would like to kick us off? I'll start. Good. I think mine are pretty basic, and I'm sure everybody has this. But for me, student success, well-being is one. Two, staff, professional development, because that will help the success of our students. And then our budget. Budget's important to do all the other things. Thank you. Chris? Quality education, facilities. I'm going to mirror my colleagues here. Safety and facility was my number one. Student voices, equity, and then community accountability. With that, student learning, meeting the needs. Three. Give me your top three. No, no. But with that, that's student accountability, but definitely fiscal responsibility. So you put the accountability piece in with the safety? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Oh, I see. Definitely went up. That's okay. Yes, sir. All right. Engagement. Specifically student engagement, but parent and
016community engagement as well. So engage. Yeah. Jean-Luc. Engage. Engage. Indeed. We have to have safety, both physical safety, though, and mental safety. The psychological safety piece is that we were just overall mental health? Right. Okay. And then what else? And then we need varied pathways to success. Not a cookie cutter industrial one-size-fits-all model. All right. I'm going to put this to the side for a second. All right. And then the next. I completely, totally forgot the superintendent. I'm sorry. No, no, no. Don't worry about that. No, that's a big problem. You know, obviously, I agree with everything the board. The only additional. But what are your top three? My top three are safety is number one, student success, and teacher success. Yeah, that's, you know, I try to cheat. And then. And then last is
017with the engagement part, but engaging the marginalized groups and students that are not fully engaged. So, for instance, we don't have hardly any of our SPED students in our CTE program. How do we engage them and try to get them to do those type of things? And realize that that's a way for them to, correct? Right. So if you could accomplish, we always talk about legacies, right? And if you could accomplish one thing as a leader in the district, really think about this. Don't think about what sounds good, what is popular, what your peers. But if there's something in here that you go, if I could leave this one piece that's critical to me, what would that be? You know, they always talk about when you dash between, right? What is that? What is your
018dash for here? What is the most important thing that if you could leave here and be remembered for, what would that be? I'd like to start on that. I definitely want to be known as a critical thinker, someone who's not afraid to ask the tough question, someone who's not afraid to question why are we doing it this way and why can't we do it that way. So for me, it's being a critical thinker. Gina, you can write. My handwriting is horrible. Thank you. Critical thinking. What's going next? Thank you. If I could accomplish one thing as a leader in the district, I think for me is really being a team player and staying focused on our tasks and what our priorities are. Just being there to do my part. Wow. That's powerful, actually. Really? Thank
019you. Yes, sir. I want this to be a community that, an educational community, right? The whole community, right? The whole culture change. places a higher value on that than I think we do. Yeah, because it's the big differentiator, right? Yes, sir. Oh, I think what I would like to be able to leave is the creating a culture of continual improvement. Students, staff, leadership, but everybody's looking to improve how they do things and how we can do it better to serve students. Always. Always. Every day. Thank you. We're going to come back to these because I'll tie it to some of the things we'll talk about in just a second. So we're going to digress. Some of you have seen this slide before. Let's just talk briefly. What do you notice about this slide? Looks like
020my classroom, so there you go. It's old. What else is it? What else? I'm probably older than you think. Good water. What else? Position of where the teacher is. Teacher location. Yeah, teacher location. I'm so glad somebody said that. Oh, actually, there are people listening, and they can't hear you if you don't have your mic on. So just make sure. Music. Music. The globe. Wouldn't it be cool to zoom in on the globe and see what the names are? The globe. No technology. No technology. It's a small class size, that's for sure. Small class size. I think that's the first time anybody's ever said small class size. The first thing I know is like, wow. Talk about class size reduction. Carbon neutral heating. Carbon neutral heating. That's brilliant. Chalkboards. Chalkboards. No clock. No clock. Can't
021watch the clock. It's pretty sterile. Pretty sterile, yeah. What do we like about it? It reminds me of a time where core values were probably more important than the values we have now, like with television and social media. Mine too. What else? What else do we like about it? It seems to be an intimate setting. Really? You know, and I think we all know that the number one predictor of children's success is being able to be engaged with their teacher, and small class sizes do that a lot. Absolutely. So I think that's one thing I really like about it. Do you think students learn in this environment? Do I think this generation of students would learn in this? No, no, no. That's a different, that's a hugely different question. No way. No, no, no. It's
022different, right? Because, yeah, there's not technology. And so let's quickly, what do we see that's similar to this that we have now? What similarities do you see? Yeah. To me, it's top-down, so it's teacher-driven and maybe some student participation. But I think of a rogue, something very fluent for its daily practice, practice, practice. There's probably not a whole lot of interaction among students. It's just teacher to student and student back to teacher, not student with student. You're not going to see the chairs pushed together at some point, right? Student work groups, right? It's a drill and kill environment. That's what I'm looking for. A road kind of thing. It's a drill and kill environment. You asked what are you going to learn? Well, I asked that too. Then also what similarities do you see between
023this and the way things are now too? So those kind of questions. I mean, you're going to learn something. I mean, we all went through it. I mean, I just kind of question how much critical thinking is going on. Three times two is two. More of a... Well, again, right, that conformity that I kind of see in there doesn't necessarily allow for creativity, right? Right, yeah. But what similarities do you see between this and this, which is, I think it's 1840 or something, but between that and now, what similarities do you see? It's definitely a have and have not system. So I think about my ancestors, if they were in the 1840s, they wouldn't be sitting at one of those chairs. You and mine both, right? Yeah. What else? So when you talk about the
024technology piece, though, do you think most of our classrooms are set up like this today? Like the picture? Yeah, with the teacher in the front, the students kind of... Yeah, I think we have a problem with how our teachers physically roam the classroom, engage with students. Like, this is a... It's not only a... desk for the teacher, but there's the chair there and it reminds me of those teachers that just sat in their chair and literally just pontificated from that environment where one of the things that we're really working on is to get teachers to understand that to engage students there has to be some interaction and you have to go around and don't just choose the people who are raising their hand, work the entire room. Yeah, because we all knew the one person
025in our class. They were the first ones that always put their hand up. They always got a call on as opposed to pulling. It's funny. I'm holding back today. Well, another thing is, too, that even though we might have the technology, you might have a smart board, is it still being used as a chalkboard? Or are we just putting a PowerPoint? I mean, we just changed the form, not the content. Right, because SmartBoard really was used to replace what? Truck boards. Truck boards, right? It's not the same thing, but that's why they were brought in. And we spent thousands and thousands of dollars for the technology that most people, even though there was all this other things that SmartBoards could do to engage students. I'm not trying to sell smart boards, but they were really
026just changed for chalkboards in many cases. Anything else? So the big question at the top is why do we have school boards? Anybody know how school boards were started and why? So it's interesting. School boards were started to ensure that students learned how to read the Bible. Right? So in a society where we talk about separation of church and state, I'm not saying that's not true, but that's why school boards were established, to make sure that those things happened and that wasn't a paramount part of public education at that time. And I show that is because the roles of the board, even from their early inception, was to make sure that certain things were happening in the district. And we'll talk about how those roles obviously have changed, but what are the roles of school
027boards from then to now? So a couple of comments. I think you know who those are. I'm not going to read those to you, but just a reinforcement of this process. This piece stands out to me, and I think most of you have experienced this. The one unique thing about school board members. Unlike any other, well, other than council people, but probably even more so, people aren't as passionate about their city council representatives, right? I mean, they are, but how many of you go to the grocery store and plan on, or Lowe's or whatever, and plan on running it or getting something, and I'll be back in 15 minutes, my wife used to laugh, and she would go, you're not. Right? Because what happens? People see you. You're approachable. You're even more so connected in
028the community. You're engaged. And what happens? They approach you and start talking about what? Their children, what's going on, the fact that something happened in the district, and then they want you to what? They want you to fix it. They want you to do something about the fact that, Tommy, my daughter hasn't made cheerleading, and she's really, really good. I don't understand that Coach doesn't like her. Can you help me? That's the kind of stuff that we get all the time. And it's not just randomly. It's all the time. It's daily. So balancing that and then remembering that passion of wanting to be accessible, to being approachable, to being an advocate in your community for those students. But as you said, what is your role? What is your role as a board member? So does
029it matter what we do? Does it really make a difference? Does the role of school board members matter? And what are our thoughts? Heck yes. Heck yes. Yeah, heck yes. And I think our, you know, our biggest job is hiring the leadership and, you know, through that setting the direction of things. And so, yeah, we're definitely. Yeah, it matters in ways that people don't really realize. There's been several studies that have been done that kind of look at. Do boards matter? I mean, there's even some places that are saying, should we even have school boards anymore? Because there's a question of, do they really impact? And most school board members aren't educators, but that's not what the school board's member job is. And Chris, you said it best, is the board's job is to hire
030the leader and as a governance team, set the direction and vision that's part of it, of the district. Phase one of the study looked at what increases do you think had, if you took these pieces together, personal relationships and desire of student achievement, what percentage of increase do you think that's had on student achievement? If you had to guess. Just everybody, just throw out a quick number if you think. Sorry. So if board members have, that was probably better. If board members have great relationships with the community. great relationship with staff, really all stakeholders, and they have a desire for student achievement, how much do you think that increased the achievement within that district? 30%. 30%. 50%. 50%. 10%. I think more like 50%. Okay. 0.0%. Is that close to 50% or no? Everybody knows,
031people know who this reference is from are laughing because it's a great line. Mr. Patowski, 0.00. And as a fellow board member, we strive for these things. We strive to make personal relationships, and I'm not saying they're not important. They're, of course, important, but when you look at the data and you look at what we think, like going to schools, talk, all that stuff's important. But without, go ahead. The actions. Oh, yeah. And I guess that's what I'm thinking when I went a little bit further, and that's why I probably had that 50% in my mind where I'm thinking the actions, if you care, then you're going to do something about it, and that's where the professional development comes in place. That, like, Dr. Moore. And Dr. Ramirez and our cabinet has been involved in
032doing and working tremendously to achieve getting there. So I guess. But who did you talk? Who did you just say did those things? Cabinet. Cabinet. Staff. That's different, right? That's your educational leaders. But from a board perspective, right, we spend a lot of time as board members. And I keep saying we because I'm a board member, too. We spend a lot of time. focused on these two pieces, right? I talk about the achievement gap and the opportunity gap all the time. I'm very passionate about it. But if you don't do something about it and you don't do the right things and you don't have good governance and you're not focused on your role as a board member, zero impact, right? Tommy, you said something earlier that just kind of about that classroom page, right, of
033who would be sitting in the seats, right? And I look at the achievement gap, and especially with students of color across the country, hasn't really moved much in 30 years. 30 years! And we're like, that's unacceptable. So when you say those, what board members do have an impact, it has a huge impact. If board members are doing the right thing, it has an impact. If they're doing the wrong thing, wrong things are probably the wrong word. If they're not focused, and you may come out being focused on what's important, if board members are focused on what's important, great things can happen. So this is the big takeaway, right? Stay in your lane. And the biggest correlation of student achievement are board members who understood and knew their roles. And that doesn't mean you don't ask
034questions. That doesn't mean you don't try to make sure the appropriate staff member through the superintendent fixes things. But if board members do this one thing and stay in their lane isn't... We'll talk about roles and responsibilities in a second, but staying in your lane does not mean you're not doing stuff. It means you're doing stuff that's going to have the greatest impact on what's most important as a leader in the district. So I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus, but when you see these districts up there, what do they have in common? They've been in the news a lot. They've been in the news a lot, right? And for positive stuff, no. And we all know, right? And when you think of all of these, historically, great stuff. I mean, if you
035would look to this list five years ago, all positive. All positive things, but outside influences are keeping board members. not focused on what their roles and responsibilities are. And so what are you seeing? You're seeing stuff that's not in the best interest of students. What do you think the trust level is like in communities where the news, as you just said, isn't positive? Do we think trust is high? No. Right? It's... And it's interesting. All of these places are like really good wealth, good opportunities, high middle class. But when you think about the challenge they're having and students feeling not just safe from a physical standpoint, but safe from a mental standpoint, I've talked to students in some of these areas and they do not feel good about the day to day. Trust to me
036is, and it's proven, this is not just for, I think, did I, I think it just came back. I thought it was dead. We're done. Here, hold on. I really feel like Donahue. A 10% increase in trust has the same impact. I know the bargaining units are going to be upset about me for saying this, but trust matters. People don't leave always because of money. But if they don't feel like there's trust and there's good opportunity, but it has the same impact on morale. It has the same impact on sustainability and retention of employees as a 30% increase in pay. Yeah, high-trust companies just... So when I look at this, even though this is not directly related at school districts, I do think, though, that if you think about employees that have a feeling that
037they are trusted and valued, what's that going to happen to your students, right? It's going to have a positive impact on students. It's going to have a positive impact on morale. So even when we go through difficult and challenging times, and we know we're headed for some more. But if that piece is there, and how do we do things that build and reinforce trust, it definitely has an impact on the district and obviously on students. So more of the trust issues. So this is directly related at school districts. And school districts with a high trust. are three times more likely to yield positive impact and outcomes for students. And so as you talk about what things board members can do, it's important to be aware, are we doing things at the dais, in the community,
038in closed session, that build trust? And what things are we doing to not build trust? I recently read something that an elected official called one of their colleagues basically a white supremacist without getting into it. And I thought, you have just not only hurt you, you've hurt that other person, and you've actually impacted your ability to build trust not only with that one colleague, but with other colleagues as well. The level of language you use was so, I'm going to use the word vile, that it's going to be hard to ever rebuild that again, right? You break trust. It's much easier. To maintain it and build it as it is to get it back. But this is, I think, just an important piece. And if you haven't seen this, it really does talk about how
039and importance of board members to be focused on one of their roles is to build and maintain trust. So culture is important. Drucker is not an education guy, but I like the power of some of his statements. And we talk about strategy, and strategy is important. It's important to kind of build goals and strategic thinking. But this comment to me is powerful, right? The culture eats strategy for breakfast. And he's right, right? If you have a good culture, a positive culture, a culture that builds trust, a culture that really focuses on what's good for... A friend of mine used to always say, who was a superintendent, he had a board member that would always say, he said it to one board member, who was, every board meeting was a test. Every single meeting he went
040to, this board member would pull out stuff and try to catch the suit, like, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, on the most idiotic things. And the superintendent finally said to him, meaning, Mr. Blah, blah, blah, you wouldn't want to work for you. I'm like, wow, that was a mic-dropping moment. Beautiful statement. When I heard him say that, I thought, and I said, but I said, shame on us as board members. Well, shame on that board for not making a comment to that person about. But when he said that, I thought, wow, what a powerful statement, right? But it's the culture, right? And what kind of culture? Santa Paula want to have for not only the family but for the employees in the district. So the board is the one that sets, well, I should say the governance
041team sets that tone. But really, it's the board that can set that tone too, right, of the culture it wants to build. And it's really easy for leadership and all of us to kind of put together something on paper. Excuse me, but it's really difficult. to understand and really live and execute a culture and a strategy that requires changes in human behavior. And I've said this and people think I'm being negative, but there are people in the community that want the board to not be collective and collaborative, right? Because if the board's divided... Somebody can benefit from that. I remember people say, well, the board is a 5-0 board, and they're a rubber stamp board, and whatever the superintendent wants, the board does. Is that true? No. The board doesn't do whatever the superintendent wants.
042The board has study sessions. The board has workshops. The superintendent is given information to a board, and when something finally reaches the agenda for the board to vote on it, There's months and months, right? Months of work that's usually, for big issues that has been discussed. Trustee Wilson, you talked about, Isabel, how long have you been discussing that issue? It's years, right? It's not when it comes on the agenda, but people from the outside, all they see is the fact that it's on the agenda, the board voted, and the board didn't have a lot of discussion on it. The board's had years of discussion on key issues and big picture items and has done research. And the superintendent is not an idiot. They're not going to put something on the agenda where they haven't already
043had the discussion in public with the board about to make that information known and to talk about where the board is. And if it's clear the board is not moving in that direction, why would they put on the agenda and get a no? So it's important that as we think about these strategies and how we build human behavior and talk about border responsibilities that the execution and the culture is just as important as those actions. So we're going to play a little. We're going to do a little thing. This is only for yourself. We don't have to share any of this. We'll talk this issue of trust, right? So the first thing is to recognize the business case for trust and be an advocate for that. And by this I mean there are times that
044we have stakeholders and people and groups that we know that want sometimes the board members to be stirring the pot, right? Making sure that... Whatever is currently happening isn't good, and I'm going to be the one that constantly questions and asks of these things, and not in a positive way, but just in a way because there's this internal belief from some people in some communities that think that the district is no good, the district is this, the district is that. recognize the case to build trust is be an advocate for the positives for trust, regardless of what the truth is, right? And so regardless, because it's focus of what the truth is. And second, getting results in a way that inspires trust. So you don't have to be shouting at your colleagues and to be
045negative, which is great. This board doesn't do that, but I've been in districts where they do, and they think that builds trust. And it may build trust with a small certain select, but the rest of the community, and we looked at that chart a few minutes ago of places where there are being challenged. Those things may get you news, but it's not the kind of news you want, and it doesn't build trust in your community. And then making sure that there's alignment as a team around systems and structures that build trust. It's a good quote by Doug Conant that the first priority of any leader is to inspire and instill trust. And I'm dating myself with my Campbell's references. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich. So we're going to go through this. It'll take a
046few minutes. But do this for yourself. I'm going to go through a couple of different scenarios. And then just right beside, just probably put like 1 through 10. And then I never do this. I try not to do this, but sometimes I do. And sadly, I do this most of the time. This is not for you to share with anybody, but we'll go through a couple examples. And just right beside the number where you think you are. And if we want to get into talk about it more, but this is really more for your kind of questioning, right? Just to think about it. Because I've done it. Sometimes I look and go, oh, wow, I do do this sometimes. And I talk about not doing it, but we're all human, right? We all have areas
047to grow. So I don't overcommit, and I do keep my promises. You can just go through them. I'm not going to read them, but I'll just leave this up for a minute. Do you want to see what this was again, just to make sure? One is never, two is sometimes, three is most of the time. So on that first one, three is good, isn't it? Instead of sadly, it's actually a good thing. Yeah, I was... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to... Well, it depends. It should just say I do this most of the time because it depends on the question. So it should say I do this most of the time. It depends on the... Just leave it as I do it most of the time. Number five is great. Yeah. Unless it's
048positive. Unless it's positive. And seven's the same thing, right? Unless it's confidential. Sorry. Sorry. Everyone done? A couple minutes? Anybody want to share anything or just general thoughts about do these things or not doing these things align with your thoughts on what are trust builders and what could be potentially trust breakers? Number two was, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, please. I mean, I think they all do, to a certain extent. Yeah. Two of you was like, for me, was the hot button was like to be in a closed session. Then not even before you get home, someone's calling you going, I hear, I'm like, okay, there's only one way you can. Number three is important, too. Yeah. Absolutely. If you're a parent, right, just even with your kids, right, to say. Sorry. Anything else? I
049just think some... Go ahead, please. Any other comments on these? So, FPPC, right, we all fill out these forms. And really, public service ethics is not just about doing the right thing, but it's the confidence that the public has. that the right thing has been done. That's a big distinction, right? To make sure that, especially with public education, that it's being beat up anyway and has enough issues that transparency is important, but it's not transparency because it's the law and we're trying to follow the Brown Act. Because it's the right thing to do, right? We want our budget to be transparent. We want our meetings that are... board meetings that are conducting the business in public. They're not public meetings. And I think that's an important distinction that it's not being disrespectful to the public,
050but your meetings are taking care of the district's business in public, but not a public meeting. And so that you are allowed to have restrictions and timelines and guidelines around those meetings and how long you want to talk about an issue. And no, it is not right for, unless there's some major issue for someone to try to hijack your meeting. What's your current budget total? Right now it's right around $100 million. $100 million. That's restricted and unrestricted. Right. $100 million organization. probably one of the largest businesses in this community. It is the biggest, right? It is. But it's important that people recognize that it's not just the school around the corner. It's your district, and it's your budget, and it's an important process, and your time is important. And so controlling those things is important
051so you can stay focused on the big, important issues. And then another thing that boards can do to develop trust is creating board norms. And here's a couple of examples that if boards don't have board norms that they think about. But a lot of boards that I know, they'll have these on the board table. They'll have something in the boardroom. But the first thing is assume that your colleagues' intentions are good. That even though... You may have different beliefs and different thoughts on issues. You know, we talk about good civil discourse and how do we improve that because we're getting away from that. Just assume that the intention of each other is good. Treat each other with respect. Speak honestly and forthright. Act with integrity that our actions match beliefs. And then follow through on
052things you're going to say. And then really work around building clarity and transparency and not be saying one thing in the public eye, in the behind the scenes, working with somebody to develop efforts that undermine the majority of the board or staff. And that aligns with once there's a decision made at the dais, even if you don't agree with it, shut up. Right? I mean, that can't hurt anything more, and it's hard to do. And I... If I'm honest, right, there's one issue that I still struggle with that our board made years ago because I really just, well, there's two, but one especially. But once it's done, you got to move on, right? Because that's one issue out of the thousands of other issues you're going to make. And if you continue to go against
053what the decision of the board has been, you're not building trust either, right? Because it just, there's a lot more work to do. Comments? So let's take a five-minute, ten-minute, like five-minute break, and we'll get into the inclusive culture piece. Because there were some great comments just about let's dig deeper in roles and responsibilities in the norm piece. So in many districts, for example, everything has to go through the superintendent before you talk to someone, right? We talked about if you get a call about, let's use the cheerleading example, not minimizing cheerleading because it's a great sport, but you get a call about something not happening or you want to visit a school site. I think those are the three things. One, you're asked to fix something. Let's have a discussion about how should that
054be handled. Simple things like going to a school site. What is the board's thought on how we go to school sites? and not saying that the board doesn't go, but what does that look like as far as process? So let's talk about the first one. You're asked, and the third one would be, let's say you're really passionate about CTE. How does that get handled? Do you go to the superintendent? Do you go directly to the person? Well, let's start with the first one. You're asked to fix something. So someone calls you and says, my child is having an issue. The teacher is being tough on them. I need your help. How do you handle that in this district? I think the process has to begin bottom up. It can't go top down. That's why we
055have uniform complaint procedures. If a parent were to share that with me, I would say, please, talk to your teacher. And then from there, if you're not satisfied, then work your way up to your counselor, work your way up to the principal. But there's nothing I can do right now other than guide you in the right direction. So I feel like my role is guidance and pointing them in the right direction. Wow, first of all. Because that, what does the rest of the board think about that response? I think in that particular instance, yeah. Yeah. I mean. Yeah, I mean, the first thing you ask, which most people don't, most people want board members, right, want to fix it. They'll even ask the simple question, have you even talked to the teacher yet? So I
056think that's the guidance piece is important, right? And I like that verbiage. I'm going to steal that because it is about guiding them, right? It's not always being the one that's. I don't mean to be negative, sound negative, but it's not trying to be the hearer, right? It's trying to fix it and letting the appropriate person handle the situation, just like we would want it to do if it was in our job, right? And you mentioned in that situation, what else were you thinking about? Thank you, sir. So, I mean, someone comes to you and says, this teacher has, you know, been acting in a particular way. and has been for a long time. That's hugely different, right? Right. Yeah. So talk to me about what you would do in that situation and the board's
057feedback and thoughts on that. And maybe not give me a real example, but give me something that would be a similar level of concern, maybe a better way. Well, if someone were to accuse a teacher or staff member... of something that was, I don't know, serious, quote unquote. EEOC level, right? You know, I go to the superintendent and say, look, this is what I've heard, right? I don't know exactly how to handle it, who it would go to, right? And, you know, here's that information, but don't trust me, right? Talk to I encourage that person right to have a conversation with you know with staff right you know who's done that presumably the superintendent because I don't want to be you know hearsay kind of conduit you know and especially something that's serious it's like
058they're not going to take my word for it because no I can't you know if that's doesn't that's not how it works so we had a Dr. Sandoval brought it to my attention we had a situation where Members of the community were claiming that a teacher was creating a hostile learning environment where the kids felt intimidated, bullied, things like that. And he did a great job of telling me about it. And then he directed the people who were making these claims. And then so I set up a meeting with my head of HR and myself to meet with those people. We felt their concerns were... important enough to conduct an investigation. And it ended up being, you know, putting a summary letter for the teacher because we interviewed students in every single one of his
059periods or her periods. And we came to the conclusion that, yes, the majority of these students definitely feel like they're being bullied or in a hostile environment. Thank you for sharing that. Board, any other thoughts, comments? For me, when it's not a situation where talk to your teacher and then move up the chain, I just, hey, Jeff, this is going on. What's your advice? And usually it's either have them talk to the principal, have them contact me, and then I get a response back from those parents saying thank you for the guidance. I mean, it's a small community. Yeah, it is. And I think you're all saying there's different ways that you can do it that are effective. But I think the most important thing is as board members, as individuals, you're not trying to
060fix it. Right. So whether you what. But you would be surprised. Right. That that that is the very common trend. Yeah. I'm sorry. I think there have been things where. Once it's brought up and a lot of people are concerned, I'm very happy how it quickly comes back to the board to make some decisions and changes because we've had that occur at the high school, just like transportation. So, you know, it was a big deal. It needed to be taken care of quickly enough. Well, and you just said something that's really important as well, too, that it's also more important that you don't get too deeply involved because you may have to decide on it. You probably will have to decide on it at a later point in some way. And if you're too enmeshed
061and too into the details and stepping outside of your role, then your decision at that later point could become questionable. I think that one of my guiding, or a guiding principle, maybe I'll subscribe to it, is if a staff member thinks that they're being told to do something because a board member said, then you've stepped over the line. Absolutely. Yeah, and so sometimes that's the thing that I think falls next into the next piece, that let's say you're passionate about a certain issue and our words have... different voice because they even though we don't think they do we think we're just Tommy I'm just Chris I'm Ben and you know like people will call you Mr. or Miss or whatever and you're like no just call me Ben and you think that you think that
062really lowers the level of of how people see you it may a little bit but you're you never take off that board member hat right I knew a board member that was in a school district and was at a school site almost every day, and the school site was where her son went. Yeah, and she thought, yeah, but I'm just mom here. I'm taking off my board member hat. I'm like, yeah, and your board member hat, a parent heard you say, I can't wait to fire that superintendent, excuse me, that principal, and I thought, you never, so if you think you can, right, you can never take off your board member hat, right? We think we can, but whether you're at the grocery store, whether you're at the dais, whether you're sitting in a community
063meeting, it will always be connected back to you as a trustee, right? You just can't take off that hat because you're a board member, right? You're elected. You don't get unelected for a certain meeting and elected back for another meeting. You're always that board member. Yes, sir. So just... I mean, I hold my cabinet to the same level of redirecting, making sure it goes from the bottom up. So, believe me, nobody comes into the superintendent's office to tell me what a great job I'm doing. People come in because they have a problem and they want me to fix it. And so I redirect in that. And just knowing that a very wise superintendent once told me that... He was at a district in a small town. Him and his wife were having their 25th anniversary
064party. And so he goes to the supermarket, loads up on the alcohol, and it's on Instagram literally 10 minutes later that the superintendent's an alcoholic. And it's because you can't say, no, I'm not the superintendent right now. I'm just a guy who's buying stuff. You have to realize that people see you all the time and have impressions on you all the time. All the time. Yeah. And I'm not, yeah. Well, the alcohol thing is interesting because people say, like, don't ever be caught drinking in public because someone will take it and will spend it. I'm like, well, I'm over 21. I have no problem with people knowing I like a single malt every once in a while. We're all too old to give it. That's true. Be that. Yeah. But in some communities, it makes
065a big difference. Let's go deeper in that discussion, though, about calling staff. And so what's the board's thought if there's an issue? Do things run through the superintendent typically, or do you feel comfortable picking up the phone, calling staff? And then when do you make the decision between calling a staff member and asking something, and when should it just go through the superintendent? And that's probably me. Am I being too vague? No, I don't think you are. Right. Because it has been a bit of been a shift because the previous was like, don't don't you dare talk to anybody like without me giving the OK, without it coming through. Your employee telling you what to do. Yeah. So, so it's been refreshing. I, I do wonder sometimes myself, right. For, I mean, for me, you
066know, do I take advantage of it? Because it's, it's, it's easy to get, it's, it's easy to, you know, take that and go, it's like, okay, I'm making the decision. on whether or who it needs to be directed to, you know, is that always in the, you know, in every case my decision to make. So, you know, I'm always at least self-reflective about that, you know, when, when I don't. When you do that. Yeah. And I would say that. Thank you for your honesty and being really transparent because that's a big thing to say like you don't know. And I think that's a board decision. I think the board sets that kind of norm, right? What does the board want when those things come up? Because you don't want to build policies strictly on somebody
067that does the extreme in a negative way, which no one is saying here, but how do you want to keep things consistent? Not only does the superintendent aware, but also staff is aware. And then staff doesn't go, oh, my gosh, you didn't call me. And that kind of feeling. And so I think how that flushed out should be a board discussion about, because that's probably one of the most common, right, board members calling not just cabinet, but. It could be principals. It could be a director. It could be anybody in the organization. And how that person receives that is also important as well, right? It's not just the intent of the board member. Because I would always say, look, I'm not directing. I'm just asking a question. It sometimes doesn't matter what I say. Is
068that right? Right? It's just the fact that I'm calling. And so I could say all the things that I think that are right. It doesn't matter. It matters the position that you're in and what that impacts to that person, even if you were friends with that person before they receive it differently as a trustee than not. So what's the board's thoughts on, and we talked about the previous administration, but separate out administrations and think about process, protocol, and even different board members, right? You know, that's a really, that's an in-depth question, and it definitely requires more time, but, you know, we're all community members. You know, we were at church recently together. We were at an event yesterday together. You know, so we're visible. And sometimes that visibility, hopefully that's a positive thing. Hopefully that
069means that we are approachable. And that's kind of what I'm hoping for in those conversations. So back to do I make phone calls? I have. I think every time I do want my superintendent to know. that I have these questions, and he's guided me and said, go ahead and make that visit to the school site or make that phone call because you'll probably get a little bit, you know, a better answer than me just waiting for it in public at a board meeting or whatnot. But, yeah, it's a loaded question because, you know, we're visible. And I think we lend ourselves to that visibility. Well, really well said. And I think you're right. And I think one of the things I heard you said, though, is you first you call the superintendent and inform them.
070And the superintendent says, go ahead and do that. Make that phone call. And maybe it's just as simple as that. Right. Is it's the awareness of of the CEO of your organization. because the board only hires and has evaluation over one employee, right? But it's to make that person, because as board members, you don't want surprises, and your superintendent doesn't want surprises. And I'm not saying this about the board members here and this board, but I would also say think about if you had a board member that was rogue. Creating policies and processes to make sure that there weren't surprises for anybody, which enables the board to say it's not about this one person, but it's allowing us to make sure that everybody's held to the same level of accountability. And the fact that you
071just informed the superintendent, I think, provides that ability for the board to say to somebody else that could come on the board with a different philosophy and agenda, for lack of better words. It would give you the ability to hold that person accountable. I'd love to hear from the superintendent, too, what your thoughts are, obviously. Well, I'm a big believer, and we just talked about that, that transparency creates call to actions. And boards have a lot of important decisions that they have to make, right? I'm going to bring something to them, and though I've tried to inform them the best I can, there's nothing like actually having access to that area. And being exposed to what my cabinet and I and my directors and my principals are exposed to. So whatever the idea of the
072process, really, I don't want it to ever inhibit access. Because I know this board wants to do the right thing by students. You know, I've worked for boards that don't. This board does. And the idea is... you know what, if they need more information or they need a better understanding of how this works or a better understanding of what the issues are, then I want them to have full access, you know, and not feel inhibited like, oh, I don't know if I can go talk to that principal or not. Because if they call me, I'm always going to say, do it. I don't care. Well, I think a great question is, did you feel inhibited? Like, right. No, I felt very supportive. It just felt good. It felt like, okay, good. I mean, our intentions
073are out. You know, there was no hidden agenda. And I felt like, okay, well, you know, because my goal was, well, let's get some information. Let me see what's going on here, you know. And not one of those I gotcha moments. It wasn't that. It just being the newest board member of the five, I wanted to really immerse myself in as far as what's going to be my role. as a school board member. And having worn many hats in the community, a lot of that experience helps and guides me in my decision-making, but I still wanted to make sure I had more information. Again, very well said. And I think maybe for the board, the simple process is before you contact someone else that it gets run through the superintendent first, and then you have
074the right of the superintendent to say, Let me get you more information. And I think it also provides the ability, if there's something specific, and maybe this is my own belief, but I think it's important that one member doesn't have more information, for lack of better words, than another. It doesn't mean that they can't get it, but it's important that there's equal treatment, and I didn't use the word equitable, I used the word equal treatment of the board. by the seat, by the superintendent, right? Because you're all one vote, right? Well, I think that one of the things that we could do better on is because, you know, we're hamstrung by the Brown Act, right? Somewhat. Somewhat. Well, and how we can approach... different conversation topics. I mean, we can't go out to breakfast and
075the five of us talk about something or go into the superintendent's office, the five of us, and talk about something. That's bad. You could, five of you could go out and talk about... the fact that anything that's unrelated to anything you're going to be deciding on as a board. Well, I mean, sure. But I mean, in terms of those things that... But it's an important distinction. The reason why I bring that up is because sometimes the Brown... Someone said hamstrung, I think, earlier. Sometimes the Brown Act is used to stop board members from... socializing and getting together. And I just, I think that's also one of the things that helps build trust too, is that we're all going to AEC. So, yeah, well, so AEC, but, but you can also go to a barbecue at
076somebody's house and not be. Feeling like I can't go because or I can't, we can't go out to dinner, we all can't be seen in public having food together and socializing. I bring this up not to micromanage, but it is something that helps build trust among board members too, right? Well, so yes, right. But I think the direction I was going is when there are issues that say one or two of us are interested in, I don't think we often bring that. back into the boardroom setting. Great point. To talk about those things, you know, and that's the thing. There's not very many opportunities for us to kind of, you know, delve into those kinds of things that aren't immediate. You know, we're going to talk about LCAP this week, you know, at the board
077meeting. And that's what we've got, right? There's a lot of other things other than our formal business that we should be talking about. I mean, these workshops are great for that, right? They help. But we only do these maybe once a quarter, right? Three times a year. So I think there's just some times. Like, for instance, the CTE. I'm very passionate about that. I do a lot of advocating for it. But we don't, you know, and we're going to have a presentation on it, so that'll be an opportunity to kind of talk about it, but it'll be structured. I'd love to just kind of talk about to everybody to see what are your guys' vision on what this should look like or where we should be investing our time and all those other things. I
078mean, maybe. Anyways. No, Dan, I think that sometimes... We lack intentionality with the agendas as board members. The superintendent and the president define the agenda, but I think it's critical, and we'll talk about some things that may work for the board, and we talk about your priorities and your goals, but that could be a goal for the board to say, here's our priorities, and we want to make sure that we are CTE, creating opportunities for students, for all students. Mr. Weiss, you mentioned that there's students, especially our students that are specialized students and making sure they're part of that discussion, right? That to me is, and you can do that. And I would say, like you're saying, don't do it on a regular board meeting where you're, you got, you know, 32 items on an
079agenda and you're kind of just, you want to go home after 10 o'clock. But set aside specific time just to talk about that one piece. on a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon or whatever, whatever the board wants. I know, Sunday, I'm joking. The other piece was, are we feeling comfortable that maybe the norm is that we just, for that kind of issue, we let the superintendent know if we're gonna reach out, we wanna reach out to a staff member and maybe asking for the support of doing that, but just pre-knowledge, right? Your way of doing it is an excellent way. You're aware. And the staff member could get a heads up that that request is going to be made. And it gives that person a chance to prepare and not be shocked that, oh, my
080gosh, why is this board member calling me, right? Because that's what happens when we call staff is that they're like, why are you calling? What about visiting schools? What's your protocol and process when you want to visit a school? Is there one? From my understanding after discussing it with Jeff is that we just contact the principals and see if it's okay to do a visit. And when you reach out to them, they're usually very, you know, if they don't have meetings going on or they're just not available, that they let you know. Mean they're pretty much anytime you want. I just won't be around a certain time, but we basically we have Right to just contact them just call the school sign in not just call first. All right. Oh, yes And I've always just
081told the board members that and just like I do when I go on to a site I go into the office. I check in with the principal. Hey, I'm going to go visit some classroom. Whatever it is, at least let the educational site leader know you're there, you're present. I think that's critical. Sometimes board members think that it's no big deal. I just happen to be in the area. But if you stop on that school site unannounced, it's not that you're trying to be disrespectful, but you really... That person, you have no idea what that leader has going on in their office or that day. And I think just being respectful and calling and signing up, some, excuse me, signing in. It's also a safety issue, right? If something happened, they need to know that
082you're there. Any other issues relative to norms and process that we think is important for us to cover? There's a lot we could go into detail about, but anything else that we think we want to cover? Let's go into this issue of inclusivity in a culture. So we've heard these words. I mean, you look at all of the kind of cue words that we see. Some things are heating up relative to race and ethnicity and gender and identity and diversity and inclusion and multiculturalism and ally and ship. And if anybody says to me, we've got a lot to unpack today, again, I think I'm going to lose my mind. Because some of these code words are just being used ad nauseum. And some words that really were meant, we've all seen that picture with the
083three students overlooking a baseball, and it used to be a positive, now it's a negative. And, yeah, right? And what we all, I think, for most of us, I won't say all, but what most of we want, and that's why we want people to come to their workplace, right, and to their place of learning. and feel like they can be safe. We talk about safety, right? It's not just safety of not getting beat up. And if you've ever bullied as a kid and you got beat up, and, you know, the old adage, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Getting punched in the face hurts at the moment, but what hurts deeper is the words and the negativity. So, you know, words do matter, but... And so that's why
084I try to focus on we want a place where everybody feels like they can be themselves, that they belong, and that no one has to understand everything, but you don't do anything for including that person to feeling like they have a place of belonging. So every time we do a discussion on diversity and inclusion, we always have to use an iceberg because... there's obvious things that are on the surface, and then there's all these things that we don't see. And when you look around the room, there's a diverse room, obviously, of people in this room, and there's things that we see on the surface, but there's a whole lot of things that we don't see just by looking at someone, right? It's obvious that, you know, I gave up a promising career in the NBA.
085That's six, seven. Right. And and those are obvious things, right, that we look at and we see. But what are all these things on the surface? Our political views, our personality, our thinking style, family talents, where we grew up. But those are the things that really are about who we are more than anything else, right? I mean, obviously I'm black, but that's only a minor fraction of who I am and what I'm about and what I believe in, what foods I like. It is a wide variety of things and a wide variety of things that make up who we are. And I think it's important to remind ourselves it's not just our students that need to feel safe. It's our employees, right? And all of our employees. And not just the employees that think the
086way we do. It's all of our employees need to feel that when they come to work, they can bring their full selves to that workplace. So you did a survey before. There was a lot of good positive things. This was done back in February. We'll go deeper into the other one that was done recently a little bit later. But really high results relative to this issue of people feeling connected and able to talk about some of these difficult topics. These numbers have changed a little bit with the newer survey, but also relatively high. But we'll dig a little bit deeper in the actual survey in a few minutes. So it is a, I like to use this roadmap because the whole discussion of D and I, diversity, inclusion, everybody's at a different place, right? Some
087people have high understanding. They understand the landscape. Some people think they're really high, but they really aren't because they are only high if you believe exactly the way they believe. And so I think whenever we have these discussions, right, that there's actions that we can take to make people feel comfortable. And then there's actions from a system standpoint that we can do that can make sustainable change. But if we can't talk about it, right, and we can't have informed conversations, those things will never happen. And the most difficult thing, especially in the climate in our country right now. is to have truly honest, compassionate discussions about things that we've been told for years, right? We've been told for years, what don't you talk about at work? You don't talk about these issues at work. And
088now we're being thrust in an environment where people are being asked to have these conversations and then wonder why sometimes people don't want to have them and people sometimes don't want to have them because... No matter what some people say, they're labeled a certain way or their fingers wagged in their face. And we have to slow the nonsense down, and especially in education, I believe, teach our students how to be more respectful of those that don't think the way we do. We have to be more understanding. And the old adage of you have, my dad used to have a sign in our basement. I grew up back here, so we had basements. And he had his workroom, and there was a sign above the workroom that said, be sure brain is engaged before putting mouth
089in motion. I just love that, right? I can see it today, and I wish I would have kept it, but we don't do the, huh? I'm going to have one made. I can actually still see the image of it. I'm going to put my dad's picture around it just because he would go, son, think about what you're going to say before you open your mouth. Think about what you're going to say. He loves saying that to me. So we don't do enough of that. We yell and scream, and that's not getting us anywhere. To impact, and we're going to go a little bit deep in some areas, but we're not because this section here and all the stuff we're going to talk about is a multi-day session, but I've kind of condensed some of the
090things, but just to give some flavor of where some of these pieces are. And really to make changes in systems and impact systems, it has to be done from not an individual level, but from a system level. individual people don't always, aren't capable, even if all of you did the right things and had the right mind, whatever you mean by the right, but the mindset for change, it has to have from a system level. That's the only way you have those kind of impacts. So here's a truth that people don't like to admit, but everybody's brain is biased. Every one of us. So what do I mean by that? Do we all think we all have biases? We all bring our life experiences of what we experienced in the past to, and I hate to
091use the word judging, but judging what's happening now with people or situations or whatever. Yeah. And this isn't good or bad, right? That statement comes off as a negative. We can all have biases. It's what you do with that bias and how that bias impacts your decision-making or change. But for anyone to say, I love it when people would say, you know where I'm going to go, right? I don't see color. Open your freaking eyes. Right? Like, you don't see color? That is the one. And I know the intent, right? Are you saying you don't see that person? Of course you see color. We all see color, right? If you're not visually impaired or colorblind, but that is not a negative to see color. But it doesn't impact your decision-making in a way that is
092unfair to other people. So I think thinking about that we come from this place and we can all take a deep breath. and walk into a room and say, it doesn't matter if you're a, I was going to say it live by my age and say a 38-year-old, which is, I'm so far from that age. But, yeah, but as an adult male that's been through life and grew up in Pennsylvania with parents from the South, moved to California. In many cases, right? Colorful, right? It's colorful. And in many cases, being the only person that's black in the room in my career and in other situations, my brain is biased, right? I have biases. Good, bad, indifferent. But it's how you take those biases and move those forward and go, is this going to make an
093impact on what I'm doing and how I'm doing it? So, which are more deadly? Male or female hurricanes? God, you showed this one before. I know. Female. You said female. Female. Do you remember why? Why? Our brains are wired to think that a feminist name is more nurturing, more calm, relaxing, so we don't take the necessary precautions based on... that perception of a... It's crazy true, right? That you have hurricane... Think of the most deadly hurricane that we think of as what? Katrina. Katrina sounds so sweet, right? It's just little Katrina, right? Hurricane Daniel, right? Boer Palver, right? Hurricane Tommy. But we see this, and they've done the studies, right, and they compared every major hurricane that's caused the most life loss have been hurricanes with feminine names because people don't take the same level
094of precautions as they do with the ones with male names, and they stay. Wow. And we don't change it. And we don't change it. And we don't change our perceptions, which is crazy. And we've seen this point of view and bias. So we all have it. I think it's important to know that it's a biological constraint, that we can't eliminate it. That as we think about how we impact each other and that as we try to... grow in a community, in a culture, and in different generations that are trying to be, I think in many cases, more inclusive, we have to be cautious that the individual piece is not as impactful to when you're making decisions and policies as it is from an organizational system piece. So it matters. Sorry, I thought I was going
095to sneeze. It matters because if we don't break bias, there's a high cost to people and process and the long-term impact to have, as all of you have made comments throughout today about the safety piece, that people don't feel safe. And it doesn't matter. Who doesn't feel safe? It's important that, well, I don't mean it that way. It's important that everyone feels safe, right? And so making one group or one group not feel safe to make another group feel safe is not the way we're supposed to move forward. We're supposed to move forward where everybody can feel that this bias piece is intentional about making sure. that those biases, regardless of what we think, do not impact our decision-making. So when you think about bias, again, we want to mitigate it. And biases can be
096helpful, right? Like if I'm walking in my yard and I hear a rattle sound, right, my bias is to what? run and scream like a 13-year-old little girl because I hate snakes, right? My daughter laughed the other day a couple weeks ago where I was outside and a little garter snake went by and I jumped and she laughed and she picked up the snake and put it away. And I just don't like snakes, right? But it's helpful in many cases, but in many cases, right, we have to remember to mitigate those biases selectively and make sure that we're not. doing things that are going to impact negatively others. So this all makes sense, right? This is the top things that we think about. Our bias is we should never, never make decisions against anyone. based
097on our biases, right? And so, but they can have an impact. These are all unconscious bias too, right? They're not the biases that we're aware of. There are things that we may not even be aware of at times, right? So in hiring and assigning people to projects, giving out rewards and recognition, but you think about even too, from a governance standpoint, the budgeting, planning, and really investing in time, talent, and treasure with people is also important. So here are some things that we all have bias on, right? And some biases don't have a huge impact. So like if choosing a place to go to lunch, you may have a bias to go to blah, blah, blah. That's really not a big deal, right, if it's you. But the decision to pick a vendor for a
098project because you know the person or you think the person because they're A, B, C, or D based on a bias. And then a long-term vendor can have a huge impact, right? Or hiring can have a huge impact. So the threshold questions are when does the evaluation of bias really import? And especially from the on the threshold and above the threshold as far as decision-making and questioning is important. So how do you break bias as a team? I think the first thing is you accept that you have a bias, right? You label and identify it. And the mitigation piece is how do you get around that bias? How do you make sure that you're not treating, providing somebody an unfair advantage based on those biases? So I'm going to go through these a little bit
099faster than normal, but just because of time again. So the CEEDS model is a model to kind of understand what type of bias exists. So as a group, think, and maybe not so much as an individual, but as a governance team, what are some of the key decision-making pieces that you have to do as a board? And then we can just... Just talk through them. Well, we're making hiring decisions. Hiring decisions? I mean, even if it's only the superintendent, but we all are also approving. Well, both pieces, right? Not only the job description, but also the individuals that are going to be hired. You don't have direct. You're not interviewing those, but you definitely have impact. Follow-up question. Does the board provide feedback to the superintendent on candidates that are coming before you? All the
100time, right? Sometimes? All the time. Yep. What else? What other decisions do you make as a board? Well, the easy one is board policies. Board policies. And what's the impact of policies? Well, if they're followed. They guide the organization with – they give guidance to the leaders of the organization of what the expectations are to be done in each of those individual board policy circumstances. Absolutely. We do make some educational decisions. Yeah, for sure. Give a couple examples that stand out to you. Well, we have to decide how we're going to spend our LCAP money. Educational decisions are completely embedded in that. Budget in general is educational guidance. What are we spending our money on? That's right. And those biases, do you think those biases could come out in those decision-making pieces? Yeah. Anything else
101that stands out as far as decision making as you think about budget, educational choices, hiring, staffing, policy? We all have our kind of pet projects. Talk to me more about what that means to you. I know what it means. Yeah, I mean, we all kind of look and see, say, oh, this is important to me, so this is something I'm going to pay more attention to than other things. You know, like I've been saying about CTE is an important thing. Or, you know, another example, the early childhood education stuff. That was hugely important to me coming in. So, you know. Yeah, and then bringing those scissors to the rest of the world. And maybe those are benign, right? But maybe they're not, right? I don't think so at all. Thank you. You know, it brings
102back to the conversation where Trustee Sandoval mentioned that we wish we had more opportunities to have discussions. And it goes to that green flag on the roadmap that you had earlier on. And I liked where Trustee Wilson mentioned in one of his earlier comments about Isbell Middle School. I want to explore where he's at. I want to know more about why he's passionate about it. You know, our pet projects, as Trustee Sandoval mentioned. And the decision-making process, you know, I don't think we have enough time to have those conversations, and I wish we did, because I want to get those biases out. I want to know what we're thinking and why we're so passionate about certain... Certain items, so I think when we say decision-making I think sometimes we miss some of the information. And
103that's not a detriment or a negative to Superintendent Weinstein because he does a fabulous job of keeping us informed. But sometimes it's through conversations that other things develop and other conversations and questions start coming up. So I just, I think it's a timing issue. We don't always have enough time to get the information to help make an informed decision. Like I was saying earlier, and thank you for your comments, is that sometimes the intentionality, because there's so much that you're asked to do as a board, it's how do you get to that? This will kind of go into when we go talk about goal setting, but how do you get to that process of saying, here are the things that I want to leave here as a district, right? Here's the things that are most
104important to me. How do I bring my colleagues along? And then as a board and then as a governance team, how do we make sure that we're in alignment with those things and make sure those things can come to the table? Because when you think of your agenda, there's consent, right, and then there's the discussion action items. And I tell you what I see frequently in a lot of board meetings is equal amount of time spent on consent versus discussion action items. And so your meeting is three and a half, four hours long. You start at five o'clock in closed session. You go to open session at seven o'clock. And then you have a meeting that in essence lasts six hours, right? In many cases, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, depending on how you're doing. And
105then your staff has also been here since seven o'clock in the morning. Most of you have some kind of career outside of here. And so... How do you balance all that and making sure that that decision-making, I'm pontificating a little bit, but that decision-making is an alignment of what you want. And then also avoiding letting non-things that are part of your priority come and embed into your priorities. So thank you for the time and discussion because that's going to lead right into our high-level goal-setting discussion too. So thank you. Well, I mean, just one further comment. Oh, please. Just to kind of highlight that problem, right? Because when I've been thinking about this conversation, right, DEI, equity, what have you, to me it's like, okay, when are we going to get to the point where
106we're talking about... implementing, you know, strategies to, you know, make things more equal, right? To make things more, you know, accepting to, you know, the students that we have. And, you know, it doesn't seem like we ever get to that conversation, right? So we know we have populations, you know, within our school district that are lagging behind. Special ed, English learners, you know, we could go on and on, right? Homeless, you know. foster kids, and yet we don't ever have the time to kind of go, okay, well, what do we do about that? Like, you know, because a lot of those things are just kind of on autopilot, and we haven't had a real discussion on those kinds of things. Or, you know, and that's just the superficial, like, easy stuff to talk about, right?
107What about other, you know, things that are going on, you know, on how, you know, the educational models that we're using? you know, and how they may be biased, you know, and how do we change that? They are. Right, and they are, right? And how do we change those? You know, what does it look like? How do we have those conversations? That's the stuff that it's like, like this stuff is like, okay, yeah, like we all have this, hopefully we all know that, maybe we don't, right? You gotta like get that level set, but then we need to further that conversation too, you know, and that's difficult to do, I think, in there. Yeah, I think the level setting is a part of that, and I think it's, without getting far ahead of myself, it's
108having this discussion, the goal session, and then to your comment, what are the action items post that that the board, the governance team, and the leaders in this district say, here's the what. And we can do everything, but here are the three to five. Five is a lot. But here are the things and the goals that we want to move forward with. And then saying to community and everyone else, once that's decided, yeah, this idea of bringing school uniforms is a great idea, but we aren't focused on this right now. We are focused on A, B, C, and D. And until we get those things accomplished to a level of satisfaction with the board and the time investment we need, we are staying on target with these three to five issues. That's hard to do
109because you'll have people still coming to your board meeting at the dais and saying, I want you to talk about this, this, this, and this. And I'm not saying you don't talk about it, but how do you prioritize that ongoing conversation and move these three to five critical pieces forward? So there's all these biases out here. And the objective is how do we take them so the NeuroBrain Institute took these and reduced these down to a few, right? And we'll briefly cover these just to kind of talk about why they're important and how do we label them and move forward with them. So there's similarity. experience, distance, and safety. So similarity makes sense, right? The bias that we all have that people like me are better than everybody else. That's probably the most common. That's
110the one people think about when they think about bias. Experience is a quick way. It's kind of our gut feeling. So if it feels right, it's got to be true. And experience is... It was mentioned earlier, right, like that I had this happen before, so it's going to happen again. That's my bias in that area. Distance is in time and in perception and even just physical that sometimes somebody that works in the same building that I work in or that they come from the same neighborhood, that making a decision about that person or that situation is easier. And then the last one, bad is stronger than good. And by that, it means I'm not willing to take that risk because the outcome and potential harm to me in a negative way is much scarier than
111the potential good. So I'm going to play it safe. I'm going to skip over this. When you think about in-groups and out-groups in a work situation or in a district, what comes to your mind? So if there's the people, what's the in-group? What could be the in-group? Friends, yeah, right? You're in an office, there's never cliques in an office, right? That stuff doesn't exist, right? But if you're part of that in-group because... You're from the community. You made a comment or someone made a comment earlier about we're all in the same community and we all but but if you come from if you're not from say you don't live in Santa Paula and you live in you name Ohio or someplace like that, right? You're Are you part of the out group? Are you considered
112part of the community or not? And how those things happen. So even something simple as that within a community can be a bias. And so making sure that that out group or whatever people may perceive as out group feels they're part of that in group. So here's some situations that are ripe for similarity bias. When you think about your hiring processes and your... Even for committees and task force that we think we're putting things together, we go, this person has done this in the past. Try to get out of that thing of when you're doing criteria, especially if you're going to do any kind of bond committees. Think about the resumes, the people that you include. Even student groups, right? A lot of times when we do student groups, when we do student groups, it's
113always the good kids that are asked, right? The ones that are your honor students, ones that are really doing well. Ask all students, different groups of students, students that don't get asked all the time, special ed students, right? Think about if you're wanting to get inclusivity as part of your process. and not make it look the same, expand that. And then one term we hear a lot is, I don't know if this person is a cultural fit. Cultural fit. We hear that a lot. People say, I don't think they'll fit our culture. Well, what the heck does that mean? That's really ambiguous and really sets yourself up. So I know what people mean and what their intent is when they say it. But it's important that we think about anything that we're doing that can
114potentially create some kind of bias in our actions. And then, you know, these are all things that are important, right? But some things that kind of fall into that category, too, are work experience. I worked with that person before. They're great. Or somebody that knows somebody. And that someone's like you. Here are some ways that we talk about. The biggest thing is acknowledging at first, right? You accept that you have a bias. What do you do to mitigate those biases? And so when you have similarity biases, some of the best ways to do that with people that you don't have similarity with is create shared goals and experiences to make sure there's alignment. You can always find similarities between yourself and others. no matter who they are, if we went around this room, the phrase
115we are more alike than we're different always stands on my mind. I bet you we have more things that we find we have in common than we have that are different. And then take away anything that's distinguishing, that's different, right? And see that person in the same way you would see yourself. Some of these. So the limbic system is part of the brain that talks about where we take shortcuts and we take shortcuts frequently and our brain automatically does it. And so as you kind of go through and think about this whole DE&I process and the bias piece, it's important to recognize that it's not something that's in your control, especially this piece of unconscious bias. So the second one we talked about, experience, it feels right to me. It must be true. So sometimes
116we make decisions that are rapid, like group voting on the spot. If you do interviews that are kind of haphazard and unstructured, we may have time to talk about a business case that kind of does that. So our memories are one of the... biggest ways that we often kind of sometimes think back on memories and they're positive, but our memories aren't always accurate and are always aligned to what reality is. And then sometimes experience if we're running to a tight deadline. If you're making decisions that something is urgent and you have to make a decision quickly, this expedience piece is often really kind of heavily weighted, in fact, if you're making a fast and rushed decision. Ways that you can break that piece is take a break, right? I see this is all we do
117superintendents are just quite frankly, right? That if you're doing hiring that you need to take a break in between sessions because sometimes everyone's overwhelmed and they're making an important decision, but they don't know how to move forward and don't want to make mistakes, excuse me. And so making sure that there's kind of a time to rethink and regroup. And as you think about even your goals and your priorities, too, that can come into place. And then if you haven't, making sure you open opportunities for all information. And so don't just take information from those that you normally take information from. Expand that to other people. So here's an image I like your opinion on. Do we see the A and the B block? What do we see here? Two gray lines? Same color? Same color?
118Okay. So when you look at square A and square B, what do you see? Same color? Who says they're the same color? Who says they're different? What do you see as the difference? A looks darker? B looks lighter? Who sees them the same? Same? Different? Same? Different? Well, what do you see now? Totally different. Now what do you see? So some people's brain, yes. So when you look here, right, do we see them as different here? Everybody sees them as different here. They are different, right? A is darker than B. But our brains automatically know what does this look like to us. The board, what does the board look like to most? Checkerboard, right? It looks like a checkerboard. And it shows that when you take these two pieces, which are the same color, right?
119They're exactly the same. And you align them with the tower in the back that some people's, like mine goes, it's like mine switches back and forth from A to B being different. And I've seen, I've done this, shown this slide hundreds of times, right? It goes, right now they're the same, now they're different. Now they're the same. Now they're different. Now they're the same. My brain goes back and forth with switching them. It almost gives me a headache at times because it keeps switching back and forth from A to B being the same. Yeah. Yeah, mine doesn't matter how I move my head. And some of you will see. So it's just amazing, right, and even after you know the facts, you know that A is darker than B. your brain still plays tricks on
120you, and that bias, whatever that is, makes those colors look the same or different, and now it's the same, and now it's different. Yeah. Yeah, and it is darker, but some people, it goes back and forth or stays the same. So experience, we talked about it. Your perceptions are accurate regardless of what truth is. And so some circumstances that are ripe or experienced biases, and we see this a lot in public education, is departmental silos, right, where business services is communicating effectively with ed services, HR has a different opinion, the superintendent's office may have a different opinion. Top-down driven decisions all the time are not good for that. And then sometimes when we're giving feedback, that experience bias can impact our decisions as well. A couple of ways to mitigate experience bias is to get
121perspective of others. get multiple other independent opinions. And as we talked about a little bit before with the other discussion about expedience is getting opinions of others that aren't always the ones that we normally get. And then sometimes this is not only good for group decision-making, but also individual is imagined from somebody else's point of view. And then really making sure all options are on consideration for the table. One of the things that, as we talked about earlier on today, was about board meetings and the fact that it's important to do all that, kind of get as much information as possible. But one of the things that challenges boards is that you have done all that background work, you've spent time talking about an issue. And then at a board meeting where you're going to
122discuss, you get 40 people that show up at a meeting and are yelling at you, right, saying, how dare you do this? You haven't. And you've spent weeks. And what I would caution the board is not that you don't think those 40 people are important, right, but you've probably already heard those things. But 40 people show up at your board meeting, and it impacts the emotion of that moment, right? And sometimes decisions are made or changed because of the number of people that show up at a meeting. And so 40 people sounds like a lot. Even if it was 100, how many students do you have in your district? And how many families do you have in your district? And then how many families vote in your district? And if you think about all those
123factors. It doesn't dismiss the impact of people showing up. But if you've already considered that information in your decision-making, it's important you don't let that bias of people showing up impact what may not be the best decision for the district because of that. Yes. I think it's important to respond to their concerns and questions, especially as it's been discussed. And my expectation is that... cabinet and the superintendent respond to them and if there is new information that certain things be tabled to look into it further if it's a valid comment. Wow, brilliantly said, right? That you don't want anybody to leave the boardroom feeling disrespected or not heard and that if new information comes up I think unless there's a sense that has to be voted on tonight, I think you're 100% right. If there's
124new information, I think it's in the board and the community's best interest to say let's table this for another meeting, another time. It could be two days later. But if it's the same information and you've already considered it, I think acknowledging it and moving forward is a brilliant way to go. I'm going to kind of... Yeah, I'm going to move us through just because of time. So the next one is distance bias. And the three areas that we talked about relative to this piece are location of sight. Virtual versus in-person, we see a lot of that with hybrid meetings that sometimes people that are in the room get better treatment than those, better is the wrong word, but more attention than those that are virtual. And so that to me is probably the biggest one
125to think about the fact that just because someone's not in the room, it's important to make sure that they feel the same level of... being hurt, but because they're not, there's just this natural inclination to go down this path. So real quick. So quick question. So we did this one last time. Yeah, we did. Yeah, I'm curious where we are. But so if someone said to you $10,000 you'd have to give me, what would the win have to be? $100,000? Anybody else? What would you need the win to be to give somebody $10,000, but the win would have to be X? A lot? Yeah. You don't gamble either yet? No. No. $10 maybe, right? I'm cheap. Even $100, it's got to be like $10,000 or something like that. So that's the safety piece, right? And
126so as we move through that, just the ways to mitigate the safety piece. Imagine you're giving that advice to somebody else. Assume that the decision has already been made for you. And then think about how much information is needed to offset that risk. I'm going to skip through some of these real quick. So when you think of the words diversity, equity, and inclusion and belonging, what does it mean to you? Take a few minutes to think about it, then we're going to go around the room and talk about that a bit. Let me ask some more questions. Is DEI and belonging positive or negative or challenging? So tell me what you mean by that. Really, because that's important. It's what you make it, right, and how you position it. And in what content you're using
127it. You said some very good things at the beginning of the meeting, and I meant to write it down, but I just go back down to simple principles, making sure everybody feels included, and show that you care. and be, I don't think the word sympathetic is the correct word, but just being, I know I look at Gina. Empathy, right? Empathy, yes, of people's needs and just, you know, be a good human. Oh my gosh, imagine that. No, but that, thank you, and that means a lot, right? We want Santa Paula to be a place that no matter who you are, what your role is, is that these words, diversity, the word equity, the word inclusion, at some point they used to be all positive, right? Diversity meant one thing, and then it gets slanted to
128a non. Empathetic word. Equity, I think, probably the most recently has been kind of become more partisan one way or the other. You know, if you're a student that's visually impaired and you need Braille, how can anybody argue that that's not needed for that student? But that's what equity means, right? It doesn't mean you're taking away from one to give to another. In simple terms, it's giving what that student needs at that moment, at that time. Correct, right? It's that kind of alignment on that. So what does the rest of the board think about that? Because it's not what I think. It's just what you think for you and your community. I think of the word diversity. We have to know our clientele. Who are they? Where are they coming from? Social economic status? Culturally,
129who are they? Who are the constituents? And then I think about diversity on the end of staffing. I'm not just talking about do they have to look alike, but are they meeting the needs of our constituents? And that goes a little bit along, in my opinion, with equity and inclusion. Is education fully accessed by all students? And we have to ask those questions. Does every student, with their diversity, have opportunities to benefit from the education system? So that's why it's a positive-negative. To me, they're reflection words. And then belonging. We've learned in education over many years that it's not about just how you teach a student. It's whether you engage the student. And belonging to me goes a long way into or deeper into the resiliency traits. Are we having mentorships? Are they actively engaged?
130Do they have social emotional support? Do you have systems in place to meet the needs of our diverse population? Wow. Thank you. I hope this was recorded because, wow. Chris, who wants to go next? pretty well. I don't know that I can add much. But for you, is there anything that stands out from what good, challenging, whatever that resonates with you? It doesn't have to be... No, I see it all as positive. We want everybody to be at the same table enjoying the same benefits at the other end. I like that verbiage too, everybody at the same table, right? Not different tables, but at the same table. Thank you. You know, those three words are so, they're altogether, you know, viewed toxically and are overused and are, you know, because they can be buzzwordy. Sometimes,
131you know, people think... It sounds like you have a lot to unpack. Well, you know, a bit, right? It's true. I mean, you hear DEI, and it's almost, you know, meaningless at this point, right? So I like to use real examples, right? And I think we've had a few good ones on what this means, right? At least to me. So one of them... There was a student project in the sixth grade, and they took the lotteria, the Mexican cards, and they were asked, okay, now you have to reimagine it. Take one of them, reimagine it for yourself, and have a little statement, just a small statement that relates to why you were thinking this way. And they put it in the art museum, and I went to go see it. And actually, the chief curator
132of the museum... Ventura County talked to him. He was like, yeah, we were walking through the museum and I saw this exhibit and I was blown away because of how it takes that kind of diversity element and lets kids bring out what it means to them. Because oftentimes these are top-down or we have an idea of what it should be. You know, but we're old. You know, kids work in a different world. They view these things in different ways. And so seeing how they interact with their own identities is amazing, right? It's an amazing exhibit. So that's one example. Another example was we were all at the Renaissance High School graduation. I've heard, you know, the perception of Renaissance is, well, that's where the gang bangers and the president moms go. You know, that's kind
133of the dumping ground, right? It's the alternative ed. You know, who are they? One staffer mentioned, you know, oh, let's move Renaissance to McEvitt to give them more space, right? And I'm like, oh, you can't do that. We don't want those kids in our neighborhood. Like, why do we even have Renaissance? So the graduation, right, it was beautiful. It was great. I had a community member come up and say, I've never been to a more beautiful graduation. It was an amazing thing. And we got to hear from the kids on how they felt included for the first time in education. They were graduating, right? Last year, right? Well, to use your comments right, it's not just buzzwords that. as my comments to you or to the board has been buzzwords can be manipulated to either
134positive or negative, right? But the actions of how you live those values and do they align to your goals and what you're saying, because the board has said this is an important piece for us, how do you align those to your goals and make those not about words but about the actions that you're doing to make... students feel like they are included and they belong, I think is powerful. Yes, sir. So, you know, as the educational leader of the district, the one thing that I try to instill in all my leadership is, you know, we all used to be teachers. We had personal relationships with 25, 35 students. We got to see them all the time. We got to talk to them all the time. We learned things about them. We realized they're all different.
135And once you start climbing that ladder, and then all of a sudden you're looking at a 5,000 student population. And one of the things that I always think about is, you know, you... If you're up in the mountains and you look out your window and you see this beautiful blanket of snow, are you realizing that each one of those snowflakes is different? And, you know, you don't because you just kind of see the sea of students or whatever. And it's important that we don't view students in that concept. Yeah. I'm going to say something people are going to get pissed off about, but I don't care, right? But I hear these verbiage, this verbiage like, well, the black community, I'm like, what time was that meeting and I wasn't invited, right? We use these things
136that lump us all together and I think it's important for us to talk about, as you've all talked about today, of... These students that live in your community are all individuals that all have unique needs. They may have similar backgrounds. They may have similar experiences, but they're all individuals, and they all need to make sure that they're not grouped together because I think often that diminishes the value of their uniqueness. and me pontificating a little bit again, too. Well, I mean, to that point, right? I mean, you could look at our district and go, yeah, it's pretty much uniform. They're all 90% Latino. Well, wait a minute. Like, that's ignoring the fact that the Latino community is not a monolith, that there are many different facets to it, and there's maybe more diversity within it,
137right, than some groups. It's huge. One of my friends is Ecuadorian, and people... say things about him and his culture and he's like, you have no idea what you're talking about. He's like, you have no idea what you're talking about. And they don't. And so I think that as we continue to think about this belonging piece. You said it best that the scary thing is that sometimes we do look at this sea of students and we label them all into one category. And sometimes we do it because we're required to do certain things for LCAP and for financial reasons. But when we walk face to face, these are individuals that don't want to be seen as. So this is. And I'm going to move through a lot of this stuff because we just don't have
138time to get through it all. The whole equity discussions. This was a slide that I was telling you earlier that has been changed a little bit, right? But adding the justice piece is important. But this has become almost a negative, too. A positive image the first time I saw it. Now it's another thing that's become. Removing the fence. Now, it's the buzzwords. Do you want to see your survey, or do we want to talk more about goals first? Let's talk goals. Okay, let's do that. Yeah, I agree. So does the district have an equity policy? And does the district want an equity policy? Go ahead. None of us. I mean, we do. I saw you post it. No, you did. You did. And did I read it? I mean, honestly, like policy to me has
139its place. But if that policy isn't culturalized, then it's meaningless. And this is a definite how do we as a district want to be kind of thing, you know? It's got to be practiced, not just written down. Right. So what's your... Can we pull up your equity policy? Do we have access? Can you pull up that piece? I think, yeah, it's on the backup materials, right? But I think we want it. Ana, didn't you say look at the goal? We're going to get to that. Because I think where you're headed is right on. We're in the same place. So we're going to pull the equity policy piece up. But I want us to talk about, so earlier today. We talked about the first thing that everyone said was important. And number one is every one
140of you said safety was important. So let's put number one. You can just put it right on your face. Put like one safety. Is that a priority? And as I think about safety, right, just relative to the equity piece. even use that word. I'm going to use the inclusion and belonging piece. That could be part of that, right? What is that, you know what I'm thinking, right? That piece of psychological safety piece. Is that part of the overall safety and is that included in the board's discussion when you think about safety currently? Huh? Well-being, right? Primarily. Really? Primarily. I mean, we do, it's easier to talk about the hardening. Sure, but even if we're talking about we don't want anybody to shoot up anybody, you've got to start off with well-being, mental health. Sorry. No,
141go ahead. I was going to say we had that conversation when we were talking about safety. So as you talk about the safety piece and psychological safety and physical safety, How is that viewed in your equity policy piece is the question. And so you have buy it. That's it, yeah. Can you page down a little bit? No, I think that's perfect. That's perfect right there. I mean, you could read it into it. It's not explicit. That's what you're... No, I'm asking just because I think it is, but... eliminate disparities in educational outcomes? Isn't that part of that? Yeah. And then from a goal piece, is there something specific that's not there? What I'm trying to get alignment on is when you think about your goals, right, and what you identified as some of your top
142goals, and we talked about wanting to make sure those goals are apparent. And then... whatever you want to call it, DEI and B, is that embedded in that policy? And then what are the actions that the board is going to focus on or does the board need to focus on and revisit to make sure that safety includes the DEI and P? Does that make sense? I mean, are you suggesting we should revise our equity policy, though? I'm just asking. That's part of what the part of the part of the question is, is really twofold, right? That I've heard a lot of discussion today, and we're going to try to get into this as far from a time perspective. I've heard that when you look at your priorities as board members, right? that safety was the
143number one thing that every single board member talked about. And I think even above and part of what the second one was student success. And I heard it from a high level. The student success piece was that all students had a way to success. And then the third one was really about... I would say it was budget, right? Making sure that there was alignment on budget issues. And so when I think about the comments about you have limited time, limited resources, and to go deeper on other areas, this issue of safety seems to be still a big one. It still seems to be a concern from the board, not only from a psychological safety piece, but from a physical safety piece. Bless you. And then so... Is that the board's, and I want the board's
144feedback because I'm telling you what I'm reading into your comments, and then how do we, and that climate piece, right, of what we talked about earlier, that culture and climate, I say culture is all the same thing, but how do you incorporate that to make sure you're having and developing a culture and a climate that allows and enables for those things to happen? So I'm not sure if I'm saying it correctly, but on number four, where it talks about safety, of just revising that one to include things that we were discussing about what safety means to us for the well-being of the student. Yeah, because if you're not saying it, and then you're not articulating it, what does it mean? Yeah, so I think that, and then, so what I see is like a study
145session for the board. safety. What is psychological safety? First of all, it's and I'm sure it already is in one of your goals, but making sure that the board has prioritized these three to five goals, right? And one is safety that aligns with the superintendent's goals that you're not trying to do 15 things because you're superintendent. likes to work hard, right? It has five goals and there's three things under each goal and that's a lot to ask of a leader. But if safety is a priority, then it's how do we make sure that both these two big buckets of physical and psychological safety, I'll use that word, are embedded? Yes, sir. So, I mean, for me, it just goes right back to, and I bet we can all cite personal evidence or personal experiences. Was
146I involved when I was in school? Was I involved in either student government, athletics, band? Was I involved? So we're talking about enrichment. We're talking about the art projects. Are we providing enough enrichment activities that promotes student safety? Because what do we know? Students are going to be challenged with issues for eternity and time. All we can do is give them the tools. and how to deal with these challenges. If I'm being bullied, do I have a support network? Again, if I'm involved, I probably do. I can go to my friends. I'm probably surrounding myself around a group of individuals that can help me become resilient out of this situation. If I'm connected with my teachers, with my staff members, are we providing learning centers as we're starting to move in that direction? Are we
147giving those opportunities, enrichment opportunities, to provide meaningful and belonging activities? I'm not just saying this. Most people would not do what you just did and connect enrichment to safety, which I think is beautiful, right? But when you drill down on it, it is. But I think that to be able to kind of say... and the board would be all on the same page to be able to articulate what you just said to the community when they say, what are you doing? You can easily say, well, here's what we're doing, here's what we have. Right, and calm the noise down to a place where, and guide them and direct them, as the board said earlier, direct them in a way that makes them feel valued. And all of you were saying the same thing. And so
148I'm able to create like a roadmap, right? Because the one thing I think our students face that's different, and I don't want to get too deep in this, but is... I'll probably share some stuff that's not a surprise, right? I didn't wear a bow tie when I was a kid, but I was, you know, not much taller and got bullied. And, you know, we had a couple guys that every day walking home from school, it was a nice little ping pong ball for them to beat up, right? And so I always try to find different ways to get home so I wouldn't get my butt kicked, right? And, you know. And then, but at home in my neighborhood with my friends and everything, and at school if I was involved in stuff, you're exactly right,
149I felt safe. That walk home sometimes didn't feel so safe. But our kids, there was no social media, right? So if I was being teased at school or beat up or whatever happened or whatever happens to our students now, the challenge now is social media has a different layer that I think that psychological safety piece. Is a little bit different, but I do think if you articulated well, how do we kind of have this discussion on safety? So, thank you. I want to get into this. The second piece we talked about budget. Facilities success. Actually, I think your superintendent said it. Well, the second one seems to actually be. continuous improvement for students and for staff. That kind of, am I wrong? Everybody looking safety, there's the equity piece. And when I think about the
150equity piece, I'm thinking how do we embed that piece into everything? But from, do you think more goal setting sessions or deeper sessions are, let's see, are needed on budget? Because I think I've seen your budget sessions. Your budget sessions are pretty thorough already, right? Well. Okay, so this section of the meeting is kind of something I might have hoisted on Jeff a bit. We're headed toward, I mean, we have deficit budgets as far as the eye can see. And so we've got to make decisions. Tough decisions. Yeah, and so I just feel like, you know, I'm not sure if we're all on the same page, you know, kind of grounded. in the same priorities, right? Which is why, you know, setting those goals is going to be important because when we're saying, well, we
151don't have enough money for A or B, which one goes? Your budget reflects your priorities. I don't know whether we can say. I don't know if we have a really good way of articulating which one should go, you know? So we have some general ideas, but like, how does that really manifest itself? You know, like if I'm like Pathways, oh, CTE, I just don't touch CTE, right? Well, is that where everybody is? I mean, and how much do we spend on that? I mean, is there some back on that we have to do? So budget is a priority that we'll keep that here. And so, yeah, well, budget reflects your priorities. And it's like in your household, right? Anybody ever been through tough financial times at home? I know I have. Right? And so some
152things that are nice to do, you do. And then some things that are not nice to do, you got to cut. Yeah, absolutely right. And you go to the food bank to get food because you sometimes have to do those kind of things, right? And whatever it takes to make sure that the core of what you're trying to accomplish. isn't stopped. I'm looking also too at where is the one that says your leadership, your legacy piece. I'm trying to thank you. So make sure we didn't miss anything. I think you're right. I think budget has to be there and I think that's probably if it were me the first thing I would be tackling like what are Like if you had three programs as a board that you, but it's probably deeper than that. It's
153really drilling down on your LCAP makes some things very specific, what's restricted, what's unrestricted, and looking at those. But even with the restricted, you still can prioritize where you want to spend your district efforts. You know, part of it is I feel like, You know, there's over the years have always been a lot of initiatives. You know, oh, let's try this thing. Oh, let's try this thing. Right. And they get stuck, quote unquote, in the budget. And we don't reflect on, well, how is all this stuff working together? Like, is it achieving what we want to achieve? What is it that we want to achieve? Well, there's there's programs we all we sign up for. We sign contracts with and they just keep getting renewed because. Right. And I think that we need to take,
154I think we as a board need to critically reflect on what are those real priorities and do the programs that we have reflect those priorities? And what are the, what's the hierarchy? There's got to be, you know, you can't do it all. Like if reading my third grade is a major priority for the board, then. Then the first thing is, like the example would be, evaluate all your programs that feed into that to make sure that happens, which ones are effective, which ones aren't. And the ones that haven't proven to be effective, if you're measuring, and if you're not measuring, that's a challenge, but I'm sure you are. That, to your point, would be where I would look at, too. But I think that requires a lot of pre-work for your staff to say to
155the board, whatever our... What are our priorities as a district, right, as far as our number one priority, which is learning, right, and student achievement? And then from there, kind of drilling down on there and saying, where do we want to go? Go ahead. I'm sorry. Well, and I don't know how. This is one of these discussions, right, that I wish we had. I mean, I'm glad we're doing it right now, right? Because I don't know where everybody falls on things. But, you know, we had an LCAP presentation. At the end of that, Dr. Moore had presented his learner profile. And he had like five categories. This is the kind of student we want to achieve. Or we want to graduate from our schools. And, you know, one of them is like critical thinker. Okay.
156Well, what does that mean? How do we know? When a student has gotten there, what are the kind of programming or pedagogy or learning models or whatever do we need in order to develop a child into a critical thinker? Do we have the right priorities set, you know, to get to that? So that's the kind of thing that it's like we have a vision, right? Committed to every student every day. tangible ways in which I've seen that manifested, right? We have a mission underneath that. And that mission is pretty generic. You could see it everywhere. Sure. And you could almost kind of tie anything back to it, right? But I don't think we've really done that well. Like, how does our mission drive what we do? I don't think that it does. Or is your
157mission, we had this discussion last time. Is it time for the board to develop a new mission based on... Let me just say real quick before. Mission and vision statements are important, right? They do, especially if everybody knows them and you're aligned to it. I think your vision statement is great, quite frankly. But how do you live it is important too. And the rest of the board. thoughts on that is important as well. So, and just one last thing on that, because like when I was, when we were seeing that learner profile, I was like, well, that's our mission then, isn't it? Like they went through a year long process to kind of develop what those five things were going to be, you know? And so to me, it's like, all right, we have one
158mission and they kind of overlap. They, they do. But it's like, if this is really the kind of student that we're trying to achieve, that's our mission then, period. And then it's just a question of what's the action that comes after that? What are the objectives? How do we measure that? How do we know we met it? How do we spend the money to get us to those? I'd be interested to see if any. What are the rest of your thoughts? Thank you, sir. I guess still having a child in school and seeing what my kids did through the teachers and what my expectations were. and the critical thinking portion. I feel it's also teaching styles, the way you allow kids to present in front of classes, group projects, the activities that they're involved in.
159So I think that's why it's so important to me, the CTE courses as well, because I believe it provides other... other ways for their brains to kind of grow, even if they decide to go the college route or technical degree. Just being exposed to several things expands on that. So I just feel like we need to do a better job in showing how our kids are being critical thinkers, whether it's presentations before inviting classes to school board meetings for quick presentations, sharing, measuring. and of what's been done just so that we know that we're on target, just measuring. Just to piggyback on, to kind of reflect on what you just said, like the project-based learning stuff, right? You know, I mean, we're on an initiative. We're spending a lot of money on professional development to
160do that. But I don't think we as a board have said. This is what the district is becoming right and why it's doing this right because we I'm really really sensitive to sustainability Well, it's because because again, it's like here's an initiative. Okay. Well in three years Well five years right ever when you know Jeff's gone we get a new superintendent. Is it another set of initiatives? No, no three Yes, sir, so I look at it from this perspective. So the mission statement's there. We have our priorities, budgeting, safety, you know, that's there. I feel like sometimes in my decision-making process, what's lacking is I want to see more school-based evidence. Well, there's a committee for that. Each school has a school site counselor that has teachers, parents, sometimes students. and administrators having those discussions
161and when they get to prioritize what are their needs, what are their priorities, and then it comes to us, then we can make a better or well-informed decision. And I want to see more of that. I remember when that was a thing of the past, especially when there was categorical funding, when that was a thing. I used to be funded out of a budget that was categorical funded, and we had to make sure that we were giving the state right information so that we can continue to receive this type of funding. And that's the same thing for us. The school sites have to do, I think, a give us more information. Based on their objective now we have our academies. How can we continue to sustain that I'm with trustee Santa ball I don't want
162to reinvent the wheel two more years from now. I want to reflect every year have the staff reflect every year and Saying what can we do to make it better because obviously it's not going to be a perfect system year one But we need to be reflecting more and making sure that the school sites are having those discussions from the bottom up And then we get to make some decisions on, okay, how are we going to spend that money? Because we are looking at some budget pitfalls in the future, and we better be darn clear about what our objectives are if we're going to continue to spend that money. And to me, it's having that quantifiable data. Okay, here's what the initiative or the program, the school sites are having the discussions. They're going through
163the channels, and now we're having the discussions here at the school site or at the school board level. Thank you. And just... Let me just see. Just real quick. Okay. Yes, sir. Sorry. Well, and just, you know, to kind of continue that line of thinking, I mean, one of the things that I'm worried about, right, is that when we do any initiative like project-based learning, you know, that's a... Switch. We're asking our teachers to do a lot. I get that. And there's a lot of teachers that are like, let's do it. This is great. We're glad to do it. And there's some teachers that are like, I'm going to wait this out. And why do they say that? Because there'll be a new flavor of the month. That's right. Right? And so, again, I think
164we are doing a lot of the right things. But it's back to culture. You know, until it's got to be embedded in our culture. We got to show that it is that this is the these are this is what Santa Paula Unified School District is about. Right. And I think we're getting there. You know, I think we just need more work to be able to, you know, really be able to give that like, I don't know, the elevator pitch to whoever says, what are you guys doing? You know, I don't know what that pitch is right now. You know? I mean, I got ideas, right? Well, I think when we... My pitch might be different than everybody else's. Well, that's what I was saying earlier, that we all need to be the way you articulated
165about what that enrichment piece is, right? Every part of that vision needs to be kind of identified that way. And so I think the more the board can fine-tune what those goals are, right? And... Because I'm worried about the budget. I don't, $35 billion. I don't care what anyone's, and then an 8% COLA, that's not sustainable. Those two things don't seem to be in alignment to me. And so, exactly. And so how do we say, how do we, as a board, sorry guys, as a board, how do you say, Here's, no matter what, here's the things that we're focused on. We can't do everything. Critical thinking, enrichment, CT. That's kind of what I heard. And in all those things, we're going to make sure that all students, regardless of ethnicity, background, all those words that
166we heard about, will be able to participate. and we'll be able to address those students so they feel safe in this environment, how do we do that? If you could do those three things, right, I think the district, and more importantly, the individual students win. Because no matter where they go to school, no matter what school site they're at, no matter what happens on their way back and forth to school, they feel safe, they feel valued, and they know that they have a place to go to get. enriched in whatever way they're enriched and they can find a place of good learning. I'll stop talking because we're out of time. Any thoughts for next steps? Maybe we should follow up. Thoughts? From the superintendent and cabinet is we always want to be very clear on
167what the board's goal, what are the board's goals for next year, two years, three years down the line. Given those guidelines, like you talked about, these are our priorities no matter what. Given those guidelines, it will effectively help us instituting the PD that's necessary, placing resources where that will support those priorities and all that kind of stuff. So the quicker we can kind of formulate that, the better. And I think for the board, being comfortable with the potential, not potential. the reality that some people aren't going to be happy with you saying the abacus was great. It served us well. And thank you for all your work. You helped bring the abacus to us. But we've decided we're going to get whatever else it is, right, to kind of move that new direction. And I
168think starting to have those conversations and be willing because... cuts are going to have to be made, right? And I'm not talking about, it doesn't mean necessarily people, but it may be programs that some people think are doing a really great job. But developing your students to be critical thinkers is what's happening globally, right? We're behind. And I mean, all of us in the U.S. are 22 years roughly behind in that process. So I applaud you for that. Because it's a big shift, but it's a big shift. But I think that's what we all, that's what the world's looking for, right? I think in terms of next steps, there's two different aspects of it. One is this higher kind of, I don't know, call it pie in the sky or whatever. the bigger cultural shifts.
169This is a long-term process, right? This is an iterative process. This isn't something that we're going to solve next school year. No. For sure, right? But, you know, so this is one thing, right? And it should be. This should be solid. It should be, you know, informing our budget decisions, right? For sure. But our budget's already set for next year. You know, this is really a... This is going to impact our budget for next year, which still means we've got to get it done by, say, January. So it's not that we have all this time in the world. There's a second, I think. Jeff, we all have ideas of what Jeff needs to, like his main three priorities, because he can't do it all. What are the things we're going to be evaluating him on?
170And I think that can be a different list. I see that as... The achievable things, you know, there's not a disconnect per se. So if it were me and the board's decision, but if you have these vision statements, these aspirational things that we talked about, some of these goal pieces, right, and then that would be here. Right. Here's the five to 10 year because that's what it's going to take. Right. And then so how do you you build to those? And so to me, it would be directing your leader to say by blah, blah, blah. We want to know what programs do you think, for example, should be shifted from abacus? to critical thinking, right? Because that to me is where you're kind of headed, right? The programs you've used for five, ten years, maybe
171even two years, right? And I'll say this, no disrespect to the money that's been spent, but if your goal was something else and the critical thinking shift requires new partners to make those things happen, I wouldn't feel badly about saying... Those were based on those previous goals, but now we're looking at something else, and the superintendent, we're asking him to do that. And that program may have been working for what it was intended to, may not be working for the critical thinking piece. You've got to be okay with him saying that's got to go because you're setting different expectations for him. So I think there's got to be... Again, I'm worried about the budget for all of us. I think that clear alignment early on to what are the two to three things that are
172most important of critical thinking is one. And CTE, which sounds like pathways is another as far as from a budgetary standpoint. And then really giving opportunity for those things that are not having the impact you want to be cut sooner than later. I think serves you well and allows you to kind of continue to build up your budget in a way that doesn't get impacted as greatly when we really get slammed and hit. Because I do think that's going to happen to all of us soon. I'm trying to be scary, but I'm really worried about it. I'm really worried about it. Well, I mean, we started kind of... pitching, you know, what do we want as goals this year? You know, and one of them that I pitch is like, okay, get us to balanced
173unrestricted in three years. I mean, I don't know if that's a realistic goal or not. I don't know how everybody else feels about it, you know, but. I mean, that's one goal. Like, it's not necessarily our responsibility to dictate how he gets to that point. Although these discussions, I think, kind of given a sense of what our vision is on how he would make those decisions. Right. So, I mean, I guess like we I mean, I talked about CTE a lot, but that might not be the right. I mean, that may not be something we're still going to do all these different things. Right. You know, I don't want to pull something out of thin air and say, well, let's just make that a. that goal, right? Because maybe that isn't the right one to
174put as this top three. This is what you got to get done. Well, we highlight, we covered, try to cover a lot today, right? Board responsibilities, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and try to get a discussion of goal setting. I think the board needs a more in-depth discussion on goal setting. I think that piece along with budgetary discussions could be... a discussion point that the board has that really kind of gets to the meat of we know theoretically what we want, but we haven't tied it to what our current budget is, and we haven't tied it to contractual. There's a whole lot to consider, and then you look at what percentage of your budget, and my guess is like 88.9% is people, and then what programs are you currently investing in and what category. I think
175all that kind of piece. in my mind, would be a next discussion for the board to kind of help combine those two to make it not be so theoretical. And then for the board to say, okay, well... We want this, but we're not willing to cut Robert Room, right, or whatever. There's some things that I know I'm throwing out, but Robert Room just makes me smile. But there's some problems we're going to keep just because they do good things and they do good things for our community. And there may not be the same kind of on-paper return on investment from a growth standpoint, but if they make you feel good and the cost isn't hurting. It made the community feel good. It's been said, your community, I think those things have to be considered too.
176So I think all that's to me would be the next kind of phase of what the board should be, what the board could be thinking about. Does that make sense? I guess that said, we do have an evaluation to do, right? I don't know if everybody got that because, so we can get that. And we're going to, because on Wednesday, we're having to close this session on. on evaluation so and usually some goals come out of that right and again i think that that's there's it's going to be hard to time both to be perfect right now right we're just a timing issue i don't i don't think you have to be perfect but i think what you could do is you could have some shorter term goals for the superintendent Your goals don't have
177to be annual goals, right? You have an annual, a mid-year annual, but you could have a shorter-term goal for the superintendent to get to point A and then modify those based on. But I think it's important. If you're concerned about financing and budget and you're concerned about the long term, I would. I would ask the superintendent's counsel then of what goals and how to keep those things as tight as you can so you're not doing as much reevaluation and change so that there is early alignment on those goals. Because you'd hate to go in this direction and then seven months from now be going to this direction, right? So that's my only concern. And I'm making this face because I'm concerned about it for a lot of districts, right? We're all in this together, right?
178It's going to impact us all. I will stop talking and thank you, board, for your time today. Greatly appreciate it. I do have to adjourn. All right. So it is 1150, 1148, and we shall adjourn.