School Board Meeting of Trustees Study Session 03-07-26

001so can i make a um a friendly amendment to the agenda so i would like to move that we approve the agenda um but table item number three district reserves to um a future board meeting how's that so i that was i would just put it on there in case we had time so if we have time do we want to talk about it or not I'm good leaving it, but I think we should maybe reevaluate it. We're either going to talk about it or we're not. If we don't have time, we don't talk about it, we push it to another agenda. If we, for some reason, have some time, and I don't think we will, but if we do, then it was just on there, so it was agendized and we can start having

002a discussion on this issue. It's something that we need to kind of figure out. So, whatever you want to do. You guys saw me. So somebody should second it and then we can have further discussion either don't second it and the motion dies Call the vote. He seconded. So we have a second. All in favor? Aye. All those against? Aye. So we are going to leave it on the agenda. And if we have time, we'll start discussing. If we don't have time, we won't discuss it. Thanks. Need a motion to approve the rest of the agenda then? No. Okay, great. So now the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and provides its time for members of the audience to address the board. Do we have any public comments in the room?

003Seeing none, do we have any online, Michelle? Seeing none, great. Then we would go to the regular agenda and we will let you guys kick it off. Great, thank you. Thank you board members for being here today this morning. What a beautiful morning it will be. So we are going to be working today on several things. Obviously the board superintendent workshop will address for the day. If you'll go to the second slide. Today for the day we are going to work on the 90-day plan presented to you by Superintendent Sutter. Then we'll move to the governance piece. We'll review the governance handbook. We'll look at roles and responsibilities. And that will take a majority of our day right there. And then at the end of the discussion today, we will look at the 7-11 discussion

004and, again, as you mentioned, looking at appropriate reserve amounts if time permits. So we'll move forward. Scott, do you want to share? so here's the deal i know some people hate warm-up activities but we're doing this because you have some new people here get to know each other and have a little fun so your job as a board members is to say three things about yourself that maybe no one knows kind of far-fetched two are true and one is not and the goal of the other board members try to guess which one that's right exactly right So all three, so three things that are kind of far-fetched that other people you don't think know about you, one is not true. And they're going to try to guess the one that is not true. Like I

005did at one time and I said, you know, I cooked hamburgers for a living for a while, trained to fire nuclear missiles at Russia. I lived in Germany. Two are true. I don't think you cooked hamburgers. So I cooked hamburgers for two years in high school and one year when I got out of junior college. That's true. and I was in the army and I was trained to fire nuclear missiles at Russia from Germany. The German. Jason, you're next. Okay. Let's see. So my secret hobby is sewing. I enjoy bungee jumping, and I worked. in a yogurt shop. Gosh, you guys. I don't think he bungee jumped. That was like the first lie that came to my mind that I was going to say. So I'm going to go with bungee jump. And which one

006is he lying about? So I actually sew camping equipment and clothes and golf. I had covers for things. I learned it from my grandfather. And so my kids' costumes. I did start working at Heidi's Frozen Yogurt when I was in high school. And I have never bungee jumped. So my three would be I was a truck driver. I drove trucks for a living. And then I also raced motorcycles professionally for a living. and I was a bartender for a living. I'm going with not a bartender as well. I was a bartender. I bartended at the Golden Gate Grill in San Francisco with the Triangle in college and at the Baja Cantina. And then I also raced motorcycles professionally. And what's that? Oh, shit. No, I did all three. Brom King. Oh, good thing no one

007heard any of those. I say prom king. Prom king. Prom king. He was homecoming. I was not prom king in high school. That was my lie. I did work on a bottling line, and I did live down under. I was prom king. And I worked at a bakery, and I also worked as a landscaper. I'm also going to say it's a pretty early morning job. I'm going to say you didn't work at a bakery either. I'll go prom king. I don't know he said prom king with such authority. I think I'm going with bakery It was homecoming Oh technicality But I did work in a bakery in town But I was like the register cleaner, dishwasher Which bakery? No they were all like dope. They didn't dress as sophomore guys. With a hat on? With

008a baker's hat on? Yeah yeah Okay. Okay. All right. Let's see. I worked at Happy Dog. I am like the rooster whisperer, and I can miraculously save animals in ways that I don't think anyone else can. And I love to hike up to, let's see, I love to hike up to anywhere, really, in Glen Ellyn. Every weekend I spend at least a couple hours hiking with my dogs. Okay, you didn't work at happy dog. It was just too quick and easy, but I want you to have worked at happy dog So I'm playing with the second one and that one's good, too I'm gonna go she didn't work at happy dog. I'm gonna go she didn't work at happy dog Okay, so I used to be a professional surfer I used to do fish farming

009in Africa and I went to high school with a former president of the United States I'm gonna say she didn't go to high school I know where he went to high school I don't think she went to Pune I'm going I'm going surfer I'm going with high school Surfer. Surfer. You went to... Puno? Or is that... Yeah? I'm glad we all knew it was Obama. We didn't assume anyone older. Yeah. My first job was at Mary's Pizza. I've never lived out of Sonoma. And I have eight brothers and sisters. Dang. The best poker face of everyone. Yeah. I don't think your first job was at Mary's. Yeah, I don't think your first job was at Mary's. I don't think you haven't lived out of Sonoma at one point in your life. I don't think you

010worked at Mary's. This is how good she was that we all had different answers. I did not work at Mary's. Chocolate Cow, that was my first choice. Even better, though. Did you? I worked at a royal winery in Calistoga. There you go. That wasn't my choice either. I like the money. That's what I thought it would look like. Here's a little food for thought. There's an old saying that says, if the first thing you do when you wake up each morning is eat a live frog, nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day. Now, I don't know about you, but I think that's a pretty safe assumption. Well, Brian Tracy has said that your frog should be the most difficult task on your things to do list. the one you're most likely procrastinating

011on. Because if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. But if you don't, if you let him sit there on the plate while you do a hundred unimportant things, it can drain your energy and you won't even know it. William James, one of the founders of modern psychology, said this, procrastination is attitude's natural assassin. There's nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task. So, with that said, here's your assignment for the next 30 days. Take a look at your list. Circle the frog. Eat that first. And you'll thank us for it. Exploring governance and how to be an amazing school board team that is expert at managing your governance team and working toward those standards. What we know from research is governance teams that function at high

012levels typically have districts that function at high levels. So we're going to try today to give you some tools that may cause you to give pause or thought about what can you do individually as board members to go to the next level. So we call it maybe an etch-a-sketch moment, maybe erase what's happened in the past and start new from today about serving as a governance team. So that's kind of the goal today. To work together, and that's our process we begin today. And with that, we're going to have Jason share his 90-day plan with you as we move forward. Yeah, sure, we'll start there. Good morning, everyone. So when I first met with you, we talked about what was the plan coming in. That was part of, as I was interviewing with the board

013and discussing how we saw moving forward. I did share with you two plans. I explained one is the first one, it was the really... detailed plan then I also put together a Reader's Digest so they are mostly identical. We're going to be going off the Reader's Digest and anything that we want to dive in more on it's all there in the more extended version. But just really framing this up I see the first 90 days as a huge opportunity for me to come in and listen and learn and understand what's actually happening in our district. That's why I think the March start date for me felt really advantageous that if we're talking about how we want to start next year, I can start by coming in and seeing what is happening, where are bright spots,

014where are areas to grow, so that I can come back to you as a board and say, here's what we're seeing, here's where I think we need to go, and that really having conversations with you about what are your priorities. I know that you've already as a board made it known that literacy. is a really important thing for us as a district and for you as a board to be focused on. So as we go through this plan, also know that that's one of the lenses that I'll be looking through as I'm gathering information is where are things going well with that and where do we need to make changes because we have seen that our outcomes for our kids aren't where we want them to be. So just thinking about the end, like my

015entry commitment, thinking about what are the most important things I want to be focusing on in this first three months. One, connection and belonging. I want to be visible, I want to be seen, I want to be talking with all of our communities and our students, our staff, our families. That's why one of the big pieces in this plan is about visiting sites, being in the classroom where the work is happening. uh... meeting with our partners our labor partners our community partners the other piece i'm gonna be looking at is It comes up a couple of times in here is this idea of coherence, is this idea of are all the systems fitting together? Are the things that we're saying we want to do and the things that we say in our LCAP we are

016doing actually what's happening in the classroom? Are all of those systems working together towards those common ends? Because we don't have coherence, we think something's going this direction and it doesn't and we say, well, why are we not seeing different results? And so oftentimes that coherence is part of it. And then just working strongly with you as a board to figure out how to be really productive in the way we work and high functioning so that I'm able to give you recommendations, you're able to give me direction, and then I'm able to work to help achieve those goals. So when I go into that strategic area focus, I am both gonna be starting by trying to build relationships and trust within the system and also learning the pieces of the system. That is that piece

017about that coherence about what we've written. I can read what we say we're doing and I can look at the documents we have and then, but what is actually happening, that's what's actually the system that affects student outcomes. So being able to be in classrooms and understanding that And then the other piece is that, that other piece about alignment is. It appears in my pre-research and just in talking with people since I've been here and my observations that we have a disconnect between sites and district and that relationship needs to be repaired. Like we need to be on the same page because we all want the same things. We want our kids to be successful. We want our employees to be in their best place to serve our students. So looking how to get better

018alignment. with all parts of our system so that we can recognize that we are actually on the same team wanting the same thing. And then the last piece is being prepared at the end of this 90 days for action. how do we, what are the steps, what are the things that we're going to do? We don't want to just admire the problem and name the problem. How do we take action steps towards working towards solutions that will address it? At the end of this, you can see at the end of that, not at the end of 90, but at the end of phase two going into phase three, I'm going to be bringing back to you a listening and learning report. I'm going to be gathering information. You can see those first stages. Right now

019I'm really going out and gathering information, listening and learning. I'm focusing right now on I've already met with all of the department heads within the district office. I've started to meet with some of the, like I was at a couple of trainings with our school leaders. I was at an MTSS training for a little bit the other day. My next step is I'm going to be meeting with principals next week. I will have one-on-ones with every principal. The following week, I'm going to be in schools. I'm going to be getting into classrooms. And my goal, although it might be ambitious, is to be in every classroom before, you know, within the first 45 days. I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic. You know, we'll see. But I want to... Every class is important. I want to get in

020there and I want to see what's happening in our classrooms. And as I go into phase two, I'm going to be starting to get ideas about what I think is happening. And then my meetings and my visits start to be about testing these themes. I'm seeing this as a pattern. Am I seeing that in other places? Starting to figure that out. That's in phase two. I'm going to be shifting into meeting with more of our community partners as well. And then in phase three, I'm gonna be coming back to you with a report. Here's all the different things that I, information I gathered, things that I saw, things I learned in meeting with our partners, and here's my recommendations about areas that we have the real strength and areas that we need to attend to,

021and that should be our springboard into you being able to have conversations about. What are the main important priorities that we want to work on as a district? What are the things you want to see movement on? Because we need to put our attention on a few high leverage important things to make a difference rather than a long list that we dabble in and continue to be in the same place. I just shared with you some of the questions that I'm gonna be asking when I meet with principals, when I meet with teachers. These are some of the types of questions I'm gonna be asking. And then you can see I just went over the deliverables that I'm thinking about bringing back to you. And then the last piece is coming back in those deliverables.

022that idea of coherence. There's a framework on coherence for school districts and looking at these through these lenses about getting focusing direction. That's that idea about prioritizing what we want to have happen. Focusing on how do we build the culture that allows us to make those moves. Coming back to deepening learning, what is happening in the classrooms. It's not enough to at a district level be saying this is what we need to happen. It has to translate into our experience for our students. And then the last piece is how are we accountable to that? What is the accountability measures to see that we're doing what we are intending to do and that it's having the results that we were hoping for? That's the shorter version. There's a lot more, but I wanted to share with

023you my thinking around how I felt it would be wise for me to spend these first three months and get your feedback and any questions or ideas or suggestions for that period. Should we start on the end and then come around if you have questions or comments? Okay, great. Well, thank you for preparing this. This is very handy. So yeah, I did notice that probably the most common word used is coherence. So thank you for elaborating on that. So along with that alignment between sites and the district office is also the coherence, clarity, communication to the greater community. That's something with other topics here of building trust is definitely conveying our decision-making and the why to the greater community. I think that that'll go a long ways. Yeah, that agreed. Thank you. I mean, no

024direct feedback on the plan. I think it's great. The execution is obviously the, where the rubber meets the road here. I think the one piece of advice I would give you is as you get into this, it's important to, if you don't write it down, at least be cognizant of what are the things that you. don't want to spend your time on in the first 90 days and just think through where the time pitfalls are. You can't accomplish everything. And I think it's just, I think these are great actions, great focus, but you are going to be scheduled and pulled into dozens of different things and just be cognizant of which things you are prepared to say no to. Yeah, thank you. And so my sort of thinking about this whole thing is as it

025relates to the literacy component of this. Right, we collectively as a district and as a board have to figure out if, and superintendent, are we going with SEAL as our reading literacy program? Are we going to go all in on it? Is that our goal, desire? Do we all agree that that's the best way forward for the district and for our students? And if not, then what is and how do we implement? either making sure SEAL is implemented fully and to the best of our abilities very quickly, or if we're going to pivot, then what's the timing on that? Because we've got a critical time, which is the beginning of the new school year coming up in August. Do we have enough time? If we say SEAL's not it and we all agree or the

026majority of us agree that we're going to go with something different. I don't want to be in a, from my personal perspective, I don't want us to be in a situation where we're going to spend the next upcoming school year figuring out if SEAL's the right program and then implementing something the next year. I don't think we have that luxury of that time. That's my personal thing is we've got to really focus on deciding very quickly if we're going to commit to seal and go forward. And if not, then how do we pivot, how do we change, and how do we implement that as soon as we possibly can? Can I respond? Please. So this is a question for governance, which is that the board wasn't really part of the decision to choose a strategic

027approach. SEAL is a teaching approach. It is not a curricula. And so... What is the role of the board vis-a-vis picking and choosing curriculum? I do remember before I got on the board, there was a practice of having a curriculum advisory committee, and there were kind of regular adoptions. So we haven't had any. As far as I know, I can't even tell you if we have a committee and who serves on that committee, number one. So what's our role and responsibility? It seems to me that what seems to be missing just generally is we as a board have never talked about, like, what's our overarching mission and what's our strategic? What are our strategic goals? Like, forget about a strategic plan. So if you look at our governance handbook, those are missing elements from it,

028right? So before you can decide, like, is seal, is it letters, is it this, is it that? We have to have like some kind of unifying what's our goal, what's our focus going to be. I don't know if we should be in the business of picking and choosing how to get to the goal. And so I hope hopefully we can sort of address that. We're probably going to tell you guys things today that you don't want to hear, right? So we're going to give you our perspective from being longtime superintendents and spending lots of time with other superintendents and observing other boards. We're just gonna have to tell you what we believe right you can either take it or toss it So you want to dress that so that but that's an in the weeds

029kind of thing that you're talking about, right? So when board members start getting into the weeds and talking about what curriculum to use that typically does not happen That's typically his job. So in essence, you have it right in that you usually have a committee. Now, a board member could be on the committee if you want it to be that way. But the committee works on a curriculum, and they work, and then you would work with your superintendent with that committee. You come up with an adoption for curriculum. The board then approves the adoption of whatever curriculum you're going to use as a whole, and they get a full understanding because the committee reports back to the board on a continuous basis. to ask you, they may have questions about whether you're using SEAL or

030Houghton Mifflin or whatever you're going to use. You need to have the knowledge because you're the representative for your section of the community in case you have questions of you. Why are you guys using this? So you have to have that knowledge, right? But typically, and let me start over. So there are 1,000 districts in California. everyone is managed differently. Some boards are in the weeds a lot and it's okay and everybody loves that and other boards are up there in the clouds and let the superintendent and his or her team do their thing. So the right way is what you guys decide you're going to do, not what we're telling you is ideal. All we can do is tell you what the research suggests is the right way to achieve things. Go ahead, Kat.

031I was just going to say that I think the information that you receive when you go into the classroom is going to be the information that is likely used to make those decisions, right? So in those first 45 days or even if it takes 90 days, however long it takes you to get into the classrooms, the best information is going to come from the people who either are or aren't implementing what we are. you know, supporting at the time. So say today we're talking about seal, it's seal. So if it's working in some classrooms, like... why is it working? What has the teacher done? What are the students doing? If it's not, what's the feedback from the teacher and why? Is it not enough support? I think that, to me, is where you could report

032back to us and say, this is what I found and that's why the direction that we're going in. I would love to be out of the weeds on that because we are not in the classroom. We are not being educated, but I understand the urgency that David's talking about because if literacy is our focus, then... we want to be communicating in a way that aligns with the, like you said, we're all connected working towards the same goal. So I understand the urgency, but I also think that what you have planned is going to provide is going to execute what the urgency is, you know, and then I would just say not to repeat anything anyone said. This is great. I have no critiques whatsoever. I think you have a fantastic plan and I just really

033appreciate the no more long list. I think we've talked about that and I think we need to. you know celebrate a win and the only way to do that is really focus and commit and even if it's one thing that this district is focused on and the students the outcome is there and the students are successful that's a win right so these long lists are really dragging us down and i know that the lcap puts that pressure on on all districts but i i'm ready to to put that aside for a minute and really focus on the win. So that is one thing that I pulled out that I think I really appreciate. In the interview process, it seemed clear that you were focusing on Jason because he's intelligent, he's charismatic, and he knows your

034community here, right? So in a school district, which is radically different than a business, in a business you can change the price of widgets to get more money. In a school district, it's different. Some of you have been teachers before. If you're a superintendent who's not connected to your teachers, and you tell your teachers you're going to use SEAL, you're going to have a chunk of teachers that say, I'm not going to use SEAL. So that's where inspirational leadership comes into play is to lead those teachers to a place where they believe that SEAL or whatever can make a difference to improve academic achievement. So that's the magic that a good superintendent has is working with his or her teachers to bring them to that spot where, okay, we can try this. Let's try it.

035Let's work together. not because the board of the superintendent tells them they have to do it. That just doesn't work in schools. Schools are weird places. They really are. Yeah, the thing that I always come back to is, like, is it really the ingredients that are the problem, or is it the commitment and mastery of the recipe? And I think about, like, as a board, staying, like, out of the weeds, less is more. clear, tangible goals. Literacy is our priority. If literacy is progressing at all grade levels across all campuses, do you think our community is going to be upset or pleased? Obviously, we'll be pleased. It's like how we get there I think is less important for us. It's important for us to know how we're getting there, but we're not on the execution

036side. So I think from a literacy perspective, I do think David has a good point on in here a commitment to a program and making that evaluation and commitment known and quick, timely. In the first 90 days, I would expect, Jason, you have a strong... you know, sense of which direction we need to head, whether we can get buy-in on the recipe of seal or we can't. Like, I think that's actually the evaluation here is do we think we can get collective buy-in from the district? You know, 90% of people can get on board with this quickly or we can't. If we can't, we need to make a pivot. Again, because I truly believe it's that commitment and mastery of what we're trying to do versus, you know. figuring out and flipping around the different

037the different literacy program so that's my thought better and teachers employees will do approach life in schools in a different way that's a guess so so what i want to avoid my first board meeting i said we got to get the phones out of schools right and so then there was oh we need to discuss it we got to do this and that so nine months later we adopted a policy of off and away we could have adopted a policy of off and away within a week right but we took nine months to implement that and I don't believe we have the luxury of waiting another year to realize or to come to the agreement that SEAL is not the program we're going with and we don't believe that that's the path forward and I

038don't have the ability to say SEAL's good or bad or something else is good or bad but I think that Jason has to be thinking about an alternative and discussing an alternative and having that as in saying well what about you know Because if you go in the classroom and the teacher says, SEAL sucks, right? Great, okay, well, what's better? Let's have a discussion of what you think is better and then have those discussions at the same time. And so then investigating, okay, how long does it take for us to train the teachers in this alternative program and how do we do it and can we, if we did pivot, what's the time and date certain that we've got to make a decision by to implement by the first day of next year or whatever

039it is. That's all I'm saying and trying to convey that sense of urgency. Well, I just want to say that, you know, a lot of what you're describing is getting into the weeds of operations. Whether it's SEAL or some other program, I feel like what we need to do is set the targets and understand, okay, we have 38%, you know, grade level proficiency in reading in this district. Why haven't we in the last... more than a decade seen growth in any of our subsectors, you know, from the highest quintile to the lowest quintile. What's keeping us from that? Is the SEAL approach, you know, the right approach? That's really for our superintendent and experts to decide. I understand, like, the frustration, like, why are we going to take four years to decide, like, what's going

040to be the next, you know, adopted curriculum? I mean, I understand. and frustrated by that i think there was a problem with the way that whole thing was it was a unilateral executive decision usually curriculum when i when i was not on the board the curriculum committee it was a much more It wasn't an executive committee, you know, it was like, okay, let's research what's available out there. What are the experiences of other districts? And it was collaborative bringing in, you know, people who are actually going to implement it into the decision-making process. So that didn't happen. I can just say, so should we be picking and choosing? I mean certainly I don't think so I mean like the approved curricular list I looked for like the state of California it's see in that business

041but we've hired Jason to do that I just add I appreciate all the comments and I think everyone here and everyone in our community shares the sense of urgency for our students. So I mean that, David, your point is certainly not lost at all. When I go back to, like, if you look at, like, the idea of that cultivating collaborative cultures, like, that is a requirement to get what Anne was just alluding to. Whenever we just say top down for expediency, this is what you'll all do. We're going to get no commitment. We're going to get pushback. We're going to not have this idea of a guaranteed curriculum for our students, the idea that in one class it's one thing, in another class it's another thing, and then at another school it's something else. As

042those kids come together, they're in completely different places, and that is an example of lack of coherence. And so I'm intending to come back. after looking at all this, knowing especially literacy is one. There'll be other recommendations as well because we have other things we're working on. But coming back with a recommendation about here's how we move forward, here is, if I'm able to already determine, here is the programs that I think we already have in place and we need to double down on and get commitment on or we need to go a different direction, I'll be able to come back with recommendations on all of those things because I do hear loud and clear. The urgency, and I also share your point about having, like going together. Going together. That whole idea. Yeah, that

043whole idea. That saying, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Like we need to go together as a district. We need to, with as much speed and urgency as we can. But together. Yeah. I would recommend you look at Michael Fullen. Great author. really on coherence I'm sure, strength from the middle. So what you're doing is it's not top down, it's from the middle. And that's what Jason's talking about. Yeah, thank you all for that. I appreciate the feedback on this as well. So now we're going to look at our governance versus management, our clarifying rules and responsibilities, kind of what we were just addressing in a little while, but more in depth. So today we'll clarify important dynamics of district leadership, distinction between governance and

044management, clear rules to prevent conflict, protect the board, and improve district performance. Slippery slope. So my district, I was there for a long time, right? So my board meetings, people would be, once a month, people would be shocked if they were more than an hour long and there was almost never anybody in the audience. Ditto. I'm going to say ditto. But that was because people were okay. I mean, there was no turmoil, right? There was no, there weren't grumpy people. How did it happen? Because I was there a long time, right? But I don't think that was the right thing because when I left. I realized my board members, I still have great relationships with them, were mad at me because I did everything. And when I left and they hired a new person to

045come in, that person didn't know how to do anything, so the board members then had to dip into the weeds and start doing some things to keep the district floating, right? So my guess is that you had to dip into the weeds more because you've had so many superintendents over the years, and you're nervous about where your district's going. We have to keep it afloat. We have to be involved. So the trick now is for you to decide under his leadership. How much do you remove yourself from the weeds? We're going to talk about today. What's an appropriate level of being in the weeds? When we look at this, we look at it, the government is defined. School board, you hire the superintendent, you set the vision and the mission, you adopt policy, you provide

046oversight, and you ensure accountability. That is your job to the community. That's what you were voted to do right there. Every day. That's why you have your meetings with your local little meetings set up already, right? That you have with your community? Office hours. That gives you the feedback from your community to bring to the board level so that everybody's at peace. So that's part of it. And then obviously the directions you want to go and how you want to go. But it does not manage the day-to-day operations. That's a superintendent and the team that he hires. It's going to take him a while. I mean, he's not going to be the best superintendent in the world in the next two months, right? He has to come up to speed. He's pretty darn good. I

047mean, we were super impressed. We'll be goal setting based on the information that Jason brings back to you because that's the most important thing is you shared. We have to have an alignment of where we're going. Now, you don't do strategic plans. I do strategic plans. That's what I did. I lived on them. so it's that piece here's what we're gonna do in the first year here's what we're gonna do the second year here's we're gonna do a third year we're gonna backward plan that and we're gonna commit to that that's the piece working together from that from the executing the district strategy So that's his thermometer at the beginning is who's doing it, who's not, and is it going to make a difference if everybody does with fidelity, and if that's so, how do

048we get them there? And that's when he starts developing goals about how he's going to do that or how he suggests doing that with you. Am I speaking for you or is that your plan? That is the plan. Any questions so far? You just mentioned. that you lived on strategic plans like you personally developed strategic plans on an annual basis I'm actually going to do one right now for Lincoln Valley. I'm working with them with their budget, but now we're going to pivot to strategic planning because of their budget, and I'm going to lead them through that process. I have done four of them for the Marquess District, working with Babs Cavanaugh, but obviously she's not doing it. But we worked together on it, and as I left the district, I created a strategic plan

049for the new superintendent. So that they would have goal a plan set in place for the next five years. So yes And so that would be typical of like a five-year plan three to five We often We're not going to name any any districts in the county. There's a lot there are 40 but some of us have joked over the years that How can that district get any thought get anything done with six superintendents? right I'm not going to say. I can share. I worked in a certain very, very large district, the largest in Sonoma County. I was the assistant superintendent there. And there was one superintendent, but there were seven superintendents. And that's how it ran. It was, I'm a recovering person from that district. And still recovering. So here's what happens. Some boards

050desire that when they hire a superintendent, they want to manage that superintendent so that superintendent does what they want him or her to do, right? And other boards hire a superintendent because they perceive that person's a leader and they want that person to lead, and the board's going to support that superintendent's leadership in the district. So you have to decide what kind of board are you going to be. Are you going to be you're hiring him because you can manage what he does, or you're hiring him because you want him to lead the district to go to new heights, right? do we plan today to have that discussion or is that just like a known it's not like an unspoken known that we don't want that I'll be the first to say I have no

051intention to be running the district as the superintendent my role here I hope is that I know people say 40,000 feet I'd love to be at 100,000 feet obviously hearing from the community's input but I would love for Jason Sutter to lead the district and so I'll just say that I would taken over the role of president, I'm learning on the job, but I've absolutely told Reno repeatedly, I'm like, you've got to tell me if I'm overstepping, if I'm doing blah, blah, blah, what not to say, whatever it is. And I've also stated that very clearly to Jason, that he's got to tell me, and you guys have to tell me as well, hey, David, you're doing this wrong. You shouldn't do this. You shouldn't do that. You're not going to offend me. So just

052please be open and honest and tell me that I shouldn't be doing something or whatever it is. Yeah, I agree. And I think going back to the last slide, I wrote down policy. We used to have a... A policy committee. And so many of our policies are outdated and haven't even been reviewed since like 2003, 2008, when you look at them, some of them more recently. And I think that that should be a focus because that is the board's role, right? And so we haven't had a lot of focus around policy. Every now and then we see them in our board packets. But it is a lot of work. Ann can speak to that. I'm not going to speak for her. It is a lot of work, and it's a foundational document, right? Can you

053say more? Like when you had a policy committee, how did that function? She can speak, Ann can speak to that for sure, but I will say just going through, and when we have issues that arise, like for instance, we've talked about behavior expectations right or and that's a little bit that's like a sidebar but it's the foundational document and that's how we support our leaders in our district right we create a policy and it gives them reference right so it takes the question out of it so that's how we all work together and it just really hasn't been a priority and when we had a committee we didn't have It was, you know, we had someone who was also a board member and that takes, it takes so much time, right? And you can speak

054to that. So I think just generally, we need to go back to the committee system. Generally speaking, we don't have committees and I think committees can help streamline the board agenda, right? Because you can do education through the different committees. So with policy, I was, we had a board subcommittee. I served on it, Celeste Winder served on it, and the superintendent, and then Michelle played a big role in all of this, right? So we went through all the policies. We identified the ones that were super out of date, like, you know, hadn't been updated since 95, and we chipped away at a lot of it and then prioritized, look, we're going to update first the ones that are related to, you know, curriculum and students first, and, you know, we kind of... And the subcommittee

055did all of the leg work so that the board didn't have to get involved in all of the minutia. We put forward the recommendations that we thought these were the best. We looked at CSBA language and then we also consulted with our lawyers if we needed to actually tailor it more to our district. I think that worked well. And so if we could go back to having committee assignments, I mean, this has been a long over, we've been talking about it since day one. I was elected in 2020, and we still haven't really gotten to that. So this is maybe an important bird walk here. So how do you do policies? Are your policies up to date? Do you subscribe to CSBA's policy service? So how do you do your policies? Is it? Is Jason

056supposed to go through the policies and bring you a new chunk of policies every month or is there a subcommittee that goes through the policies and brings to the board or how do you do your policies? So the subcommittee folded. Right now. What happens right now? It's random. It's random. It's mostly superintendent. What ends up happening is it's either board recommended for review. So for instance, many of the policies that we have looked at over the past couple of months have been recommendations for new items on the agenda from the board. And then I think... because you know Michelle and Rena have been on top of a lot of it there has been some CSBA language that has changed that was really important for us in certain policies to adopt immediately so those urgencies came

057forward with the with the oversight and recommendation from Michelle and the superintendent but other than that it's not it doesn't really exist how often you get a chunk of policies Is it quarterly? It's every quarter. We get a monthly, and there can be 20 policies on there, so it is hard to keep up. So what happens with those 20 policies every month? Nothing. Okay. That's important. Yeah, I was just thinking about that because the policies would come on to my desk. I would review them and then I would review them with my staff and then we'd bring them to the board. And I work with my equivalent of Michelle and then some other staff members whoever was impacted. Then it would come to the board probably the next month or the following month. We'd month

058it off when we would bring it or we'd say this one does not pertain to us. We're not going to move with it. If you lose track of those policies, you could get into some trouble. I mean, they build up really quickly. So I worked in some districts where they haven't done anything in years. It's crazy because they're doing things that their board policy should say they shouldn't be doing. Yeah, so I feel like we started to chip away, and then we probably stopped maybe in 2024. I don't even remember. So we would take the quarterly mandated changes, and really we were trying to be very diligent about that, and then the process kind of fell apart. So what's going to happen now? Well, I think Jason's going to decide how to deal with it.

059I mean, I can— Policy Committee with two board members. I think that— I'll have to think about it some more, but my initial thought is that we could work with the departments within the district office because the list that comes out from CSBA is long. So that committee going through all those changes also might not be reasonable. We'd only be doing the most urgent, but we could be leveraging our departments here to take a first crack at looking at what those updates are that are recommended and then giving... giving a recommendation that goes to the policy committee. That policy committee can get in the weeds on that and that could then come to the board. Might be a way for us to have a system that moves those policies forward so the board is looking

060at something that's been vetted through first the departments, like their personnel policies. HR could first look at that and make a recommendation to the policy committee and the policy committee could then go through and make a recommendation that moves up. You know, it's interesting. The public generally doesn't understand that as a superintendent, I really don't have any say, right? It's either education code or board policy that dictates my life as a superintendent, right? I don't get to choose. I look right away at board policy or the Ed Code. So I have a question, just a clarifying question. Are we by law obligated to always do a first read and a final? No. So I know. So that's what's also very daunting is we have first reads on everything. And if we can all commit to...

061If as a board if the five of us can commit I'm willing to commit if we're gonna do it this way Then we need and we're using legal language and we need to not get in the weeds of that either. I'm not if it if we can proceed without having to always have a first read knowing that if the board wants to bring it back if there's any concerns but like also doing our work before the meeting to like can we move forward in that way because the first read and the second read really truly prevents us from having additional items on the agenda the next month because we're still reviewing the one we reviewed the month before for a final review and there's always discussion so i'm willing to commit to not having to

062always see first read knowing that we're going to implement a process that's going to give us confidence that we're moving forward in the right direction with oversight. We'll see that some like we really should do a first read on this the board's gonna want it like there'll be some that we are gonna want to so we could have some some agency around that on whether and Mostly maybe we're not doing a first read we're moving it through if there are some that that we know this is a tough one Let's talk about it. We might want we might want to get some direction and then do a first read come back make adjustments So maybe some flexibility but to your point about we streamline some of this so So the subcommittee tried to streamline this

063so that there were another set of eyes that looked at it before you did, and we tried to give these summaries of, like, these are minor changes, these are just language changes, these policies here had substantive changes, and here in two bullet points, here's what the substantive change was. So we tried to do that to actually streamline the process, but, like, for example... with there are new policies that nobody has, you know, like the AI policy is brand new. I really think that that actually deserves a first and a second read discussion. So what we were trying to do was clean up all the old policies that needed to be updated with new laws that had been passed, and those were more kind of perfunctory. Anyway, I don't, you know, I just kind of looked

064at to what were the other what were the other school districts that had this process down so Claude or AI is incredibly helpful. If you put two documents in there side by side and you say, tell us the difference, that does the work of someone reading both of those. It's so efficient from an analysis perspective, just that overview to say what's the real differences here. You pay a pretty good chunk of money to CSBA for policy service, right? get their policies, there's always a summary document at the beginning of the policies that tell you about each one and whether it's an old one that just there was a lawsuit someplace and there's a new law. So you have to do the policy. You don't have a choice as a board. I mean, you can talk

065about it if you want, but there's really no reason because it's the new law. Just adopt it. And that's part. So what I've heard is, and Jason's going to do this. this part is he's going to create a coherence plan I like the word coherence that's going to start with a department with the policies going to the department then to the committee then for board approval that could be a first there could be just one reading first reading or other recommendations So we're going to talk about role clarity now. And that doesn't look quite like Jason up there pulling his hair out over role clarity, but that's the best chat GPT could do. So we're going to spend a lot of time today talking about roles and responsibilities that are ideal for board members, board

066president, and superintendents. Because superintendents can get in trouble, too, by over-exercising their authority in board-related matters, right? So it's a two-way street. So for example me, I was not a good superintendent because I had a lot of authority over board kind of stuff, right? They didn't care. Scott's just going to do it. But that wasn't right. I should have given more authority to my board who'd rather go home and watch TV than spend a lot of time at a board meeting. So there's a balance there, right? You have to decide what the balance is for Sonoma Valley. So obviously we'll obviously prevent micromanagement protects governance integrity improves district performance and builds public trust I think that's a big one for us here building public trust as a community You all perceive that the public trusts

067the board at this point in time I don't know if I feel safe for you, but why don't you think employees trust the board? You know leadership turnover is probably the biggest one. You know, we've had variety of different superintendents you know from you know outside inside or wherever it is and you know look I I don't I haven't been a history buff on the district but you know the good news is that I didn't get one negative well that's not true Didn't get one email saying we made the wrong decision on him. I had one staff person say that all you you should have picked someone else But it was a very sort of a half-hearted attempt at saying someone else was better. So the you know and so you know previous superintendent I

068would sort of be hearing sort of somewhat not positive things from from that perspective so I think that that's you know that's part of it and I think the budget situation when you've got you know seven years of budget deficits where you don't have any money and we're in a deficit and that budget is that is always the topic of the issue I think you're never gonna have a cohesive organization without the budget sorted out I mean that's just basic right so now theoretically we're in a really good place financially and we've got a new superintendent so obviously i think the public generally is aware of that and as sees what's going on and feels a lot better about it but staff are skeptical right because that that's natural for them to think that right

069i have a perspective and i am you know i think that Well, I'll just say what I'm thinking. So I think the decisions that we've made over the past nine months have made it seem like the public. Doesn't trust us when you come to the meetings, but I think it's really important to understand oftentimes We only hear one side right so public trust I would say I would concur with Jason I think that there you know we we do receive emails where people are thankful for the decisions that we made and some of them will even say even though I don't necessarily agree with you I Understand where the position you're in and I think a part of that is also You know, when you don't do what people want you to do, there's also

070the disconnect between the governance rules. and what we like for instance just basic Brown Act right and so I think that there's the the public trust is not just one there it's just there's not one answer to it I think it's it's a lot of things but most recently I think there's many people in our community who are disappointed in some of the most recent decisions that we have made and I and that I don't mean the superintendent um choice sorry i think i just to be clear that's not well because you're saying yes and i'm like i just want to be clear decisions that we've made for the community for the district moving forward and a lot of that is because some it's an it's a disagreement you know but you also have to

071look at the history of this community and like david said where we've been like someone needed to make those hard decisions and someone is going to be disappointed and and the goal wasn't to harm, it was to provide a path for progress, for growth, and it's really hard. It's hard to be the ones to make that decision, and I completely understand on the other side of it, when you don't agree, it's really hard to understand how this could possibly be a good decision. So I think right now we're fractured because of some of the decisions that we've had to make over the last couple of months. Okay. That's my... I mean what I've heard specifically is that people are upset that we haven't made the structural adjustment in terms of the management staffing ratios to

072staffing in the classroom. That's like a big issue. And so. They don't and and also I think that this board is also being blamed for The fiscal mismanagement that happened over a decade ago I mean, it's not just the last there wasn't deficit spending just in the last like six years It's been like the last 10 of 13 years or something like that. It's been going on for a really long time so And we were paying for it because it really caught up to us, right? We had declining enrollment back in the early 2000s when adjustments could have been made kind of gradually, and we had to drastically make decisions about how to use our resources better because people just kind of kicked the can down the road to us. So that's why I think

073there's distress. There's a perception that we were the ones that have created. that we were the we were irresponsible fiscally okay so i i had an interaction with a member of the public i was at costco in napa and he came up to me and he said hey you know i just want to say thank you and i said i really I like the fact that we're we're making progress we've got a direction he said I don't want to I don't have an opinion on if it's the right direction he just was communicating the fact that he is happy that we're actually doing something and we're headed in a direction and that's generally positive because we've had this in action where we've known that we have too much capacity and schools could should close and

074we've got budget deficits but we weren't doing anything about it right so that's the I think that generally most of the public is aware that we're actually having to address these things and we're moving in the right direction. And some people can obviously disagree with it, but at least we're doing something. I was going to say, if you think about it, we closed one-third of the schools in the last five years. We've reduced our staff, essentially layoffs of, I don't know the exact percentage, but it's somewhere around 25 to 30 percent. You have to, you have, just those two stats alone put you in a really difficult situation from a, I think, community. Trust standpoint and I think how we've communicated that has been really actually a really positive thing as a board I think

075we've done a we've done the best we can both in small group sessions one-on-one and publicly to help the community understand how we put our district on a better trajectory Long-term and we did all that with changing our leadership every 18 months. So like if you put those No wonder think the community would be out there today with picket signs and yes we obviously have a a community that is passionate and involved which is a good thing um i think we're at a we're at a tipping point or i think we're at a uh you know a moment where we're about to flip the district renaissance renaissance yeah renaissance is a good word i will say i do find there to be a a chasm between Folks that I talked to at least that either

076have children in the district and folks that don't like a really interesting like Sociological dynamic between people that are like invested and have kids either where I'm in my stage of life and When I'm in the community, it's often at young children's events, as maybe Gerardo is too. I'm at the T-Ball. I'm at swim lessons. That's where I am, and people find out. It's a really interesting thing. Maybe I have a unique voice. They're like, you sound familiar. I get that a lot. I don't know if you guys. It's like, I'm on the school board. And they're like, yes, I listen to it. And it's really interesting when you hear from the parents. The feeling is actually quite positive. And it's quite, again, I think it's a chasm. It's much different. hearing from those parents

077in those settings like hey i understand it's been a lot of tough decisions we're happy about x y and z our kids about to enroll at you know yada yada school and you're like okay like that's a really different than when we're at the board meeting and you have or you're receiving emails from folks that i have to say they don't have children at the district and they have a different there's just like a different um maybe reason why they're connected to the district, they're a different influence they're looking for. So I find it to be quite positive when I'm interacting with parents or future parents. I don't know if everyone in the board, they have that experience, but that's where I am. Tell me if I'm being naive about this, but I've been to

078three board meetings, we've been to three board meetings, and the board meetings have not been fun, right? You have a lot of people wanting to talk, a lot of angry people. You hired a superintendent. You've made some decisions for the future. And I anticipated coming here today and seeing a huge crowd and listening to half an hour of public comment before the meeting. And that didn't happen. So am I right to assume that that's some people are breathing a sigh of relief and ready to move on? Oh, can I be really honest? I'm going to be brutally honest. I feel like a lot of what we get at our meetings is. It's like the boiling point, right? So people... are just, they're there and it's an energy and then they've got other people and then

079all of a sudden it's like, it's the feeding, it's like very, yeah, it's very hard to just sit there and like stay calm too. Like I have to ground myself often when I'm listening because you can't, and so I think that the environment provides a space and like when I was president, that's why I really tried respectfully as possible to control that energy in the room because it does change the entire dynamics. So for whatever reason, when. I mean, I have even seen people, for instance, come to our meetings and maybe just be there to be a support or to be a listener, and then they hear other people talk, and then they'll go and get a card. And then it's this energy where it's like, oh, if they're saying something, I want to say

080something. And if it's not positive, that negative, and I know it's not always going to be positive, but I do feel like in those meetings that negative energy really builds and it boils. and then it's almost like it's contagious. But it's not all the voices, right? Like that's what I have to remind myself. There are emails that come through, and we can talk about the elephant in the room. I mean, I know David's fine with it, but it's like there was something that really upset a portion of our community, and we heard from them, and we've heard from them a lot. What oftentimes doesn't happen is those who have a different perspective. When that kind of energy is at the meeting, those people don't feel comfortable or safe coming and speaking their truth. And so

081that's a perspective that I think we all have to remember that oftentimes, and I mean no disrespect by this at all, because it can come from any side, all sides, for whatever topic. You will always hear the loudest voices in the room. It doesn't mean that they represent the vast majority of our community. It just means they're comfortable coming and speaking. Great point. Yeah. I think that what I always keep in mind is if we'd listen to the loudest voices, we would still have three schools that would be open and our deficit would be ballooned. And so obviously we have to listen and hear it. But the reality is if we did listen to the loudest voices, the direction of the district would be, not going in the right direction. But that's democracy and that's

082the forum and that's what we listen and hear and we make decisions best for the students. I'd say in my 10-ish months, it's been a mixed bag. There's been a lot that has happened in the past year and it's challenging because to some of the earlier points, it's A lot of folks are passionate about the things that directly affect them, and if it doesn't go their way, then they're upset. So that's one challenge. Yes, the turnover over the last decade is also added to the challenge. And so I've been optimistic generally how we've operated as a board and the direction we're headed, but I think... It's not always going to be a smooth road. There are going to be additional challenges. It's not like we're here today and all of a sudden it's going to

083be sunshine and roses. We're still going to have more stuff come up, more things that are going to challenge us personally and challenge the community. In terms of where I would like to be role-wise, I'd say somewhere in the middle I think is appropriate. No, I don't want to get. super down into the weeds but at the same time I need to be able to make an informed decision and I can't do that unless I read through all the material and ask all the questions and get a deeper understanding of whatever topic it may be because if I have 20 agenda items I need to be able to speak you know somewhat intelligently on each one of them So I can't get there if I'm just up in the clouds. And then in terms of

084relationship with the superintendent, we're his boss, and he needs direction. And, you know, I can't give him direction unless I have a certain understanding. I can't just tell him, oh, all right, you know, go make everything better, you know, get those graduation rates up, you know, go get them, you know. So there's a happy medium somewhere in there. Here is the last question. This is interesting. You may not want to answer it. You've had how many superintendents in 10 years? Seven? So what has to happen to make sure he's not going to be the eighth? I think I was actually just thinking about this, so I'm going to speak to it. And again, this is our governance meeting, and what I'm about to say may make some people uncomfortable, but it is truth. There is

085this underlying, I don't know if I want to call it a threat, but... What's another word for threat? No, that there is a group of people within the district who oftentimes will use the language, we're going to do a vote of no confidence. Exert power. They're trying to exert power. And a lot of that relies, I mean, it comes back to us as a board. So I think to ensure that he does not become number eight, I think our decision, I think. i can't speak for the board but i know personally having you to do the work that you did to really listen to the community was that document for me was like a guiding document because if we didn't listen to our community and we decided to go with someone that didn't align with

086the values and the goals of the community that would have been already setting up someone for failure so i believe the first steps were taken to ensure that or to at least Get to a place where he stays for the superintendent. We chose the stays for a long time and is here for for you know a good a good portion the second part of that is this board and I think we've shown with the decisions that we've been You know faced with making and we've made these decisions these hard decisions is that we have to offer as much support as we can and not be not fold under the pressure of this threat because those kinds of threats and that kind of power exertion of power are not helpful and I don't I don't think

087there's a lot of onus and responsibility on those individuals I think people listen to those individuals and it impacts how the community perceives what's going on which doesn't always equate to what is actually going on And I'm really trying to be very gentle, so I know this sounds like very roundabout explanation, but I think that as long as this board is supportive and we don't get in the weeds to the point where we're overstepping our roles and we're supporting Jason with anything and everything that he needs and this district office and listening, right, this board goes out and does office hours. We've been told by many people, no other. board in this district or in this state is really doing that right and so we're offering an opportunity to navigate some of those call them

088complaints most of them are there we very seldom we have someone come to my office hours and tell me something that they're really excited about right it's usually they have a concern and they want so we're offering avenues to really help everyone feel heard and I think that that's an that's another way to support him but I really think not folding under the pressure because over the last ten years there has been this overarching threat of when something doesn't go the way that certain people want it to there is going to be a vote of no confidence and that influence is very impactful in our community for the superintendent for the board Superintendent okay leadership Can I just add so I would say also in addition to what Kat was talking about external influences Basically

089the job of the superintendent was just miserable because you had a lot of infighting with board members right board members who were occupying a lot of time that had nothing to do with students like you know lawsuits against other board members for for brown neck violation yeah that were that were baseless you know and creating all of this diverting all this energy and resources to things that really didn't help advance the district So, you know, it was really bored. It was really board relations I think that in many in many ways led to The turnover and the recent turnover in the last like, you know, three to five years so Yeah, I think not understanding what your roles are, having outside political agendas of wanting to, you know, do things because you're pursuing higher office.

090There were a lot of those kinds of things happening in the background where kids were not held at the sort of, you know, at the apex of what we were all about. That's not existing anymore? I don't think so. I don't, I don't. Are you running for governor? Was that the? You did. I can't run for president because I'm not a natural born citizen. So my aspirations are capped at the president of the board, not president of the United States. I mean, I think from my perspective, my job as the president is to try to prioritize issues. So, for example, we had a committee meeting yesterday with climate tech on the solar plan, which we're going to end up spending, you know, $10 million, right? So that's an important thing that all of us collectively

091as the board should really understand intimately the numbers, what we're doing, and why we're doing it. And, you know, so I requested that the climate tech people met with Anne separately yesterday. met with the committee of Gerardo and I, but I said, you guys have to, the climate tech people have to have a one-on-one with Katerina and Jason in advance of the next meeting where we're going to discuss it so they really get a great understanding of where we are and they're not trying to do that in a public meeting and then not fully understanding of that. And that's part of the sort of the priority is how do we prioritize super important things and then the ones that are just language that we have to adopt, then let's just adopt it, you know. I'd

092say there's one last thing that was missing. I think Jason could end up staying here a long while. And I agree with everything that's been said. I do think, at least on the previous superintendent, I don't have knowledge of all the past ones, I do think we missed on building the relationships within our community. We missed on the leader who could build bridges and understand both sides of arguments or all sides and really come to resolutions and someone who could truly lead us through this. It was a really challenging time we had in the last couple years, and I don't think we had the leadership in place that had the... the capability to rise to the challenge. I think Jason's coming in a less tumultuous time, so there's an opportunity that's better set up for

093success. But I also think he has the resume and character that will give our community what they need out of a leader. So it's twofold. It's the board, obviously everything that's been said about the current dynamics of this board versus past boards, and then it's the leader in place. That's what has me. quite optimistic about where we can head. If you two could give us some more context in terms of the evolution of the role of the superintendent over time, from when you guys started out to what you see are the demands today, and also the kind of the average lifespan of superintendents today. My understanding is you two are extreme outliers in terms of your tenure in your respective districts. And what I just heard, 2.8 years is the average lifespan. So we are

094going to do everything to support Superintendent Sutter so that it's multiples of 2.8. However, in terms of context, looking at the state as a whole, we're not unique and special in that sense. There is a lot of turnover all around us. The declining enrollment is happening everywhere. Budget crises are happening everywhere. So this isn't just a Sonoma issue. But yeah, if you guys could elaborate a little bit on what the demands are on a superintendent today. It's way different, obviously. The role of superintendent, the joke is, and it's not really a joke, is that you became a superintendent if you were a football coach, right? So if you look, yeah, if you were a football coach in a district, you became the superintendent eventually. You went up the food chain. You became assistant principal, principal,

095but you were still coaching the team, and then you became superintendent. The world's changed. I mean, it has really changed as a superintendent. You are now responsible for so much more than when I started. Yeah, so much more. I mean, I know there's a question here that we'll get to. Who knew prior to 2017 that a superintendent would be responsible for fires? You think that was never in the playbook for a superintendent. Now it's in every superintendent's playbook and understand the realm of what that can impact you to be I Had to learn on the job on that Mark West blew up I mean there was nothing left of Mark West if you know it it was like World War two had hit that place The only thing that standing was that was a Wobbly

096Elementary School All then I mean right up to here to the fence line was gone That was, no one told me what to do. Now, many superintendents have gone through that. There's a whole book on how to do it, how to deal with it. That's just one perspective. You've had COVID. So all of those, and what that led to was understanding one-time money. Because we were in flux with one-time money like never before. Some districts did well. Other districts did very poorly with that decision. They put ongoing funds into one-time money. Everybody loved those positions because we're helping positions. But as you said, we have declining enrollment and we have to cut. Well, no one wanted to cut those positions, but you had to. And now you see where I'm working right now, Wiccan Valley,

097everybody comes on glue because they're closing the school just like you did. Cutting counselors. Cutting counselors. Yep, and all those pieces are there that was never it was pretty straightforward LCF wasn't part of the game It was here's the cola. Here's what you do with it now LCFF Everything is much much broader and beyond that the community The superintendent is the fate more the face of a community than ever before has to has to engage in that community has to be present in that community you can't sit behind a desk and the biggest piece from when I started to now social media my goodness when I started and Scott it'd be for me no one bothered you on the weekend Because they had to call the district office, right? And all you had to do

098is, now you're available 24-7 for everything. And things that you have no idea because somebody else did something in your district, and you look up and you go, oh my goodness, I'm responsible for that. That is a whole different world. That's when you get, I had jet black hair. One positive? I'll give you a positive that... You wanted to know, but that's the difference. What's the positive change? I'll give you a positive that could be perceived as a negative. The California Teacher Association, that's the association that is the union for most teachers in California, has done a remarkable job over the past 10 years of advocating for their teachers. And so teachers have been more inclined to advocate for themselves in school districts and not ask for but demand higher wages, right? So almost all

099districts have been affected substantially. by the increased costs of employee compensation because of the great work of unions, right? And so that's hard for boards and superintendents to deal with because they're your employees. You have to support them. You want to reward them. But to reward them often in districts means that things have to be cut or reduced in order to afford that compensation. So that's been a major epiphany for me that I never had to deal with as a superintendent. Yeah. Yeah. I concur with that. Positives. We have so much, with the advent of computers and technology, there's so much more that students have access to. Information and understanding and the ability to learn at a different, you know, learn so many more avenues than were possible. And yet, you know, I'll show this

100too. There still is no greater mission than making a difference in a child's life every day. It's the greatest mission in the world, and it's the greatest reward in the world. I show this because every Friday, I work in second grade still. Every Friday, I go and work in second grade. When I was a superintendent, now you won't do this, but for a while, every week. I would teach at least one lesson in one classroom. That was energizing. And then on Fridays, I would teach first grade reading. I would do a small group reading group every Friday. Because, again, what is our mission? Education. Children. Children. Children. You said it best. What's the apex? Children. Be it a four-year-old. or a senior in high school. They all deserve the very best from us. And there's

101nothing more exciting still to this day in making that difference. Yeah, that's a great positive. In my career, we finally figured out how to teach children how to read. When I first started, we just kind of guessed. Give them a book. Let's hope that by reading they're going to learn how to read. But we know now how to make children read. That's a well-known science now. And that's probably the mystery of what you guys have to grapple with here is implementing the science of reading in classrooms. It's not a mystery anymore. We know how to make that happen, even with special ed kids. I live with a reading teacher, so I really know this. He's going to have a great career. He knows this stuff. He knows this stuff. You guys need a break before

102we go into governance handbook? Five minutes. Five minutes. On the handbook. So we are going to open up the handbook right now. So everybody should have that document, right? Jason said, hey, did you? So we're going to turn to page four, first of all. So if we'd move the screen to page four. These governance handbooks are a ton of work, and it can be very tedious. And there are some people like Ann who love doing it. So we're gonna you know, we've been talking about the superintendent here's the protocols as we look at it from the superintendent We're just gonna go through them If there are any questions we can stop so work toward creating a team with a board dedicated to students I can't as we just shared our priority What we are here

103for is to make sure we make a difference in a child's life. The superintendent respects obviously the board's role in setting policy and overseeing the performance of the superintendent. We'll be working on that evaluation document later like in June, July. Working with the board to establish a clear vision for the district. communicate the common vision and I think that's a very important piece for this board and for the superintendent going forward is the communication piece to your community recognize the board superintendent governance relationship requires support by the district's management team the board gives direction to the superintendent and the superintendent directs the staff Acknowledge the role of the board as a representative of the community. Obviously, you've already got your community hours, office hours, so that's really good. Accept leadership and responsibility and a camera

104for implementing the vision, goals, and policies of the district. Provide timely data documents to board members so they're informed of decisions that can be made. That kind of goes back to Geraldo's, your comment, I can't make an informed decision. Unless I have the knowledge base and that's really important I really appreciate that comment because board members have to be informed because you don't want to have a large discussion on an important item before the board and somebody Does not was not prepared you didn't prepare that person That's got to be a commitment of the superintendent as well to make sure you were informed. Now, that doesn't mean that you come up with a decision at a separate meeting, right, at a private meeting. It just gives you the information. Does that make sense? Let me

105ask a question about the board meeting that somebody was saying, permission to advance before we head. Okay. So is that an issue? Anything, about anything, about anything. Have there been instances on your board agenda where you were asked to vote on it and you'd never seen it or talked about it before? Well, I would say that for me. And it might have been my fault. I had never seen the actual petition that was submitted by the Sonoma Charter School. I saw the staff report. And I went back through all my emails to see whether in board communication I saw the actual original document. I could never find it. I looked. So, yeah, I said that. I've said that before. And I wanted to ask a question related to this preparation. My understanding from other school

106districts, because I know a lot of boards that I've met throughout the years at CSBA, I mean, it seems like when you have, like, very meaty topics around school closure or, you know, controversial topics, I feel like the boards that I know, you know, their superintendent preps them about them well before a meeting. It could be months before. like you know we are thinking that in this district we think a good idea is to do blah blah blah and and the superintendent is having these either buddy conversations to you know two board members together to talk about whatever the the issue might be this doesn't really happen in our district it kind of shows up on the agenda so oftentimes you have you know almost a week to prepare for the agenda but You're not

107really alerted like two months before like here's a really big issue this year. We have to address blah blah blah It's this is I don't know I don't know what best practices it are But I know from other districts that have a lot of respect for whose board members I happen to know quite well That's not how it goes in their district They will talk about issues for months before it ever gets to an agenda to be on an agenda Jason for a favor The favor is that can you give us a lot of lead time on really controversial issues? So I'm going to ask you, Trustee Ching, to talk a little bit more about the governance calendar to assist in this effort. But in terms of the information coming our way, one of the

108frustrations I've expressed is We receive weekly board communications. The Friday memo? It's an email, oftentimes from Michelle. Within the email, it's a PDF attachment. Within the PDF, that's the actual communication. And within the PDF are, you know, a list of links. So there's links within links within links, and it makes it incredibly difficult to cross-reference and pull up again. What are the links for? I don't understand. So if it is a particular upcoming agenda item, it's like, say, more. Expulsions. Okay, yeah, expulsions is one item. It could be the PKS that we just went through, kind of a. a more detailed staff report um right so it's like a google doc or some other pdf uh so it's this like really like you have to really dig down deep to find specific information so the

109request is that there be a more uh readily accessible bank for all these documents um that we can just Almost like a dedicated server, FTP site, something where it's all housed and we're not digging through past, you know, board communication from five weeks ago. Yeah, so would it be an advantage, Michelle and I actually were talking about this earlier this week as we prepared, and I just, right now I'm continuing what past practice has been. But would it be an advantage to be able to do a search of all of the board communication, all those Friday memos, if you want to say, I want to search about expulsions, and be able to search all of the references that have been expulsions in these previous... memos is that something that you're that you're hoping for I'm

110hearing also a place where all the attachments and documents are residing as well is that is that where we're leaning for what would be helpful to you as board members what would be helpful for me if there's a Google Drive that we have access to as the board members and there's a list of folders that says board communication and the date And within that is the PDFs of each of the documents are not hyperlinked. So there's the document within the hyperlinks to go get the other documents. So the first document would be the board communication, and then all of the actual PDFs are within that. So if you click on the hyperlink, then you've got to then go somewhere else to get it. And so then we could... go, oh, the board communication from this

111date, and all the documents are there, and then there's no hyperlinks to get to another document somewhere else? Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. If you're comfortable with us shifting, I can shift even next week along. along that lines and some other features that I think would be beneficial to you. I know we could, instead of doing it as a PDF, we could send, share a Google Doc. We can share a Google Doc that uses their tab, so every week it's a different tab. So if you're looking to search for, I remember a while ago there was this. You can find, you can type the word in, it'll show you where that is in the document. It'll link to those other documents, and we can have those in a Google folder, or we can

112do a dedicated Google Drive that's just for the board. dedicated Google Drive just for the board so then we can go and look and then see the folders and then this folder is the board communication from this date and then all the docs are there so that would to me that would be and then it would be the agenda for this meeting so it was sort of then it would like just one place to go find that stuff would be helpful from my perspective I think that having it be searchable, because I will remember I read that. There was a communication about that. And I can't, I try the searches within the Google email and it can't find the keyword search. Then I have to think back to, okay, what time frame was that? And

113then I go and look at each one in the month of December or something. So something that makes it easily accessible that if you remember there was communication but you just can't find it, like that's the big problem. I don't know the best way. to do that and how other boards must have communication systems out there. I have an idea that I'd love to try and if you're all willing then you can give me feedback. I think we can get it going for next week, right Michelle? Yeah. And then to second David's point, a lot of these documents are living documents, the Google Doc, Google Sheet. that it's constantly being updated. However, it would be good to have a PDF version at that point in time because there are challenges with accessing some of those

114files later on. The link expires for whatever reason. So that would be helpful to also have the PDF backups. Yeah, so we could do PDF what we did this. So we already created a folder on a superintendent's drive that Michelle and I shared that we are putting all the board communications in. We are, those live documents, instead of just linking to that employee's document, we're actually making a copy into the folder. So it's still a Google Doc. It's not necessarily a PDF. We can if we want, but we'll make a copy that then freezes it in this moment of what the information was at the time that we shared it with you, because I'm hearing that might be the interest is. is that it's still live, that it is the information that was shared with

115you at that time, not a changed version later down the road. So we'll make a copy already, but if we needed to, we can make PDF copies either way. Here's an interesting point, though. It talks about roles and responsibilities. You have to decide this. It's a great example. When the board is meeting with the superintendent, can one board member direct the superintendent to do something? In other words, can Gerardo say to you, I want you to do something a different way? Or does it take all of you to approve that? I don't care. You just have to decide that. I mean, I think there's a threshold of importance, right? And I'm constantly trying to kind of say to, as the president, I'm like, I can't make that decision. You have to go talk to everybody

116individually and get their opinion and input on it. And so I'm trying to balance. importance and not then waste time when it's a very simple straightforward thing I'm like okay you know go ahead and do it because I think that that's doesn't need everybody else's input yeah well I I can share a perspective because I actually don't have the same concerns that the rest of the board is in terms of the board communications I if ever I can't find something in a search I reach out to Michelle and I know that maybe that's not the best solution, but it's not oftentimes that I can't find something. So if I'm really struggling, I just say, Hey, Michelle, can you help me? Do you remember what this was? And sometimes she'll say, this is the date or

117she'll say, I can get that for you by the end of the day. And I, I remember, and just for perspective, like I definitely remember coming onto the board and feeling like we always had to, like, if I didn't have something to share. At the board meetings, I looked like I was not informed or educated. And I've shared that in governance meetings before, and I don't know that I've shared that. I think maybe we have talked about it a little bit, but that's not the point. We don't need to grandstand at our meetings, so the preparation work that happens before is... is crucial and that's really one of the things that I took away from the governance training was that these one-on-one meetings that we have prior like those are where that's the time when

118we get our questions answered and if we if I feel like hey I'm not prepared I have a lot of questions if we don't want to do this in public and I'm going to take time then that's when I would say to Jason I'm not ready to do this at the meeting and then I would assume he would reach out to the fellow board members and and in terms of like how we've done things, we've had ad hoc committees. If the board has assigned an ad hoc committee to, let's say, what did we have it for recently with the district or with the. Okay, so with the energy. Well, but decision-making, more or less. Like with the superintendent search, the board gave the ad hoc committee the authority. So we did have the ability to

119make decisions with the two of you with the best interest. Aside from that, I think it's kind of the unspoken truth that we expect, at least I would expect, that aside from an ad hoc committee that we've all agreed on, if there's something that's being – if there's a direction for change or shift, that we're all – given the opportunity to have input. Okay. So here's devil's advocate. Okay. This is not Scott's opinion. This is the advocate. Okay. So how would it be for you once or twice a week and took 10 minutes of your time? But that's not what I do. Mostly it's in. Yeah. You're talking to superstar over here. The general rule is that you can't talk to his employees without his permission because they're his employees, right? So you have to

120work through that. So classic example is. I was an interim superintendent in a district that Ron joined me in, in Santa Rosa. And so board members would regularly come in and dominate the CBO's time. That's the way to say, you can't do that unless you get permission from me as your superintendent. That's my CBO. It's not your CBO. So when you take up, it's going to be a scenario, when you take up employees' time, you're stopping them from doing their work. You have to be real careful about that and have agreements with him about how that works. That's a little tricky, right? So from here on out, if I can't find something, I will email Jason and CC Michelle and say I'm struggling to find X, Y, and Z. If that's okay with them, that's

121okay. That's the point of this meeting is to come to agreements like this is okay. The superintendent, if we're going to actually have time with the employees. other than our normal like if it was I mean one-on-ones yeah I would say we're like if we're doing a site visit yeah yeah yeah I think that's that we should all agree on we're not scheduling time with a director or the CBO or someone to sit down the our principal but I was told when I first joined the board that that the executive the executive assistant to the superintendent also served as the like the secretary to the board and so we could have access to the secretary i mean so it just would be clear i mean i try not as much as possible but i probably

122put a lot of demands on michelle It's probably in your job description. So, you know, I obviously don't want to overstep bounds, and certainly before talking to any department head or any staff, I always go through the superintendent. Yeah. But, no, I've been going to assume that it's in your job description. Probably in the job description that she is a secretary of the board, therefore you would have access. So I think that. Circling back to the original question, what individual power does a trustee have to tell the superintendent what to do? I think we're all agreeing. How does the president differ from the rest of the board members? We're going to dive into that. Okay, great. Good. I want to get through these first. Here's a question. Was anybody else involved in the Sandbook besides

123Ann? Why are there so many things for the superintendent? Oh, my gosh. My advice is I should have told you you can't go longer than eight pages or something. but I mean a lot of this is self-evident too so you know it's not but I think to have clarity right to remind people about what their lanes are so I I mean as I read through this like you know I don't know the 50th time it's like oh maybe we don't need to say all of this stuff and we should focus on just four of the things I don't know can I strike a couple I would I mean I think these things are well hold on a second sorry I would suggest this handbook is is undone right work in progress, so I would suggest

124you want to work on the handbook, striking things, adding things, that maybe that's a separate workshop that you could do with your superintendent. But that's up to you guys. If you want to start editing now, I'm fine with it if you want to do that. We have an award doc so we can start doing that. I think it's just, I think what Anne said, this also isn't necessarily, it was relevant to a time when there was a very contentious... It just was, there was rough. Yeah, we, yeah. It just, it's not necessarily relevant. Yeah, okay, so. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my real issue is the, my real issue is all the missing periods. It's like, I mean, that's killing, I'm like, look at this, I've filled them in here that I like, where are they?

125Well, you can only have a period if it's a complete sentence. Most of those are fragments. Yeah. But the fragments have periods, which is odd. Scott and Ron, would it make sense if the board, we wanted to revisit this list, would it make sense to have some of that conversation when we're talking about the evaluation? That would be perfect, yeah. Because really those should be tied together, the board goals, the protocols, and the evaluation. And so now the board has some homework. They can go through this document, kind of do their strikeouts, and when you have that evaluation meeting, you can kind of say these are what were the protocols for the superintendent. Because this wasn't happening in our district where certain board members receive more information than other board members so if If somebody

126made a request and wanted information and cared about some maybe topic that maybe no other board member cared about, it kind of stopped there. And it became problematic, obviously. So then the superintendent at the time formally adopted, hey, I had this conversation with another board member and I'm just going to distribute this information. to everybody regardless of what the topic was and i will say up until most recently like the board communications are um yeah the board communications are really helpful and in addition to that if i feel like aside from board communications those kinds of emails have come through where you know if there's question if there was a meeting of the mind so if there's a one-on-one and more questions arose and there wasn't enough time for a specific item on the agenda

127and the meeting was obviously in the very near future those questions were shared with the board it was clear what the questions were and then the answers to the questions that's really helpful also because it it one those are the questions that are probably going to come up in comment in you know board communication or board conversations in the board meeting so that kind of saves time are you proposing something well i'm just saying i would propose best practice seems to have to seems to be working for us in this regard. So aside from board communication, if you or even the CBO or anyone in the district office that has an item on the agenda that has a meeting with someone or there's additional questions, that it's going to be relevant to all of us

128in some capacity to share that information with the board. CHRIS JERRAM, JR.: Does the rest of the board feel that way? I have liked when a – I would say yes because I have seen, I think, my colleagues have good questions sometimes that I'm not thinking about. And if it's a topic that's going to be on – I think specifically if it's a topic that is going to be on a – at a board meeting when questions are asked ahead of time via email i think it's a really good opportunity that when the answers come back it's just a reply all to all of us so we all get that information like there's really useful information i i have found in that so i think the best practice is david sends three questions to jason

129on a topic when he replies back we all get included so it's not an ongoing thread with us but the information is there yeah is that clear yeah that's clear i think that That is how I would intend to go forward as well, is if I'm sharing information, I'm going to blind copy all of you on that information. And I'm also hearing that if there are situations where I get verbal questions, that I'm sharing information, seeing how I can share that information, making sure that I'm also not neglecting to share that information out, especially with those things that are relevant to all the board members. So what's the potential Brown Act ramifications of that? You sort of. Once you get that, you can't talk to each other about it, right? Especially at a soccer meeting.

130A soccer match where there's a coach there. It came up this week was there was a fight on campus. And Jason was asking me what the protocol was in terms of how we get notified. and I wasn't completely sure I said call Kat. And so maybe let's just have a quick discussion on that as to what the preference is, how we would communicate a safety incident or whatever you want to call it on campus. And is it, would it be the president gets informed and then it goes in a board communication on the Friday or does everybody want to know with a separate email or what is it, right? And so this incident was. One where, yeah, was a little more serious than just a fight in the sense of it was, there was ramifications.

131So I don't know. We'll tell you what we did and then you decide. Yeah. Jason probably has an idea. So anything that I thought would cause any concern with any board member, I texted all board members just to give you a heads up. This is what happened. No worries. It's under control. Because I didn't want you in Safeway hearing about a fight at the high school that your superintendent didn't tell you about, right? And if it was really serious, phone called each one. So first an email, then a follow-up call. Did you get the email from me? A school threat. Whatever. Yeah, if it rose to a level that I knew that they could hear about it for us, for me, it was Molesbury Market in Mark West. You're going to hear about it. You're

132going to hear about it from me first. There's the great line, no surprises. Can I ask, though, because there was practice before Michelle came on that seemed to work, and I feel like we have to be realistic with where he's going to be at that time. So could we also agree that best practice could be that he's occupied but Michelle is notifying the board? Yeah, because I feel like that's definitely more realistic, and that's how it's been in the past because we don't know where he's going to be. Yeah, if he's at, let's say he's... there's a serious situation on campus, he's there. He's going to dictate to Michelle to send that email out to each of you and then he'll follow up. Yeah, that's fine. Are you asking something else though? Well, so I'll

133just tell you what I explained to Jason just so the board is aware. So when he had asked, I said what we have been doing that seems to be working because I haven't heard otherwise is that when an incident happens, when it involves police or medical if there is a that you know if it elevates to that level of an emergency where there is an issue at any of our campuses in that regard then an email to inform us what is going on with a very clear line that this you know further details will be provided and then also understanding that it's everyone's responsibility at that time to go make sure kids are safe so we're not pressuring michelle or jason or anybody in the district office with questions we obviously stay in our lane

134and then i expressed to him you know a follow-up in board communication at the end of the week is completely sufficient if the information is if the information is there if it's not then just let us know this is still a work in progress and i will update you when i can okay so that's what i gave so i didn't hear you say that if jason isn't here michelle has the authority to notify board members say that to jason and and michelle has in the past i know when kira was in michelle's role that she we i don't believe we ever heard from the acting superintendent was oh and there seemed to be a lot of emergencies at that time it always came from kira so so here's one of those things you have to

135deal with that that's an operational topic that he decides how that works right not the board yeah yeah i'm just telling you guys what i shared with him because it was just brought up i don't care how it happens but i think we need to be realistic that He's not always going to have the ability to call us. We're not the priority. Probably he will, though. There will be times where that's necessary. It's going to be very rare if there's an emergency that if he's in a resident meeting or Southern California conference or wherever, he's going to take a 911 call from Michelle about something, right? So it's going to be very rare that he's hopefully unreachable. I think that that was helpful, talking with Kat, and then you all saw my communication. That was

136what I was... leaning towards I think that I'll be looking at there will be incidents where it's not going to be an email it's going to be a phone call based on the scope of it and the urgency around it what's going on and I agree there'll be times where I'm going to ask Michelle can you can you contact the board and get share this information and usually if I'm like if I'm in a conference I would expect that Michelle would would try and get a hold of me and say this is going on do you want me to notify the board like we I would be in that loop first And then in extreme cases, if there was an emergency and I was completely unavailable, then she would need to let you know because

137we don't want you to be surprised in the supermarket with somebody asking you about something major or just not knowing about something major that's going on. That's the cool thing about being a superintendent is you get a new spouse. Five. No, Michelle. Oh, yeah, that one too. I think from my perspective, just from a logistical standpoint, if the incident is generally looking like it's not going to result in an expulsion. you know, if it's a fight and it's just a suspension or whatever it is, I don't personally need to know that until the Friday board communication. But if something's going to be an incident where the police were involved and it's looking like an expulsion situation or a medical situation or whatever it is, then I think that's when we would all just want to

138know at the time. So that would be my just logistical kind of... There are some scenarios here that talk about that. Yes. On the topic of board communication and you mentioned the Brown Act, one of the things I was advised to watch out for during a new trustee orientation was the hub and spoke. So we do meet weekly with the superintendent prior to the meeting. So my understanding is... That's fine to do as long as the superintendent isn't explicitly asking us for how we're leaning on one item one way or the other. Is that as simple as it is? That's correct. And you can ask as many questions as you want during that process to get as much information as you, you know, and that's fine. But you cannot be directed during that meeting by

139the superintendent, this is how you should vote. Or at least the superintendent shouldn't be asking us how we're leaning. Correct. He'll know. He'll know. A good superintendent will know. Real quick. I would say also in terms of communication and how we meet with other members of the district office in regards to our board pockets like just as a reminder to the to the board like we do I mean it is best practice and we have learned through governance in the past that we always need to go through the superintendent before we just come in and meet with anyone but also as a reminder like that's our opportunity to get our information to the best of our ability and our questions answered before the board meetings but then also not to overload like i think that's

140something we also should probably talk about because it seems to be an issue and i feel like we have to address it and decide as a governance team you know and i think that also communicating questions is a way to not take up so much time but like how much time are we going to take of the staff at the district office with our questions you know because it is best practice right to be prepared for the meeting but how much time do we want to be taking and like what's realistic what is best practice for that because i'm not sure that we know yeah well again um I'm going to tell you what the ideal is, is that no board member should have access to district employees without going through him first. And he

141may have the answer that you want anyway, and he may want to answer your question rather than letting someone else answer the question. I don't know how you feel about that. I think I would agree. At the very least, I'd want to know what the concerns are, and if I'm handing a trustee off to someone else, that at least keeps me in the loop. I think related to that, as much as in the same vein of not bringing any, you receiving any surprises, I would also. rather hear those questions in advance than hearing them for the first time in a public session where we are not prepared because we don't want to be unprepared either. So we want to be able to answer your questions. So we have to figure out that your question is

142a really important one because when does it become overload and we wouldn't want to not answer a question because it seems like it's too much and then we're asking the question in public session. So we have to navigate how to get all of our trustees the information they need. They need to be able to be well informed and to make your choices and do want to provide that for you in advance and know what questions you have even if we are going to ask it publicly and we can at least be prepared to address it. I assume you're going to be watching this over time to see if they're overburdening your employees with their questions and time. So is he going to be in trouble with any of you if he says, hey, you know

143what, Kat? Could you get through me instead of calling HR about this question in the future? Is he going to be in trouble if he does something like that? Okay. So this is a conundrum, though, in terms of, you know, I try to ask all my questions ahead of time, but then questions arise while you're at the dais because you're like, oh, I hadn't thought of that. And sometimes it comes as a surprise to the superintendent, like maybe I wish you hadn't asked that question publicly. And I think part of it is this delicate balance of. Really, should you have prepped your board way more in advance about this particular topic instead of just putting it on, you know, and we only having a week to prepare? I mean, you know, so it's hard to

144say. I really do feel like our agendas are often overloaded. How do you get your information about agenda items? Is there a narrative that the superintendent tells, sends in advance about each item? This is what this is about and this is my recommendation? It's really like maybe one summary statement. The board, you know, the district is asking for your approval of the following, and it doesn't have like necessarily like a here's the rationale and here's the background, here's the pros, here's the cons. It doesn't. How did you do it? Well, we would have a statement that we would have the rationale and then we would bring forward with the agenda item. So there would be a dialogue unless it was a pro forma one, you know, whatever. Mine was very simple. I had the agenda,

145right? And each agenda item I sent out in advance, I said confidential, correspondence with the board, it would be the agenda item, the title, and below it I would say this is what this is about, this is my recommendation and why. So I don't want any board member to be surprised in an advancement meeting about those items, right? And give them my recommendation about what to do with it and why. Wait, so is that a confidential document or is that going out to the public? It's part of the agenda. Just the board. No, we don't get anything like that. Well, you don't have to. I'm not saying you should do that. That's how I did it. He did it slightly different. Most boards now get a one-page document with the agenda items that said this

146is the item, Rational 4. You don't get that. Oh, what did you guys do in Petaluma? Well, I wasn't on agenda review of what went to the board, but I know that on the board packet, the situation, if there was a complicated item, then we would make sure that the situation really explained as much as possible what that was about and what were the important points about that item. I'll have to look and see how it compares to what we've been doing here. It doesn't sound like you've been doing anything here. this is you know I'm now and you know in charge we're not in charge of but involved in deciding what's on the agenda or not and I don't have much experience in that so that something that I'd like us to kind of

147discuss to sort of set guardrails or have an have a process where because I you know I don't want to set an agenda and then have to then a board member says this is too much and then have to spend time on justifying it or agreeing to remove it or whatever it is it'd be better if we had a bit of bit more of a collaborative approach on the agenda so it was we that we can then save everybody time and effort to and then not have to be postponing items from from a time constraint standpoint we do have a model i will say that we could it's we don't think we have to reinvent the wheel because we did do a really good job like i really struggled the first two years of being

148a trustee with the consent agenda it was very convoluted and very hard to understand we've shifted gears and i think that document because it does provide an explanation and a funding source i think i mean i don't want to i'm We're talking about this and it seems very valuable, but then we're all we also have to remember is we do have one on ones, right? So I don't want to ask for too much. And I think just a small shift could be that we model that same. living document that we use for the consent agenda. That if there's something that requires more information, like obviously we're not asking for anyone's opinion about it, but like you said, this is why it's important or this is why it's being brought forward. If there's a funding source,

149I mean, we already have something that has been extremely helpful. At least I believe it has in terms of just that portion. Those cover sheets, yeah, it's very helpful. I would say that is much more organized and you understand the rationale and how it's going to be funded. But when you put the annual audit report on the consent agenda, I mean, that's not very helpful. There's no introduction to it. Like, there were findings in it. It's like... You don't put the findings on the page, the topic page? I'm just saying the consent agenda, I mean, what's the annual audit report doing in the consent agenda? It shouldn't be. Well, it was. It has been. That's why I was a little confused. Can I, would we in the board Google Drive where we've got communications, could

150we have proposed? Board agendas for upcoming for each month and have those in there that would And so, you know, so three months in advance or whatever it is, and we have a general outline, I guess, a working document. So then if we wanted, hey, what's on the agenda for this? And so instead of us calling Michelle and saying, hey, send it to me, it's there, and then that would be updated, and that then eventually becomes the agenda. Yeah, so on your agenda, at the end, you have an information item, right? Do you have an information item at the very end of your agenda? So at the end of your you have an information item on that information item you put upcoming future agenda items and in future and you already outlined those futures for

151that that goes to your that helps with your point about in three months there doesn't have to be next month it could be three four months ahead of time and if you hear something that's going to be you're going to be dealing with you can put that as a future agenda item on the information. I'm talking about just the actual proposed we must have a roadmap of future agendas we've got to do this in May because oh yeah that's I think you have it don't you don't you have a like a suspense file either google doc or 12 file folders oh you don't oh okay we have the board governance calendar but we didn't adopt it last year so I don't think people have really seen that that's the big topics that's really important yeah

152because We presented it but then I don't think the board was going to make a board. So like you would have first interim is going to be here, second interim is going to be here, which are the big ones obviously and other, you know, you have performance. Yeah, so that would be one document which is the sort of the scheduling of the big items but then it would be the next three or four months of agenda, what would be on that and that's obviously going to change. Yeah. But so then we could look forward and then I could, if Ann says, hey, it's looking like This is getting really busy then She could go look at the thing and say maybe we could slot it in here Most your genders should be already decided months

153in advance So I'm really I'm wondering I'm wondering if we if we could work on on a process for that and and Be bringing that when we go to the future a future items like looking at that point at This is what we're looking at for the next for next month's meeting and for the overview over the next three months like that might be a good point at that point in the meeting so you all can actually have discussion on it because we could do it remotely but then you can't have discussion on that right agenda that we could get a little bit more detailed in that future agenda item could I make a suggestion then could we and I know this is probably not going to be the most popular but but because I

154mean I feel like we've done a really good job with our meetings right but it does get late and oftentimes it's like that's why we nobody wants to talk about it we're like no we're done we're wiped And I think it is important to also have staff be available. So these are our meetings. So can we, like we moved the board communications up to the front side of the meeting? Could we also, if this is how we're going to do it, could we also move future board agenda item for future agenda, future agenda items to the front side of our board meetings so that we're not exhausted? Yeah, I think, have I suggested that or not? That's on my list of notes. We moved it or we gonna do I think the one we I

155think we could Reorder the agenda but the one thing about the future items if you move it to the front and you go through a meeting you don't get to something you're often saying let's do that do that so the future items I think probably makes sense to do at the end so that if you don't do something you can now proactively say we're gonna move this to the next agenda what are we gonna what are we on that agenda are we gonna move off So that part I think I would keep at the end of the meeting. I know the tire. I would disagree with that. I would have, you know, proposed future agenda items, and at the end of the meeting it would be. the next agenda that we're looking at next month

156and we could then chime in and have a discussion and say this is on that agenda or whatever it is. Because what I don't want to do is we, I've got something that I want to propose as a future agenda item and it's 11 o'clock and we're at the end of it and then I'm like, screw it, I'm not going to. Talk about it, and I don't think that's productive so we definitely need to preserve time at the beginning of the meeting for a trustee to be able to articulate I would like to discuss this on a future agenda right and then separately let's talk about So Ron, I think to clarify, the current practice had been that the future agenda items is just a blank sheet. It's not filled out. And the request is,

157the question is posed to us trustees, like, hey, do you guys have any items you'd like to put on the future agenda? And then we all punt it and we'll just email it. Because it's too, oh, wow. But yeah, we don't even see what is coming down the road. It's just a blank sheet. It's two different issues. Yeah, I hear you. Okay. So, David, just to clarify what you're suggesting, and I think Gerardo, you as well, is that maybe at the beginning we're having conversations about the long-term, like three months or longer, like items that are coming. I wouldn't like to talk about the scenarios that we have for you. Oh, good. Okay. So I would like to find out if my fellow board members would agree on agendizing painting the high school gym pink.

158That should happen at the beginning of the meeting because at the end of it, we're all like, oh, I'll leave my pink gym to the next meeting. And then separately at the end of the meeting is the future agenda, which we would have a draft of, and then that would be good because then we could say, hey, I've looked at this and I think this is too much, and then we could all just have that conversation then to agree to say take this off, take this off, and whatever else. Maybe check with Michelle and see if that's doable. I'm hearing two different things and now I want to clarify. What I'm hearing is board members request for future agenda items. Yes. But could you, do you not, okay, there's two pieces to this. I want

159to make sure. There are five board members, each one making a request for a future item. I just want you to get that into. So I'm looking at Jason and I'm looking at his team and I'm like this could be huge amount of work beyond the regular agenda items. I just want to make sure we're going this direction. This poses the question, sorry. are these our meetings and there were meetings okay so then what are the boundaries like we have the business we know we have to get through but there are priorities that we have so what's the balance i don't think we should be i don't think in public a new board item i have it set up where there's a catalog document can see what's on the future agenda. Like we should be

160working with the superintendent and our one-on-ones or via email to say, hey, in May, it looks like we have three topics. I have a topic that's been coming up. Do we have space for it? Can you put it on there? Like, and then I think the next, then I think the question is in the board meeting. when we're actually all together, we then should be agreeing, not proposing, but we should review what's on there and then agreeing, yes, for next month or two months out, whatever the timeline is, this is what we're, we're all in agreement. These are the four topics that are going to be on next month. I would also propose, you already have some time for making those proposals. You each have a moment. Board reports? You will report out. So that

161would be the opportunity for you to recommend a future board item. I like the idea, though, of first approaching when you're having your one-to-ones so that Jason can be prepared. Then you could share that at the board, but you're not going to get everything on the, like five new items that you're not prepared for that's going to. and then every month you're adding another five items, that's where it can get really convoluted. You have to keep in mind that agendas are full without you suggesting anything already, right? So I just I think that but it needs to be done don't get me wrong It needs to be done just has to be systematic and how it gets done can we just I think we have to have a Separate conversation where we're dedicated we can

162dedicate governance to setting board agendas I don't know really what best practices are how other districts are doing it We do have a policy that we need to review and I don't remember which one it is, which is 9 I think it's 9 3 2 3 where Basically, I think anyone from the public or a board member can put anything on the agenda as long as there is written notification 10 days before the actual date of the meeting. And that's a very, it was identified by, you know, previous legal counsel. Like, that is very problematic. Yes. Like, that is not good practice. And, you know, there's a whole history of how that got to where it is. So, I mean, agenda building. you know i thought was one of the sort of authorities that the

163board president has the privilege with the superintendent but i we've never done really board governance around agenda setting so yeah i mean that could be because we could do that in a public meeting and then we could see authentically what comes from setting that policy And we could take your advice. I mean, you'd be the one working on it. And so I'd be more interested in hearing. I mean, this is where I know it's our meeting, but, like, I'm also thinking to myself how much work we're putting on staff. how we what we want to do in public right as opposed to what the work we can get done and present and how productive we can be in our public meetings i would be more interested at this point because we could talk about this

164forever and can we agree that this is a policy that needs a priority because it does affect our governance and then you bring it to us and it can see where we can like what is your what is your you could look at petaluma you could look around and then we rely on what you think would be the most effective and helpful for not only the board but also being realistic with the work we're putting on staff And then we can see what happens from there. So you're suggesting that, for example, at the April meeting, bringing forward a revision of that existing policy so that as a team that can be discussed and move forward from there? Yeah. We're talking about future agenda items that trustees are requesting, right? Okay. And so would we then

165agree that... We remove the agenda item future agenda items and then trustees would then just use their board report time to suggest to talk about it no, okay, I think no, I think what we're sharing here is You still need to I think it's for community for communication to your community You need to keep the information item of future agenda items that needs to be because there's a communication piece This is going to be on the agenda in the future that creates that communication piece that needs to stay the piece of you Recommending a future agenda item is something that we have to You have to get the agreement on it. If you're going to change, if you're going to use it through the policy, 9223, I think you shared, then that would be the

166way to conduct that conversation. This is how we're going to bring, as board members, we're going to bring forward agenda items for the future that we would like to recommend. And then we'll go to you. Thank you. So I agree yes that the stuff we already know in advance that has to be addressed Yes, that should be as an information item only at the end of the agenda that works and I think Even though it hasn't worked as well as it can the current practice of just emailing our future agenda items We can Work on that so that it doesn't have to be a discussion item during our board report that we just send it off to the superintendent so that they have a month to chew on it and develop it with staff So

167that it can be ready For the next go-around and and I really don't think we need to spend any air during the current board meeting So I'm confused are you all suggesting that each of you have the power to put something on the agenda without the consent of the majority of the board yeah that was my next question yeah okay so let's just be clear what we have and what we don't have because that's where i don't think we don't even have a clear understanding so we do not have anywhere in our current board packet for ourselves, our staff, or our community, what is coming next month. That does not exist currently. What we do have, and it was up until last month, is two areas after the public comment not on the agenda, so

168we finish our agenda, our regular agenda, public comment on items not on the agenda, then we would go to board reports. and request for future agenda items. There's nowhere in our board packet that gives any sort of preview to what is coming in the future. So if you'd scroll down, all the way down, your last agenda item. So just before just before I well you can go you can do it either way but before that's going back to closed session you have a 17 there. Oh they moved it to the beginning now sorry at the end. Yeah and then you'd list those out they're not they're not there's no comment on them they're just there for the public. ability for us as trustees to say I would like to put this on the agenda and

169it was then designed I believe to have a consensus and a discussion to say yes the will of the board three out of five says I agree we should put this on the agenda so never actively nobody made a motion and there wasn't a second so we never did that formally it was just like here's a request at some point I would like to discuss you know What's going on with the D's and F's of our students? Can we discuss have a discussion about that and and Then that would go into some repository that Michelle kept track of and then you know Then there'd be another request like, you know, I really want to discuss, you know student discipline and it's just it's in a repository That's just the way it was handled We didn't

170discuss the timing of it. We didn't have the reference of the board governance calendar which tells you pretty much like the board business every month of the year. So typically at the end it would say future agenda items and that would be based largely on what happened the preceding year in the next month. Exactly. So you've got a calendar. Okay. So you've got. But it's not showing. Yeah. And that's the piece. You just show it. Then everybody knows what's going to come up. Now we've got to get to board member requests for future board meetings. That's what I'm hearing right now. Board requests. And how do we govern that as a team? I would say I concur and I am comfortable if I have a request emailing it to Jason. And really, I'm not sure

171how many requests there that I don't know that we really I mean it's on there But like we pass over this at the majority of our meetings But if there is something probably if we're getting emails from our community about a specific topic that that's usually what it what it is It's not like I have this point of contention and I want to talk about this It's more or less we're hearing the need from our community to want to have this opportunity To have this in a public discussion or hey, we had this incident and now we need to you guys really need to review this policy i i don't i i'm not gonna speak for staff but i would assume that from what i've heard that we our requests aren't unreasonable so i'm comfortable

172just emailing if they arise what happens if four other board members don't support that okay well let's talk about it so this would be my proposal i'll build on that which is at the last line before adjournment we do have the agenda that's proposed for the next month that should be being built from the year over year agenda and any items that have been sent to the superintendent that the superintendent has you know put added to it we i think and that last item should should look at and say yes or no and if it's and i think we need i i would propose that we just have a majority that agrees yes or if there's anything we need to strike or add that's the time we do it i i don't That would be

173my proposal. It's on this agenda. It's probably not the right time in a public meeting at the very end of it for one of us to say, I would like to see this on the agenda. It's better for us to email and have a conversation with the superintendent in advance of that and just propose it. And then we would be saying, no, we don't agree, or yes, we do agree. But it's not just a proposal. Hey, I think we should paint the gym pink. This isn't a totally open proposal. Yeah, that's what can't be I'm kind of confused like what what's the best practice out there because I know an other board You just need one other board member to second. I you know, I'm moved that we have a discussion on You know discipline

174in our district and how our kids are, you know and and a board member seconds it and then It's on the agenda. So what what is best practice? Like I just don't know I I think best practice is During that conversation is to direct the board the board gives direction To the superintendent to investigate the situation then potentially bring back a board agenda item in the future So the board so it is the board does not take a vote But what they do is they come to a consensus. Do you agree to give the superintendent direction on a future agenda item? Does that make sense? I'm not sure if I understand. So two board members could insist that it could be an agenda. What if the other three board members don't want to hear it?

175Yeah, I don't know That's why I'm asking like that's where the direction comes in. Yeah, you can do consensus more majority that gives direct consensus its direction It's not it's not a vote. It's not about it's just direction so like this is only a problem when When you don't have cohesion of the board and people want to use that and weaponize it which is what we had issues with you know previously in a in a in a many many many administrations before ago You know they would Demand things be put on the agenda without consideration of like well will staff be prepared Can they actually do a report on this like you know, so I I just want to get us to a place of what is like normal practice let's and let's be collegial

176but you sometimes you need to put guardrails because you if you don't have a collegial board just one board member can kind of derail the whole thing and you'll lose your superintendent so to the question about you know what if two or three agree on this so the current practice is none of us have any input on the future agenda it's just it's the discretion of the board president and the superintendent And it never shows up until the Friday before the regular meeting. That's atypical. So, yeah, so we absolutely need that governance calendar to be established and adopted so we can look ahead. So in terms of these proposed agenda items, to Trustee Landry's point, it's not a regular occurrence. I think I've done it maybe three times. The most recent example at our last

177meeting was I wanted to bring back discussion on renaming of the middle school campus. There wasn't a discussion about providing direction. It was more myself saying, hey, please look into this, superintendent. Right. So that's things that I had heard and I thought it was appropriate to bring that back. And then another example of a request I haven't made publicly but directly to the superintendent, which I believe is coming up, is for myself to have more of an understanding of the career technical education pathways at our high school. And so those are kind of examples. at least that have come from me. So I think it's appropriate just to kind of summarize that I pass those along ahead of time so that the superintendent and board president can have discussion about is that appropriate next month?

178Is it appropriate three months out? How much time does staff need to prepare for that? Yeah. But so what we should do like, you know, so then at the end of the agenda with the proposed next month agenda There should also be those listed that trustee Guzman has has requested an agenda item in the future for CTE study, right? Let's get some different ideas about that. So there's different ways to go about that rather than have an agenda item. So yeah typically that if I were you her Oh if I had a concern about renaming the middle school That's already been decided I would say during board member discussion you have that on your agenda So you each have your your turn in the agenda to say something? Report remember report. Yeah. So to say

179to the rest of the board and to Jason, you know People are coming back to me about that middle school name Can we figure out some way to talk about that Jason what are your thoughts? Rather than agenda item because when you had that in the agenda did did change anybody's mind? I thought you said you put on the agenda I requested it be brought back. It was an item from a year ago that was tabled. Okay. Oh, okay. So it was a tabled item. So that would make sense to say can we bring this back because it was tabled. It should be listed at that last one and say this is a request. And then if everybody, if the majority of the five of us agrees to then say, yeah, we agree, Gerardo, we

180should do that. And then then. Then we give direction to superintendents that bring it back when you see fit or as soon as you can and put it on the agenda. That makes sense. But if the five of you don't get along, right, and each of the five of you at a board meeting are giving him another agenda item to put on the agenda, you guys are going to go crazy. So I also, well, I think there's a, we're going to go back to your calendar. There are certain, like CTE. A report from the staff on CTE should be an annual report, right? You just have an annual report on that. So that's building your agendas long term as a team. This is our calendar. This is what we did in the past. I'm assuming

181Petaluma had something of that nature. There are certain things that are always annually on your calendar so you know that information is going to come up and it would be a future agenda item we know in the month of March we do CTE we know in the month of facilities are the month you mean my ongoing but a full ongoing facilities is always October we always address facility and we've also been taking I'm saying like when we look back at our agendas we're not going to have every six weeks school consolidation that's what it was yeah every six weeks exactly there was a meeting on school that's why you're here today right that's what we're here that's what we're going forward and I think it's incredible to get to that point where you know month

182by month throughout the year that's where we're at and that's the that's the point of these this meeting is to look long term so the superintendent has a focus and also a breadth. So we know the 90-day plan is coming into effect, but beyond that, we have a whole understanding. So the board knows what's coming, and the community knows what's coming. Can I get clarification just from what you all are thinking about right now? I'm hearing a couple of things. I heard, like, revisiting the board policy, but I also heard specifically figuring out... I think I need to work with Michelle because I think the agendas aren't coming from nowhere. Like I think there is some form of a calendar, right? So it's making it transparent to you all and also making transparent the next

183agenda for some conversation about what's planned at the next meeting, knowing that, and we have to be realistic, that there will be things that are not on there that are going to show up because emergencies happen and we say, oh my gosh, we've got to add this in with explanation about why that's coming in. But am I hearing that correctly? So what I would propose is that we, any future agenda items, you could either mention it during your board report or it would be a conversation and an email request from Jason. And then so we don't need to have future agenda items at the beginning of the. of the agenda it would just be in your board report say I'm thinking about this and I think we should talk about this and I'm going to

184send it to I'm going to email it to Jason and and then have it and at the end of the agenda is the the future agenda as in the next month as well as then this is what's been emailed to me and discussed with me from Jason of future things that this trustee is requesting and why. And then it would be a discussion of us as the five of us to then say, yeah, I think that's a good idea. Let's put it on the agenda. And do we agree that it would take a majority of the board to agendize something in the future or we're not agreeing to that? Can I play devil's advocate for a little bit? Because here's the thing. I think what we really also... I think giving Jason the benefit of

185the doubt and staff because while we may be hearing from our community and obviously the Altamira situation is not one, I mean, I agree with because we did push it off to bring it back, but we also have to ask ourselves, what is the point? Is there going to be progress made if we have this discussion in public? Is there really a different outcome than what we have? And so some requests that we get and some things we want to talk about, like... do they actually belong in our agenda right or can things be done and resolved not in secret but is that best practice and so i mean I would, I don't know. I'm leaning towards us just emailing. I'm not, I will not be bringing forward any future agenda items in any of

186my board reports. I haven't done it in the past and I won't be doing it in the future. And I think because that gives him an opportunity before I say something in public to say to me, hey, I understand this is a request. However, this is where I think how this could be dealt with. Right, because you have to remember, we also have opportunity for comments not on the agenda. So are we opening up a can of worms? Right, so let's be realistic. And I'm not saying we change the... the description of board reports. I'm just saying that's an opportunity in your board report. If you wanted to talk about and suggest something, you have that opportunity. You're right. I can envision a scenario where like you've been asking for something and it hasn't gotten

187done. And in the board report, you're like, hey, it's been six months. Like this is, I want everyone to know publicly. Because people have been yelling at me at my office. Yeah. Like guys, like you're kind of like, you're kind of like, hey, board members help me out here. Like. Can we put this on the agenda? But I think the real question is when we get to the last item on the list, which is the next month's agenda, as well as items that have been emailed and discussed and Jason has listed them, do we agree that one board member can request something and it goes on the agenda? Or do we agree that a majority of the board members have to give direction to say, yes, agendize it? That's the question. can i answer that

188with what our policy currently says our policy currently says let's see the board president superintendent shall decide whether a request from a member of the public is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board items not within that matter the board uh has it has the discretion not to place that on the agenda blah blah blah if the board president and the superintendent deny a request from a board member to place an item on the agenda the board member may request the board to take action to determine whether the item shall be placed on the agenda so there's like a friendly request and then if they deny then you bring it to the board and you try to get to others to agree with you um Yeah, so anyway, that's how we currently have it

189and plus we have this other language about the 10 working days before the meeting. So that one says items submitted. Yeah, anyway. What's that policy number? This is policy 9322. That's exactly what Dave was talking about though. That's exactly what you're talking about. I don't think it even needs to come up for discussion. I think I emailed the superintendent and the superintendent responds, yes, it's appropriate or maybe modified. Maybe this is more appropriate four months down the line. But yeah, I don't think we need to spend any more time discussing that. You may already have this. And if you don't, it may be helpful for Jason and everybody. A lot of districts have a one-page document that shows what typically happens at board meetings each month of the year. So if you all have that,

190it's a Google Doc or whatever. Do you have that? No. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So if you all have that, you'll know this month is brutal. I'm not going to suggest anything be added to it. Bringing it back to a few 15 minutes ago when it started. The topic of the agenda is on the notion of building trust and the communication to the community. One of the challenges is the board packet comes out Friday afternoon with very little description on each agenda item. and we all are immersed in it and we have an opportunity to dig through the entire packet, ask our questions, speak with staff if needed, but the community doesn't. And they sit through a very vague agenda packet until the Thursday meeting and they arrive and they don't have the opportunity to ask

191all those questions and meet with staff. And so there's a lot of angst and just... Not really having all the information to understand why certain actions are being brought forward the most recent example being the PKS and it was really difficult for folks to understand What why certain positions were there and why Reductions had to occur wholesale rather than a reduction in hours. So there was eight hours down to zero was the impression. What wasn't clear was that the intent was to bring back a lot of those at six hours, but there wasn't a current mechanism to allow that to happen in that way. It had to happen the way it happened, but that really caused a lot of misunderstanding. and this continued issue of communication and trust. So I guess what I'm getting at

192is if there's a way when the packet comes out on Friday to just have a little bit more description in layman's terms of why these things are happening. And I think that's going to help a lot with a lot of comments that we received the day of. and instead of it just stewing over the weekend. I just want to make sure I understand the request. So the packet comes out, and they've got the full PDF document on. Let's just say it's the Career and Technical Education presentation is 13.1, right? So you can open it up. You can look through how many ever pages are written. You're saying that there should be a summary here in this on what that is, like what that item is, not just the full. Because the full packet gets published.

193The question is, do we want the community to have the purpose of each item? Is that what we're saying? I'm just trying to clarify. I don't know if this is what you're getting at, but I do feel on important decisions that require action of the board, there's not really a laid out rationale. Here is the rationale. We need to reduce our deficit spending by X million dollars, and we are doing these through redundant, the following redundant positions because of blah, blah, blah. I mean, there's, and it's not like here are the pros and here are the cons. I mean, none of that is. It's you just assume it. So I'm wondering. You know particularly I mean, I think you know, I'm looking at the agenda here. It's You know, there's a lot of things that

194are pretty easy right the discussion and possible action out of the artificial intelligence. That one's pretty clear, but Particularly for staff reductions PKS That's obviously a huge thing Should we as a district be doing a town hall or something in advance of that? to then Is it? No, you can't? Okay, sorry. But would you do a summary rationale? I would definitely. You can have the superintendent do it. I'm saying not us. We wouldn't do the town hall. Superintendent doing the town hall with the thing and going. line item, line item saying this is why we're doing it. It's not an elimination of the position, it's a reduction from eight hours. The rationale for that, I don't know if that's a good idea or a bad idea, but to me, I think part of it is

195there was a lot of information in that PKS and it's difficult to communicate that in a board meeting with a presentation from staff to us. for them to get, you know, for the public to hear and to ask questions or to do what it is. So I get it. I have a suggestion, maybe, if I could make one. So, again, this could be a policy change. I think I actually hear what people are saying, but I also want to be realistic with, like, the purpose of the meeting. And while we have to be informative and transparent with the public, like... The purpose of the meeting is the board meeting in public. And so for instance, I don't know what the policy is. I don't even know if it exists. Well, it must exist because we

196follow these rules. And it could just be particularly Brown Act, and we don't have any say over this. When we have community members, specifically students, who come to us and are in tears at our board meeting because they think something specific is being removed. So for instance, this did happen. So a student spoke on behalf of herself and she was very upset and her fellow students because she interpreted one of the PKS layoffs as the wellness center in its entirety. So could we agree as a... board to review the policy that that doesn't because the whole idea is that we can't communicate with the public but i would love for at minimum and and thankfully rena rena did she did address this immediately i don't know if we even have to have a policy maybe

197we just need to have best practice but when something is clearly misinformation specifically when a student is standing there clearly distraught over it everything should come to a pause for clear communication at least clarity and truthful information. And so my question is, can we do that? Is there a policy that's limiting us from communicating during our meetings to the public? And how do we handle that? Because there is some onus on our community to decipher the information like we do. Like we definitely can't, I don't believe we should be asking staff to. and I don't mean to say it like this, but to hold everybody's hand. Like, it is very confusing, and they don't even have the time to hold our hand. So we can make some changes, but, like, when we are in our

198meeting and we have people coming to the podium and they're saying things that are not truthful, like I said, that energy is impactful, and that changes and shifts the meeting. So can we take time to address that? Your board so you can do whatever you want, but in general your your meetings are in front of the public not with the public, right? So in that case and knowing Jason a little bit If he sees that that child there and I was there at that meeting that was heartbreaking He'd get up and walk over and say that that kid in the mom Let me talk to you afterward about that because there's a different story. It shouldn't be up to the board It should be up to administration. That's an operational thing not a governance issue

199Yeah, you just quit quietly walk over. Let me I'll explain this like when we take a recess I'll come over and explain exactly that piece. Um, I Want to go back making sure we're correct a synthesis of the documentation like the PQAS on the board agenda like I'm hearing what I heard from the thing of the the riff was the classified one I think where they actually we staff had to explain the fact that we're not actually cutting these positions, we're reducing them, that information could have been in the rationale, which would have alleviated some of the misinformation that came forward, would alleviate some of the energy that people are feeling in the community. So I'm hearing from you, Trustee, that... Just more a little bit more of the description that we might be delivering

200verbally just put it put it in the description Is that right? Yeah, so the whole point is to be proactive and not reactive. So so yeah so it doesn't get to that point in that particular instance, so that Just enough like Clarity is provided ahead of time. So Just to be a little bit more proactive A slight bird walk is his principal should be educating their schools about what's happening and not happening too, right? I mean, if you're going to go, if you, future, I'm talking future, if you are going to go through budget cuts. yes community town halls are great but you have a whole plan laid out where you're going with the budget you have a budget advisory you meet with them then you go out to the community you meet with them

201and then so there's a whole plan in place that's so it's not and this is more about If we ever have to do it again. Yeah, but that's a communication piece that's very clear. It goes to your point. Everybody's heard the information. Then when you take action as a business item, even in your synthesis of the document as well, everybody has been informed to the extent possible. I mean, there's a perception that we're cutting librarians' positions totally. And that's, yeah, same example. Please keep thinking, whatever we talk about, What's governance and what's operational? Because we're getting these confused a lot here today. Operational is those meetings I just talked about. We're running out of time. We've got to figure out. Yeah. We have about 45 minutes left. I do have to leave at noon today.

202Yeah, go to the scenarios. I don't, yeah. Can you put the slideshow back up just to make sure? I'm not. So let's talk about some roles and responsibilities. So you're not, that's a board member up there. I'm not sure who it is. Diving toward the weeds there. Just a reminder again, the board is the what and the why, the superintendent is the how and the do. So roll the board president. This is major fun. A board president really has no more authority than any of you, except with working with the superintendent to do the board agenda, based on everything you know about. Not new agendas, not surprising you all, but just working with Jason and Michelle to get the agenda together. Who here has permission to talk to an attorney? How we've had practice in

203the past is that we have to email the board president and request that we, this is a request, like this is why we would like to speak to. Or we have an item we'd like to speak to the attorney about. We noticed that your legal bills are huge, so we're just thinking all of you are calling attorneys. We're not. And actually, if you talk to Rena, well, I don't want to actually speak for Rena, but there was a period of time when she did acknowledge that the board was doing a very good job of shifting gears and our legal costs went down significantly. I don't know if that's still the case, but. One thing that wasn't addressed up there was communication to the public. Like this was kind of an unspoken protocol that never made

204it into the governance handbook, which is that only the board president speaks on behalf of the entire board and is the one who actually communicates by email to the public. That's in your board bylaws. Right. But I don't even know if that's actually happening. We've not talked about it. Okay. So how do you, if somebody comes up to you and says, what's happening with your layoffs, what do you tell them? A reporter. A reporter comes up to you and says, I want to talk to you about layoffs in the district. So what do you say? No, I say. Right answer. Unless you designate Jason as your district spokesperson. A lot of districts do that. We do. So you guys got it down. That's right. So here's the no-nos for board presidents in general, CSBA stuff.

205As long as you're speaking for the board and not yourself. I understand. You'd say that you say well the we vote on this was a 3-2 vote but I can tell you it was a 3-2 vote and this is the this is what I know but the the danger for board presidents and I've seen this in a district recently is the board president was talking about political stuff you know it without the other board members knowing about it so as long as you're comfortable speaking for them speak for them but if you're if you're nervous they really don't know That's why I wonder if it's, is it better to have the superintendent be the spokesperson for the board, or they are the spokesperson for the district, to deal with the press? Because, you know, you

206try to be neutral as a board president when I was board president, and, you know, you have your own personal views, and trying to disentangle them sometimes from the whole board is tricky, especially when... reporters are trying to force you into put words in your mouth kind of thing. Well, that's two superintendents here for a long time. So my thing was I told the board, let me be the spokesperson. You don't want to get involved in a mess. That was me. So that was my practice when I was the president because what I realized was that the reporters obviously, for good reason, don't always understand because it's not their pedagogy. It's not their area of expertise. The difference between the roles of the board and the roles of the superintendent. So many of the questions

207that I was being asked, I didn't have authority to answer. If they're operational, they needed to be answered by either Dr. Chin or Rena. And so. I made it a practice for myself to refer all questions to Rena first, and then I would say to her, if there's anything you would prefer for me to answer, let me know. Most of the time, it's operational. I feel like most of the questions are operational, and I found that when the superintendent responded, what was reflected in the report was more accurate than when I responded, which is interesting. So that was the practice. I just you know well I can tell one paper not that I've been following newspapers there's two newspapers that I've noticed so I've been encouraging Jason Sutter to to you all now are superintendents

208can I just I just want to interrupt here with this so so I've been encouraging us as a district to find someone to help us with consistent messaging on you know for you know public you know like the article on the the PR right and I don't feel that using the law firm person for that is the best way to go. You know, F3 or someone, whatever it is, but we find someone more local with experience and who can help us with that. But I think we've got to be communicating a lot more proactively with the public on a very regular basis and also, so we're going to have a... certain things come up and we know it's coming up. So instead of waiting for that meeting to happen and then say, oh, there was

209a lot of people showed up at the meeting, we need to write something or we need to communicate this, we need to be projecting saying, we're going to have to write something on this and to communicate the messaging and get the information out to people. So that's something that we're working on, which I think is a positive. I want him to be comfortable, but we've got to set it in advance and we've got to be proactive. And if someone can help him with that and we do a really good job of communicating with the public, I'm okay with spending $5,000. If that really gets the public informed, 100%. We need to communicate but he's going to have a lot of different things to be doing in the future and if he can have someone who

210knows the district, who knows how to write to do whatever it is then or if it's a staff member that we can do it but we've got to sit down and say look at the agenda this month. what could potentially be something that we want to communicate beyond what we say in the meeting and then release that. Okay, makes sense. Yep. So looking at this, before we go on to these scenarios, is there anything up there that you think that David should be able to do? Is there anything up there that you think that David should be able to do? Anybody? David, what do you think? Let's have the meeting here instead of here. Any staff member except him. Oh, staff member except him. No, I can't. Okay. Okay. So scenarios, look at your scenarios.

211Pick one that you, we're not going to get through all these because we have more things to cover. Pick one that you think is interesting. You are a superintendent in this role. So you're going to react as though you're a superintendent. Your board members are then going to react to your response. And then if necessary, Jason will give you his take. And if necessary, Ron and I will chime in. Who wants to go first? These are all, we've seen these. Ron and I have seen these. These are real life. They're all different. Read it out loud. to express concerns about their son's high school principal. They want to know if you've received other complaints and what you've done about them. They expect you to look into it and do something about it. What do you

212do? What do you think the board as a whole would want? So you're the superintendent. What's the answer to that? I mean, I think the answer is you need to tell them. I think you would want to, I mean, you could show maybe a moment of empathy of like, okay, understand. Let me hear the concerns. Got it. And then I think you. You have to define whether you're talking to them as a board member or as a parent. And I think I would want to be clear as a superintendent. Am I talking to you as the parent of your son? I'm happy to schedule a meeting. Let's go through it. Let's talk about the feedback. And I'm not here to talk about other students. Or I wanted to talk, is this an issue you want

213to bring up the board regarding? principal like i would want to define the situation before i went into the the so how i was going to approach it assuming they um there's a redirection you could give that parent the redirection that i would give the brother coming to you i would i mean i would tell the parent first off have you spoken with the principal of the school and what's the process for complaints about employees in the district i actually don't know that answer oh what's the process and where does the ucp And what is the process of the UCP? That's the big question. Yeah. Okay. So you know what a UCP is. What is the process here in Sonoma Valley? you would go through hr i think there's a document that you would have

214to fill out but i would recommend you go speak with if it's a teacher i mean you go to the you want to navigate at the lowest level so you would recommend that first yep and then i you could advise that there is a process if you're not comfortable speaking with the principal or the teacher that you have the ability to file a ucp but it's on the document or on the website i don't know if you heard that one jason but the the what would probably happen as a superintendent is you would say you know what um whoever and in your role as a board member i can't talk to you about personal in the district if you have a concern about the principal if you haven't talked to that person please go do

215that if you have you still have concerns you're free to file a complaint and then be investigated if it comes back to the board so be it but we have to go through that process otherwise parents will know they can come and come board members or whoever can come and complain about people You said something there that piqued my interest. People cannot talk about employees at board meetings except the superintendent. You all know that, right? Okay. I thought for First Amendment rights, I thought people can actually make complaints as long as they don't name the person. They can do that. They can do that. As soon as somebody at a parent says, you know, I can't stand that darn Mrs. Smith, you say, you know what, we can't talk about that here. If you have

216a concern, please see our superintendent. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so this is who do you notify? I'm the superintendent. Call me Jason. Jason, what do you think? I think that if I had a concern, and this is specifically about a principal, yes, I would handle it, and I would be keeping you informed along the way. As we started to have concerns, I'd probably share with you about that and then explain what we're doing to support that principal. I was concerned, yeah, probably in one-on-ones with him about this, but he was dealing with it. If you're a board you want to be surprised if your superintendent you want don't want your board to be surprised Yeah, so if you're coming in March 1st and saying, you know, I'm gonna get rid of this principle you're going what

217the heck I didn't know about this in our district. I would find if it was a In our case we have one high school one middle school like yeah, I mean all of us would be concerned about if there was an issue with the principal. I have to say if it was one elementary school that's not in your district, I think I would leave it up to him whether I should be informed about all principals at that level. I don't know. I think I would let his, I would want the superintendent to use their discretion then. One I just asked Michelle one of the pieces you could have on closed session is you know don't have to do it you can list all the management positions and you can talk about positions as valuations piece

218to it that way. We used the agenda used to be that way and so agenda number one had like every single position in the district and would take up the first page. the agenda and then you could you were free to talk about anybody in closed session any of those positions management positions that way if something came up then Jason would have the opportunity I'm just sharing that you don't have I mean I appreciate like the trust in in in me handling it and It's a small community principles. That's a very significant position I would be letting you know about concerns and actions that we were taking with any of our principals so that you weren't surprised if someone's coming so I'd want you informed not because I I'm glad that you support my discretion

219and judgment on that, but I also don't want you in the dark on it And this is actually good for us to talk about because there was practices in the past in this district that we don't currently have anymore that I think are really helpful for our community in terms of trust too. So a diabetic elementary student loses consciousness in class. 911 is called and the student is transported to the hospital. Who do you notify and when? Board president, entire board, all employees, all parents, no one because the principal has it handled. And so we covered the first part of this at the beginning, right? So an email of notification to the board is crucial. And then when available, an update on the student's health is great because we'd like to know, right? All employees,

220all parents. I think that this is something that should be discussed. I honestly don't know when it comes to all employees. I mean, I know there's rights of the student, but this happened in a public elementary school in a classroom. But one thing that we used to do, and I remember this as a parent of the district, is if something happened at a school, the same kind of communication that went to the board, obviously it's different because you're tailoring this towards parents. I mean, the students, there's... potentially 20 other kids in the class that witnessed something, they're gonna go home and give their own interpretation of what happened. So communication to the families with respect to the student seems absolutely appropriate. But it does seem like there are instances that happen, and I've brought this

221up to our past superintendents, specifically at the high school when things have happened. And even it seems as if our superintendent wasn't notified, and I get notified as a parent. And so I think that there's definitely work to be done. And we don't, when we talk about trust within our community, like we think about things that we've all done wrong, right? And we're talking about decisions, but there's also this component that I think we could really work on because there are concerns about safety in our schools and the lack of communication. And this is a great example. So, I mean, I don't, that would be what I would think to handle it, but I'd love to hear. Yeah, I mean I would agree with that. I think that in this specific case I would want

222a communication to go out to all the families and the staff at the school because there was an ambulance at the school and all this that's happening people want to know without divulging any information that would be inappropriate but just that there was a medical situation it has been handled just so that as kids go home there's a communication and our families know. If it's a safety thing, I think depending on the issue, we cast a wider net. I think that certainly other, depending on what it is. other staff at other schools might be have a vested interest in knowing about something that went on and what was done about it and also other families at other schools depending on it would depend on the context of the situation but it goes back to that

223thing of trust and that if something big happens people want to know that we're trying to to share that yeah sure The day before a board meeting, you hear from one of your principals that a large group of her teachers are planning to come to the board meeting and express their anger about a recent decision you made about curriculum. What would you do? What do you think the board would want you to do? So, yeah, it's a juicy one. Yeah, I mean, it's got to start with the superintendent communicating directly with the principal. and getting up to speed on what happened to that point. And then, if possible, meet at least with a group of those teachers that afternoon. What do you think the board would want you to do? Well, yeah, I mean, I

224absolutely would want you to meet with the principal and some of those teachers to hear their concerns and potentially address those concerns ahead of time. I would think the same thing and I might meet with them and hear them and they still might want to be coming and so I'd let you all know that they're probably, yeah, we're going to have, just so you know, we're having people coming. I have met with them. These are some of the concerns they shared just so there are no surprises if there's a lot of that energy coming in. But the first... Going back to that idea of building collaborative cultures that is going and sitting down and saying hey Let's let's talk about what that concern is and we might we might be able to address it. So

225it doesn't need to be escalated Your board president calls you and tells you they want to change the color of the paint on the doors of the high school because it's not a Pleasant tone, what would you do? What do you think the rest of the board would want to do? You know, I would basically say to the board president You don't personally, individually have the authority to make a decision. This is a democracy. You need consensus. I guess I as a superintendent would probably try to get a pulse on how important this, how does this rise in terms of a priority and does it really deserve the attention? I'm thinking that changing the paint is not really a high priority, but changing the name because that was a promise to the community or any

226other facility issue but the paint. You're only one board member, you know, and this is, I haven't heard complaints from the community nor from, you know, other board members about this. I would agree. Who has the one about popping in the superintendent's office every day? That's a great point. So I'll speak for him. Every minute you take of his time is a minute he can't spend in the classroom. He will talk about how I don't stick around long and talk about a lot of stuff, so I'm in and out. I don't think we have currently a board that does that. I mean, I haven't polled anyone here, but I get a sense that there have been board members like that in the past, and it's a danger. You know, there's always this balance, right? We'll

227just do one up in the green there, hiring. Yeah, I just want to look at this one. Who hires? superintendent principals teachers who are the superintendent the board principals superintendent and the teachers principals yeah who ultimately well that's up to him but the way I did it was the principals could interview but I interview finally make a decision as superintendent what do you want to do I'm gonna want to think about it okay the I know in Petaluma Even as assistant superintendent of HR, I wasn't micromanaging. The principals were making the hires. They were checking references and all that. I guess it comes back to scope. How many hires are we making and what that lift is. But at the end of the day, if a principal is making a hire, they're making a hire.

228as my representative, right? Every principal represents the superintendent at the site and the teachers are representing the principal in the classroom and I'm representing all of you. So it's on down that chain. I always call it the 30 year marriage. You're getting married for 30 years. I mean, this is actually super relevant. I know we're running out of time, but this is something that we have requested. So Diane Kitamara's report, what we know to be true is we are really struggling with this living document, and we have administrators, principals specifically at our sites, who would also agree and have shared with me that it would be very helpful to have a more concrete, more clarity in our discipline matrix. It's very willy-nilly. There's a lot of mays, could, would, should, and we really need to

229develop a policy. I've been told and I don't know if the board agree I was told by by our previous superintendent that that is the role of the principal at the school but I didn't know that each school had a different I mean I would assume like the elementary's share a discipline matrix and then if we had multiple middle schools and multiple high schools I mean clearly there's different discipline for different you know primary versus secondary But this is actually very confusing to me, so I don't have these answers, so I would love some clarity. I'm not up on this, Jason. It used to be that you had to work with a committee consisting of employees and parents to review your discipline policies. Is that still in effect? Not that I know of. Okay. So

230what do you want to happen with this? Because that is an issue. We've heard that at a couple board meetings, and we actually shared notes at one of the board meetings about this. About the discipline policy? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm hearing... the board request to have conversation about what that looks like. So I think that that needs to be revisited. The discipline policy in terms of where does discipline live? It does, when I was a principal, I was making decisions, but whenever I was suspending, I was calling student services that this is what's happening. I'm thinking about a suspension. I wanted to calibrate with one other person to make sure that I was on the right track. I wouldn't want to make those decisions in isolation. And when I was here, we didn't have

231a student services person, so I would usually call. one of my fellow principals, I had a relationship with one of the principals where we would check in with each other. I'm thinking this, it sounds to me like this is what I should do, what do you think? And we would balance that idea, get some, just check ourselves if we're on the right track with how we're trying to approach this situation so that we're... We're taking into account the best interests of the whole class or the whole school and also the best interests of the student. How do we balance all of those things? So discipline should rest with the principal, but it goes back to that chain of command. The principal should be implementing policy that's determined by the board, that's administered by the superintendent

232and cabinet to... happen the way that the way we see that it's the fulfillment of that policy so I'm hearing a lot of questions about is the policy where it needs to be and to me that sounds like a starting point and the difference between the matrix and the policy because we have a policy And we have a matrix. And the matrix lives in, like, if you go, it's very hard to find also, if you go to the specific school. So let's just say you go to the high school website. You have to go through so much to find it. Yeah, five links. And the matrix literally basically, it basically says it's up to the authority. or it's up to the discretion of the principal or whatever it is. It doesn't say principal, but it's

233up to the discretion. And it also references like MTSS or PBIS. And so there's no, and then again, I haven't looked at our discipline policy in a minute, but I think there's two separate things here. And so policy clearly board sets forth, but then the matrix. different and so is there different matrixes for all of our sites? It sounds like you want to work with Jason about this and there it's not new. There are a million if-then discipline policies matrices across the internet so you don't have to reinvent you just have to look at what is going to work for you and that's that's kind of his job to recommend you what he thinks is going to work for his principals and his schools right? I want to just add that just to piggyback on

234what Kat is saying is that the policy seemed fine, but then when it came back to us and I didn't really think our responsibility is to come up with the discipline matrix, but you have student discipline cases where you have applied different consequences when they're equivalent, equivalent like, you know, behavior issues. And so that's when it really affects the board because ultimately we're the ones that are supposed to approve these different expulsions and you see the discipline matrix being applied unevenly across the board. That's a problem. So as a board, collectively, if you all agree that, you say to Jason, that's a problem. I'll let it happen again. In my example, when I was in Petaluma and we had a director of student services, that's why we would call that person so that we're calibrating,

235so that I'm not suspending for this, but the exact same thing is happening at the next school and they have a detention or something. It was how do you get some continuity, which is what I'm hearing you say. Maybe just read that. We don't have to read it. You can see it both sides. This is getting down to the end because I know you guys have a couple things you still want to talk about. We're not going to talk about government. Okay. Any questions about any of this? That red line is really important, the red letters there. And to make sure that none of the board members are standing behind Jason like that, looking over his shoulder. You guys are in turbulence right now, but from outside objective eyes, we've talked about you guys. Your

236issues are easily fixed. There's a lot of hope. He's a smart guy. I mean, the challenge that you have as we sit through your board meetings and listen to you read the paper and all that stuff, it all can be overcome pretty easily. You've come a long way already doing all the stuff you've done the last two or three years and all your superintendents. It's a new age for you guys. It's going to be good. You're going to have fun with this guy. That's another message for board. You can have fun at board meetings. I mean if you want to do something at the beginning to have fun, have fun. Show the public that you have fun together. Do something goofy. What's your favorite drink, hot drink? Just black coffee? What is it? Oat milk.

237Oat milk. Superintendents like to be thanked and rewarded every now and then. He just told you he likes coffee without milk. I was thinking we'd break kids' unit. Yeah, that would be cool. We've already done that. So see this book here? Take a look at it. This could be another board meeting some boards do this at board meetings. They take one chapter. So for example if you go to page 19 Because you want to show the public that you're you're doing governance, right that you're practicing governance and getting better These are very short activity short chapters Essentially, we've just done here today. So a couple I've highlighted there's one in micromanaging superintendent There's another on taking the political stance at a board meeting by a board member another is coming unprepared to board meetings. So

238they're all scenarios that then you talk about yourself about what should we do here in our district based on these scenarios. It's just kind of a really fun book, easy read. If you do a chapter every now and then in a board meeting in front of the public, they're going to say, this board is really squared away. They're really working on governance. Oh, it's a break. It's time for a break. So here's, this is really tough. So once you agree on what roles you have and don't have. and there's a violation who polices it? R-O-L-E-S oh Ms. Spelling I'm sorry so what happened if you notice The entire board has to police it right? I mean the president doesn't have authority to go and you know show up at your door and Let's say the

239cat says, you know Jason one of the scenarios was I'm really concerned about attendance I'd like you to bring back next meeting a report for each grade level for all their schools over the past three years And he's going oh my god. You gotta be kidding me cat But that's the time for David to say, you know, Kat, let's see if the majority of the board wants that to happen. He's a really busy guy, right? So you have to help protect him at board meetings from other board members. Or you have to protect him against the superintendent. Right, yeah. But how does a board, what is the proper role or the appropriate way to request information that... We just don't have access to like just background information like trend analysis, you know and information like

240that like to give us a like a full picture of what's happening in our district. Let me ask that back to you. So do you think superintendents are busy people? Yes. I can't remember any time, you know, I'm sure the same. There was rarely a day when I had lunch in 20 years. This didn't happen. There's no time for lunch. So if you believe the board that you're suing is busy and you want to give requests, keep in mind that your request is going to take him away from something else. So that's what I would say back is I think it's fine. Just keep in mind that. Whatever you ask him to do or his staff to do you're taking them away from their their regular job, right? Does that make sense? So I don't

241know the answer to that. What do you think? I have an answer I think it's helpful. It's helped me for sure So I send my question via email and I started practicing because as a board president I was asked to speak to a board member in the past and i obviously wanted to practice what i preached and so i started typing in the reason why i was interested in the information and when i would do that there was often times when i was like oh okay that does sound kind of stupid you know or maybe this is a little irrelevant and so it really helped me decide what the information was for like what i'm i'm requesting this because i need i really feel that this information is going to help me make a decision

242on this item and i feel that this is the missing piece and then I felt better about asking for the information it made the time spent relevant because I really truly needed the information when I started doing that I think in my I think over the last two years less than two years maybe I don't even know two years let's just say I think I've made a request for additional information maybe four times In practicing that. Because it helps me keep myself on track. Because a lot of times the information gets us in the weeds. And that's where I had to decipher, like, okay, am I doing this because I feel like I just want to have a conversation and be knowledgeable? But is it actually helping me make a decision or am I getting

243to the point where I want to be or am I just overwhelming myself? Because a lot of our past practices Haven't always been the best practices. So how far back do we want to go and is it the way forward? So that's something that I have started doing when I ask for information and it's really helped me and oftentimes I will delete delete delete as I'm typing because I see it and when you see it you're like, yep It's not necessary. You have six people here that you need to work together as a team and decide what's appropriate. You know, there's operational and governance, but sometimes they do mix. Sometimes it's a little messy, as long as you all agree that it can be a little messy, right? But it has to be okay with

244him so he continues to be your superintendent and say, you guys are driving me crazy. I'm going to go be San Francisco superintendent now. Good luck. Just so Jason, I think, you know, the role of the president, I think, is to act as the foil. If he's overwhelmed, then you've got to talk to me, and then I've got to go and talk to Gerardo and say, look, stop it. You've got to just quit it. Absolutely. Damn it. And I appreciate that suggestion. And on the other side, I want you all to have the information you need. So maybe not now, but maybe in the future we're working to some agreements. If there's a request that's going to take. some certain amount of time maybe we're bringing it back to make sure that's information more people

245need and and we established some kind of ground rules around that because if you do need that information and we can get it to you that's what that's what we want to do. We had talked as I met with Ron and Scott. You got to see these pictures first. Oh, sorry. This is the older version of us. That was the version we met. This is the one we want with you. Not this one. This is how you guys have been in the past. We don't want that anymore. Yeah, no, I just, in wrapping up, David was bringing a good point forward that in meeting with Ron and Scott, you have this agenda. This was where we started, was just knowing that these next three steps would be important. And we didn't even get through everything

246we planned for today, so it was time well spent. But we did want to organize sometime in early May. superintendent report that coming back and reporting out to you that's that listening and learning report that I mentioned the 98 plan and at that point springboarding into and board what are the priorities where do you want us to marshal all of our resources and focus our energy that would be sometime hoping in early May and then the next one in July coming back and focusing on superintendent evaluation criteria which should be really tied into what it is you want us to accomplish Okay. No, no, we can, I'm just getting it down on the calendar. I'm okay. I just didn't, I felt like giving a little bit of space between these things. So if not July,

247I'd say August. I think June would, like going May into June is a little bit like right on the heels. I would, yeah, yeah. So we are we I actually like July just just just to consider this right. We don't have to decide this, but it's when we have like breathing space to do governance. I don't know if you know if we should give ourselves a break in another month or something and have August be, you know, anyway, I'm just I'm just saying like it's very quiet in July and you can get a lot done and maybe we need to, you know, juggle our schedules. I don't know. Just just think about it. you you can get a lot of stuff done where i feel like during the regular year it's really hard to get

248to do thoughtful reflective thinking that's all i mean like that would be an interesting month to punch it potentially take off too like the staff is all getting ready for the school year like i i've actually thought it was very odd that we had a school board meeting like the second whatever the day after school starts after school starts before school starts weird to me i so i'm okay with like debating that um we could figure it out august months but i do think having a break for them and allowing staff and it's actually allowing staff to just go out and execute too like not having giving all of them and i'm saying them because there's normally eight people here giving them a lump off on the board meeting too like it's i mean we

249do two in june typically so a lot of suits take a lot of july off too keep that in mind Are we saying that four of these meetings a year is, sorry, three meetings in a year for governance, is that enough? Or are we? Is that or is it at our discretion or do we need seven or what do we need? Well I mean I think if we look at our plan today was to get through the superintendent protocols which we didn't and then go into and we picked only the numbers that we selected in here were actually selecting only a handful of board protocols because there's so many board protocols so we did we scratched the surface whether we do that in what's that? way more in depth today yeah so um but my

250point being like we could schedule more of these in the year i know anne's mentioned before there's training through cspa so there's other options um i don't i don't know that we like we're doing an aggressive an aggressive schedule of every couple months we're doing these types of meetings that doesn't need to carry on but probably we need to be revisiting these topics Later in more in the year as we go through like a couple other times I would think can I ask a point of clarification if we we are only what is the rules around? Board meeting so are we required to have 11 a year? No, there's no requirement. So we could essentially take July and August off and you, no, but I'm saying and focus on governance in July, but commit August

251to the month where staff has and the board has off. Like that's what I don't understand. Are there rules around how many? I do think there are items that you have to approve in August. That you have to approve. Like in August, there's district that the board must approve. We could just approve that and have the rest of the governance instead of one of those meetings. No, wait. And we can approve those items. In the workshop? Yeah. Okay. And then still have July off. Yeah. I mean, it is hard. I mean, we all have families, I know. But, you know, some of us have kids graduating and going off to college. And so I'm just not willing to make any sort of big changes or commitments with plans I've already made for that. And I

252know that sounds very selfish, and I completely understand how that sounds. But big transitions and big movements in life, and that will be my priority. So if it's the will of the board, I likely won't be participating. I like the idea of the August doing the approvals the first week of the school year. That I would vote for. And so then just another housekeeping item. My preference would be to have these guys continue to help us with this. If someone has a difference, then. Can I talk about that? What's what? Maybe could you communicate with them offline and get feedback about what worked and what didn't work and give that to us anonymously? And we're fine. If you want us back, great. If you don't, we're fine. And if you don't want us back, then

253email or whatever it is. Yeah, I can talk with the trustees about that, about how this day went, what went well, and what we'd want to adjust. I want to commit to like having a subcommittee work on updating this governance handbook so that it can be more streamlined and the whole board doesn't have to sit down and read through everything. That might help. Anyway, I do think the board governance handbook should contain and answer all the questions that people have and new board members, you know, when there's turnover. I think it's a good idea. I sense it here. Some board members love doing governance handbook manuals. Some board members don't want it. So if you have somebody who's willing to dive into that, great, as long as it's reflective of what the whole board wants.

254I looked at yours. It's pretty good. Look at the Rincon Valley handbook. It's pretty darn good. So maybe looking at that, you can get yours done pretty quickly by looking at that. I think Petaluma has a pretty good governance handbook. I'm happy to work on that with you, Ann, if nobody else. If nobody else wants to do it, we can look at Rincon and come up with a solution. I know where that was coming from. Okay, great. Yeah, did you? So, I mean, we easily could do the following week if we wanted to spread that out, whatever the pleasure is of the board. But I wanted to. Oh, the final investigation. It's regarding the hearings, yeah. Yeah. I would just ask if you can avoid the weekend in Tottenham. If you could plan something for

255an evening. Well, people were already holding the 14th for our regular meeting that night. Does that work? Does that work for you guys? What date? The 14th of May. And we're talking about an afternoon or anything? Sure, 14th of May. Okay. Would you all want to do it earlier in the afternoon or at the regular board meeting time? Okay, so more like the regular board meeting time like a sit five or six? Five? Well, we can do six if that would whatever y'all need. Okay. Okay, we can we can accomplish that okay, let's do 530 530 We'll do it we'll do three hours then three hours 530 to 830, of course I think it's the early 12th, whatever that Monday is. The 10th is the second Monday of August. Yeah, then I think it's the

25610th. The 10th. She thinks the 10th. Just board routine business. Well, that one's going to be, that one would be, that's the July, yeah, the evaluation criteria. Which one? For like the regular board meeting and then have, because the evaluation criteria goes, is a closed session. That's what I was going to say. The question is, do you want to do it in? I mean, it might make sense to start with just the regular business, get that out of the way, and then we can take whatever time we need for the closed session to do the evaluation. Put the frog first, whatever it is. There you go. Eat that frog. Honestly, if we're eating a frog. Okay, great. Meeting closed. Thank you, guys. Good to see you.