001e good evening good evening everyone thank you for joining us tonight um this evening we are in the process of finding Higley a new superintendent and so I thank you for joining us tonight um welcome to our board members community members our students and staff um thank you for joining us either in person or online tonight uh we have our three finalists this evening and they will be sharing about themselves and their career and then also sharing why Higley so in 20 minutes they're going to tell us all of that and then after we're done with that part we'll move into question and answer where I will facilitate the question questions for the candidates the questions have been selected from the survey that was sent out to the en entire Community as well as our
002staff and students to participate in this was done a few months ago um each finalists will have the 20 minutes to introduce themselves and like I said the 25 each finalists will have the 25 minutes to um answer the questions we would appreciate your feedback this evening please uh we have a QR code on a small sheet of paper over there but the survey will only be open for a short period of time and that's from this evening starting at 6 o'clock until tomorrow at noon and the reason for that is because the Board needs to see the results tomorrow afternoon as they go on their Journey to the finalization of what candidate they're going to be selecting uh let's see just just for the future what what comes next after this interview of course
003is tomorrow with the board members and then after that the board will make a decision on March 4th to bring forth a candidate and make that public so with that being said I have our first finalist here tonight Dr Erica copelan please help me welcome her tonight okay I let's see make sure I get that there we go Dr Copeland you're aome yes take hand this is my oh good evening everyone thank you so much for giving me this opportunity um I would like to before I begin um thank ultimately the governing board I I appreciate this opportunity to come and speak to the community of Higley I I'm honored and I'm humbled for this opportunity and I'm Al also very excited um so thank you very much um I'm Erica Copeland and um I
004have been tasked with telling you a little bit about myself I have 10 minutes and so um I have more content probably on my slides than I will talk about but you're welcome uh to read some of my thoughts that I included and um so the objective is I would like for you to learn a little bit about who I am and what I believe um and so I focus a little bit on my credentials but um I have the credentials and the education or I wouldn't be here so I I'd like you to really get to know a little bit more about me personally um and uh what the driving forces are um behind my career um and and how passionate I am about working with students uh so I'll start with sharing a
005couple core educational values and um some examples of how I have applied them in my profession I am going to share with you an overview of my career experience and then offer also a tiny glimpse of who I am beyond my professional career so with that I'm going to begin with some core values uh Student Success is um something that I have dedicated my entire adult life to um I feel passionate about preparing students um helping them to reach their Highest Potential um it's very important to me that students are not only successful within our K12 system but I think that we have a responsibility to ensure students success Beyond High School um and into our students lives and future careers and so that is um something that I have focused on um quite a
006bit um within my career and so I'll I'm going to highlight um one area uh that uh really shows my passion for Student Success and some of the work that I've done to promote that and I'm going to talk about Innovation and choice I have had the um great opportunity to be part of a team that has uh opened seven new schools and uh we are currently in the construction phase of an eighth new school um in the past 10 years and so that has provided a lot of opportunity for um how can we build Innovation as we are building these new campuses um and offer choice for our parents uh we know that um choice is important to families as it should be and um that's something that we want to try to offer
007um to meet the needs of our families so something that I'm really proud of is leading the um planning and programming for two brand new high schools um within my district and these are comprehensive 712 schools that have a career path Academy focus and so what that means is that um we were able to design these schools um with career pathies um amazing labs and maker spaces and opportunities for Hands-On learning for our students um our students are able to graduate from high school school with industry certificates um and preparation for their next step in their career um and uh it's something I've been very proud of um something that has been very well received by our community because not only is that promoting that success while they are in our high schools but we're
008really setting them up for Success Beyond High School uh so that is my example for that value the next core value um safe learning environment safety is extremely important to me um it is uh a top priority I I understand that students can't be successful they're not going to learn at their highest levels if they are not in a a safe learning environment and so um couple things that I'll share with you um about the area of safety um again through building new campuses and uh we have um uh had the opportunity to have a voter approved bond in place and so able to bring the buildings and that physical safety up to date in all of our campuses um we've done that through um physical barriers to the campus um ensuring that there's a
009single point of entry on all of our campuses um things like um safety glass um access onto our campuses through being buzzed in and out um and so those physical safety pieces um a second area that I'd love to share with you is our Partnerships with local law enforcement my team and I have um been able to build amazing Partnerships with our local law enforcement we meet monthly with u Mesa PD and Queen Creek PD um to talk about concerns within our schools within our community um and really problem solve and partner together to make sure that our schools are safe um they've helped us with um audits um and provided feedback uh something that I'm proud of uh that has come out of that partnership would be we have created a safety video this
010was probably two years ago I think is when we implemented this about uh The Power of Words and so a concern that we have had is um a threatening language right that happens with um students sometimes and so really trying to educate students and parents about the seriousness of that um whether it be um set out of anger whether kids think they're joking um there's there's really power behind that and so we um collaborated uh with the local law enforcement our sro's and and created an an educational informational video that all students Watch twice a year in 2nd through 12th grade uh we send that link out to the parents they also sign off on our um parent handbook um and I can tell you the data has shown that in the past two years
011we've had a significant decrease in our discipline in the area of threats so it's um been extremely successful and that has come out of that partnership with um our local law enforcement the next core value that I wanted to highlight uh family and Community Partnerships um I fir L believe that education is a shared responsibility um I think it is very important for our schools to partner with the parents with the community um so that our students can be successful and so I just shared um a few things that um systems that we have in place that I have been able to be a part of um they're similar things that um you have happening in Higgly Unified School District um but uh good opportunities to connect with our community and our families um I'm
012able to present and highlight some of our programs and those would be through things like um a cafe structure which is um community and family engagement uh business partner breakfast uh multiple committees with um lots of stakeholders I was part of I was a coordinator of our strategic planning um plan um vision and Mission Financial we had a bud a bond oversight Community um committee um with stakeholders and parents for a bond that we had in place um and also I think it's really important to be involved um with your local agencies like the Queen Creek chamber I was part of the education committee um that works to organize a large um Workforce um event um for juniors across the East Valley called e for Te um and and then partnering with our town of
013Queen Creek um we have um joint board um meetings with the town um and with our governing board and I've had the opportunity to present on programming um and some of our safety protocols and um next trust and transparent communication uh this is the heart of of who I am my strength um is building trust through positive communication through being transparent um I think it is very important to keep our families informed of what's happening in our schools um I would work closely with our governing board to keep them informed of what's happening I think it's really important to uh a mentor early on um shared with me that uh the importance of not only sharing the good news but we we need to share when there's challenges and news that's maybe not so good
014um as well um and and that's what transparency is um if it's something that should be knowledged that should be known it's going to be known it's it's going to be um communicated so this next slide um going to talk to you a little bit about my um 20 over 27 years in public education I of course started as a classroom teacher um I started out my career in Mesa Public Schools and uh something that um sometimes happens in education uh you're in the classroom and and you're a teacher and you are seeing these amazing results and you're you're feeling great about the positive impact that is um happening on the students in your classroom and you think well how could I expand my my reach how could I positively impact more students um and
015that kind of prompts us teachers to then move into some sort of school leadership um role and that that's what I did um after um I think six years in the classroom I became um this position it had it had a unique title at the time but it was a dean assistant to the principal who um traveled to multiple campuses um and uh worked with students discipline teacher evaluations all the things that an assistant um principal um took care of um and it was it was an amazing experience um I got to know the community better because I was traveling to multiple sites um and got to learn from a lot of mentors um different um leadership styles and things that were happening on their campuses after that I um got my first principal job
016in Queen Creek Unified School District that was in 2005 um I was a principal for nine years U one of my favorite jobs I I've ever had um just loved it loved being with the kids loved working with the teachers um and creating that environment for our students um so that they could succeed and Thrive um and so nine years of that loved it um was able to um as a principal um the the school that I took over um LED that to that school to its first a label um a and excelling that used to have an excelling label both with the state of Arizona um and also the first Elementary School in the district to receive the A+ um Award of Excellence and um that's because I had an amazing team um I
017had great teachers and staff Who Loved kids cared about kids and worked really hard every day to make it a great place so um that was that was my experience as a principal um next I um went into a district leadership role um I started out as a coordinator of um curriculum instruction and assessment um and I did that for a a short time we had some some changes in my district um and so the next year I became the executive director over human resources and academic Services um and so that was a challenging time in my career I had a a big learning curve um but I enjoyed it immensely and um I learned a lot and um these are things that I can draw from um in the position of superintendent that will
018really help me to support a school district uh so I was an executive director for I think six years um predominantly K12 um academic Services um which is basically all of teaching and learning um and after that I became an assistant superintendent I was promoted um to that role and did that role for three years um again on the teaching and learning side of the house with that um and I am currently an associate superintendent uh for Queen Creek Unified School District um in my role I oversee um there's kind of two sides of the house teaching and learning and operations I oversee um and and support uh all of the educational services which includes um curriculum professional development special education grants management educational technology um just to name a few um so I'm getting
019a I'm I'm getting a lot of um great experiences um I am able to impact student learning um uh I also supervise safety um and security Athletics um and so again I just have um had a great opportunity being in a growing District um to get a lot of experiences that I think um that I will be able to apply as the position of um superintendent and then lastly here's just a little bit about me personally um that's my family there in the center the the gentleman in the black shirt is my husband Chris and we were high school sweethearts and we've been married for 27 years uh we have two children as you can see um my son there on the far left he is a senior in high school and um has been
020accepted into the ASU College of Engineering for um Information Technology cyber secur is what he's really interested in um so we're super proud of him and we're really looking forward um to that time of his life and in our lives and then my daughter's next to him um she is a junior in high school uh she is a cheerleader so if you wonder where I spend my free time and my um free money yes thank you I knew somebody would get it if you know you know right um but it's amazing I we have enjoyed it so much um watching her Year all through uh junior high and high school um and then on the right um I had to add pictures of my pups there on the bottom we love our pups um my
021husband is a a big Aviation Enthusiast um his that's kind of in his blood of his family I'm being involved in aviation and um so that's something that um we like to be involved with as well um we like to travel we love the beach we love to play board games um and so really family is so important to me um and um that's just a little bit about me personally and that's the end of my introduction um to myself um and so how's my timing three minutes oh boy all right I'm going to go really fast so the next question was why Higley Unified School District Five Big Ideas came to mind the students the community the teachers and staff opportunities for growth um and I think I'm a great fit for Higley and
022higgle is also a great fit for me um so students the heart of Higley it's the fundamental purpose that we're all here right this is the work that we're doing it's for students um I am committed to creating the best possible learning environment for our students um it is near and dear to my heart um it it's what I've done for my my whole career so um I would love to be able to provide um that support to our students um and help lead higgle um to make sure that our students are getting the best possible education possible um the next uh big idea is community the higgle family and and I can tell you higgle truly feels like a family I I had the pleasure of visiting a few schools today and the just
023the culture was amazing the kids were amazing the teachers and principal I I truly felt like I was at home um and um that's something that that I love about Higley and that has drawn me to Higley um i' I've been in public education in the East Valley for 27 years so it I really feel like I'm part of the community we're we're a close knit community of Educators um I have um lots of connections within the community I'm a I'm a Higgly Aunt I have uh niece and nephews who attend higgle schools um I believe in the Community Values um within Higley and the East Valley I think you know we're we're very family focused and family centered and um as you saw from my previous slides that's something that's huge and important to
024me um relationship I I have a ton of positive um professional relationships and friendships um within higgle the the people that I have met and worked with in Higley are are um you know a key reason on why I would love to be part of the Higley family and then of course um having um making an impact in the community um serving the community is important to me and the way that I have done that has been through public education I'm going to go really quick through these next teachers and staff the champions of learning I I want to support our staff um I want to provide them the resources that they need um for their classrooms um and that is something that I'm looking for teachers have um made a huge impact on who
025I am today as a person um and and I want to support them I'm sorry that's okay and then here's my opportunities for growth um Higley has um some opportunities for growth with enrollment and I have some experience with that and some ideas on how to help that um I know that um we recently had an override renewal that did not pass um and so I would love to work with the team to strategize on on how to help with that um and then that fiscal responsibility because both of those things impact our budget Dr Copeland we're gonna head into questions now thank you thank you I'll start with we have 25 minutes for questions okay the first question how would you plan to Foster strong relationships with parents community members and local businesses to
026support the district's success so I think the uh key key there's a few key points to that um number one being visible and being in involved and engaged um in the community um that means um being out in the community that means being at school events um and really being um out there meeting people talking to people building those relationships um that that includes being involved in um in the community through things like the chamber um and so I think that that um that's that's the key to that um number two um building trust through through transparent communication um if if I'm open and concise and honest with my communication feel like that's the best way to build the trust of the community and that's how we're going to partner and and work together and
027so I would love to kind of be that that bridge um to continue to build the trust between higgle unified and that um community so those are those are two of the the big the big ways that um I would would engage with our families and um our community and and business partners thank you question number two what is your approach to school safety and how would you work with law enforcement and staff to keep students safe okay well that was I feel like I have covered some of that with my presentation but I'll I'll go into a little more detail um again building those Partnerships I think working very closely they are the experts right in safety and and um having them do safety Audits and walks on our campus um and monitoring our
028drills and then providing us feedback so that we are able um to improve our practices and our processes based on that feedback from the experts um in that area is so important um having um we have SRO on our campuses right um I know that Higley just got a grant um for an SSO at the the junior high and so working closely um with those folks um to help keep our schools safe and to build connections with students um are some of the ways that I would um work with law enforcement um to ensure the safety of our schools thank you question three what steps would you take to improve parent in Community involvement in the decision making process so I think it's um important number one to listen but in order to do that
029you need to provide some opportunities and so I would work to provide opportunities for parents and Community to be involved in the decision making uh um I've been involved in um multiple uh committees and um with a large large variety of stakeholders who are able to share their ideas give their input and and all of that is taken to consideration when you're making decisions um and so it's really providing that opportunity I think uh surveys questionnaires are are a good way to give parents a voice and give them an opportunity to provide some of that feedback as well um but but really listening right so you can ask for the feedback and um you can collect that information but really being responsive to it as well um and um making it meaningful um a meaningful
030experience um for for for our families and parents and um inviting them into committees there's there's lots of opportunities um having public forums um things like this um where you can share information and do presentations on things that are going on in the campuses um presenting um at our governing board meetings uh those those are some of the ways that I would do that thank you why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole sure well we are we're building the Future Leaders right of our community um and that's huge we we have a a a big responsibility for that and we need to make sure that we're providing our students um with the skills and the knowledge in order to be leaders to be critical thinkers
031um to be successful in the workforce and so um can you repeat that Karen I think I missing half of the do you mind repeating that one sure why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole sure okay that's what public education is all about right we teach all kids whoever comes through our door we're going to teach them we're going to provide them the opportunities to be successful to reach their Highest Potential um we offer um the opportunity for kids to be exposed to a diverse group of um students and people and so um that is going to be very important for them when they go out um into the real world world into the workforce and they have to collaborate with people and be part
032of a team um so you know that is that's the importance of of public education that uh we meet all kids where they are and and we try to move them to the highest point that they can possibly um become and uh and we just open our arms and accept them um and that's that's the beauty of of public education and and we're creating the the future citizens if if we are building strong leaders and students who are civic-minded and have the skills and knowledge that they lead that they need um you know we're building that foundation for this community to not only remain strong but to grow um and the students that we're working with are are the the ones who are going to be doing that thank you do you think public education
033is adequately preparing student students for life after graduation if yes give an example if no how would you work with the board and Community to better prepare our students sure I think uh for the most part we are being successful for that and and one of way one of the ways that we do that is um obviously that the fundamental um core instruction right we need to make sure that our that our students are are learning those fundamental um core pieces um as a system we're also providing lots of opportunity for extracurricular activities um we want well-rounded individuals who are um leaving our schools and so those are some of the things that we do um something that I'm very passionate about um and that I know that I am focusing on my career is
034um really helping students to explore their interests and their passions and help them come up with a plan um for what they want to do with their future and um I think that's one of the best ways that we can prepare our students um for the future for their lives after they leave our K12 system um with career exploration um with helping them to understand what if this is what you're interested in what's your skill set that goes along with that what would the education that might be required um and really helping them to leave High School um with a strong plan um for their future um and and for the career path that they're um interested in what is your philosophy on curriculum oversight and how will you ensure all materials align with Arizona
035State Standards well I think um first of all you start with policy right we have policies in and procedures in place um for adopting curriculum and um you follow that process you follow our policy um you take things for the public review um and receive that feedback and evaluate that um and so that's certainly one of the ways that we do that um I work uh very closely with our K12 principles and and so one of the ways that I try to help ensure that um is um reviewing policy reviewing expectations at our principal meetings um and having them bring that back to their teachers and their staff um and you know they're monitoring um their curriculums um their instruction through classroom walkthroughs um and so um you make sure that you're uh following your
036your policies and your procedures um and um and you hold people accountable to follow those um policies and procedures as well what is the biggest challenge you think our students and our Educators face how would you address these issues that's a great question um I think that we live in a a very complex world and so I think some of the CH there's a variety of challenges that our students are facing um and I think and I know um that schools are a place that students can learn the skills to work through those challenges um so it could be you know academic challenges and so are we providing that support that intervention that differentiation um we have students who are dealing um with personal problems and so are we helping them um with the skills
037that they need the life skills to be able um to work through those problems um and so I don't know that there's there's one particular um problem that I would identify um for teachers I think um we work with students who have a lot of different needs um and there's a a variety of skill levels and so I think one of the biggest challenges for teachers is um making sure that they are um evaluating and and determining how are they going to meet the needs of all students um and a lot of that comes with differentiating um and really meeting individual needs it's not a one- siiz fits-all for for our students and so we have to work really hard to make sure that we're meeting all of those individual needs and and that's something
038that um is certainly challenging for our Educators what leadership strategies will you use to foster a positive and accountable work culture among staff and administration so the the positivity piece I think um kind of go falls back on um being visible right um being out at schools being engaged um showing that I care and what they're doing is important to me um I think helps build that positive culture I also um know that there's a ton of great things happening in higly and we need to celebrate those successes um we need to recognize people for their hard work um and celebrate that and so that's one of the ways um that that you can build that positive culture um providing support and resources that our schools need that's you know that's our purpose at the
039district level is we are the support for the schools um and we're here to help them with what they need um so that they're able to teach our students and and take them to the highest level um so those are those are certainly some ways um that you can build a positive culture I think um that trust plays a role in that uh I believe believe it's important for um us to not only provide that support but um provide that consistency um do what we say we're going to do um all the things that that build that trusting relationship are things that that build a positive culture in your current position how have you uh attracted and retained teachers sure uh in a variety of ways right um one way that you do that is
040um you're doing great things for kids and um you've built that positive culture and you share your stories um and you make sure that people know all the great things that are happening in your District um so that they want to come be part of that um I think it's important to support teachers I was able to um start a new teacher mentorship program within our district and utilized my team and my coaches um to support new teachers and um that is something that I think plays a huge role in retaining especially um teachers who are brand new to the profession I I think it's important that um when you're working um with your budgets um that you're doing everything you can um to have um robust compensation and and benefit packages um for teachers
041uh we're never going to be able to to pay them as much as they deserve to make um but we really need to be um cognizant of how we are using our budget um and making sure that that we're able to um provide compensation I and that goes along with um having good salary schedules right that will attract um teachers um if you go back to your previous question having a positive District culture people want to work somewhere that's positive um and and sometimes that is um something that will attract and retain people um more so than those um benefits that I'm speaking of um they want to be part of something that's bigger um they want to have a purpose and so helping them um to have that Vision um that shared vision for
042um excellence in Higley is certainly a way that um that we can attract and and retain our teachers how have you engaged the community and supporting Public Schools please provide us with some examples I think uh one of the ways that um I have done that would be um through the promotion of um some voter initiatives and um sharing factual information making sure that um the community knows directly where those funds are going and how they'll be impacting the classroom um is is certainly a way that um I have done that and Karen I'm sorry will you repeat one more time for me how have you engaged engaged the community in supporting Public Schools provide us with some examples okay um again having having opportunities for the community to be involved um we have um
043kind of an initiative this year to increase parent engagement and so we have tried to provide lots of opportunities to get parents on our campus we want parents to be welcome on our campus and be involved um and so um we've increased volunteering opportunities events on campus that we're inviting um the parents um to be part of and so those are some great ways um to engage parents um again I think having that open communication um being visible being out there so that um I'm available to parents would be um another way that I would accomplish that what have you done to better the community in which you live in and how were you involved in that well I think um being a public servant through public education is a really powerful way to benefit
044your community um again the these children that we're working with are the the future of that community and so um whatever we can do to um help grow them help them be successful um set those high expectations um are are ways that that I personally have um benefited um my community I've also um been involved um in uh different initiatives um throughout our district um and really provided opportunities for our families to be involved um and so I think by doing that um we're helping our community um honestly I think the the work that we do um is some of the most in important work our our students are with us for you know the majority of the day sometimes they're spending more time at school than they are um with their families and and
045I take take that responsibility extremely seriously um and you know being a mother I I know what it what it feels like to to want um the best for your child and um that's really what I what I'm trying to provide for our community tell me about a time when you were able to bring people of different views together and make hard choices places I think that um strategic planning process um that we um did several years ago um we had engaged probably over a hundred different stakeholders um through some focus groups and committee work and we certainly did not all have the exact same Vision um of of what those priorities were um and so we spent a lot of time um working together and collaborating and and having dialogue and discussion um in
046order to bring people together you know ultimately we needed to come to consensus on on what those strategic priorities were going to be um and what some of those indicators and goals um were and so it was it was an amazing process process um but it it certainly it was a lengthy process um and it required um for all voices to be heard and considered um so that we could end up with a a final product that we felt like was really reflective of the entire Community um in addition to that um the focus groups um we also did some um we sent out an affinity question um to our um Community asking them um you know what is it that schools would need to do to to meet the needs of um of students
047to to choose their top thing and we had over 1,400 responses to that and and then went through some activities to categorize that and so um I feel like those voices all came together and and we were able um to work through it and hash through it and and came up with a plan that is really reflective of what our community um wants for their local schools well you did very well um in the sense of answering all my questions I have one more and that's it so how do you see yourself effectively gaining the support of our community well I would start with um I I would start how I did tonight right I would um communicate with the community what I'm about what I believe in my heart for students and Educators and
048public education um and I think I think that goes a long way for people to to know and understand who you are what you believe in what you stand for um I would be extremely inv involved in the community I I will be out there um meeting people getting to know people um and um communicating frequently um and I think I think that's a really important way for for people to get to know me um and um and and I think that if I if I'm present if I'm engaged if I'm willing to listen that that that's you know the perfect opportunity for people to understand who I am and and why I want to to lead Higley and how much um love I have for this community and and for our teachers and students
049and and for our staff uh Dr copelan you have a minute left if you'd like to say anything else I went short on the other one and now I have time for this one um I you know you know I just want to say um Educators school I think has played such a huge role in my life um I I feel like it has made me the person that I am today um I would not have the success that I've had in my personal and professional life without my teachers and coaches um and principles um and um I I I feel so strongly and I'm so committed to ensuring that higgle Unified School District um is providing that for all of their students um and I I would love the opportunity um to be able
050um to collaborate and and work with the community and the staff um and and build a strong team so that we can not only continue the great things that are already happening in Higley but really move us um forward I'm a I'm a I'm a big believer in continuous Improvement um we can always improve we can always move forward and um I would love to be the the driving force um um as um part of the team for us to be able to do that for our Higley students thank you Dr copelan thank you we we will have our next forum at six o'clock oh 7 o'clock excuse me e e e good evening thank you for those who continue to be with us this evening and have joined us um we are in the
051midst of finding a new superintendent for Higley Unified School District and we welcome our board member members our community students and staff and we thank you for joining us this evening in person and online um tonight we have our second finalist who will share with us uh about themselves as well as why Higley and then we have some questions for him each finalist has 20 minutes for their introduction in why Higley and then they will have 25 minutes for questions and answers concluding after 45 minutes we appreciate feedback please please use our survey the QR code and please do that as soon as possible we will be closing the survey tomorrow at noon so that the board has the information when they go into their executive session tomorrow uh decision will be made and announced
052and approved at the board meeting on March 4th so now let me introduce our second finalist um Mr David lenis [Applause] hey good evening thank you so much for being here my name is David lsen eer and I'm excited to talk to you tonight about why I would like to be the next superintendent of the higly Unified School District but before I jump in there's really an issue that we have to talk about there's an elephant in the room that I think a lot of you guys are probably wondering about maybe thinking about and uh that is how do you say my name okay it it 13 letters long it rolls off the tongue phonetically it's very easy lot Zen high and Zur all right when I was a kid I never got to put
053it all in the bubbles we stopped at for 11 and I was lots and he okay but uh I also go by a lot of different names I've been around for a long time you can call me Mr L A lot of people still call me coach Lots Dave David or the one that the kids grabbed on to the most and perhaps even some former board members and that would be Big Lots and so I'll go by any of those okay and I still don't understand where that one comes from but anyway I I'll go by any of those names and jumping in but lotson Heiser is how it is so today we're going to talk about I'm going to talk about my family I'm going to talk about my education I'm going to talk
054about my professional journey and then we're going to get into why higgle so be be remiss the most important people in my life and the reason that that I'm doing what I am and why I have the opportunity is my family and and if for you to know me you know that I'm family first and so uh I'd like to thank they're in in this row right here supporting me today and thank you so much for being here they rarely do they get to see Dad in action but I've been married to Sarah now and she's also a teacher uh we'll get our 27th anniversary that's going to happen this summer my oldest son Thomas is at work tonight so he can't join us but he wants to be like Dad and be a high
055school math teacher and so he's studying to follow in the foot steps my daughter Abigail is studying architecture she's down at U OFA matter of fact right now she's sitting in the m center waiting for tip off against Utah and then my youngest Ethan is in seventh grade he's here with me tonight uh he's really into chess and for those of you who have middle school kids he's really into Marvel Rivals and so if you need to talk about all the different character characters he's your guy to go to but my family is the most important this is why I do what I do right when people ask me hey what do you do how I respond is I try to be the best husband father and son and then they'll be like oh I
056mean your job okay I have a job but really who I am is my family and that's who who who represents me and who I try to represent to make them proud but let's talk about really okay and if you have Doodles you know who runs our house are these two okay that's sunny and Daisy and uh we got them during the pandemic like many of you these two uh Daisy is a wonderful little dog who now has decided that her favorite chew toy are airpods and so uh we have to be very very careful at our house but for those of you who are Doodles and dog lovers that that that's our too you know there's a lot of people that have influenced me as I've grown through my career and my life but
057I really need to shout out somebody who who's really an important part of who I am and that and that's my dad and so my father was a career educator in the East Valley he was a longtime Elementary School principal in wienberg Arizona and then in Apache Junction and then when he retired he worked for uh one of the Indian tribes as their director of education but he's been a huge influence on me and help guide me and how I make decisions and eight years ago I lost my mom to cancer way too early early and when that happened I made a decision that I'm going to spend as much time with my pops as I can and so you'll see our pictures up there were rabid U OFA people matter of fact he's with
058my daughter at the male Center she took my ticket tonight at the Utah game but we made a commitment to spend as much time as we can with each other because going going back again when you want to know who I am then you need to know about me and my family and that's the big influences that I have so my educational path I grew up in a little town called WI ber if you know where wienberg is you're driving to Vegas and you turn right then you go to okay and then and then there you go and then we moved to Apache Junction I graduated as the valadi dictorian of Apache Junction High School in 1992 and I was a basketball player and so I played for a couple years at MCC and then
059my mom said David you're going to be an engineer because my older brother's an engineer and my younger brother's an engineer and I was going to be an engineer too so I went to a school called Colorado School of mins and I realized quickly I didn't want to be an engineer and I realized that my path was different and so I transferred to NAU perhaps because my wife was going to NAU at the time and uh I graduated with a M uh BS in mathematics from na and I started teaching right away and then throughout my teaching career I've sought to improve myself so I got a master's curriculum and instruction from ASU dad does hold that against me and then I did my principal certification and my superintendent certification through NAU throughout my 27y
060year career let's talk about my professional Journey so what has prepared me to be standing in front of you today with the knowledge and experience to be a superintendent well my first job was right down the street at Gilbert High School in 1998 and um I was a high school math teacher and I was a basketball coach and at that time it was probably flipped I was probably a basketball coach and I taught math and people called me coach lots and everything was about that and and I really enjoyed coaching I ended up my last three years of Gilbert I was a head varsity basketball coach and then I had an influential person in my life Dr Charles Santa Cruz my principal come to me and said Dave I think you can do more than
061be coach Lots here's a couple books on leadership I want you to join a committee talk about Reinventing Gilbert High School in the year 2004 and so I joined that committee and I started expanding my scope a little bit more about what it means to be a leader and what I can do differently had an opportunity to open Perry High School in Chandler and I transferred there and uh I was a math teacher only it's the first it was the only year that I taught and didn't coach and I thought wow this is pretty incredible for what I'm able to do in the time that I have I started taking my leadership classes and then my principal there his name is Dan Serrano I'll never forget I I owe a lot to him because I
062said Dan I want to get into I want to get be a principal he said that's great I have a Dean job and he's like I'm not going to hire you I'm hiring somebody else I already know it but there's going to be an opening at SanTan Junior High and this is the end of June I was on on tap I was going to be the calculus teacher at Perry High that's if you don't know that's that's a hard not a lot of people teach calculus and Dan said hey this is your passion you go be a you go be the dean you go be the assistant principal and I'll find a calculus teacher with two weeks before school starts a big lift for him but it allowed me the opportunity to jump into Administration
063I spent four years at Santan Junior High in the Middle School uh environment I'd never taught Middle School I'd never been around middle schooler before and while did I learn a lot and God bless all of you Middle School teachers and and administrators I had an opportunity to go to basa high school as the assistant principal of curriculum what does that mean probably my most favorite job that I've had and that is I got to write a master schedule because it's a giant spreadsheet and it's a giant puzzle and everything is about what can I do to make sure that the kids get what they request and I loved it because it kept score and I could see if I could beat the other schools which I did after two years I became the principal
064became the principal basa High School down in Chandler and if I were to say if there's one position that's prepared me to become a superintendent it's the principal of a high school now remember at the time where I was when I was at Basia 2500 kids we had 160 to 180 employees on uh campus every single day and as the principal you're in charge of all of them and it is just non-stop going making decisions supporting kids putting in initiatives responding to the district Non-Stop and I think that that really helped prepare me while I was at bash a few things happened we were an A+ school we were an a-rated school we were a school of Distinction for civics education and we um I got to start two or be a part of two
065unique programs one of them is the accelerated Middle School which is a a 6 seven and8 that's housed on bash's campus that my kids attend and then the other one was the institute for cyber operations and networking which was the first uh joint venture to develop a student to come out with cyber uh security AA degree after four years because of the successes of Basha I was able to apply here in Higley and so then I came in and I applied and was selected as the executive director of secondary education and Athletics which is the job that I've held for The Last 5 Years I'm pretty sure uh if I read all the everything right I'm the longest tenur now at 5 years D executive director of secondary Athletics and I'm really proud of what
066we've done in the five years that we've been here I will tell you right now the district looks very different from 2020 now here in 2025 and there's a lot of things overseeing secondary means the high schools and the middle schools wow I'm talking way too much okay um oh 20 20 minutes is not a lot guys okay um the growth of the high schools through that time I think has been a really important challenge that I've dealt with okay I'm a relation based leader relationship based leader I I think it's so important what we do and I realized and I'll go really quick through this that when I looked at all the pictures getting ready for this slideshow that apparently when I see someone who is twinning I like to take a picture with
067them and so here's some administrators we're in our saucan gear or perhaps I have oh yeah so that's me and Big Al dressed the same right right and and I just like taking pictures John and I here we are addressed again yeah so it seems oh hey Lynette there we are I forgot to warn you you're in the presentation tonight and then uh here we go Bruce and I and and so it's just funny how it shows up that oh you didn't know that was coming huh guys right but but when you're out on campuses and you see connection with someone for me it's what I'm wearing it's the better that's you know here we go twinning is winning all right core beliefs education first and foremost is a relationship based business I want you
068to take we're going to take I want to take three seconds right now and do something for me we you take three seconds and I want you to think about the most impactful teacher you ever had in your life how many people started nodding started smiling had a positive image that came out of them because that relationship that you had with that teacher was so important so to me the most important relationship is the one between the teacher and the student my job as a leader is to provide all the opportunities I can for the teacher and set up systems to support the teacher what I can control for what they can do with kids because student achievement and student growth is is what we are here to do if not we don't need schools
069but I can control and support that teacher it takes a village we know that that's part of it with educator students parents and the community together and we'll talk about that a little bit more as I talk really fast all right how do we know how do we help our students succeed there's an educational thought leader out there mark Perna some of you guys have heard of Mark before he really talks about what are we doing in education with Gen Z students we need to give them a competitive Advantage a personal competitive Advantage for them to learn the lifestyle and get prepared for the lifestyle that they want career ready part of a huge thing is college for every whoa that's every kid going to college right but career lady are we giving them the
070skills that they need for the lifestyle that they want in the career that'll meet that lifestyle and so we're going to talk about that we jump into why higgle why do I want to be the superintendent what's my time check left oh okay I want to be the superintendent all right because I I'll be honest with you this is the only superintendent position I've applied for there's a lot of superintendent openings across the valley this is it I don't want to go anywhere else I want to be in Higley why I'm part of it right now I'm part of a cohesive group of comp complimentary leaders at the district office are putting together a plan to help us navigate obstacles that we have in front of us I'm I'm uniquely involved in all of this
071right now already and for us to continue to face the challenges that we have moving forward I'm I'm part of it I'm living it as we go this keeping the continuity of our leadership team intact is really important we know that Higley is a small town with a big town feel but together and and it's so important together because it's not about one person it's about all of us and all of us in this room together we can and we will provide Limitless opportunities for students to succeed partner with parents or open in consistent communication engage with community and strengthen the bonds between businesses higher ed municipalities Faith faas leaders and the districts we can do that and then finally we have to have an attitude where we turn obstacles into opportunities and it's a
072really important mindset for us to have all right team husd I've talked about about our our team as a group of leaders together we also have a team of sight level leaders together and it's important that we support each other and maintain high expectations for each other to maintain maintain high expectations for who the most important person for the relationship which is that teacher how can we continue to attract and retain the best teachers in the staff because that's what's going to impact our kids and that's what's going to impact our community so that what does that mean for me I got to provide necessary curriculum resources professional learning I'm really excited about a change that we have site-based instructional coaches now to support a teacher when they're struggling that's non-evaluative it's huge and then
073focus on building effective professional learning communities when we talk about Limitless opportunities what we're talking about is programs we already have I don't want to lose any of the programs that we have whether it's DLI whether it's gate whether it's CTE whether it's leader and me we need to keep those together because our community wants that and so we have to look at a way that we can support those programs and make sure that they're achieving what we want we education's always changing matter of fact it's pretty cyclical but right now we talk about career acmis and career Pathways which is what I was talking about at Gilbert High in 2002 but now it's back and so we got to continue to look and say how can we have a lens for our kids so
074they can see what this possibly is where's their connection to their future I don't know you can nod your heads if you were involved in an extracurricular activity when you were in School how important are extracurricular activities and opportunities to our kids so important and and and even though I'm the athletic director it's by far Athletics is a drop in the bucket but we need to support the Arts and we need to support Civic engagement we have those programs where we have to continue to support them and finally our next generation for opportunities we're going to talk about how do we incorporate AI into daily learning because it's here it's here so how can we do it safely to protect you and your kids when we're looking at AI all right partnering with parents transparency
075about decision decisions and sight information transparency is that huge word right how do you know what's happening we can communicate if we're making a decision and we can't explain it to you then we're not making the right decision so we as a group as a collective group have to be able to explain the decisions that we me you're not going to like every decision we make I learned a long time ago as a principal I'm never going to please everybody because as soon as I try to please everybody I please no one so how do I make decision ision I make decisions based upon what I think is the most fundamental relationship that affects Student Success the teacher and the student and if we continue to focus on that if we continue to focus on
076that we'll do great we need to celebrate our successes guys as an educational group we're not the best at shouting from the rooftops how great we are and we are great Higley is wonderful is a wonderful District that provides great opportunities our schools our community hubs we have Community Schools they're smack in the middle of it and we know that the strength of a community one of the backbones is a strong public school system and finally we Ally with parents in the growth of their children sometimes that growth occurs through opportunity of making mistakes in learning and their kids and we help them learn oh that's wrong way okay how do we engage with the community first thing my job is now this is where I get to jump in a little bit I got
077to listen and learn so I'm already part of working with the Gilbert chamber working with the Queen Creek chamber Mesa Workforce Development the airports in still in the Mesa in case you don't know and so we get invited because it's smack dab in the middle of our district is the airport but working with them on what opportunities they have um face-based organizations throughout our community that's a connection we need to build right because they want their growth for their students the same way that we do so let's work together to do that I sit on boards for cgcc and attend things with ASU and uh Grand uh Grand Canyon already that allow us the opportunity to learn what they're doing and be able to connect we have events that are important to us as a
078community Chinese New Year Fine Arts Festival events on the campuses probably the biggest if I were to ask you guys what's the biggest event that we hold every single year we hold two of them and they're on the last day of school and their graduation and nothing is fun or as a principle than standing and getting to talk to 7,000 people I tell you what it's awesome but okay how do we take those and continue to promote what we're doing um with our community I know I'm almost out of time I got to be involved in something called the Gilbert leadership class 32 it's really a wonderful wave that I got to make connections with people uh I got to go to First Responders day and make connections and this is what it's about we
079talk about relationship based leadership but it's relationships that are important how do we make connections how do we know when we have someone that we're going to call if we need help and so you get involved in organiz organizations like this the Gilbert leadership class 32 where I believe it or not SRP took uh 11 of us up in a helicopter and we toured all of the dams that SRP is responsible for one of the coolest things I have ever seen ever what a what a great experience but allowed me to make connections within the community and that's what's important as a superintendent that I can help drive and finally this is my last one I promise Karen I'm almost done we have some obstacles in front of us guys and we cannot shy away
080from these at all okay we know that we're sitting here when we talk about finances and for those of you who attend board meetings you know there are two things that that we're that we have to look at one is declining enrollment and there's a lot of different speculation out of there here's a simple answer on declining enrollment this year we are going to graduate 300 more seniors who are leaving us than we have kindergarteners coming in right off the top three 300 and so when you look at the projections we're doing and I'm stealing Tyler's thunder right here okay 300 kids directly off the top because they're not coming in as kindergarteners and there's lots of different reasons for that but what I wanted to get on to this one is people ask what
081are you going to do about it and this is what I would talk about at please give me two more seconds this is what I would talk about at Basia every interaction who who's who's the greatest mouthpiece for our district it's our families and every interaction that we have as a district employee is an opportunity to spread our story to a member of the community to a family so that when they're sitting in their parking lot or they're out to eat or they're at church there's that conversation about what higgle can do and Higley can bring so how can we change this mindset thank you one interaction at a time I know I'm listening one interaction at a time all right and and thank you very much I I appreciate that 20 minutes I would
082have loved 45 you're welcome all right oh oh oh sorry last one hey we got this there we go thank you okay thank you we will now start the question and answers of 25 minutes and let me set the timer and Mr lsen Heiser how would you plan to Foster strong relationships with parents community members and local business businesses to support the district's success and so I feel like I've already started to touch on this um but but what I really want to emphasize is that when they talk about when you ask how will I the response is how will we I am a member okay I am a member of a leadership team here at the district office called cabinet right I'm a member of the The Wider leadership group called The General administrators
083okay and I'm a leader of a giant or organization where I can model and then this is our responsibility as a team this is not one person's responsibility we just talked about one interaction at a time with how are we going to talk to parents and engage with parents okay we have very formal methods to do that we have board meetings we have communication you know we found the parents read the communication from the school much more than they read the communication from a district okay so how do we incorporate our message into what the school's message is because you guys will click that one but if you see maybe message from Higley USD it might not be as important so we need to be targeted in that how do we connect we connect through
084social media platforms that we celebrate our successes we have a um public relations and marketing team that's going to do that while we support our families to be able to create that I think we need to take advantage of events that we do have what are the other largest events that we have other than graduation anyone have any idea probably the most well attended ones fi we have Fine Arts Festival that's one we have football games on Fridays in the fall how can we use and leverage that to be able to celebrate the stories when we have a captive audience that are interested because we have these feeder groups they're going to williamsfield and going to Higley how can we leverage that to do it when we talk about businesses we already have some processes
085in place like the business partner breakfast I think the next step in doing that is using our contacts at the Chamber of Commerce okay and any businesses that we have to be able to tell our story invite them in and ask them what's going on whether it's a business Council Andor same thing with parents a formal parent Council which I know is done in other districts so that they have a voice and are able to talk to us that's how we can connect and engage right those are the formal processes what's the informal process that we connect and engage every interaction that we have every possibility that we have so for cabinet and we've already talked talked about that what does that mean that means visibility that means attending extracurricular events that when I was
086a high school principal that's what it was there was an event every night and I'd go to make three out of the five nights I'd get to be home a couple of them but that's what we need to do because now when I'm standing on the sidelines or I'm I'm in in the at the drama production and I'm watching the play then I'm interacting with parents and I think that's how we continue to sell our story about what we're doing so we have formal ways to do it and informal ways through the interactions that we have what is your approach to school safety and how will you work with law enforcement and staff to keep students safe so honestly school safety is the number one important thing that we can look at parents and say
087we are going to make sure that we can keep your kids safe and how do we do that and I need to applaud the efforts again it's a Wii it's not an i it's a we as a team what are are we doing to provide immediate response which is our camera systems right which is our security guards which is perhaps piloting Vape sensors and looking at those different things that you can can see about keeping Kids Safe that's a really important thing that we focus and when you look at our and and I'm proud of the work that we've already done in Higley when you look at what we are doing to make sure that we have the physical plant and the safe of the physical plant you know our our Safety and Security team
088here at the district that's working with it we work with law enforcement like this already guys and I don't know if you're aware we now through the school safety Grant have an SRO or SSO on every single one of our high school and secondary campuses they can also go down to support the elementary campuses with need be and the communication we have with Gilbert PD is fantastic and with Queen Creek PD we have that in place and we have to continue to have those conversations and engage with them in how can they support us and share with us as things are moving forward and so when you talk about the safety of what our students are are doing then we have the safety of exposure and how do we make sure when we have devices
089that we have appropriate filters on them so that kids aren't going to where they're not supposed to go and that's working with our it Department to make sure that we have filters and things in place so that we're keeping them safe when they're exposed to the technology that we provide them I can't control what they do on their phone but I I can control what they do on my device and I can also help and teach them what's appropriate things to do and especially going through social media I think that that's another important thing when we talk about safety on our campuses what steps would you take to improve parent and Community involvement in decision making processes again I'm going to trumpet the Wii because as a Cabinet many of you guys just received a
090survey it's probably not the most exciting survey that you have ever seen in your whole life but it's a survey that's absolutely necessary so that we as decision makers can make uh recommendations to our governing board should we need to continue to reduce our budget and so when we give a list of different options and you're going to see for all of you are going to come to the board meeting on March 4th you're going to see a more in- depth what our responses to that survey looked like but that's a way that we can actively engage with parents so they can give us feedback back on what's Happening and I think that's an important thing that we do uh you know I look at modeling um a program that that's used in Mesa right
091now where each campus asks for a couple parent volunteers and they come in and we have a a parent Council and so we meet as a parent Council we've already started and this is a shout out to superintendent Richards right here a superintendent's advisory Council of students where we have sixth through 11th grade students come and talk to us about it we can do that with our parents as well and to get a because we know we have active and engaged parents within our community I mean I look at this turnout tonight and how how fantastic is this I look at the turnout that we had from our community meeting talking about what were happening with the possible override continuation and the survey we went out and the fact that we had all these people
092here that weren't here to yell at the district they were here to understand more let me know more why is this happening what's going on and then that's our education of what happens but that important idea of connecting and then the other part about connecting from a district perspective is one thing but really it's then the the focus down back onto the school level and what are they doing to connect and to draw people in and that's the directive as a superintendent then I can help and support from our principal's perspective what are we doing to draw parents in and get them onto our campuses you know we it's funny we'll have a lot of people come to a a secondary basketball game or something like that but sometimes we don't have a lot of
093people who'll jump in and help out at different different times during the day and it's up to that sight level leader and sight level group to help us as a district work to make a welcoming environment for our parents to come in and support us why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole all right I'm gonna ask you to repeat it one more time because I think there was bunch of words right in the middle why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole now more than ever public schools have the ability to bring us together and to be that Hub of our community yes we know that there's competition out there everywhere divisive but our goal and
094our want is to be able to bring those bring our communities together where are our schools located SM not on a busy Major Street most of the time it's smack dab in the middle of a community that's why we are Community Schools and we are that Hub of interaction where we have people from a variety of backgrounds and we are bringing them together and that is so important when we look to our future we talk about different generations and expectations for different generations and so what's our job is the school to help present this next Generation this gen Z before we get to gen Alpha right we look at gen Z and their wants and desires honestly guys are different than ours and so this public education that we can provide that can be focused
095on what their needs are to help prepare them again for the lifestyle that they want and the career that can get them their lifestyle they want is super important and so I think it's I honestly I look at public education and the school system is the background to a strong Vibrant Community remember we're 24 square miles we're not huge we got a lot of people but we're not huge so how do we continue to make this Higgly pocket a vibrant place for us to grow and learn together do you think public education is adequately preparing students for life after graduation if yes give an example if no how would you work with the board and Community to make uh better prepared students yes okay we can give some examples he here's the thing when we
096talk about Preparing People and preparing Kids for Life After High School right we have to give them the skills to be able to navigate that very interesting we're in the superintendent's conference room or uh superintendent Council we were asking the kids hey if we were to add a new program if we were to add something new to our schools what would you want it to be and do you know what they wanted financial literacy okay and true life skills outside of the home right that's what they're looking for and so within public education I think that we have to reimagine what our expectations are for our students to make sure that they we can meet that need 20 years ago 25 years ago that was the responsibility of the parent right dad taught me how
097to balance my checkbook absolutely and we did that in that process and I got that first bank account when I was 7 years old with like 35 cents in it and then we kept that little Ledger I don't think that happens anymore how can we continue to support the students for what they need are we doing a good job absolutely we are our kids are successful our programs are successful there's something I'm really proud in in husd is our Career and Technical education at our high schools we have so many different opport unities for students who want to do something different we just had the Gilbert leadership class 33 coming to our police science labs and classes at Higley High School you're saying what even is that right so here we have a criminal justice
098program where we're teaching kids how to become First Responders at high school because if that's their passion and that's their need then we're providing that Niche for them we have Early Childhood where we have students that are they already learning and already interning and maybe some of you who own businesses that need those kids can come and hire them because they're learning that on our campuses at the same time we have these core academic classes that are preparing kids to go to college and not just get to college but to succeed in college and how many of you raise your hand how many of you guys got a kid in college right now right how many of them came back from their English one-onone class and said whoa this is way easier than high school
099I know mine did and I'm like yeah because you probably attend regularly and that doesn't happen in college but anyway okay but we provided that because we gave them a challenge right and we challenge them in high school so they can go and be successful in college so yeah I'm up here a product of public education I'm so proud of it and and I we are succeeding are there areas where we can do better absolutely please understand that we're never perfect and that's our job as leadership to provide and find ways that we can improve our resources and can improve how we are supporting students what is your philosophy on curriculum oversight and how will you ensure all materials align with Arizona State Standards so I I think with curriculum oversight and obviously this has
100been a Hot Topic a lot of different our board meetings already right where do we go into terms of being efficient on curriculum oversight there are State Statute and there's laws and there's District policies that we follow and it's a superintendent I uphold to make sure we're following those processes to make sure we have the appropriate curriculum you know books was a big one it's been a big one within our community and what happens with books what was our response put together a parent committee and of teachers and parent and Community to review to come back and give the governing board who ultimately makes that decision an informed decision about what we want to add right now we're going to we're planning on going out for uh English curriculum adoption next year we started working
101on it the goal is to be able to come to the governing board and present that to them we're going to follow the laws and the process that is prescribed by our policy to make sure that we're providing the most relevant curriculum that we can which includes a huge one includes opportunities for the community to come in review it and give us feedback on it and I will tell you it's great to talk about but we'll have four people come and do it okay that's what happens right and so so we know we're going to make it available we're going to try to get as many people possible Right to come of view and to give us feedback so we can make that educated decision when we're proposing to the governing board this is what
102our curriculum needs to be but we're going to follow those processes and I think the the idea of curriculum uh oversight it's very important when you look and you follow the process and there's safety in doing that and when people step outside of it then it's our job as leadership and site leadership then to put them back and make sure they're following our processes what is the single biggest challenge you think our students and our Educators face how would you address this issue cell phones honestly it's the it's this little device here that allows them to have a different personality than they have in person allows them just to disconnect with the people that are around them allows them to to only focus and listen to a certain point of view because that's what's available
103on these I think from a school district's perspective and we've already worked on this within our group you know there's this idea that you ban cell phones right and do that kind of stuff that we know that that's not going to happen because I tell you what you're going to have you're going to go on a high school campus and every kid's going to walk in and they're going to drop a cell phone in the pouch and say I'm good and then they're going to take that other cell phone out of their back pocket and be like game on let's get this done but honestly so I think that we have to work with our teachers to make sure that when they're in the classrooms and when we're providing the appropriate time for instruction that
104we make it relevant and we make it interesting to them and we make it so much so that they're not going to want to go into this device I think that when we look at professional skills that's important for us to address that we embed them within our curriculum so the kids are learning that in order for you to come to work what what does our business people want when people come to work they want people to show up on time dressed appropriately with a good attitude and they're going to stay the whole day right and when I talk to business people they say I can teach them the skills they need to do but if they don't do those things we're missing out we have a group of professionals that can help with that
105so much and that's called our teachers every single one of our teachers is a professional we are trained professional Educators and we need to model that for our students and that's something that we can control as a district but honestly when I look at what's happening I think how can we help assist so that the these little devices aren't taking over everything that we're doing what leadership strategies will you use to foster a positive and accountable work culture amongst staff and administration um it it goes back to the idea that it takes a village and what I'm going to model is building appropriate professional relationships with my peers and I'm going to expect our cabinet to do the same and I'm going to expect our sight level leaders to to do the same one of
106the most successful times I was ever at a leader I'll give you examples when I was at Bas of high school after 2 years I was not happy I wasn't happy because I was trying to be a leader that I wasn't I wasn't true to my personality and I wasn't true to what I hold dear into education and so I I came up with an idea that we're going to focus on community so basah high that's our keyword Community we're going to talk about what's our place within our community how do we get our kids involved in in the community and then really importantly and what I control is what kind of community do I build as my employees together so you know what I my my goal was to make them like each other
107because I felt like if they liked each other they might like kids okay and so how do we do that I do it because I like to have fun you know and so what did I do I designed ways that I could have people interact that weren't necessarily academic in nature but we're social in nature and that I strategically placed teachers who weren't in the same grade level or the same subject area together to force them so that when they walk down the hallway they might see a teacher and say hi and they might not teach anything like that teacher or be around that teacher and it worked and it worked and that years that I had I had the lowest loss rate of teachers within our district and I had people at other sites
108going hey I want to come to Basha because we like to feel it Bas and that's the same thing I think that we do here it's on larger scale but how do we model how do we get people together so that they can talk and then we can learn about each other and it's through those connections we make in the community that we build that we can maintain a consistent morale because right now let's be honest one of the biggest questions that I get are how are you going to maintain teacher morale knowing that we're losing money okay because we might not be able to give them any additional money so we look at the things that we can control for teachers it's 7:42 p.m. just so you know okay trust me it happens if
109you hold your hand too long on your Apple watch it does it to me about three times at cabinet every Monday but how can how what can we control for teachers how can I continue to support them right well I know that I might not be able to give them Financial things and so that to do that I need to make sure that they have the curriculum resources they need and I need to them to make sure that we have not 20 different District initiatives let's keep it simple guys let's have one and let's get really good at that and if that one is professional learning communities because we know how important they are for teachers to talk about their craft and then turn around and support their students then that's what we're going to
110do and there might be other stuff that people want to do and we'll take our we'll slow down with that and say let's let's make it easy and then we provide them time how can we give them time to be able to do it during the school day when we have half days or release days and that's the challenge that we have and that's what we can control in terms of supporting because I think when we get that teachers will understand and our staff will understand that we care about them and it's not about the financial reward we care about them okay and we want them to do the very best job that they can for kids in your current position how do you uh trct and retain teachers at a at husd o okay
111I feel like I kind of answered part of that just a second ago um but in my current position I'm removed from direct contact with teachers all the time right I am I I have people that report to me that have that direct competition or the direct interaction with teachers so how can I support them it's by supporting my principles and what I do with my principles and the leadership team that we have in order for them to be comfortable to support their teachers sometime that's direct guidance sometimes that's influence through relationships and sometimes that's supporting them when they have an idea that they want to go with and they just want to say hey Dave I think this is GNA be really great for my campus I want to Institute this this is the
112new tardy policy I want to run with and this is the communication systems that I want to do to be able to sort the students and the teachers and I say good let's figure out how to do it right it doesn't not every decision needs to be topped down and matter of fact I don't want to make any top down decisions like that I want to have this inherent growth from people who are passionate about what they do and we figure out a way that they can incorporate it within their classroom and so for me in my current position that's how I can support teachers on the campuses supporting our sight level Administration to support them the best we can how have you engaged the community in supporting Public Schools please provide some examples I
113showed you a picture of my Gilbert leadership like that was a big deal for me that's a year in case you don't aren't aware of that program that's a year of your life that you give up where you're gone at least one Friday a month if not more meeting with these individuals and it was my responsibility to be the education Advocate within our group like here I have a captive group of 30 people that I'm going to meet with every month that I'm going to build relationships with and I'm going to make sure that when they walk out of it they know how awesome we are and how proud we are and that's what something that I've done to engage within our community uh right here in Gilbert already I think the other engagement that
114we start looking at is again informal engagement with the community and how many events that we're at I've already told cabinet a little bit and it was brought up to me again today hey so does that mean we need to start evending attending more events at night yes it does does like we are the leaders and you want to see us there and sites want to see us there and we want to make sure that we have a pulse for going what's going forward and so um that's an example Gilbert leadership is an example of how I've engaged with the community and been a part of it and it's really neat because through that opportunity I have I've gotten really close to know people at Chandler Gilbert and Sarah Watts at the Gilbert chamber and
115so when they have events and stuff now it's like hey Dave can you help with this hey can we get involved what can we do to help and at the same time I want to make sure that my current people are also going through it so we continue to spread the wealth of what we're doing you have one minute would you like to make a closing statement just one minute one minute sir okay I would like to make a closing statement I I I want to reiterate to all of you in the room today that my want and desire to be your next superintendent is not because gosh darn it I'm ready I have grown myself all the time and I'm going to be a next superintendent because I don't want to be a superintendent
116I want to be the superintendent of higly I want to lead this group with the team that we have here today because we do have obstacles in front of us we do have challenges that we're facing I'm a part of those Solutions already and we have a team in place a creative group of individuals that are working really really hard to make sure that we're going to make the changes and decisions we can that we make taking in multiple perspectives and being very thoughtful with our actions and caring about people you know there's that there's that phrase out there right It's always darkest before Dawn I don't know how many times I've heard it's always darkest before Dawn I tell you what my goal is is to make sure that we just have a beautiful
117sunrise when it's time so please I I greatly appreciate your uh attention to me tonight and listening my family laughs because my dream is to have a captive audience and a microphone and now and now we're going to add to it an unlimited time okay and then we will go and succeed but but it says it right up there hey we got this we got this we can get through this together and and we'll continue to make higgle the best District we can for our students thank you so much thank you very much [Applause] please remember to fill out your survey thank you and we will start again at 8 o' e e e good evening again and thank you for continuing to join us this evening for our superintendent search um we have this
118is our final forum for this evening just a reminder about the format uh we will have 20 minutes of introduction in why Higley and then 25 minutes of questions so let's see we do appreciate your feedback and you're going to hear me say it again at the end please fill out the survey and do that by uh noon tomorrow if you're just joining us there is a QR code over on the table that you can use to fill out the survey uh let's see the next board meeting on March 4th the board will uh announce and uh vote on who will be our next superintendent this is our third finalist tonight and this let me please introduce Dr Randy MWI [Applause] hi good evening um so I thought I'd start off and introduce myself um
119Randy malne and I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about who I am uh because if I get the opportunity if I'm humbled with the opportunity to lead the district it's important that the people know um who I am and what I stand for and so I started out when I wrote this slide I wrote father leader teammate and and I I thought well that doesn't make sense because I couldn't really be a father without my wife but so I I I put family um and so those that know me that know that's my anchor uh I don't really do a whole lot I um spend time with my family I work out in the garage and I work and that's about all I do that's kind of who I am and I
120I want I want Comm I want the community to know who I am um um and then I'm a leader and I'm a teammate and teammate is something that I I live into it's not something I just talk about and I don't have a whole lot of time tonight so I put a QR code up there because I'm on a podcast for about two months ago and I really get into team and what I believe in team and this idea of psychological safety and how we all come together to solve problems and I think there it's a pretty good representative of how I lead in on that QR code so if you want to know more there's a little bit there if you don't um I understand but so I wanted to really share with
121everybody tonight who I am as a leader because that's the most important thing to this community who I am and how I lead is the most important thing um I feel that this community deserves to know and what's the most important thing and so let's see if this clicker works for me so I thought I would do it uh through a series of quotes that I use um and I teach with I teach these quotes So the first thing I believe in my core is that I have to earn everything and I have to earn my title and I believe that I have to come to work every day as the leader to earn my title and earn the respect of my teammates and earn the respect of the community under respect of students under
122respect of um The Wider Community as we start to build relationships with industry and partner and as the leader I have to be the model in every situation and I attack everything I do from that from that lens and I understand as the leader um of a school district there a lot of responsibility I have to read more I have to learn more I have to be more every day so I can support the people that rely on on me to lead every day and so that's my first core tenant second tenant is I believe in everything I do has to be done with respect and dignity how I treat people is a reflection of this school district and I treat people with large amounts of respect and dignity and I use this quote all
123the time when I think about it because when you're in a leadership position you get put in situations that are tough you get put in situations that maybe you haven't seen before and I think about this Victor Frankle quote all the time that between stimulus and response there's a space and that's the space where I get to choose on how I behave and how I react and how I treat other people and as the model of the school district I have to lead with respect and dignity because there's going to be hard conversations there going to be hard things that we have to do together and as the leader I have to lead and be the model of that respect and that kindness and that dignity um the piece that holds it all together is
124this idea have humility um and humility is not me thinking less of myself but it's thinking of myself less and what do I mean by that I mean that I have 27 years of leadership and I have confidence that I've seen a lot and I've learned a lot and I know a lot but there's a whole bunch of stuff that can come your way that I don't know and that's why you build a team and you surround yourself with a team and I always think of this I always think of this 7030 space I have to hold 30% that I don't know what's better and to do that I want to lean into my teammates and so we sit down we have honest conversations we figure it out maybe I have an idea maybe I
125don't but if I don't at least I'm listening for understanding and I'm gaining the wisdom of our Collective group because there's a cabinet in Higley of really smart people and I'm one member of that team and sometimes I'm the leader and sometimes I have to follow but if I don't have the humility to really listen for understanding and embrace better and embrace the somebody else has a better idea whether it's HR I'm not an HR expert but we have one and I'm not an elementary expert I have a lot of Elementary experience but I'm not an elementary expert so I got to lean into that expertise and I know we have a great Finance guy here in Higley and I need to lean into that how do we create a plan how do we do
126all that and it's going to be a collective group and that's how I lead and I have to do that with large amounts of humility and lastly I would like to share this idea on what how it brings it all together when I raise my hand to be a leader I know that means I have to take the ownership of the entire organization and that means I have to take ownership of problems I didn't create I have to take ownerships of problems that exist in the community I have to take ownership of everything that this school district needs to solve to be successful and I spent six years in Higley it was great years I built great relationships some of you in the H in the in the in the audience now I owe a
127lot of you know my progression and how my growth to you and I need to figure out what the new Higley looks like and if there's things that need to be solved I got to take ownership of that no matter if I was here or not there might be problems that are here from when I was here and I definitely should take ownership of that but I have to look at everything from that lens as the leader there's no backward step there's no looking Anda and passing blame I don't believe in any of that and so I wanted to talk I wanted to share with the group I'm not sure what my time is but I wanted to share with the group who I am as a leader because who I am is probably the
128most most important thing that you guys need to know about me I mean I have a lot of experience uh I shared it in my bio hopefully we'll get to some questions I can lean into some of that experience but I want to I want to share tonight I wanted to start out on an introduction with with who I am so if Higley gives me the opportunity to lead and I get I get the opportunity to to come and sit up there one day with our governing board you you guys know who you people know who they hired and they KN they know what I believe in and so then then this other question of why Higley was kind of the prompt and um I think why higgle for me is it might be different
129um I came here I came here to open Middle School I don't know how many people know that I see some of you out there know um and I didn't know anybody in Higley and um we really built a team there we did a lot of really good things I was proud of and I share this what I would what I would say I share a really deep connection with Higley um I uh when you open a school you take on a lot of responsibility and a lot of ownership of that building and you had to we I had to bring I had to bring these five factions of people together to be successful because they took the top they took the top um grades off the middle school and so I had to build
130all these relationships and really listen to people and figure out how do we get to be successful and we were we were pretty successful we we tied for the second highest achieving Middle School in the state we were very proud of that and we hung in there and we we dug in and we we stayed the course and we maintained that for the years I was there and I built a lot of relationships and I learned a lot about myself as a leader and then I got the opportunity to move into a district office position and I got more opportunity to grow and more opportunity to learn and that helped me get the position that I'm in today where the learning has been just exponential when you're over the largest secondary division in in the
131state and every day you're responsible for 27,000 students that's a burden that um you have to really respect and you have to be open and I've really embraced this idea of being humble to learn I've learned so much but I have this connection with Higley that the last time it opened it wasn't the right time for me it feels like it's the right time for me now and what I want to do is is I want to come back and I want to connect to the people and the community and I have a relationship rooted in the success we shared when we were a team here and I have just a desire to bring value back to a place I cared about so the first reason I want to come I want to come back
132I want the opportunity to lead is because I just a connection with the community and and and the people and then the culture of Higley I as a as a person share a lot of values that I think this community shares um I've been watching Higley from a distance I know um I know there's been a little bit of administration change but there's been continued success it's an a district it stands out it has a lot of a lot of respect for the for the achievement but I still connect here and I still feel very connected to the community and I have a lot of the same values and obviously with the high standards that Higley holds itself up with I still have those and I think it's a really good it's a really good
133opportunity to connect somewhere that I feel already just a really natural connection to and in a careful for and lastly it's about this opportunity to contribute I'm you know I got an 11y old who knows how long I'm GNA work right um he's in fifth grade so I got a I got a while and I would love to be able to come back to Higley with everything I learned with the people I care about and bring the value that I've been able to to grab over the last six years my relationships with ASU my relationships with industry my relationships with double ASA and some of the National um National organizations I've been able to be affiliated with I've learned a ton in the last six years and I'd love to bring that contribution back to
134Higley and be able to build upon a legacy of success and it's not about it's not about changing Higley it's about improving the things that are going on well here and I think I I've learned a lot I think I can come back and we can get better every day 1% every day and build on the successful things that are going on in Higley and if there's places where we need to innovate I have that I have that experience as well I think one thing that I can really bring to Higley to contribute is this idea on how to connect a business how to connect the industry how to bring industry Partners into our schools to connect with our teachers our teachers have a huge job it's hard and they're in isolation 173 competencies the
135state code says teachers need to need to embrace to be competent that's almost impossible and so teachers need to we need to get people not working in isolation and so I think that my experience with that I can bring those industry Partners in I can make those connections and I have a track record of doing that I'd like to be able to bring that contribution back to Higley to just add one more piece of value to an already successful school district and then lastly and I'm not sure where I'm at with time oh so I'm much quicker um one thing I believe in is you owe an organ ganization to leave it better than you found it and a lot of times you see superintendant come and go than the average superintendent in this in
136this country last for like 2.6 years and the district is in kind of disarray every time it changes over um my brain works in building capacity building the next level of leadership and so I've done that in the district I'm in I build leaders I I Mentor people if if you ask me what I care about the most I care about leaving people in a better place than I found them helping them reach their goals mentoring them I I just want to bring value to every single human being that I get to be on a team with and I can bring that to Higley I know higley's got some really good people I've got to meet in the last I don't know how many days it's been like the last two weeks it feels like
137I've got to meet some new people that I didn't know and I'm anxious to get to know them what are their goals what do they want to become how do that how do we improve capacity within an organization so if Randy malne explodes or retires the organization is in a good place and really good leaders think about that and so I I really think in those terms if you look at the work that I've done um I left good leaders when I left Higley um I'm Gonna Leave good leaders if I get the opportunity to come here and leave Mesa and I feel really proud that I've left an organization into into a position where they can still be successful so as I think about why why Higley I mean it means something to me
138but I also think I can bring something that could mean something to hi and so that's the relationships and the care um and the people that I I shared you know six years with I mean my son was born when I took over Higley I spent two days at home with my wife because we had to open a brand new middle school and you know my daughter was was this big when we were when we were doing growth mindset in this District and I remember her up and down the hall while I've been on working and she's on her scooter and I got a little video of her talking about her growth mindset when we were bringing that that research to our kids on on what we wanted our kids to we wanted that growth
139mindset we wanted our kids to have that mindset that you can be anything you're just not there yet and I remember that when I was in Higley and then my family was a part of that and and that just doesn't leave you and I remember I don't know if there's any of the leaders that were on my team I mean I teared up when I told everybody goodbye when I left if I get the opportunity to come here again I'm going to tear up when I leave where I'm at that's just who I am I care and I'm gonna I'm GNA I'm gonna bring everything I got to wherever I am and that's who I've always been and so the quote I want to leave with I mean there's some there's a spe there a
140special quote and I'll explain why because I have time um the difference between a successful person and others is not the lack of strength not the lack of knowledge but rather the lack of Will and so why that why that quote is important is because we're all going to face struggles and we have to be resilient and we have to persevere and it's the most important thing that we teach children this quote is special because I put that quote on the gym at Middle School when I entered 12 years ago and I thought I thought long and hard I went through all these quotes we didn't have chat gbt back then it was a lot more difficult than now and I was like what quote symbolizes what I believe is the main thing that we
141have to teach children and the main thing is we need to teach children we need to help children understand to persevere because we're all going to fall down and we got to teach them to get up and there's a very special way that to do that and I've learned how to do that I learned a lot while I was here I learned a lot where I've been I really want to bring everything that I know back to Higley and hopefully I'm here for the next nine years and can bring some stability and consistency because the community deserves that and um so that's who I am that's that's who I am in my in my gut and I'll share with you what this quote means to me and I want I'll pledge this if the school
142board decides that I'm your guy and I and they decide that you know I'm gonna be humbled with the opportunity lead I will not let this community down I've never let any Community down I've never failed and I won't fail now and I'll work as hard as I can to to prove to everybody here that they can trust me because together as a team is how we can move this District to the next level and it doesn't have far to go it's a great District there's great people here I was walking classrooms today there's evidence of really good instruction I know Mrs Richards well and I know how how smart she is and I know she's done a good job there's a foundation in higgle that can go to the next level I have the
143experience to do that but I'll I'll tell I'll tell everybody I won't let you down and and I'll find a way to be successful if I get the opportunity to lead in Higley and so with that we'll go to questions I guess okay thank you okay let me reset the timer okay all right first question how would you plan to Foster strong relationships with parents community members and local businesses to support the district's success well I mean I I mean it starts with just being authentic being able to communicate being able to listen I mean my form of communication is listen for understanding and so once I can really understand where other people are coming for and I listen I lean in with empathy then I can understand how to communicate back and it begins
144with building Trust um I already have a lot of connections in the community um I I have a good relationship with Sarah wats uh the president of the chamber um I've already talked to her about making introductions helping me connect with local business but also local industry but building building relationships is is about listening empathetically and then communicating with respect and dignity and transparency and um not every relationship is built the same way you have to differentiate the way you communicate with everyone and that starts with trying to understand everyone and understand everybody's perspective Community I think I think the community I think in public education um I mean we we know where this country has been politically for a number of years and for whatever reason the community has lost faith in public school
145it's my job to build that trust back it's my job to lead a team that's going to go out and build that trust back that's going to be by being present being being in the community um I I have a plan to communicate with you know the Gilbert chamber find out where where I need to be I was on Gilbert leadership I helped build that leadership curriculum I think that they're using now so I have relationships there already I would want to get back and and and you know restart those relationships again um you always feel bad when you see somebody that you haven't spoke to in a while that you care about like today I'm out I see John and I care about John John was my guy I mean we we spent a
146lot of time learning together and I hadn't talked to John in a few texts here and there but like like we picked up right where we left off started talking about leadership started talking about books start talking about you know the future of of school and so to build those relationships it's just about being authentic and it's about building trust you know telling people the truth not making promises you can't deliver and and just listening and and for me it's just something that's always come natural I mean I look around in the room I see people in the room that I've known for 12 years um and you know I run in I run in the fill in the hall and it's like I haven't it's like we never missed a beat and so relationships
147are something that comes easy to me but it's because I'm very intentional about how I listen and how I communicate and so I would just lean into how I've always been and and use use the same skills that I used when I was I used when I went to Mesa and I'll use when I come back but it's about building trust and transparency and communicating um um through listening thank you what is your approach to school safety and how will you work with law enforcement and staff to keep students safe so I mean that's a it's a complex question um in a lot of ways there's a lot of things that happen in the community that um we can't control as a school generally my experience has been that the schools are much safer but
148they do reflect the community so in the last six years I've been probably the point of s most of the major security that's gone on in Mesa Public Schools I have a great relationship with Meson PD and again it comes from understanding their role understanding our role understanding clearly communicating to them the things we have in place our standard operating procedures on how to communicate to them and so what I would what I would need to do is work with Gilbert PD to to relearn what their standard operating procedures would be on communication so I already know those protocols where I'm at now I would just get into a space with them where I could understand what do they need from us really clearly articulate what we need from them um where I'm at now
149we have weapons detection in all our high schools we have uh Vape detor sensors in every CL every bathroom we have ai and our cameras although the community doesn't know that it's a secret um and and what I can tell you is the research is clear the very first corate to an effective school is safe and orderly so we work hard as a district to create classroom management and train our teachers for orderly it's the district's job to work with local law enforcement and um our administrators to create safety a lot of those things can come with with some proactive approaches to keeping Gates locked exterior secure also having security very clean security plan where are security guards placed what are their certain roles there's a lot of systems that can go in place that
150can enhance the security right away I don't know what that looks like at the at the secondary schools and I I'm not sure if there's security I would doubt there's any security at your elementary schools haven't really heard of that um anywhere but um it would be first thing I would do is talk to principles talk to community listen is there a concern what are the concerns and then start looking at chiping away on how to address them but but I would you know I would start out with having sitting down having a meetings with the chief um and then finding out you know talking to the sro's talking talking to the the captains that that work in this in this beat and and really find out what do they need from us for communication
151what do we need from them the other thing is looking at um I would I mean I would need to be updated and I would update myself pretty quickly on what is the what is the policies in higgle so for the last six years the policies in Mesa are different from the policies that were here when I was here I've learned a lot about some of the policies we need to put in place to keep our schools safe and so it would start off with you again I mean I know I'm G sound like a broken record but I'm gonna have to listen I'm gonna have to be really Keen to listen for understanding and figure out what is working and what needs to be refined quickly and so that but it would start with
152a really clean relationship with law enforcement and when I was here I had a great relationship with the SRO in law enforcement I have a great relationship now when I was in car right had a great relationship law enforcement I always have a good relationship with law enforcement I have a lot of respect for him and I think that is why I've been able to to build quick relationships with them and so that's that's kind of where I would start and then we would figure it out um I did ask John today I did ask the principal williamfield has there been any talk of um weapons detection because I know it's coming to Gilbert and they're coming to my schools that my teammates to figure out how to do it so I know how to
153do it if that's something it's the will of the community and the budget I know how to do it already but that's that's down the road I don't I'm not positive what higgle needs because this is about Higley it's not really about what Randy has done and so I would want to listen to figure that out thank you what steps would you take to improve parent and Community involvement in decisionmaking processes I think the first step um that I would do is I would start to try and work hard at building some transparent communication and some connection with the community and that means I need to be a PTO meetings PTA meetings I need to be at at school events I need to be at community events they need to see me uh they need
154to know I'm available they need to know that I'm approachable that would be the first layer the second layer is getting design teams together finding out from principles who are your key family members that you can bring in if you're if you're looking to if you're looking to change anything it doesn't matter matter what it is you need to bring a design team together and talk about that as a team and that needs to be multiple stakeholders and so I would work with the principles to identify your key your key constituents your key parents but for me it's going to start with I need them to see me I need them to know I'm all in I need them to know that that that I'm approachable and and attentive and and then really be able
155to understand who to contact how to get in front of them and and that's all members of our of our Community I mean when I was when I was here I did a number of different things I used to meet with the state presidents to find out you know what are the concerns with that Community I used to meet with um ptas over here and figure out what is what is their concerns uh and really just listen um but it's going to start with some really transparent communication and some um real honest dialogue because I think about Higley you have an A District you have a you have a history of success here I'm just in the schools there's really good instruction going on how do we pass an override how do we not get
156an override pass when the school districts is strong I think what it's going to take it's going to take you know the leader being out in front connecting with the community building a team around building a team together where we all connect and build back that trust from the from the community and then when we want to have real dialogue bringing focus groups in and really listening and honoring the dialogue some of that's kind of hard sometimes because usually administrators we have an idea on what we think we need to do and then we bring these constituents in they say something different and we don't fully communicate the why behind where we're going we just feel like they've been heard and so I've learned a lot in the last six years that the why is
157a key A lot of people can take a lot of things if they know the why and so that's something that you know I would say I've gained a lot of knowledge and becoming a little bit of an expert on how to really describe the why thank you why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole so I'm a I'm a very very proud Patriot in American and I think that this is the greatest experiment of democracy that exists on this planet and that democracy is based on public education access for all community members to be educated and to grow and to learn and one day move into our communities and and get good jobs and be good community members and the backbone is public education and
158I worry that there is a little bit of a movement and I mean we're at the focus of it in Arizona we've been in this world for 20 years Charters and it's scary because because I worry that public education is going to be a place public schools are going to be a place one day for kids in poverty and special ed kids and that's not good for our community and so it is the backbone of our democracy it is the backbone of of Civility in a community and I don't know if there's anything else in the community as important as it's public schools and we have been demonized for certain things that we haven't been able to control in the media and in the community for a while and a lot of it's not even
159close to true but we don't do a very good job telling the community what we're doing well and why we're doing it because we've always been a place where the kids just come you know I mean public educ you know education in general School in general people that work have to send their kids somewhere and we've been able to live off of that as public Educators for a long time but things have changed and and in our our state I mean it is um it is a school choice state date kids travel miles to go to high schools for all kinds of different reasons parents TR will drop kids off at schools really a lot of times because it's on their way to work and so we have to really tell our community and sell
160our community not even sell our community just tell our community all the great things that are happening in public schools and it's something we've never had to do but we have to do it now because the charters do it they don't offer a better product they just do a better job telling everybody that they have a better product they don't we have the better product we have great teachers we have all the resources all the supports that every kid needs we're not telling that story and I'm a public educator but I think sometimes like a business owner and I think in this world of we have to be competitive and we have to figure out what are the areas we're going to generate income because we know our state doesn't fund us right now I
161know the crisis in Higley is we got to get that override past there's phenomenal teachers here and we got to keep them paid the charters don't have that problem they automatically get like 1728 per School extra because they don't have the ability to go out for overrides nobody in the community really knows that or cares we have to do a better job telling our story and that starts with me being a really good communicator with our school board and being a really good communicator to our community but I worry I mean it's you know I've dedicated my life to public education and I worry that we're seeing public education is not evolving at the rate that the community is and Society is and we need to because we got to keep Pace do you think
162public education is adequately preparing students for life after graduation if yes give an example if no how would you work with the board and Community to better prepare students so I think Public Schools prepare kids as well as any other schools are preparing kids I've seen it my whole career kids that come from certain types of families do pretty well and public school does a pretty good job with that kind of education but for kids that have to learn learn different way or kids that maybe aren't ready for college when they graduate I don't think we're doing a great job preparing them for community and career and I think what what I've learned in the last six years being hyper focused on listening to Industry and listening is that our kids are are entering the
163workforce without the durability the durable skills that they need to be successful in an industry that's constantly evolving everyone now when they move into a career has to be ready to reinvent themselves every five years reinvent yourself every five years and so the traditional way of teaching kids to learn doesn't work as well anymore we got to get kids in a space where they're learning what I call deeper and personalized learning it's like inquiry design thinking project-based learning we have to teach kids how to problem solve problem identify and creatively think and that takes getting into that depth of learning teacher speak that level four do um standards and and and understanding that those are the skills that kids need to they need to start being able to exercise and produce those kinds of outcomes
164critically think creative think and I don't know if we're doing a great job of that everywhere I've been in classrooms where they do amazing job at it and I've been in other classrooms where it's you know not so much so we have to work on that consistency across and it's all schools it's not it's not just Public Schools it's all schools because the way teachers need to teach now for the for the society for for the society our kids are going into it's just different and we've got to get them the training and we got to get them the exposure to the how and I've been working on that for the last six years and it's a it's an uphill battle it's a long stretch we have really good teachers but they teach sometimes in
165a traditional way and we got to we got to shift into this idea of deeper learning where're kids are learning how to think and problem solve and I'm not sure if anyone's doing that really well right now I think there's Pockets at doing it I can tell you where to go and look at it and see it and it's happening but it's not happening at scale and it's such a it's gonna take a team to figure this out it's gonna take a whole cluster of people and it takes time and the biggest the biggest hurdle is people want results now and I understand that we all do but to change pedagogy and to change the instructional Vision to meet the needs of Industry and to meet the needs of of what's happening in the workforce
166now it's going to take a concerted effort and so to answer your question yes I think public school is doing just as good a job as anywhere else I think school in general needs to reinvent itself and think about what what do what do we need to do to be better and to get our kids prepared for the workforce and when you say Workforce I don't want to like get it twisted I'm talking about vocational head um when you graduate from from college you go into the workforce when you graduate from college you have a career some people start out in a like a career and then they decide oh you know I'm 25 my brain finally developed I want to go back to school and they go back to college the path is not
167traditional like it used to and we have to create paths for everyone and that happens when you teach kids how to think thank you what is your philosophy on curriculum over oversight and how will you ensure all materials align with Arizona State Standards well I mean there's a process on on approving curriculum that kind of ensures that the that the resources that we adopt align so when I think about the word curriculum I think about the state standards and when I think about um the tools that teachers use I think about the resources so you go through an adoption period you have you know you have all your stakeholders and generally that consistently aligns with the standards at times there's gaps and that's when you go out you find supplemental resources to fill the gaps
168I think we put a lot of a lot of stake in resources where they're really only as good as the teacher delivering them and this is a people business and we got to provide the most support to get our teachers to implement the resources with Fidelity all the resources are research-based and if done with Fidelity will show Improvement what we what I've seen as a problem is that you don't put you don't put structures in place to ensure the resources are implemented with Fidelity and if you can get the resources implemented with Fidelity and what that is is that's really about hypercommunication to the teachers on why these resources are going to help you get the out desired outcomes you need could you repeat the question because I think I went left little a bit
169yeah please can you read again what is your philosophy on curriculum oversight and how will you ensure all materials align within Arizona state standards as the superintendent um my responsibility is oversight of everything so I would work with my teammates I would work with um the executive director of Elementary if we're talking about those resources the executive director of secondary if we're talking about these resources and then the greater team as a whole and look at what is the what is the process we're going to put in place to make sure the the board approved adopted resources are implemented with Fidelity in the classroom and then get the proper training to our teachers to support them we're only going to be as strong as our teachers and so how do you support the teachers how
170do we get behind them what are the what are we looking for when we walk in the classroom I mean it's a simple concept that you you inspect what you expect and then over time I mean you got to give people time like you're you got to give people time to implement something new but as a superintendent it's my responsibility to oversee everything so the responsibility that those resources are being implemented Fidelity is is all mine and so it would be my responsibility to to be in the schools and and work with my team to make sure they're being implemental with Fidelity and I I think through the through the approval process we'll make sure that they align the process in general ensures that it align with standards and then the other thing is is
171there's a lot of waste out there sometimes on supplemental resources what supplemental resources align to what we're doing and let's streamline that so we can get our our teachers trained the right way and not doubling up on on resources if the approve if the approved if the approved adoptive resources do this let's not pay for another supplemental to do the same thing a lot of times there's ISL for an example the adopted resources probably probably probably can fit the bill on there but teachers like this and so when you're looking at the a budget situation where you got to be frugal you got to line your resources and make sure you're not spending money doubling up on different things and a lot of that's just working with the cabinet working with the team and really
172listening so we can we can be as efficient and fiscally responsible on our spending on our resources as possible we're at the two just under three minute mark one more question for you what is the single B biggest challenge you think our students and our Educators face how would you address this issue single biggest challenge I mean there's a lot of challenges what would I I mean I think our teachers and our students probably have different challenges one thing I would say is a big challenge for public schools today that haven't been in the past is just the access to information in social media and what happens is there's misinformation that gets spread out on social media and something that is not even in the realm of being real has become fact and that creates
173that creates stress drama angst our students are have such a difficult challenge that I never had is because everybody is saying all kinds of things on social media I'm a parent I I tried forever to keep my daughter off Instagram and it just didn't work and so like that they have all of this they're they're going through these hormonal changes kids are insecure you got everybody on social media and I think that that all that Miss information and all this noise that surrounds everything has become something that public education and education in general and kids in general it's just something that's been unmanageable and I don't necessarily know if I have an have a have a a solution for it I think as the leader of of Higley it would be my job if I
174get that opportunity to really understand what are those what are the things out there what's the information that's out there that's not true and how do I get constant communication and constant Clarity on what's really really going on and what we really stand for and what's really happening in our schools I mean I you know I hear people come up and they you know they say things and call to the public and I have no idea where that came from and I'm in the schools all the time and that's just not really happening that pressure comes back on our teachers the teachers then are stressed and they're not at their best and that puts pressure on our students and it's a Continuum of compression that just doesn't let us be at our best I believe
175strongly that we can control the conditions that around our environment and if we get the right conditions people can be at their best kids want to feel a sense of belonging teachers want to feel a sense of belonging what made what motivates people it's autonomy having some Choice it's belonging feeling connected and it's a pathway to Mastery to better themselves that is that is dese and Ryan that's that's that's self-determination Theory we've known this for years but we don't put those things in place in our schools and so we need to really lean into how do we what do we do to motivate our people help them feel a sense of belonging help them feel connected and get out Clarity on what's really going on and build that trust in the community but I think
176more than anything it's just this stage of this this age of misinformation where it's just constantly being a compression of things that aren't really existing and it's making it difficult for everybody at every level is that a bell that I'm done yes it was a bell and we are done thank you Dr thank you appreciate you you being [Applause] here for