001at with four different focus groups. Uh so that's that's some information I'm going to be providing you tonight and we'll look at that and that information is just to assist you as you're thinking about you know what what uh characteristics are going to be the most important um uh in your in your next superintendent. So we'll use those characteristics then u s suggest you use them as you're writing interview questions and we'll kind of start start that process tonight a little bit. Um, I'll use those as we screen your applications and I'll share those with the people that help screen. Um, and then, uh, as you conduct your interviews and make your decisions, you know, we encourage you to keep those characteristics at the kind of top of mind. And then lastly, once you have
002a new superintendent hired, um, uh, we suggest that you share that work, the information that's been collected and those characteristics with that person so they know, you know, what's important. Um, and if there's an area that, you know, maybe they're like, well, I'm okay in that area, but boy, this is something they really this is really important. Well, maybe between now and the 1 of July or now and the end of my first year, I need to be dedicating my efforts to to to getting better in that area. So, um, so we'll help you with all that and answer last thing is answer any questions you might have um about the process and and uh and just kind of make sure we're all still on track. So, all right, with that, I'm going to kind
003of jump in here. Um, I mentioned that next time I come we'll uh we'll be screening applications. You'll get copies of every application that's completed. We screen them two different ways. Um, one way, one way is there's uh there's people like me all across the state. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. You want me to come up? >> I can se him right over there >> if you want. I'll sit wherever you want. >> Sure. >> I can move this over there. >> Let's just do that then. I don't have to move all my stuff if that's easy. All right. >> Is that better? >> Can you hear me better now? >> Hello test. Yeah, that's better. >> All right. Um, so, uh, you'll get copies of all the applications. I screen I'll I'll screen them two
004ways. One way, there's people like me from all across the state. Um, there's seven or eight of us that do searches for KSB and um, they will review the applications and they'll they'll provide some feedback about your candidates. Um, that's especially helpful if there's somebody that maybe is working in a role kind of, you know, closer to them geographically. They may know some things firsthand, but they'll also have the ability to look at all the, uh, all the information in the application. I will also engage two practicing superintendents, uh, successful superintendent, uh, who have some something in common with your district. It might be geog geography. It might be demographics. It might be size. Um I'll swear them to secrecy. We'll give them access to your um uh your applications and um and I'll meet
005with them separately and we'll review all your applications together. Uh and so we get multiple sets of eyes. When I come back on the 16th, I will share with you. Here's all your applications, but here's the ones that we recommend that you interview and here's why. Notice I said recommend. That doesn't mean you have to follow our recommendation. You guys are the board. You can ask questions. You can you can say, um, let's interview you recommended these three. We want to interview two of them, but that one we we don't think is the right person for us to interview. we'd rather interview this person. That that is totally your purview. As a matter of fact, generally, I leave that meeting after going over all that stuff and let you guys talk without me because I
006don't want you to feel like I'm trying to put any pressure on you or you're going to hurt my feelings if you don't follow a recommendation. Okay? We're working for you. We try to give you the best info, but we recognize nobody knows your community better than you do. So um uh so at that meeting you'll determine what candidates you're going to interview and then after that uh Mr. President you you get to reach out to those candidates and um and schedule the actual interviews um call those candidates and schedule those interviews. Um interview day um I think Robin did you make copies of the schedule? Um, >> go ahead. give you an idea from my >> So in your in your search handbooks um on page 22 there are some sample schedules um you
007have even better than that you have a schedule your district has used before with somebody who is involved with it before that has some firsthand experience with it. Um, and uh, uh, so I would suggest to you too that the schedule that Robin passed out will be a great a great uh, starting point for you. Um, typically these interviews are half day or full day affairs for the candidate. So um, and the and the board's involvement is in the evening. All right? So um, so there's no involvement for you during the day. don't have to take off work, anything like that. The reason these are a little bit longer than a typical interview or why you don't do multiple interviews in a day is because this candidate is interviewing you as much as you're interviewing
008them. Often times they'll want to bring their spouse, their family, they want to see the community. Um they want to get to know a little bit about what's going on. So it's you it's it's not just usually a conversation uh you know an hour or two hour interview with the board only. Um, and if you kind of look at the proposed schedule, there's those things. There's tours of the community, tours of your schools, a brief reception um, with faculty in community, an opportunity for, you know, people to to get to see the person who's interviewing, that kind of thing. Um, uh, with that said, it it is up to you how you choose to conduct your interview day. The only thing we tell you is um be sure you're consistent with all of your candidates.
009Don't have this schedule for one candidate and a different schedule for somebody else. Right. Um and again, I would suggest to you since you've been through this and and Robin has has uh has experience with it. Uh that's probably um pretty close to what you ought to be thinking. Did you have a change you were recommending? >> The only change that I would be helpful maybe at the 3:30 slot. It's a reception to meet with faculty and community. It might be better to have it here at the district office, but we can have that reception entirely different here. I thought we did have it here. We did it, but it's been eight years. So, >> I think having it here would be fine. Is it big enough? I mean, pretty well attended. >> It was
010not previously, but >> yeah, no problem with that. >> Yeah, you probably won't have huge attendance at it, but it it's it's good to offer the opportunity for people who are interested and they're usually kind of a comeand go thing. Um, don't sit your candidate up behind the table and make it an ESPN press conference. Um, give them a few minutes to say a few words to the group that's there and then it's kind of a come and go. If people want to come up and introduce themselves and ask questions, they can do that. Um, but it's not really another interview. So, um, dinner that night you'll probably bring in here as well. Is that um >> Yeah. >> Uh, so that dinner becomes an executive session with the board. Um, if they bring a
011spouse, I would encourage you to invite the spouse or the guest uh to have to have dinner with you. And I'd invite Robin. She's doing a bunch of extra work for all this. Um, but it's not an open to the public thing and it's not an open meeting. Okay. If you go out to a restaurant, you would need to do it in a place where there is a private room so you're not, you know, mixing with uh the the general public at a restaurant. So, bringing food in is a great idea. >> Yeah. Last time we did it here and I think that was Don't you think so, Sean? That worked out well. And Honestly, you learn more about your candidates during a hourong meal than you do during the interview sometimes. >> Yeah. Yeah.
012It's it's a good way to see them in a little less formal setting. >> Everybody relaxes and just kind of visits and >> Right. So once you get done with dinner, you'll end that executive session and you'll open up a new executive session. And in that one, you'll only invite the candidate. So it'll be the board members and just the candidate. So um uh spouse or guests won't be part of that. And then um uh Robin will hang around because like she does when you're normally in executive session, but but they won't be part of that interview. That's just you and the board. Um and then uh you know we typically will recommend you interview three to five candidates depending on your pool and we would tell you after your last interview um plan to
013spend some extra time talking about your candidates and hopefully making a decision. Um on the other ones we would suggest to you that you don't don't talk about that interview. Don't talk about the candidate from yesterday. Wait until the end and talk about them all there. Yeah. So >> Okay. I remember it being a long week, but it was it's a good it's a good process. I mean, it's you're basically >> scheduled in here every night. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I think we interviewed four last time. I don't know what day we skipped, but it was kind of a long long week, but it's it's a good way to do it. You really get a a good feel for the each person, I feel like. >> Did you pick one that week? I think
014we did. >> I was the last one because it was Oh, Kim Mock from Sublet. >> Did we interview Scott the very last? >> Yeah, Kim was the last one, but Scott was his third one. >> Oh, yeah. That's true. That's true. >> Kim was the girl from Raleigh. >> Yeah. >> How many do we got? >> Uh, you currently have three applications that have been submitted. >> Can you share those names? >> Not tonight. No, sir. And you're expecting more in the next before February 8th? >> Uh I've had at least one other person who has talked to me specifically. Uh I'd be very surprised if they don't apply and I can see that there's a another person that started the application that I think would be a good candidate that I'm hopeful. And
015then just history tells me that, you know, usually that last week we'll see some applications come in. That's that's fairly normal with that. I will tell you that it's not like it was 20 years ago. 20 years ago, you'd had 20 applicants for this job. Um, and I don't think you'll get that. >> Can you see if they've applied elsewhere or is that even possible? >> Um, I can see if they've applied through one of the KSB searches, but we don't do all the searches so that they could have applied in other places. All right. So, anybody um this isn't something you vote on. Uh but is there anybody that can't live with this schedule? Are you okay with the change? >> Yeah, I'm good with it. >> Okay. All right. Well, we're going to
016proceed. Um that'll allow Robin to get working on some of the logistics and um so we'll proceed with that. Um thanks for your work on that, Robin. Um um so another thing that will start tonight um is uh your interview questions. So if you look on pages um uh 30 to 32, there are some sample questions that have been vetted. So our attorneys have reviewed these questions, said, "Yeah, you're legal asking those questions." All that kind of stuff. um after we develop our characteristics tonight, tomorrow I'm going to send Robin a report with what the board has come up with. And once you get that report and you know what your characteristics are, then I would suggest that you use those characteristics to go through here and identify the questions that you think will help
017you find out does our candidate meet these characteristics or any other questions that you think are important. We suggest you plan for a 1 to two hour interview and typically that's 14 to 21 questions. So um a way we kind of normally do this is we ask each board member take those characteristics take this list identify the questions that you you think are important write the numbers down and and choose uh let's say 18 questions. Okay, you pick up to 18 and then send those numbers 1.3, 2.4, 2.9. Send those numbers to Robin and she'll combine all that together and then she'll pull out the questions that are the most popular. Does that make sense? When we meet next week or not next week but next time, we'll have that list of questions then in
018executive session because we don't want to share what your interview questions are publicly, right? We'll have that list and you you all can look those over and you can finalize um the the questions that you'll ask. Sometimes you have two that are almost identical and you go, "Oh, we don't need both those or we don't have anything in this area." We'll also add a question for you. just kind of a general question at the beginning. Tell us about yourself. Just an opportunity to let the candidate kind of settle in, feel comfortable. Um, again, you can end up keeping that or you can toss it. But, um, but we'll put one on there like that. Um, >> does your website have this list that they can they have access to so they they know what may
019be coming at them? >> No. But, uh, candidates are gonna they're going to Google and they're going to have an idea what kind of questions they're gonna get. >> Now, once in a while, we'll have a board say, "Hey, we want to ask a question about this." And it's not on the list. Okay, that's fine. If you have something, please uh please send that to Robin soon, sooner rather than later because we'll if if you have a question like that, then we'll send that through the KSB attorneys to make sure that there's you're not going to have any legal issues if you decide to ask that question. Okay. Um uh so maybe doggeear that page, page 30. Um, and then uh u tomorrow after you get those characteristics, I think uh we felt like if
020Robin had your questions by the 11th, February 11th, then that would give her time to have that stuff ready for us when we get together on the 16th. Okay? If you get it in sooner, you get extra credit. And plus, you probably won't get the reminders that board clerks usually send out when when they're waiting for something, right? So, um, all right, pages 27 to 29, I'm not going to go over, um, but that'd be some good stuff for you to read, just kind of hints about actually doing the interview, that kind of stuff. Uh, when we meet in executive session next time, we'll probably split the questions up and, uh, decide who's going to ask each question. Um, so you guys can, again, you want to be consistent with that. you you you want
021to make sure that you're keeping the experience as as close to say the same as possible for the the different candidates that you'll have. Um, last thing before we jump into the characteristics, um, if you have any changes you want to make to your superintendent's contract, now is the time to do that. Okay? So, um, you don't want to wait until you've picked out your candidate and then start thinking about, well, what what's the contract going to look like that we're going to offer them? Okay. Uh because the way this will work after you have that last interview and you choose your candidate, um uh president's going to call them that probably that same night and offer the job. And if they say, "Yes, I want to accept." We want to be ready to send
022them a contract right away. We don't want to go, "Oh, well, uh I called the attorney today and the attorney's on vacation for a week, so it'll be a week and a half before we can send you a contract." We don't want to let that kind of thing happen. So, um, so, uh, if there's any changes that you want to make, we should be thinking about that now. Um, you'll fill in blanks, uh, as far as what the amounts are, the salary amounts, that kind of stuff. And next, uh, next time I meet with you, I'll bring some salary comparisons uh, with other districts to help you in in kind of as you think about the range of what you want to pay. Um, and again, that'll be an an executive session discussion topic for
023you to decide what you what you actually want for those amounts in the contract. But if there's other changes to the contract, um, I'd say, Mr. President, if you would work with Robin on that, and if there's anything needs to be changed, let's get that to the attorney and and get a draft of that um, before that next executive session. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Any questions about any of that? >> All right. Dr. Rud, are you still there? >> Still here. >> I haven't put you to sleep. >> Not even close. >> All right. Um, so the first thing I'd call your attention to is you guys got this earlier and I think Robin uh writed a hard copy for everybody. So these are your survey results. I'm not going to spend a huge
024amount of time on this, but I I'll I'm going to uh go over this with you, hit some highlights. Um uh you had uh you had a decent response. Um uh about 173 total responses. Um that what we see on these surveys is uh everybody doesn't always answer every question. Okay. But I think we had uh 173. Um this first page is just kind of a quick overview. So you can see the majority of your respondents were parents or guardians of students. Um uh your next biggest group was teachers within the district. Then employees within the district. You had nine folks that were um uh just community members. they don't currently maybe have a connection uh family uh child in the school or grandchild in the school. Um and then uh one of your administrators
025um from the district replied you can also see kind of the amount of uh the longevity of people's relationship with the school district. Um and uh smallest number was those less than a year. Um, next smallest was 1 to 3 years and then uh then 4 to 10, 11 to 20 and 20 plus are all fairly close. Uh, pretty good pretty good balance there. Um, we ask about uh seven questions I believe. And um so you kind of see those summarized here. Uh and these questions will be familiar because I'm going to ask you these same questions when we go through our activity to develop the characteristics. Uh top five personal qualities and uh top five leadership qualities. Uh uh top five identified experiences uh that that people think are important and then um what
026is a single uh quality or characteristic that is most important. Um, and you can see from the summary, honest, trustworthy, strong, integrity. Those were things that kind of emerged um from your survey. Um, you'll see more details on that if we look at the the subsequent pages. So, page two has kind of a written summary, page three has that demographic data, and then um and and page four. And then the first real question there is uh qualities and characteristics desired in new superintendent question three on page four. So I'm going to show you how to read that table. Um so uh they get to kind of rank uh rank these things. And so the average ranking um is if we take every I ranked them one, the next person ranked them three, the next person
027ran ranked this five. So the average would be three. Okay. Um, the top choice count is how many people on the survey said this is that that this particular response should be the number one thing. Okay. So, so it's interesting on this first one. You you the lowest average ranking was for a kid's first personality. Okay. But only 46 people said that was number one. 58 people said personal strength to do what's right regardless of circumstance was the number one. Does that make sense? So, it's kind of two ways to look at what people said was the most important, right? That's the that's the difference between them. Again, I'm not going to go over every detail in the survey with you. Um question four is uh leadership qualities and question five is um uh experiences
028um that are most important. Uh question six talks about the most critical issue that the um next superintendent should understand and support. Um and um what kind of um and then uh you you see a little summary of the answers there. And then question seven is the single characteristic or quality. And if you look on page eight, you'll see the verbatim comments for question six. Um if there was something that um identified a an individual staff member, I redacted that information. Um you didn't have this, but I would redact if there was profanity or vulgar comments. You didn't have anything like that. But unfortunately, it's not unusual for us to see one or two of those. But to your credit and the community's credit, that was not the case with yours. So the things that
029you're seeing that are redacted were um were somebody was either named or it was very obvious who was, you know, who was uh being referred to in the comment. So um all right, any questions about the survey? No questions. Last thing I'll tell you about the survey is uh just because you read a comment doesn't make that true. It it probably is somebody's truth. Um but again even sometimes people put things down that that in in an anonymous survey that um uh so I always caution people just because it's there. You have to decide how much weight you put to that belief. When you see things coming up multiple times probably tells you, you know, maybe there's more to that. >> How does our community involvement compare to other districts our size? >> Yeah, I
030would say pretty comparable, you know. Um um I I know you guys did a good job getting the survey out. I I always wish we would have more responses, right? It's it's people's opportunity to provide some input, but I I I think it's it's pretty comparable. >> You can also a parent guardian is is also considered a community member too, >> right? >> I mean >> Yeah. Even though Yeah. parents and guardian are definitely part of your community. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and I will say like the the percentage of school people to your outsiders that's that's really consistent with what you know um you're more than twice as many community people as um as school people that responded. So that's good and that's a that's a good sign about your community involvement. You're going to
031see that community community comes shining through in your in your focus group stuff too. So all right. So um when we did the focus groups we had uh I believe we had 54 or 58 people participate in the focus groups. We had four different groups. Um we had a group of staff and admin. Um we had a group of uh parents and community members. Um uh and we did have a balance there too. We had we had mostly parents, but uh a couple of the people that were there were um were uh uh community only. Um and then uh a group of high school students. I think we had 18 high school students and they were a great group to work with. That was the funnest part of my day. Um except for all the
032hospitality that Robin showed me dur throughout the day. And then uh uh uh last we had a uh teachers um was our last group and I think we had 12 teachers. So we had pretty good balance. student group was the largest uh largest group and and you're going to I'm going to walk you through now kind of what their responses were and then we're going to do a very similar activity and I'll point out to you how you can you can use survey information you can use this information or again as the board you get to decide how much weight to put on things you can go back to your personal experiences your your knowledge as uh as you come up with kind of what you think are those most important characteristics So, um, do
033they have this one? >> Okay. So, I'm going to be looking at this one now. And, uh, the yellow question, describe the most important leadership and personal qualities you would like to see in the new superintendent. So, um, so when I do these focus groups, I put people in groups primarily three. Once in a while, it's a group of four, a group of two, but we were we were mostly threes. uh give them the opportunity to brainstorm answers to these questions and then I force them as a group to agree on what the group thinks are the top three and then we report all those out. Okay? And and then I take that information from all of the focus groups and I combine it again with that idea that um if something's coming up more
034often than not, maybe it's more important, right? So you're going to see the things in order of frequency that they came up. I think I got I think I I got everything grouped into the right place, but once in a while there will be one down below that's standing by itself and it maybe could go with something up above that has a number beside it. That would just be because I I missed it. But you are seeing everything that was responded. Okay. So even if it only came up one time that whole day, it's it's on the list with with no number beside it. It only came up once. Okay. So, uh, five folks talked about, uh, being approachable or approachability. Five that were good business leader, budget-minded, financially savvy. Five that felt being present
035and visible in the district and community. Five thought uh, someone who was accountable, uh, that that that was a a personal or leadership quality they would want to see. Uh, involved, open-minded, uh, integrity, those were all three. hardworking, communityinvested, communitydriven, supportive of admin, group, teachers and staff and then uh relationship builder. So those were the things that came up uh uh with some frequency and then if you go on down through the list, those are things that came up one time. >> Were these attributes like given to them or they come up with them themselves? >> They came up with them themselves. So I I gave them the question. They were in a group of three and I gave them four or five minutes to brainstorm and then I then I asked them to narrow
036their lists and report out their lists. >> This is all four groups combined. Yep. Uh okay. Second question to describe the strengths or good points of the district the new superintendent will need to understand and support. Um so we know whenever there's a change in leadership things are going to be different, right? There's going to be some things different. This is people's opportunity to tell us, but what are those things that are are great that you don't want to lose in your district that you want to make sure the new leader understands this is something you're really proud of in in your uh in in your system. So, um 13 talked about community involvement, tight-knit community, community support. It's not unusual for community to show up here. it. I don't I have not had a
037district. You guys are probably my 20 20 something search. I have not had a community that it was this high in your community. So, I think that that came through as something uh uh very important um from the focus groups, a prek through 12 approach and one of them referenced a program you have called 363 connect. I think uh the kids told me that was a a program where uh students can go from the high school can go work and mentor with uh a student from one of the elementary or middle schools. Um and that was something they thought was a real a real strength. Great culture. Uh one of the comments was the about real positive culture, but it's kind of like we have a rural way about how we do things and that
038sets us apart from others. So I went ahead and listed that u uh three felt your admin uh strong building leadership team. Three felt teachers are very good, teachers are trustworthy. Uh two referenced your district strategic plan and then again we had these other things that um that came up. Now you will notice there's a whole bunch and I grouped them all together on these extras. Students learn important life skills, students prepared for future, students interactions K12, student diversity, students have input. There's a whole bunch that are about students and I thought about combining all that together, but then I also thought you might lose some of the detail because they're not if I just put students or I tried to summarize that, I thought you might lose a little bit of that, but you
039also you got like seven of them here that are specifically related to students. Um, and I I see that as a positive um from these groups, too. Third question that we work on is describe the most critical needs that the new superintendent will need to understand and address. So sometimes something's broken and it needs fixed. It comes up here. That's totally okay. And I told the groups, this is your chance to share those things. You know, if you if you know of things like that that need attention, but it doesn't always have to be something that's broken. Sometimes organizations have things that hey, we're doing okay with it. Maybe it's maybe it didn't show up on those strengths, but uh because we're just doing okay with it, but it's critical. If we don't if we
040don't keep doing that, we can't accomplish our mission. So it so it's not just broken things that'll show up under here. I don't want you thinking this is the the question for just broken things. So um 13 came up with building maintenance, um facility plan, and and building uh and grounds. Um five came up with declining enrollment. Um and uh four came up with recruitment and retention of teachers and staff. Three on students mental health or mental health. And then we had two on superintendent present and approachable at all times. Good curriculum support remain current. Traffic before and after school. Snow removals uh might uh potentially create some dangerous situations. and then parrape uh uh felt like parrape um needed attention. So um and then again you can kind of see all the the singletons
041that arise out of there. And the last question is what single characteristic or quality would separate um two highly qualified candidates? What's most important? Um nine talked about investment in community involvement. Uh, six just referred to investment. Uh, they weren't specific about it being in the community. It was perhaps being invested in the district. It wasn't more specific. Five are were on relationship builders. Three, being approachable. Two, need to live in the district or the community. Two talked about experience in all levels of schools. Two talked about reputation or record from former positions. Uh, two talked about backbone. two talked about being present or visible and two talked about uh sincerity. All right, that was a a quick speed through. So, you'll get to look a little more in depth at these um as we
042go through our activity. Okay, any questions before we jump into that? Dr. Ruda, um I don't think we emailed you these questions, but I'm going to I'll read the question. Um, and I I think we're going to have you uh jump in with a group, right? How we can do this. >> Yeah, you can just jump in. >> Take a picture. >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay, let's do that. Robin's going to send you a picture of the questions. >> To the restroom right quick. Hey, Rod. >> Mr. Se, >> what's the score at the games tonight? >> Have you heard? >> Uh, no. The girls were up. They were at 12 when I turned it off there when I was pulling into. >> I haven't seen what the guys are. You bet. Got >> an
043answer. So, I'm going to walk you through this activity um question by question. So, you don't need to um you don't need to necessarily write anything down. You're not going to turn anything in. We're going to report all this stuff out orally. Um I'm going to have you work with a shoulder partner. Um, so you'll work in in pairs and one person will probably need to take some notes. All right? But it only needs to be legible enough for you to share out what you wrote. So um, and uh, so we're going to start with this first question and I'm going to ask you the question is describe the most important leadership and personal qualities you would like to see in the new superintendent. So you can look back. This is the same question that
044the focus group participants used. So, you can look at that yellow question and you can see what others have responded. You can look back into the survey data at the questions that were in there if and and um and I I think it's question three maybe that three and four that align with that one. I'll have to look back. Um uh so I'm going to give you a few minutes to kind of kind of look at that and for you guys to determine what are the top three for you as a pair. Okay? Again, you got to agree on what you think are the top three. And then we're going to we'll go around the room and we'll share those out and we're going to do just like we did with the focus groups. If
045something's coming up multiple times, then that might tell us that um maybe it's more important. Make sense? So, >> have at it. said you said that's okay. Uh we thought it was obviously pretty important to be uh present, visible, community involved. >> Okay. >> All right. Group two. >> Yeah. We also felt like community involvement was the most important. Okay, group three. >> Gotcha. Okay, let's stick with one. Yep. Okay, next one. >> Uh, good business leader, budget-minded, financially savvy. Agreed with that. Budget-minded, financially savvy. Good. Good. Okay. All right. Yeah, we also have a business savvy, moted. All right, man. You guys are making this easy because when you when you double up, I don't have to misspell it again. I just put a tally mark by it. Same thing. All right. jackpot. All
046right, last time around. >> We We kind of bundled this into the first one, but it goes back to uh involved. >> Okay. >> Yeah, Curtis and I agree that it's really important to have uh good support for the leader over their admin and staff to to build good culture. >> So, help me capture how to say that. Good. Good support with >> support of admin staff. >> Supportive of admin staff. >> Correct. Admin and staff. >> Gotcha. Very good. I like that. All right. >> Live in the district. All right. So guys, let me read back what I think I heard you say. Uh three that were on budget-minded and financially savvy. Two that were community involvement and present. One with experience. one with involvement, uh, one was supportive of admin and staff, and
047one to live in the district. Get that? All right. Well, that was pretty easy. Let's go on to the next question. So, that next question is, describe or list the strengths and the good points of your district the new superintendent will need to understand and support. All right. Same thing applies. You can you can see what others have kind of the work they've done. remember this. These are those things you're really proud of. These are strengths. And I always tell the focus groups, sometimes these are things you can reach out and grab. So it might be, hey, our facilities are a strength. We can we can reach out and touch those or grab them. But sometimes it's things you can't touch. The quality of our staff is amazing. The culture that we have is amazing.
048The community support is amazing. Okay. So it can be things you can touch or things you can't touch. Make sense? All right. take the time and Please. All right. Group three. >> All right. And group four or one? Our small community got to stick together. Stay involved. Keep them involved. >> All right. All right. Back to you, group two. >> Yeah, we also feel like we have great culture right now within our schools. >> Very good. >> Community involvement. Okay. >> Great admin. beat that one. >> Holy cow, you guys. Good work. Last time around. >> Yeah, Curtis might hit on this one, but the strategic plan that the district wrote um finish it up this year, late last year. Um Curtis really feels like that's a big pillar for >> for the superintendent. >>
049Yeah, strategic plans can >> Yeah, I've seen it. I've read it. I don't know it by heart like Curtis probably does, but it seems like a good pillar for success going forward. >> Yeah. excellent tool to help help your district move forward. So, yep, good point. All right. >> Strong admin. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Last word, guys. >> Continue to and build on the education of the life skills uh real world jobs. All right, let me read what I think I got from you. Three that had great admin, two that had uh uh community and community involvement. Uh teachers need to retain great culture within schools, strategic plan, and continue to build on life skills education. Good with those. You guys are making this easy. All right, so question three, describe or list
050the most critical needs that the new superintendent will need to understand and address. So remember, this might be things that need to be fixed. Something's broken, needs to be fixed, but it also might just be this is something that is just essential for us to be able to be successful. May not be broken. Maybe something we're working on improving or it's going along pretty good, but it's it's critical. Okay. Have your three and let me know what you when you're Ready? All right, let's do the question three here. So Sean, let's let your group start on that one. >> Facilities. Okay, group one, >> building maintenance on facilities and grounds. >> Okay. Are you okay with me kind of incorporating all that together? >> Yeah, for sure. >> You guys are the same. So, I'm
051just going to list that as facilities, maintenance, grounds. It'll make sense what that is. All right. Buildings. Okay. It's in. Okay. Sean, next time around. Declining enrollment. We almost put that one. So, I'm glad you guys did. Um, recruitment and retain teachers and admin. You want to say staff or do you want to just say teachers and admin? You can say staff. >> Okay. >> All right. And the last time around, Sean. >> Okay. Excellent. This is kind of on top of that opportunities outside of the classroom for student achievement and success. >> Okay. And you guys get the last word. >> Excellent. Let me read back what I got. I got three with facilities, maintenance, buildings, and grounds. Two, with declining enrollment, recruitment and retention of teachers, admin, and staff, student achievement, opportunities outside
052of classroom for student success, and more vocational opportunities. Yeah, they're related for sure, aren't they? Y, absolutely. Okay, so we're going to um we're going to switch gears here a little bit. I'm going to let Robin bring the phone back so Ryan can hear me better. I think it made it the first time. It just barely. All right, Ryan, would we move the phone back closer to me? Um this this last one instead of doing this one with the partner, you're going to do this one on your own. Okay? So where you've been sharing with your partner here, please don't share. And the question is, what single characteristic or quality will separate the best candidate from the other highly qualified candidates who apply for the superintendent position? So u you hypothetical here, you got two
053fantastic candidates. They're great in everything. What's going to make you choose candidate A over candidate B to be your superintendent? What's that one thing that is going to be the difference maker? That one thing they're different in. And that's and that's what this is. Does that make sense? >> Just Yep. You you And again, you you got some help if you want to look at what others said for ideas. Um but I'll give you a couple of minutes here to kind of think about that and then we'll let everybody share. uh share their response on that. And Ryan, the question again was what single characteristic or quality will separate the best candidate from the other highly qualified candidates who will apply for the superintendent position? an involved invested leader. I'm going to say experience with
054uh knowing how to run the business. >> Yeah, I've got a culture builder invested with admin, uh, teacher and staff. I didn't really know how to say what I wanted to say, but I really feel like be able to strive for after graduation. Preparedness provide for every student. program. Everybody experience business. That capture. >> Yeah. I've got a question. If I can I can I ask? >> Sure. Absolutely. >> When when you say experience and Sean, you said experience and Ryan, you said experience. Do you mean strictly superintendent experience or do you do you mean >> just just >> what's that? >> Sure. >> Principal She came here and she was lost. She was overwhelmed over you remember from a district. So taking from a school district. >> So like somebody that would be in
055an in an admin role of a five or six school. Is that experience enough? >> Business side of things. >> Sure. $500,000. >> Sure. >> Make you look good. That's the superintendent's job, right? >> I'd like to see somebody that's been a superintendent before or at least an assistant super know the ins and outs, how to how to run the business, how to Do bigger schools have assistant superintendents? >> Okay. >> Does Ryan have anything to add on the experience? >> Yeah. I mean, when I say experience, I mean, I don't I'm not going to say it's a disqualifier. Somebody's coming in that does not have a superintendent, but I I definitely think particularly in the environment we're in in education and where we're at, finance, they better have a very strong understanding of finance
056and what that means. And at a at a principal level, I don't know that you're fully grasping district level finance, you have building level finance. I think until you get into an interview, you start to have those those interactions and discussions get a pretty good gauge where understanding not a disclaimer. They don't come in with super experience. I'm looking more about how it is they answer what >> and and one of the things I'll share with you is with KSB we do some um we do some programs like one of the programs we do is called Bold. that stands for business operations leadership development and we'll we'll take a cohort of 25 to 30 people each year and we'll uh five or six times throughout the year we'll we'll go on a Thursday afternoon and
057a Friday morning we'll go to two different districts we focus on business kind of topics bond issues budgets um you know all all different kind of um uh uh outsourcing services all different all different topics and we'll bring in speakers for them and they get a couple of days of professional development out of that. Well, probably our biggest demographic is brand new superintendents, first second year soups. We'll get a few assistant soups that specialize in that, but we'll also generally get about a third of our group that's principles that are wanting to become superintendents. So, they may not have been in the chair, um, but they're already trying to do things knowing exactly what, uh, what Ryan said that this is important and something that they're going to need to have a handle on when
058they move into the superintendent job. So, they may not have had that the position of that, but they're making efforts to try to try to be prepared for that when they get that opportunity. Now, you guys can correct me if I'm if I'm wrong because I'm green at this and I Jerick and I have zero to offer this, but you board members that are very seasoned and Ryan himself and Dave's been in superintendent. Can a superintendent make a decision that's financially huge without bringing it to us and us voting on it? Okay. So, Gotcha. So, >> but we do rely on >> maybe districts on >> one one a 2A districts. Um it's not uncommon that the the clerk uh does a lot of that kind of stuff. um uh 3A you probably have some
059kind of a director kind of and when you get to 5A 6A it's probably an assistant soup role and there there's a lot of support on the on the school finance side of things our state department is really good um you know if uh every year we would submit our budget I mean I had a CPA that worked for me in Garden City and she would she would take our budget to the state department every year and go over it with experts from the State Department and if there was something that they said, "Hey, did you know if you change this, you know, it would it would mean an extra $50,000 in your district." I mean, I mean, they would look at it from that standpoint or go, "Hey, if you do this, it's going
060to create a problem for you." So, so there's a lot of support um that is available for somebody. And even seasoned people that have been doing Kansas school finance for years and years and years um are silly if they don't take advantage of that support. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Speak to this better too. But I mean even the service co-op and being able to have some mentors and things that can be assigned there, you know, I think those are critical pieces. So even if you have somebody that's coming in a little bit green, there's tremendous resources and get get an individual up to speed there as well. >> Yeah, that's a great point. And once we start looking at your candidates and kind of know experience levels, we can talk about, you know, what
061options might be available to support people. Um because no I I will promise you this. No matter who you hire, they're not going to be perfect at everything. I mean, that's um uh and I will tell you that your chances of getting a seasoned superintendent are going to be slim. I mean, that's unfortunately that's the reality of right now of the pools in Western Kansas. By 20 years ago, you'd had 20 candidates. Three or four of them would have been totally qualified and you would have picked from those three or four who is the absolute best fit for us. >> If everybody started with experience, we would have >> point Well, gentlemen, that's that that's the only thing I have for you tonight. Uh tomorrow, uh uh I'll get Robin a copy of a report
062that'll have all the work we did tonight. Um and then uh remember we're asking that you the homework you do is once you get that you start looking at interview questions, thinking what makes sense there, get that stuff back to her by the 11th. And then um Mr. President, we want to do uh uh make sure you uh work on the contract with Robin and uh if we if we have anything we need to change that we get that to the attorney so the attorney can bless it get get it in the right format so you guys have that available and then um uh >> roughly how many questions >> uh I if each of I think you want to pick as a group 14 to 21. So if each of you would identify say
063around 18 um then then that should allow us to kind of come up with a good number >> question something you handed out there tonight that I just swing by and when I get back >> so in that search book that um that you got >> uh I think the samples start on page 30. Okay. >> Okay. If you have any trouble uh reach out and I'll help you find them. Okay. Is the current contract is is that public knowledge or just for the board?