001good evening tonight's special meeting of the board of education is called to order at 4:30 p.m. in Open Session roll call please miss Armstrong Miss Centron here Mr critchfield here Mrs Garza here Miss Stewart here tonight we do have requests addressing agenda items while meetings of the governing board are not public meetings they are open to the public individual speakers will be allowed 3 minutes to address the board on each agenda item and the board will limit the total time for public input on each item to 20 minute 21 minutes per board bylaw 9322 point2 Anthony Ramirez we come on up welcome I'm the only person here hi um on behalf of CA I know agenda item 3.1 is coming up this evening and um the unit wanted to uh reiterate our our position within
002the district we would like to make sure that CSA and classified staff have uh adequate uh volume and opportunity to give input into the superintendent search we want to partner with the district and all the other stakeholder groups and make sure that our voices are represented as well that's all I wanted to say thank you thank you at this time the board will adjourn to close session Open Session will resume at approximately 5:00 p.m. all right let's go good evening we now reconvene into Open session at 50:1 p.m. to resume our regular order of business board clerk critchfield will provide an update on closed session topics thank you madam president the topics discuss Clos session were anticipated litigation the board took no action in close session all right thank you it's time for discussion items
003Mrs oo uh at this time hold on one minute please let me catch up thank you at this time I'm going to introduce uh Dr David Verdugo and Sandy thoron to go over the superintendent search process and answer any questions that the board may have thank you for joining us this evening I wanted to begin board members by introducing Sandy thoron next to me here um the superintendent previously retired from Whittier Union High School District if I'm not mistaken Sandy I think 14 years 14 years as the superintendent there um and of course you did not have the opportunity to meet her previously so uh really excited about the fact that she'll be here assisting in this process this evening um I would bring to your attention board members the packets that are available to
004you uh also if I'm not mistaken it's on the screen as well and wanted to begin by thanking Carrie and Elaine for such outstanding work in terms of the correspondence that we've had with them and our executive assistant as well Linda Harter we're going to begin with the agenda that you see again posted up on the screen as well as by you there and we're going to start in numerical order we'll get down finally to number 11 is when Sandy will take over and we'll explain that process once we get there we to begin with this agenda is based around discussion and confirmation of various dates and times as it relates to this search process and so we're going to jump right to number two typically we try to designate with the board's approval two
005people who would be the leison and spokesperson for the board during this process typically if I may that would be the President and Vice President in this case Miss Stewart and Mrs Garza and so we wanted to make sure that that's fine although all the correspondents in any kind of a major way will go to the entire board uh so this would be maybe a simplified question where are we meeting this evening or perhaps uh what time might the meeting start uh typically we can rely on Carrie and Elaine on that for that information but uh the board would please go ahead and select a leason should that be um should that be approved or President and Vice President are you guys okay with that okay good answer colleagues okay it will be us thank
006you thank you number three we want to confirm that uh our assistant has received the guidelines your assistant has received the guidelines and templates from our administrative staff and that would be from Linda Harter and Elaine and I think Carrie in fact again been outstanding in that respect and they have received all of that information sample formats and templates and so on um we will be receiving number four your uh email addresses we have those through a worksheet that we have but I'll confirm that tomorrow with Carrie and Elaine that we have your information available as well we want to begin with number five to discuss the use of input from the board and stakeholder groups uh the online survey as well and the development of the position profile and now what I would do
007is I would ask you to go to the stakeholder input sheet of information that you have there in the packet which is exactly what Carrie just shined up there and we're going to jump a little bit but it's really very important that we obtain from you those partners and community members and stakeholders that you would like like us to make sure that we receive from them the questions that we're going to be asking Those Questions by the way are what do you desire most in the next superintendent what are some of the characteristics the experiences the skill sets that you desire most in your next leader we also ask them what might be the strengths in the district a dual language program an avid program a CTE program your staff your teachers uh your engaged
008parents and then finally we ask and sometimes even more important what might be some of the challenges that the school district is facing uh now or on the horizon it could be something like declining enrollment it could be um something like um communication perhaps these were just I'm pulling these out but what you see in front of you there is a template typically of the list of folks that we uh contact through and with the assistance of your executive assistant and we begin to set that up with our own executive assistant but if you'll take a few seconds to look through that we have 16 uh General descriptions but we would rely on the board to provide us any other community Forum groups or areas of of uh of concern that you'd like us to
009reach out to so if you'll look at that for a moment so what might come to mind in terms of other stakeholder groups that you'd like us to engage in I think the only one that I see that I don't see is citizen task force okay I think that might be a good one colleagues yes do you see any others that you guys would like to add I do have a clarification needed for number seven under certificated staff um could you tell me will under certificated staff will you also be pulling special education teachers and Di teachers dual immersion teachers in separate groups or okay yeah that's and you're correct certificated staff it's kind of an umbrella statement but we will make sure that we capture all of those teachers who might have to have
010the opportunity to speak to us either via Zoom or in person but yes it'll include all of that group them as would you like us to meet with them as an individual group specially a teachers one group uh the dual immersion teachers is a a separate group what do you guys think or should we just kind of put them together with general education that'ss colleagues I I guess my question would be automatically in my mind I feel like they may have different needs or specify different wants but I don't know if that would hinder their voice in a general teacher or if not you know what I mean are you saying okay so I don't know I would leave it to you my colleagues to identify if you want it as a separate group or
011not but I don't lean one way or another just but I do want to be able to have everybody have a voice to so I kind of lean I think I would be okay with them being generally together as well Clark critel yeah there a lot of groups um I'd say as long as we know that they're uh a part of it and the conversation and um because because we do have a lot of uh we need a lot of attention on our SP so I definitely want them to be able to weigh in so can you explain with the c certificated staff what that would look like for us in sorry should too in general it's going to be an open invitation to all of your certificated staff members there have been times when
012we've done it at schools there have been times when we've done that in more of a zoom format that's convenient for them so if for example they uh end their school day at 2:45 we would arrange for that Zoom opportunity and or that personal meeting face to face let's say at 4:00 or perhaps at 3:30 but we would make it convenient for them the other aspect that I would also mention though is we get a lot of information from your teachers executive camp counselor board as well so that's another way in which we can capture some more in-depth information pertaining to teachers very often the executive group of your union and so on will capture from your teachers some of the essential elements that they'd like to see in a superintendent and we of course
013talk to them of course separately as well Madam president if I could I depending on how those meetings are run or how the agenda is looking I would in some way shape or form carve out time for just our our sped uh teachers and and classified um in addition to that I and I don't know how this would work but one of the things that I I want to make sure is our Athletics are are heard as well uh so I don't know which if if there's which committee or which group of people that may already be designated to be that specific group uh I want to just say coaches um but uh representatives from uh our athletic side of the house we can certainly do that because the each of the sessions typically are
01430 minutes so we're not going to we want to have a smaller group per 30 minute session anyway so that way people's voices can't be heard you know if you have an enormous number then it's it's really frustrating for them so um breaking them down into smaller groups sped uh dual immersion um Athletics you know that would make sense and we do of course include you'll notice on number 12 booster groups that might be out there yeah I also agree um e e e you mentioned but the face- tof face as well as the zoom meetings that we will set up accordingly on this group of of uh stakeholders that you see here on this on this sheet um the um survey itself will be um monitored so that we can begin to see how
015many responses you have within a week we very often will turn to your site principles so that perhaps they can send out a message perhaps uh via your parent square or whatever Communication System you have to remind parents to remind students volunteers community members and so on to take the survey once we accumulate all that information via the survey then we will start to create a position description and that's part of the uh the agenda information that I'll share shortly David if I may interject um when we conduct each of the 30 minute uh input sessions we also include our email addresses in the chat so that way if they have follow-up information or if they want to share something that they may not want to say in that public setting even though it may
016just be five or eight or 10 people so that way they can say whatever they want to say directly to us via email thank you I appreciate that clarification colleagues anything else let me go on if I may then yes in terms of number five we're still there you do have in your packet if I'm not mistaken a sample uh view of the template I'm sorry the template of the survey and we would begin to ask um that that survey uh we are going to request from you what language you'd like that survey in English and Spanish we know will be a dominant language and then um there is one other language but is it Arab Arabic Arabic I think that's it right colleagues for now thank you Lisa is there any other no that's
017correct okay thank you well we're still on number five folks but what you see there on that line with respect to number five discussing your input with regards to the St stakeholder group the online survey and the development of the position profile or the job description if you will once we have received all of the survey information as well as all the face-to-face and zoom information we will create a position description typically those are the major themes that you begin to see surface from the stakeholder input um what people people and the board of course are Desiring most in the next superintendent that position description needs to be approved by the board prior to us publicizing it uh so that's one thing to keep in mind as we move forward that position description will also
018include a description of your school district and a description of the community of belflower who do you serve for example um what areas might you serve do you serve North Long Beach do you serve Olive belflower do you serve a little bit of Lake Lakewood those kinds of things is what would be described in that position description and that position description is uh serves as well as a recruiting tool it's posted uh in Ed joint it's posted on our leadership Associates website we have about 2,000 subscribers so candidates know what the board and this community is specifically looking for in a leader it helps us to make sure that we we weed out possible candidates that really don't have the background experience or the leadership style that's going to be a good fit for all
019of you and again the the majority of the board will review that position description to approve it accordingly so that we can begin to utilize it and send it out uh we've already indicated the languages that would be Spanish English as well as Arabic number six is one of the aspects that Sandy started talking about and that is the adoption of our timeline and I know that there has been some suggested changes so we'll get to that in just a moment but also letting you know that uh we will have publication in edal which is uh generated by AXA the association of California school administrators um that publication typically comes out twice a month and in that publication there's a wide variety of advertisements pertaining to jobs up and down the state um I think
020you're going to get um National interest in this District as well so we may well see applicants or people requesting the application from out of state as well on a national basis should the board desire we also are prepared to advertise in the kalsa network which is the California Association of Latino superintendents and Casa the California Association of African-American superintendant and administrators but that is going to be up to the board otherwise we utilize edal which we have found typically and traditionally to be very comprehensive any thoughts on on the part of the board on that I personally feel like the more you can advertise the better so I would love to see it Go in any anything you can put it in okay colleagues agreed both would be great CL Chrisi agrees yeah agree
021what I would imagine uh is is probably a great overlap between those people that or do you find in those other uh you just get uh candidates only from those other two pools typically you're going to find a little bit of overlap that's correct but I think the fact that you've extended out is an important aspect of your Outreach to the U National as well as state-based administrators particularly superintendant Deputy soups assistant soups that type of thing right it it certainly doesn't hurt right and is there uh that's that's included in the cost of the the search that's correct okay yeah no I'm for it okay um let's review the timeline for a moment then and I if I'm not mistaken I believe you have the timeline that was originally generated there as well so
022where we are at right now on that timeline is of course February 27th this Board of Education meeting and we will be required to go into close session following this meeting with you folks we are suggesting and we believe that this will work uh rather well from March 17th to the 31st are the online survey dates that's plenty of time to capture stakeholder input March 17 and 18th typically a two-day period of time in which Sandy and I would either be here in person or a combination of inperson and zoom so for example I myself will make the commitment to be here at the district office to to do via zoom and then anybody that might want to U talk to me personally oneon-one or small group I'll be here and available as well but
023we usually dedicate two days perhaps two and a half days and then there's some auxiliary calls like Sandy mentioned that we will make or Outreach to others who we may not have been able to capture and I'll be here as well okay um during the month of March we will begin to um identify potential candidates uh the development and posting of recruitment materials and the position description and again once we finish that survey as well as that stakeholder input sessions we rapidly turn it around and provide a position description for the board to approve or contemplate approval March 10th and the 17th are two of the edal ads that we are suggesting we've already checked with edal they are available for us to utilize as a mass advertising and then as we mentioned earlier kalsa
024and Casa as well we may also use kappal which is the California Association of of Pacific Islanders as well so that would happen March 10 10th and the 17th two consecutive Publications deadline for applications we are suggesting April 2nd five five o'clock David if I may interject please um in addition to Ed Kell and the other um organizations that we mentioned it'll be posted immediately on our leadership Associates website and we do get a lot of traffic there so that and that'll move more quickly in fact I think it's posted now it's very well could be posted now um I think that was as a result of the contract that you approved a week ago or so yeah once that took place we moved forward with publicizing it via our own website yeah and we've
025already received quite a bit of Interest by the way and we'll talk more about that in a moment so April or rather yes April 2nd 5 o'clock deadline for applications we originally had May 2nd well that would be our um actually after right after um April we will begin our uh comprehensive check and reference check on all the applicants that have applied and made the deadline one of the uh critical dates though if I'm not mistaken it shows May 12th up there and I think the board may have wanted or had a desire to speed this up a little bit and it was suggested to us that perhaps the board would prefer May 7th as the meeting in which we would be with you and that's the candidate selection meeting it's a closed session meeting
026it typically takes about two and a half to three hours and I looks like you're checking your calendars yeah I'm good with that date are you guys May 7th yes I'm good with May 7th I'm good with May 7th as well um I mean we could decide the time when we need to if at all possible the time would be helpful as well in terms of what time we would start so typically we start at 4:00 4:30 I know with your schedule we could do if they're saying three hours maybe we could start at 5: that gives everyone time to come in eat get going May 7th at 5 o'clock are you good yeah May 7th 5 is good okay so May 7th at 5:00 P PM please okay I want to mention the fact
027that prior to that candidate selection meeting this board will receive all of the applications via a readonly format in which you will be able to typically about four or five days prior to that meeting you'll be able to review all of the applications we in turn will be prepared through our vetting and reference checking we will be prepared to bring you what we are considering to be our tier one applicants or candidates it does not mean that you can't look at a tier 2 person and ask a question what about this person in tier two I read their application and I'm interested in finding out more about them and we would be prepared to provide you all of the information on each and every applicant that um has applied so the applicants that we place
028in tier one for your consideration are those that more most closely match the position description most closely match what you and your staff and parents and students and community members have said they really really need so through all of the input sessions we'll develop um all of the common themes to see what is it that are the the greatest needs here so then the candidates that that match those needs will be in tier one canidates so match those needs and also have outstanding references Madam M if I could um how many tiers are there we typically provide three tiers so what would that third tier look like the third tier would really be somebody who's really not a match and fit in terms of their skill set their experiences so you may have someone from
029and again this is just an example from um uh the Inland Empire who's currently an assistant principal who believes that their trajectory is next to jump to a superintendent's position we know for a fact that the experience and the traits and the things that you are acquire most in a superintendent that's not going to cut it to be very Frank with you we have conversations with each of these individuals who apply so we're very gracious with respect to that conversation my my my example may have sounded a little assertive but the point is that we do reach out to all of the applicants and we speak to them about their opportunity what's your trajectory Where Have You Been what experiences do you have um as Sandy mentioned it's only the best people that we will
030bring forward someone who has moved from a district every two years for example is most likely not going to be someone that we're going to suggest that you review or consider um longevity is going to be an important factor in Bellflower so we realize that already as a matter of fact so the point is that the tier three people are really just not a match and fit tier two are excellent folks but they're might they may not be as um desirable or have that match and fit closely aligned with the position description so if I so people that could apply the board could potentially not see their application at all no you every application okay yeah you'll see every single application and you'll see for yourself oh yeah these you know these handful of people
031had no business applying for a superintendency and how how many I know you wouldn't know but how many uh how many applications you think that would you be expecting my sense right now and Sandy certainly chime in I'm expecting to have at least a high volume I suspect that you'll have either 30 to 40 people who will be interested in this position so that weeding out if you will is real critical um typically it's at least 20 yeah depending upon the district in the size of the district you know sometimes there's a little small District up in you know or out in the rural area might only get 15 but you know 20 is actually a pretty decent number but we expect a lot more here I have a question on that so so obviously
032we don't know the variables of how many but typically just like an average of your experience how many do you present in tier one tier one typically depends it does depend um and that dependency is on the candidate selection evening and the applicants that we may bring forward you may well have seven to eight people who are outstanding in terms of that match and fit the board however through your process may want to whittle that down to a comfortable five perhaps um who have who stand out even further than the two others but that's why that meeting is so critical and why we spend so much quality time with you on that and with that process application process itself is um I I would say somewhat rigorous and you'll see that in terms of their
033letter of interest in terms of their resume and information that they put on there their five references their three letters of recommendation ALS so we specifically asked them can we go beyond the references and letters of recommendation that you have given us and there's a checkbox there if they say no we believe that's a little bit of a red flag obviously but typically they say yes and so that provides us the opportunity to to reach out even further than what they have provided us and we typically do we we do not simply rely on the references and the letters of recommendation that they have provided Us in the application s you'll have David and I committed to you every day of this entire process but we'll also have all of our partners there are 22
034of us and every other Tuesday we meet together via zoom and we help each other recruit and vet so we share with each other what we've learned about this particular District that we're serving and then the rest of our partners who are up and down the state will help us because we we each have uh pretty wi networks and then we have all of our partners that have networks all over the state and Beyond so it's very very helpful we get um a really exponentially uh strengthened um effort to be able to make sure that we we get to know these candidates really well and make sure that they're uh they're worthy to have an interview before the board and board members we will provide you updates I will let you know um on a
035timely basis uh certainly not the application but general information at this point in time you have received uh uh we have received five applications from five superintendant three applications from three deputies two applications from directors of fiscal services or whatever the case might be so we're going to keep you appraised um generally speaking prior to that meeting of what to expect in terms of the um the positions that they currently have and that they have applied vice president Gara thank you um president Stuart so when you're saying you're going deeper than just what is in front of you do you I'm assuming that also means social media absolutely good point Mrs Garza absolutely correct yeah if if for example there's somebody who works currently in Santa Clara County um and they have put their their
036General references and letters of recommendation we also want to count speak to the county superintendent we also may want to speak to a superintendent who is next door to these people uh if it's an Elementary District what might be their articulation up to the high school district like what type of relationship have you had um and then if I may um many of the questions will be based on the position description as well we haven't quite gotten to the interview date yet but just to let you know that many of the questions that are generated are based on what we're hearing from you in terms of uh having that applicant provide deeper stronger information about where they've been what's their track record been for example with student achievement what's their track record been with parcel
037taxes or Bond referendums dual immersion dual immersion consolidation of schools perhaps things of that sort sped clar celd um if I could actually that was gonna be my question um but to take it a step further uh with the social media on the application can we have where they put their social media accounts because I know you said you're already getting applications so I'm curious uh is that a question that's asked on there no it's not specifically we do our vetting in a confidential manner with that social media platform and so it's going to be really critical that the confidentiality from this board of course be upheld it does not mean sir that you can't um once you receive an application from us to view that you couldn't go on Google and look yourself but
038we we would expect or have the expectation that you would keep it to yourself we don't want to we don't want to harm anybody who may have applied who has who has a position in their current District does that make sense yeah is that so so it says if Sandy was applying for this position and her board found out or perhaps her community found out that she's applied for this position that might hurt her in her current position right so that's why I'm kind of an umbrella effect or kind of casting a little bit of an umbrella over this whole confidentiality aspect of things I think what you were um asking was do we ask for their specific um social media accounts yeah say there's application we have them come forward and then they get
039hired then we then we find out their their Twitter hand or X hand handle and then we go whoa this is a liability we check on all of that okay yes sir any than for that question sorry any other questions okay go ahead okay um going still back on the time frame then we've then decided that May 7th would be when we have the candidate selection process starting at 5:00 June 7th was the original date if I'm not mistaken yes for the board interviews but it's my understanding that the board may want to advance that and the date that was suggested from what I understand was May 17th instead correct May 17th is good with me if you guys can check that out on your calendars satday it's a Saturday May 17th M I'm good
040with it um while they're looking uh generally how long would you need for that like just thinking about what time we would start it's going to be an all day Affair generally we would ask the board to be available with us in a designated venue beginning at 7:30 a.m. from 7:30 to 8:00 a.m. we would have an orientation for the board how deliberations are going to work how the process is going to work with respect to let's say theoretically that you have five people that you're going to interview how we're going to utilize someone myself or Sandy to bring in that first candidate but 30 minutes prior to the next candidate's interview we place that person in a different room we never have them overlap in other words typically and generally you're going to see
041and perhaps have as many as 12 questions perhaps an hour for That interview process those people who have been selected for an interview we share with them what the time frame is we are the timekeepers in that process we let them know when they might be on on question nine and they have 20 minutes left in the interview for example we would arrange with Carrie and Elaine um Food Services or nutrition services for you folks during that day early morning as well as lunch and perhaps a snack in the evening as well um it really is somewhat dependent on the number of people that you choose to um interview however okay but we would think of probably about a 7:30 a.m. starting that's correct and I would say go till typically 6 p.m. yeah we're
042going to go till we have to we want someone great um board member Centron vice president Garza I'm good I'm sorry I'm not good okay so do you have another possible date um the following weekend is fine with me or you're saying May 24th yes oh sorry um unless we do maybe a well no yeah well there's May 31st I'm good with May 31st but I don't know if that's too late for the board I'm good C chfi I'm agreeable to either date and the 31st by the way does work for your partners here it does okay board member Centron Okay so we've got to figure something out you guys what about on a on a Sunday or is May 10th going too fast that's another Saturday are you guys [Music] available I am or
043can you guys check that date yes I'm available it's Mother's Day weekend I would only bring that up okay well we have to find out one weekend so right now we have every single Saturday in May that you guys are saying no to so we have to come up with something what about on Sunday 11th are Sundays are you guys available on Sundays except for Mother's Day okay what about May 18th but May 10th is it's okay um she said she could not be there on that day and May 31st is not available no no no not the 31st well another Sunday is okay um is the 18th works I'm not available the whole weekend no the whole weekend yeah you're not available on 18th I guess let's just start going down the dates and
044so we're not available on the 10th what the 11th is Mother's Day we said no on the 17th no on the 18th no on the 24th what about the 25th you know another option is um it's not typical but I have experienced uh a couple of districts where they've held it during the week it's very really hard for a candidate you know it's just easier for them to come on a weekend because they're coming from a different District but it has it has happened if it's you know if May 25th um works for everyone a weekend would would be better that's a Sunday right or up Friday Memorial Weekend do we all have plans Memorial Day yeah right are you guys going out of town for Memorial Day it is the Memorial Day weekend on
045that next Monday that you does the board or the trustees want to contemplate a Friday but that would mean that should you be working you'd have to take the day off I mean they pay us big bucks to be up here so I'm sure we could all miss one um I can do I can take off a Friday yes oh I was kidding guys I'm fine with whatever you guys want I mean if it's for e e June 7th happens to work for everyone I guess the question would be is there enough time between junee 7th and June 18th if that's when you're suggesting to move our regular meeting is there enough time between those two dates June 7th and June 8 18th we believe you would have enough time not only to call a
046regular board meeting on June 18th but also once your finalist is selected we would work with your public information officer I think it's is marala m and um put out a press release indicating to your public who your finalist is pending board approval on June 18th that gives you about a week and a half to agendize that you don't currently have a believe a June 18th board meeting scheduled but you can call a regular board meeting a regular board meeting you you must have a regular board meeting to U approve a contract for a superintendent it can't be a special meeting correct so that would work the only thing that you would have to contemplate in terms of some speed would be the negotiations between your finalist your legal counsel and um the board president
047who typically is that's the trio of people who who work on that negotiated contract oh we have an amazing lawyer we're good okay we're good okay so the are you guys get on June 7th okay okay agreed so June 7 staff cuz I know that we've been talking about this and this isn't what we want to do so are you okay on June 7th we we won't be there with you but we are okay with you doing that date I think that works good I think that will work out for there's no need for staff to be available on okay so June 7th at 7:30 a.m. yes okay except someone to let us into the unless it's not going to be here right and we'll cover that in a moment um what Sandy was referring
048to is uh the V that you'd like to utilize certainly you can use this board U area right here except that we typically wouldn't want the board members to be at the dis we'd want you at the same level of the candidate that you're being interviewed for unless there's another multi-purpose room of sorts that you could use we actually have staff that will set up tables for us we've done workshops and things like that so we can do that correct staff yes okay and we would coordinate with Carrie as well as Elaine and may even ask Carrie or Elaine to assist us in the process with the food for example those other factors that come into play some of the some of the logistics of things okay so colleagues we've got the June 7th date
049are you guys okay with the moving of our June 26th board meeting our regular board meeting to June 18th it's a Wednesday I'm good with that I'm good with that CL crfi yeah I'm good okay so staff can we get that on the agenda for our March 13th meeting Mrs Oedo can we get that change on our agenda for the next board meeting we'll bring It Forward on the March 13th meeting yes okay thank you so much so now we have that last date June 18th correct okay correct I did want to bring up was there any consideration for location or venue would you prefer to have it here at the boardroom the interviews themselves I think I would well I'll I'll speak on how I feel I would like for you guys to be
050the experts on that I'll be honest I know in our last superintendent search there were people sitting out in the parking lot and people did see them come in so I would leave that up to you guys colleagues anybody else it was exactly for that reason that oftentimes board members will find another location a community center or hotel or I would be okay with that with what you guys decide as long as it's not super far right well I mean we could even work with your city manager for example and and contemplate might they have a room in which one could have access to it well now they know the date and they know the time so we might have to think about that okay we we trust you guys okay thank you we'll work
051with staff on that then thank you one of the things that um sometimes comes up is a validation visit following the selection of your finalist so let's say on that Saturday June 7th yes after the interviews the board may want to contemplate a visitation a validation visit to the person who you've selected to their District if it's Hawaii then it's different but if it's local two board members may want to contemplate going to that person's district and interviewing or speaking to people like um an executive assistant cabinet members PTA members things of that sort generally speaking that's the responsibility of the new person who's been selected very often it's been done via Zoom as well but and very often boards do not necessarily feel that they need to do that so that's an option that
052we can keep open and we can discuss at a further point in time following e e e that that's a parameter worksheet that indicates what their salary range expectation is how many years they'd like to have available to them in terms of their contract what perhaps local Civic organizations they'd like to have be joined um AXA Kanas rotary whatever the case might be um let's see some of their technical needs as well Health and Welfare benefits which are typically what your current cabinet are getting or what your previous superintendent received but it's an information item that helps us with respect to speaking to them um there may be a candidate who's going to be interviewed who request uh $500,000 obviously an example and we will say to them no that's not the range it's not
053viable you need to contemplate and determine whether or not you want to move forward with that so we want to make sure before yeah um interviews that that the board and these top candidates are going to be interviewed are in sync that we're not going to have any any uh glitches when it comes to contract negotiations so it's all clear and everybody's has a agreement and a clear understanding before the interviews that it's um what they're hoping to what they're hoping to request is reasonable and within the range of what we will talk with you to make sure that you're comfortable with so it's a smooth sailing process then and if I may we can do some comparability in contrast with various districts of your similar size and location thank you foran I'm sorry just
054to clarify so this uh contract parameter worksheet would just be the umbrella that we start at that's correct for all candidates or is it only the people that you I mean the top ones that we select correct right and does it change it can via negotiations but typically it does not um what I was going to say however is that let's say you select two finalists to bring back during the day of the interview you've interviewed five individuals and through your deliberations you have selected two to be returned for a second set of interviews it's those two individuals that will we will have available their parameters worksheet to share with you we won't bring out a parameters worksheet for somebody who hasn't been selected as a finalist thank you and those second round interviews are
055the afternoon of the day of the interviews number nine we're going to request a copy of the superintendent's contract that helps us with respect to reviewing it and looking at any other uh factors uh regarding the contract and at this point any other points questions or clarify clarification that you need on what we've shared so far on the agenda member Centron thank you um I did want to jump back quickly to the survey one question I wanted to ask is the survey going to be available with Ada standards like disability disabilities yeah are are is this going to be like is that how the survey is conducted or is it do we have to request it special well we don't we don't typically provide for a specific disabilities area for the survey to be taken
056like if somebody needs to use braille or if somebody needs some other kind of modification is that what you're well yes because there's some surveys that I've taken myself that you're able to like um uh the tax can become bigger you know based on you things like that or I would say if May or read to you yeah um when you're clicking through it so that's kind of where um I'm coming from in that question I think we may need to have kind of a pending aspect of that and should we discover that somebody needs that type of assistance I think it's at that point in time that we would determine how that might occur we'll do whatever it takes to make sure that people are are accommodated you know whatever your usual um um
057system is in in serving your your staff and and your community work with your I just want to make sure that our community has access to it in a way that is not challenging yeah for them because I think we cherish our community input and I think the survey has to be available in ways of making sure that these things are addressed ahead of time but again we would not know that ahead of time surveys we we would need we would need to be indicated as to where or who that might be to provide that assistance I understand what you're saying I think what I'm hearing is that the survey is out there and if someone needs additional help with the survey like if they need an umbr if they need it read to you
058or things like that they can make those accommodations but the survey would go out just like a normal survey I'm not sure sorry I was just saying I'm not sure how you would want to change it we we inform the public that it's available via your website so the survey is on your website the link the link will be on the on the website right so how would they reach out so they're reaching out to our staff we would publicize that your your your public information officer would have some type of a plan to communicate that to your public might there be a parent Ed or rather a a parent link or parent Ed where you communicate with all of your families let me rethink the way I want to structure this question to get
059the answer that I'm I think looking the principles will be able to be helpful to us because if the principles have any particular folks in their school Community who they know uh need accommodations then so we're going to need to work with staff to have staff tell us what kind of accommodation might be needed it's going to be available in English Spanish and Arabic so if there are accommodations that are needed we'll need to have staff let us know so I would imagine that any of your uh folks who need those accommodations they would need to go to their principal somebody at the school site to say can I have help with this sy's point about the principls we work with them that's another key point of contact or communication with your immediate public public
060at your various representative schools so a principal would most likely indicate in the format or the way that they normally do that this survey is available from this date to that date and that they need to go to the website the Bellflower website and get on the link we've gone so far at various times depending upon the city we've spoken to city managers and have it have had it available on a City website as well but that's Ty typically after asking the city manager whether or not that would even be available Mrs oo do you want to weigh in please yeah what I could offer to assist in this situation just to ensure that if we have anyone that has an access issue with the survey what we can do on our district website link
061is put a comment down there to contact the superintendent's office for assistance so we can add a contact on there that way they can reach out directly to us and then we can assist whatever that accommodation may be thank you for understanding what I was trying to ask thank you um president um I think my answer was given so I would really appreciate it an extra little blurp at the end okay so we'll add that staff thank you vice president Gara are we also including this survey through um parents Square it will go out it'll be communicated through parents square and then posted on the website as they had discussed yes thank you so I would assume seeing that we've done a lot of surveys in our districting mapping and things like that where we
062get that popup when you go to the website that's what I'm going to assume is going to happen correct correct okay clerk critchfield anything in fact there should be a description of the process that's being utilized and various dates or Milestones of the search process that's available through your Pi on the website as well okay did you guys have any other questions B Merson Sean you're good okay go ahead thank you go ahead great okay well we're at a point now where we would like to AC require from you folks what you folks desire most in the next superintendent Sandy has prepared to um memorialize that and take that information down on her laptop and generally we start with a question for the board members we desire a superintendent who and whatever comes to mind
063and again I'll use a little bit of a catalyst as an example has Integrity has a track record of working with spend um has experience working working on bond referendums has experience with fiscal accountability and stability so those things that you know about your District that you desire most in the next superintendent is what we're asking it could be uh professional or personal characteristics leadership style all those sorts of things would be appropriate for responses in this to this question is visible is committed to longevity um has EXP experience uh dealing with declining enrollment um has had experience with um engaging our parents and communicating effectively listening writing and speaking so those are just ideas and thoughts for remember colleagues so we will start with anybody CL chrisfield I would love to see uh a
064superintendent um with an athletic background somebody who understands I me uh uh maybe it's not the top of the list but uh somebody who understands the importance of Athletics um and in athletic background would be a plus in my opinion somebody who's competitive uh somebody who uh believes in team building and that athletic approach to team building and morale that'd be great and also somebody who's very tech-savvy somebody who uh leans into uh Ai and different ways to bring our district uh uh forward in that regard um and those are the two off the top of my head and we will Circle back sh other thoughts and very often we've heard that regarding Athletics it's been posted typically has experience with CIF section operations and so on so next board member San if I can
065just clarify when you say has an athletic background um that doesn't mean that they have been an athlete themselves but they understand the importance of Athletics is that would that be accurate No that both both okay okay I think I understand what he's saying because we talk a lot we're both athletes so maybe we're a little bit biased but we talk about just that leadership quality of being able to lead being able to work with lots of different types of people being able to motivate people and we find that in athletics and I think that's why we're so passionate about that so I think that's like the type of leader that we're looking for someone that can take control of a room and lead people and and take people from one place to another um
066go ahead board member Centron um leaning into the Integrity part that understands collaboration and Community um that understands building a vision and knowing how to or at least having the experience of again leading but leading with Integrity I think is one of the biggest things when I think of our current inum superintendent I think of that first so I think someone that's that is understands oh and knows how to Capa like understanding the capacity building of their cabinet and their staff that that's very important to them so that they can also help lead and give a ladder to those in the district as well absolutely I think those are the things that popped in my head right away and again we'll Circle back they're probably some other thoughts that come to mind vice president Cara
067um I was just thinking about a leader who has had experience racing test scores um and also being empathetic um that's really important and um and that they're not they're not afraid to you know roll up their sleeves and jump into a classroom if at all needed because if they can do that then we can certainly make sure I mean the teachers will follow that leader because they're not afraid to do it themselves absolutely they should lead by example I think for me ditto on everything that my colleague said um I'm very big on the test course as well on curriculum I think that's really important so someone who has a background as a teacher would be very important to me um I am really big on our family atmosphere and I think that's one
068thing that I see with a lot of our staff and especially with Mrs oo is we get someone that has experience and that knows our district and knows our family atmosphere I have the same I know Dr Verdugo you would understand with Paramount you know I went to an event Saturday and it's like you know everybody and it's like you just that feel of just being a family and being able to um all work together and collaborate someone that wants to work with our unions that we don't have to ask to work with them someone that wants to work with our PTA and hear what our parents have to say so for me that family community value is very important to me um that's the reason I'm here like I said because I I'm from
069here you know and I want someone that they don't have to necessarily be here but they need to Value the people that we have and the history that we have and try to create a a cohesive family in our district I think our our teachers and our csca workers and our parents they want to be valued so that would be really important to me as well um and someone that really is going to understand that we have to work together as a board and a superintendent as well we need someone that understands that we have very different personalities I think we all have great intentions we all mean well we want to do good things for children and we want someone that understands that we have to work in Partnership together so those would be
070very important for me as well and if I may clarify Madam president was referring to a celebration of life uh event that took place at paramont gymnasium the entire gymnasium was full of folks celebrating the life of one of my former cabinet members so I wanted to clarify that's where we had seen each other with respect to that so quite an event thank you yeah anything else colleagues uh yeah if I could uh I just want to clarify because of the really good answers they gave I may have missed the mark a lot of that stuff I I kind of assumed was like would be there but um uh Athletics obviously on top of of all of the great answers um I also want to add uh really missed the mark on that one uh
071stand by it but I missed it uh also a uh looking for a leader whose um experience uh being involved in community groups Civic groups can work with well with our city Partners somebody who has that uh experience whether it's in their you know local growth rotaries or Optimus that things that are involved in the city that uh may not be specific to their District but they did the work to do the the networking with our partners and also somebody with a track record of working uh collaboratively and positively with a board um I think uh yeah I think how the the how they worked with if they're Uh current superintendent uh the references from boards they've worked with is going to be really important for us um so that that's something in addition to
072all that that I'd be looking for and that's absolutely one of the expectations we have of any candidate is that we speak to their current board board member Centron uh thank you yeah I just wanted to also add is um that has experience not just with raising test scores but with raising um the rate of graduation for our students um and that is open to Innovation and understands that our cabinet members are very Innovative but knows how to support them in that excellent vice president Garo yes um just something else that came to mind as um board member chville was speaking was um also understanding when to when they need to be a politician um and cater to those types of groups when they come and and um visit our schools as well and how
073to put on events so that way you know they because they are that liaison as well they become the face of our district absolutely so they would really need to understand how to work within Both Worlds just being a superintendent but at other times you are also the face of our district and that is the way you should present yourself very good point politically Savvy politically astute absolutely yes ma'am I think another thing for me too is I would love a very diverse background someone who understands Elementary and also understands our secondary we have a unique 7 through 12 system with our middle school and our high school so being able to understand those different dynamics of how our district is ran you know we don't have 678 middle schools we we have a different
074Dynamic so someone that ideally would have Elementary and secondary background would be very important to me as well if I may interject we often hear that a PhD or an add a doctorate is required but we typically don't stress that we typically say a doctorate might be preferred so I just wanted to make sure that that could be placed on the position description as we begin to generate that down the road a little bit because there are boards who will say no we we definitely want we require somebody to have a a doctor and that should not be the case okay and the same thing goes for um bilingual we don't ever require that but it's sometimes some boards will say it would be preferable but certainly not and and not just uh bilingual but
075bilingual or um conversent in working with a variety of diverse community members you know along those lines yeah and obviously with our demographics 68 70% Hispanic so that would be amazing I don't know for me that it's an exact requirement same with the doctorate I want a good leader I don't care who you are I want a good leader that's going to come work hard for us but I understand those would be preferred and those would be great clerk critchfield yeah I would uh to Echo that I think uh I don't know if there's something in between preferred and required but strongly preferred uh I think it's something that would be a benefit to them and the community uh if they were bilingual uh but also um I think looking for a because you know
076it's uh uh my go that supporting a bond in the next year and a half so a superintendent that has experience going through the bond process and how they implemented that Bond I think would be great excellent okay anything else colleagues no okay and if I may I I will speak to Mrs Armstrong personally I'll give her a call and and contact and reach out to her her with respect to this question the next question is really and maybe this is just a little bit more rapid in terms of kind of a popcorn opportunity to say something and that would be the district's strengths what are you most proud of what is working well um what do you think of your District strengths your teachers your cabinet your staff um a dual language program a
077CTE program Pathways whatever might come to mind um board vice president gar uh Gara thank you president Stuart I think everything you just named they really are um we have beautiful schools all our schools have grass you can't make that claim every in every District but they all do um our you know our support staff for CA they are definitely a backbone in our district as well our teachers are very dedicated to their students and they want to see them do well um you know our cabinet they're all amazing they're here they're going to come and show up with with us on a weekend so I think that those are all very you know big strengths but um just like you mentioned but are we missing anything else I have a list I'll let cler
078Christo go first thank you madam president what I keep a tradition the the thing I'm proud of about our district is our unified program which is our sped uh programming uh so definitely that um and then also also again uh Athletics uh districtwide uh and then also our collapse program which would be our CTE Pathways yeah just to pay you back on that as well well one I think our school board's amazing as well but um Athletics we've you know we have really good teams that have gone to the CIF championships we've won state championships so I think that's really strong our Cal apps we offer so many more Pathways than our neighboring districts I feel like that's the biggest way that we could actually pull kids and people to our our our um District
079um we've talked a lot with NE coas right now our class sizes are very good compared to others so I think that would be a strength and definitely our dual program I know some of our neighboring districts are just starting theirs and we've had ours for a long time so I think that's a really good Focus as well and the people here I think we have a great little combination of having a little bit from ceritos Lakewood and Bellflower and I just love the unique um trajectory of all of our partners I think that's kind of cool too anything else when you mentioned Partners did you uh mean Community Partners or yes okay yeah it's just it's really nice to have a little we have about a thousand residents in citos we've have 40% of
080Lakewood I think is us and then BFFL so we have a little combination of different demographics when we did our districting we just got to kind of see how different some of them are and I think that's unique and kind of cool as well some of those boundaries were established in the 50s yeah so I know I understand that as a result of being in paramont yeah serving Southgate North Beach parts of belflower Lakewood gosh a couple of others but nevertheless thank you anything else regarding strengths we're going to switch gears and go to challenges now those things that might be challenging now and or perhaps on the horizon and again I'll just use that example it could be declining enrollment it could be U fiscal aspects of things it could be um fed government
081uh issues that are coming up and causing some anxiety all those things accordingly could be recruiting and retaining so challenges I think for me challenges right now is we just went to a block schedule we're working on that and that's a big challenge right now in our district um that's definitely I think one of the biggest challenges at the moment um I just in the past I've heard of just turn over with our admin um getting really good principles and APS and keeping them in place I think that would be really important um I think that's a challenge that we've had in the past um I think security I'll just keep going I think security is a problem when I'm listening to parents talking about some of our campuses and things that we can do
082better as far as with our security on campuses that's something that I hear a lot about um does that play into safety as well or safety absolutely safety I think is a really big thing that I think we're doing better but I think we need to continue to improve and work with our partners on that good good um yeah uh all of that um and I'd say uh out outdated like a process like G getting up on technology like being uh with internal processes and and and that um I would say uh aging facilities that's definitely a challenge uh for us um in safety I'd say um yeah off top of my head and definitely our test scores we want to continue to improve and we need to find Innovative and different ways to improve
083I understand it's a problem across you know across the state and Across the Nation but we have to do something to find out how to at least continue to improve a little bit um something that will help us stand out so that we can attract other students and and you know staff vice president carara thank you um I would say Ada which you brought up um also within Ada how do we pivot how do we make ourselves um look more enticing so they would really need to have to be able to kind of have that out of thebox thinking and be able to be flexible um maybe take some calculated risks um um you know but also make sure that it's always founded on some some type of research as well yeah and Madame VI
084vice president if I may you've also indicated some things about traits and experiences that that superintendent should have as well yes so we'll we'll park that thank you in that first that wasn't my intention but yes you're right okay um and then also um making sure that they understand uh what the programs um are as well they that they can go ahead and look at them at what we have currently and kind of sift through what we really need so that way we're not doing too many at the same time um so just some knowledge about that perhaps there's a lot on everybody's plate clerk geld thank you madam president um you mentioned declining enrollment which I'm sure it's going to be a lot of of different folks uh but along with that um the
085communication and marketing piece and how to actually turn that tied and really um promote the district can be a challenge that we'd want address got it yeah I agree with that too a stronger enrollment campaign would be great anything else all right thank you okay that really concludes our agenda however we are asking the board to join us in Clos session or are we allowed to join you folks for Clos session at this moment okay at this time the board will adjourn to close session at 6:19 p.m. there will be no action taken in Open Session