001[Music] is not coming he not able to Sarah will be joining us virtually okay well we can call the meeting to order I think it's officially 603 we can raise to say the Pledge of Allegiance now I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all well welcome everyone to our special meeting our second meeting of the month of Board of Education meeting and we have our special guest mayor brck with us today um D we can just do a quick roll call so we have the the group intact that'd be great we have AR Valerie M Kathy Grant abson is Chris Wilson and joining us virtually soon will be Sarah Thompson also present is
002Mary BR cler myself Jack and some members ofer and members of the community Briel and rich thank you thank you all for joining it's it's not mandatory except for for us committee members but we did want to welcome the public for um for this special session as we review uh with Mary the um the superintendent search results after she did a very wonderful kind of L ly job of doing individual surveys and and focus groups this is a time for us to reflect on that data that she compiled for us and um and yeah answer any questions and see where we are going forward great thank you thank you um there are some copies over there but I think everybody has one and they'll be available for people didn't introduce you I think I did
003a little briefly so you're good you got it covered thank you D not a problem as I think every one of you appreciates this is probably the most important process and act that you as school board members um take in selecting a new leader for the district and you know that the impact of it can last as much as 20 years when think about Adam's tenure here um and because of you're recognizing how important it is I know that you wanted as broaden Outreach to the community as possible through this process so there were focus groups that were offered uh early in February and then a survey that was open to the community between January 29th and February 14th there were 13 interviews and focus groups scheduled and um I spoke with 51 individuals through
004that process in addition 41 people took the survey I realized these numbers do seem a little on the low side but it's also recognizing how small your overall Community is so I think we probably heard the variety of perspectives that exist out there I especially want to thank Dei for her help in getting the word spread um I know Amy also um played a part in in ensuring that people were aware of the opportunity to participate in this process so I'm going now to the U page three in the profile which is the data collection page and you'll you'll see the breadth of participation um even though numbers weren't High you did have a good cross-section of the community participate in total there were 92 individuals who participated um I went with Adam to the
005senior's monthly lunch so the num the seniors do seem to be pretty significantly represented here with 19 people who were there uh and the others were all maybe more voluntary participants in the focus groups but you'll see you had um 22% were your faculty in the um in the focus groups and interviews you at 133% or 14% of board members 5% of non were non sorry 10% were non-certified staff 10% were town and elected officials 6% were administrators um and then we only had 2% um parent representation in the in those I think it speaks to how busy parents are these days but there were a few more in terms of the survey so we had 23% of the participation in in the survey were parents and Guardians and 23% were teachers um 21% were
006General Community residents and it really is unusual to see that High an interest from your general Community I commend you for that um 12 and a half% were town and elective elected and appointed officials um and then 7% support staff five and a half perc uh administrators and board members okay so what did we find um these are in order of the most often mentioned so um definitely the the strong sense of community that exists in ment town was mentioned um just about everywhere with um 43 people citing it there's tremendous pride in this close-knit community connections Run Deep teachers administrators and parents are working together to create a family culture um there's a spirit of support and camaraderie throughout the town and school and um there that strengthens trust and ensures that children feel
007a sense of belonging in the school 25 people mentioned the dedicated and caring staff um with teachers investing their time into ensuring that each child has a high quality experience the district values teacher input um and gives them the opportunity to have a voice in curriculum development and determination of what resources they have in the classrooms and administrators support staff in generating an environment of trust not micromanaging them and allowing teachers the freedom to innovate 22 people talked about small class sizes and individualized attention being a huge um strength of all in town and that commitment to small class size is um highly valued with personalized instruction um they there's a sense that children simply don't slip through the cracks here there were 16 mentions of the um collaboration between the schools the school the
008parents and the town um and how much that um engages parents in the schools um the town hall and the school district have strong Communications and work together on securing grants and making sure that resources are appropriately um allocated there's also the support for the community organizations that support children in your Youth Services I know um are highly valued here um offering the after school programs and mentorship opportunities and that kind of thing next was the safe and supportive and positive School environment and now we're seeing the numbers come down a little but we're just at nine mentions of this but the sense that you have a very welcoming and safe culture uh where Educators and St staff create a culture of respect students feel valued and heard um and they're appreciative of the strong
009relationships and supportive work environment um next was extracurricular and enrichment opportunities with six mentions of the opportunities in sports and music and drama and what that and and Nest the um New England science and sailing opportunities students have and how great that is for develop in their confidence and Leadership skills and uh opportunities to grow beyond the classroom there were six mentions also of the rural and natural environment and how unique an opportunity that is for the children of all in town to um have this peaceful environment for learning uh and nature walks and Environmental Studies being part of that opportunity and now we're getting into lower numbers there were five mentions of efficiency and adaptability um that really the determination to um squeeze every nickel and U but making decisions with Student Success in
010mind um it's considered a Nimble and Forward Thinking approach allowing volun town to maintain a high standard of Education while managing costs responsibly okay moving on to challenges and the question I would ask is what challenges will this new leader be confronted with and number one surprise surprise will be uh budget and financial constraints that came in with 29 mentions um and how difficult it is to maintain Services while keeping class sizes sorry keeping taxes low and that especially as Financial pressures grow and I assume you're feeling this here I feel like every community in this state is really is really in that dilemma of how do we keep doing what we know we need to do with the resources that we have access to um you also have there's a concern that um the
011just how carefully the district is going to need to allocate resources to support learning and have competitive salaries and make the infrastructure improvements that you need um the second most mentioned was staff and retention and the fact that it's difficult to attract people with the salary scales that are on the lower side and to even though you have done a good job retaining qualified staff that um there are more people who are nearing retirement and it's going to be hard um if you don't have sufficiently competitive salaries to ensure that you have the opportunity to find Excellent teachers to come to F town there were 15 who mentioned the Board of Ed issues and governance feeling that um the oversight of the board will need to be strengthened um and ensuring that you have um
012high quality decision making in place um that some people especially new to the role may may not fully understand the role and that can breed conflicts and inefficiencies there's a sense that the board could use some some um training and clearing um clearer governance structures and ensure that that commitment to collaboration um will help the board serve the district better sounds like it's a plug for cab services well it's just interesting because cave is always the one that's like we shouldn't be involved in the process decision making but this is saying strength in our decision making I know I'm saying like the no that's just an interesting Dynamic right it's like you find happy balance depends well you know so much of it is about the what is your lane for decision making what are
013the decisions that you should be involved in making and how do you make those decisions effectively and do you fully understand your rule this is not unique yeah I [Music] imag so that's why we love C for those reasons that we an annual dust up on brush up on the roles and expectations is always help great great so there were 11 um people who mentioned the Aging infrastructure and the costly repairs the um the needs and this is another thing I'm seeing in a lot of places the air quality expectations in our schools now the agac upgrades that are needed you have an Aging bus fleet surprise surprise um so the other thing that I'm finding is that our older schools have a harder time delivering 21st century education with um I don't know whether
014this is as much the case here but just not having enough electricity in the building to to ensure that all of your Chromebooks can be charged for the whole day kind of thing I think we're good on that good I never hear anything about that's great not having enough electricity Full House yeah can't take anymore that discussion yeah U there were 10 who mentioned school size and enrollment challenges that it's harder when you have um declining enrollments to continue to offer as diverse and academic um spread or or academic programming as when you have a more robust enrollment so so you continue to look for innovative ways to balance that um so that will be an ongoing Challenge and then there were nine mentions of community sorry it should be Community resistance to change uh
015well community and staff um there is concern that even though there is the opportunity to be Innovative that some community members and some staff members resist change and make it difficult to implement necessary improvements and some that close-nit and warm environment can also have the downside of being um a little too insul there were a mention the quality of education and student support um just the need to continue to pay attention to reading and steam and um special ed and mental health needs and and that you expand life skills programs to ensure that students see their Pathways for future um learning there was seven who mentioned the leadership transition and how hard it will be to fill the shoes of a popular well-respected leader um that's it's always harder to move into the shoes of
016somebody who has been successful six mentioned Transportation issues and you know all about that the um shortage of bus drivers in the Aging vehicles and um ensuring that it's your program offers competitive pay and then doesn't price you um doesn't run into too heavy increases in that area for you and then there were five mentions of U external regulations and mandates being done to by Hartford um and we I I remember my first meeting with you we were hearing about the ECS cuts the education cost sharing cuts and and issues there and then there were just four mentions of the potential um threat not threat but challenge of ensuring that um while you want to take take advantage thoughtfully of the digital tools that can enhance learning there are downsides of potential drawbacks to Ai
017and other technologies that you just need to stay up to date about and make sure you have the finger on the pulse okay so moving on to what people would like to see in a new leader in terms of we asked about on this these are all survey responses for the next two pages and um we asked both about expertise and about qualities so in terms of expertise there were four areas that really Rose to the top as far as people's very first choice went so people were asked to rank what was most important to them um 1 to 10 in in um this area and by far the mostow 30% First Choice was possessed strong budget and finance Knowledge and Skills because I know here uh the role of the superintendent really has historically
018been to make sure that you are um able to find that fine line between tight budgets and educational Excellence right so that's that's what people want to see attention we don't have a business managing at all you need that skill you know so the superintendent takes that role SEC second actually is communicates and collaborates effectively in school and Community with 22 and a half% of participants um ranking that number one and then there was a tie for third place with builds trusting relationships with student staff and community and shares districtwide vision of excellence and Innovative instruction both at 15% and you see the others are significantly below um those figures so then I looked at the people's top three choices and it shakes out just slightly differently with um possess a strong budget and finance
019right up there still at almost 22% now second is builds trusting relationships and we all know how important that is to this work and communicating has and collaborating effectively has dropped into third place but clearly still right up there as an important um consideration so moving on to qualities um we have one two three for the First Choice which are the same one two three for the top three choices number one and this was I think something I heard everywhere I went was accessible approachable and visible people want to know who this leader is uh 25% of them had that as their first choice and then 20% had keep student growth and wellbeing the primary Focus so when somebody is making a decision you want to know that kids are at the heart of and
020the well-being of kids are what is driving those decisions somebody who's trustworthy and honest and respectful at 20% for First Choice and again um the same for one two and three on top three choices so what what does this mean and what I did was I then took all of the comments both in the the focus groups and on the survey and analyze them in light of those skills and what what people were saying was they want somebody who can really demonstrate Financial Acumen and balance student and school needs with Community Resources somebody who has a deep understanding of budget management who is uh Adept at applying for and securing grants um in terms of building trusting relationships the um obviously it's really critical that this leader is present so that they can build strong
021relationships with students and staff and the community taking the time to learn your history and culture and being personable actively listening and demonstrating an interest in the well-being of not just kids but staff and and community members uh communicating and collaborating people effective communication is key as you well know and this individual must clearly and concisely convey information again be an active listener work collaboratively with Town Leaders with Educators with the seniors um and Foster a sense of connection and Trust um keeping students growth and well-being the primary focus with every decision prioritizing student development AC academic success and overall well-being and then finally this person needs to be honest and transparent and respectful U respect the community's values really be mindful of the the tax burden that this small town um needs to um
022endure in order to support the school in an effective way and lead with Integrity with vision with a deep commitment to both um academic excellence and Community well-being and again with that focus on student growth and success so that's what I heard any surprises any um any observations any questions comments not very surprised at all I mean those I I'm surprised by numbers a bit just because of the obviously the Outreach and the newsletters and specifically the parent that receive the newsletter and swear by reading it and um how much we put it out there in various Town sources um I think that's I I understand focus groups are a little hard to do because of timing and and just not wanting to potentially maybe like make that known that they were saying that but
023I think in you know a um a survey that's Anonymous go at it you know feel free to yeah but um how few teachers and support staff did this survey right you know working for their input onto what they want for the next leader I I will also say I think the communities where I see the most the highest levels of participation in these focus groups and Survey are those where where there are major issues so take it as a good sign that people trust what you're doing well yeah I also think based on the top three of each being so largely separate from the bottom it's probably a safe Trend to assume that if we had more participation it probably would have gone along with these I think that's right it even though the
024numbers were small it felt like there were some consistent messages that I think probably are representative of the community that at Large so what we'll do with this now is um use this as a bit of a guide for your selection of candidates to interview developing interview questions we share it with your candidates so that they are eyes wide open on what to expect um and then also as you analyze your candidate pool we'll just make sure that it's the best match for M Town this time so you have do you have any applic yet um yes oh good do I wish the numbers were higher yes um I have redoubled efforts in Outreach and um I I know this is also a busy time for leaders and even those who are thinking about retiring
025are pretty up to here with budgets right now so um but we'll but I will keep that up and I'm with you until you find the right person are you going to start intervie um we'll start them when we have some I think we have dates yeah we do have dates P so it's they start on a schedule yeah do them over a couple of days March March schol we do it at the school we haven't determined exactly where we're doing them here probably that's well if it's in this month I need to know the date so I can clear the conference room okay yeah hopefully all the board will be there for them they're in the evening all of them one Saturday or something think wasn't it 500 P p.m. yeah one's early though
026I don't know if we can move it later I can't make that one if it's early we can discuss that after it's the first one that's on the list of applicants is like the 25th the 25th back what we can do in this role is there any flexibility in this Ro it starts goes we will have that conversation I I know in my experience um people people tend to wait until the last minute to apply yeah and your your date is still off a bit so I'm not nervous yet but um but I you know I'm really pulling in some um connections with people and encouraging them to be beating the bushes too um so we'll we'll just we will'll find somebody we'll find the right person by confidence yeah right person has some good
027other admin between uh Amy and ly being here we have some strong underpinnings so they're not coming and right just floundering by themselves and darina has everything under that high heel under control and stuff so you know there's some s support for them coming in they're not like they're not hitting a mess either right our budgets have been pretty good our input with the town is usually fairly well uh we don't have any big issues going on that we know of and stuff so that's a nice thing not to come into some place where everybody is piering on fighting it's it is so interesting that is global pandemic it's just some of the things like that we're kind of in a well there's there's always something going on but that's going to be a challenge
028but I think hopefully what you're saying is it's budget season and there's people are busy finishing up and trying to get everything together if they can get that raise they wanted or not okay so that's it thank you very much for your attention I don't know whether Sarah okay Rachel did you in did you have any input you wanted Rachel used to be in our office I I participated in oh good thank you yeah it's just good to kind of see the feedback from you know and the numbers and that there's some and I think consensus it's indicative of even voting wise throughout the country it's more the seniors they're of for they take the time to do this stuff you know and they have the time yes and they were they were delighted to
029offer um their perspectives to we had a captive audience going to their their meeting so I think if you if you did that with certain because when did you do the faculty and staff was that a after school thing got right on the second page so four five yeah two times once at four and once at six so yeah after school programs it's it's hard to get everybody at the same time so we hope to hit some right after school and some um but there were 11 who participated so that's great yeah yeah question is for in regards to like the thought of the business manager thing like do a lot of schools have like a finance committee like with the department heads that is that common with schools for creating the budget and everything
030I'm just curious the board would have might have a budget finance committee yeah yeah maybe depending on the next I did ask around I don't know I called a couple of schools none of them have that yeah there's it depends on like some towns have their own like Board of Finance which is um some of the smaller medium districts I'd say she's wanting the teachers to take over the budget and sta that's what D is talking about no I think she's talking about just more like like we've talked about before like going line by line versus just generic summary of the budget and I think she also like I'm just saying it just would I think it would be wise of any school in my opinion anyways to have maybe a quarterly department head and
031administrative meetings to review upcoming budgets that's my thought but also training for well you do have a central office that does everything so you do have that it depends schools do do that they might not call it they have each school that I've had experience with have their own individual budget process right yeah it just depends on which what they're what we lay out at the beginning of the year to say whether we're going to review yeah what we want I think it just allows more eyes to be on it than just the one like just the superintendent presenting the budget and this is it right it it has a discussion of more at least a couple more people inputting or looking at yeah we've had um I think that we obviously have car lanch
032of how we want to work with our new superintendent I say that's a good thing about somebody new coming in we can kind of decide what we want that to look like we do do a monthly thing of every item bought in every category I don't think right but that's not an initial budget I'm talking like the initial where is it going to go but even with that you can tell he can break that out for you and yet you don't want to get you don't want to get too no you don't want to get two into the weeds um exactly but I mean our finance committee would meet definitely once a month but sometimes during budget season more like once a week and we would talk it was it was high level but it
033was how are we tracking yeah um and and do these um requests for Budget um match our values because budget is a values document right um so there are certainly um structures that wouldn't be too honorous for a board committee to um meet regularly and we had administrators and staff me and uh board meeting together on that topic so talk about for that y great Amy any questions from from the Far Far Right I don't know a lot falls on you know there's that's the the part-time element of it you know I don't I did I was saying in the beginning of the the whole process learning how many school districts around us actually use a part-time superintendent I thought we were you know there's only a handful of us but there's quite a few
034and um 21 I think Statewide 21 yeah I think a lot of them are in easn Connecticut here and northwest corner exactly but we understand how much pressure that puts on the whole staff so that's you know we we we value the the give and take that that is because we as a town have the benefit of less you know a salary but spread the wealth with everybody else wealth of work so takes a takes a village for sure okay any more questions for Mary so I just I just from a you know a um administrative perspective so we obviously have our next board meeting that will um will not involve this process but um then we have prior to the SEC we just we just chose the 25th I think because that worked for
035everybody yes um which just a Tuesday versus a Thursday which would be the second board meeting generally special board meeting time that would be the first round of superintendent interviews that's at four 4:45 we said yes so my question is because there's a good chance that I'm not gonna be here for 445 so is there a way since the first round is the round that we ask the same questions to everybody is like I will get here as soon as I can floor it from East gr it when my 5:30 class ends but is there a way to like record the first portion of it so that it could be revisit it afterwards or I'm looking at Mary's face and she's like maybe not no I would I would wonder was there a reason that
036we couldn't go later I thought you said it go very late at night we we were talking was to try to get as many done that night as possible if we don't have a ton of people then we probably can go later so we'll try to be flexible with start espe know only Cates know and we can discuss it on the next meeting too I just kind of wanted to put that little bug out that there's a chance think somebody would want to be taped interviewing I wouldn't be I really would not want you um sort of analyzing all of the applicants without having really sat with each of them so um I would encourage I I certainly can be flexible time wise and hope that that we can accommodate and yeah I think then
037then we get a little bit more picked up in April so okay all right well thank you very much for all of this work and and the town's participation and and really um focusing our efforts to put together a a a just a nice package for potential candidates because we want them to see what's important to our town and I hope that comes through loud and clear's important to so thank you it was a pleasure to to meet with all of your constituents too thanks thank you very much thank you for your time so um motion to adjourn motion pass