001there we go good evening everyone we're GNA go ahead and get started here with our first forum for this evening uh my name is Karen Johnson if you don't know me I'm the Executive Director of Human Resources here at the district and I want to thank you for attending tonight um this evening and all of of course your active participation in this superintendent selection process I'd also like to thank Ry Associates for who have led the superintendent search for us with integrity and professionalism throughout this process the board made it a priority to take input from our parents families community members and partners for this important role that we're about to fill in November Higley families and the community members were surveyed to determine the top qualities for their ideal candidate the top qualities were
002used for recruitment materials during the search and they'll also be used for the survey that you'll have uh later on this evening this has been a competitive process with highly qualified candidates from around the country 30 candidates applied for the role 11 candidates were presented and out of those 11 six candidates did um a first interview with our board members we also invited three candidates as finalists and I can tell you two people accepted our invitation for this evening to compete in the Forum leading up to this event we asked our community to submit questions for future our future superintendent tonight our finalist will will provide introductions do a presentation and then we will have a Q&A for uh our our uh candidates this evening based on the questions were submitted I just want to
003do a disclaimer though not all questions were selected uh we had many responses so I did pick about top 10 12 questions and we'll get through as many as we can this evening after the Forum we encourage you to provide feedback there will be a QR code or you can take the survey on our website that is now available but we hope you'll visit with or at least listen to our candidates before you do the survey please without fur further Ado I'm very pleased to introduce our first finalist and that is Dr Matthew Neil there it goes all right perfect good even I don't know why I bring notes I I'm going to get so nervous I'm not going to read any of them just kind of skip over um vice president V hook thank
004you members of the board for having me this evening I'm Matthew Neil um I know we have several members of the board as well as administrative staff I know you've put in a long day and it's uh only Tuesday and so thank you for having me uh my background um I thought about this question I've got 10 minutes and you think about how far back do you go and so when you ever hear people tell their story and they start before I was born or when I was young you kind of roll your eyes when I was a kid um my father uh grew up on a farm and ranch um my grandfather was a sharecropper very poor family U my father uh did not go to college um in fact uh the one of
005the greatest memories of my life is when my late father came to join me at USC for my uh doctorate graduation because he had never um seen that side of education and that's really a driving factor for me to get into education I started as a substitute teacher um at the very beginning when I was getting my degree uh with a kind of a vision to teach business uh to be in leadership uh to step through the the system I was really a systems thinker um later on I'll probably say that I'm a data nerd um I like the data and I like the numbers had a chance to step in and support School principles as a really as a young professional I did miam MBA at Colorado States and when I when I started
006doing the business work I realized that my brain in my way um was really numbers and really systems and structures and so U had a chance to uh be an assistant superintendent or an executive director for about 14 years um supporting new schools mostly new principles um my notes said baby principles and my wife told me to take out the word baby principal but but just young uh leaders that were stepping into the profession uh in Colorado and I found that kind of the operations and the uh financial and the HR side um it was really new for principles you know you go through being a teacher and you go through being um an academic and you learn how to teach really well but sometimes the operation side is really difficult and so over my
007career I've had a chance to hire 54 principles as an assistant superintendent or as a superintendent and start 11 schools from scratch and and I've done that in a couple different school districts both as an assistant as well as as a superintendent um growing up uh through the ranks so to speak I had an opportunity to work for Denver public schools as their instructional superintendent and the coolest title I've ever had even Beyond superintendent was director of strategy and Innovation I could do anything I wanted to with schools that was Innovative it was a really it was an absolutely fun job started schools that were Expeditionary Learning schools uh bilingual magnet schools or um dual language emersion schools had a chance to do some um IB schools and at the time stem schools which my
008wife reminds me as a music teacher we had to add the a for the Arts later for steam schools right and so had really had a chance to build schools from scratch um learning what it meant to what is the side of your bus say I just watched it a District 60 60 bus just drove by and it said something like imagine all the possibilities or does anybody know what it says Limitless opportunities you know when you're building create creative schools you start thinking about kids that are kind of on the edge maybe they don't fit the standard educational model and so I was really helping develop Limitless opportunities and had a chance to um go overseas lead one of the largest system of schools in the Middle East um as a elll 100% El
009school system so um uh mostly uh all all Arab speaking students being taught by American teachers um did that for six years and really enjoyed it as a superintendent um then covid hit and had a chance to re-evaluate what it means to be an American and all the rights and privileges that we have here for access to um Medical Care and to I guess grade a food so a lot of a lot of times overseas expats end up not always having those rights and Privileges and so um came back to the United States to help out the Woodland Park School District as a transitional superintendent uh they had been through uh two superintendant in two years four board presidents during that period of time and so really small district and got to really enjoy small
010town living and and kind of help them set the pathway for their next superintendent to come in at the same time I had a chance to open two new schools um one was for the New Mexico Military Academy in Roswell uh how many have ever been to Roswell New Mexico yeah not a lot out there but I love nimi it's a great school um they opened at their first public school for the community so uh traditionally nimi has been a military boarding school and got a chance to help them do that and open that school uh currently work for the state of Colorado on their turnaround efforts uh for schools that are in corrective action and schools that are deemed forclosure uh pretty tough work and looking at um students that again a lot are
011on the periphery maybe some of our high poverty schools uh in Colorado um I go in two weeks to a school that is slated for closure and um try to help them come up with ideas and strategies to keep from being closed by the state and so that's a lot of the work that I do today I also work with a college um helping them become accredited for the first time and uh large Financial projects like endowments um some of that some of sometimes colleges don't get a chance to really see that work and so just think back over my career and been uh just pleased privileged um to be a superintendent now for 13 years and uh in executive leadership for 25 years um I've been married 22 years my wife's watching on this
012video so I better get it right and I have two children and uh look forward to exploring the district I got here a little bit early today uh I think we drove and saw every school around the district just to kind of see where they were and whether you were a shark or a hawk or a panther um or Knight I drove by the sign just now and um exciting to move my career excited to move my career to Arizona and to be a part of a district with a grade A uh acclamation by the state um a 96% graduation rate I'm just phenomenal um and even our neighboring high school and A+ school in the state just really uh neat things going on in Higley and consider it an honor to be here tonight
013thank you now let's see if I remember the slides I put together I noticed it did not leave me a laptop up here so I wouldn't spill my water on it and destroy it um they kind of know me well before I've even started I put a disclaimer on this so um I don't presume to know your District that's part of my my Learning Journey and um I've learned what I can online um if there are things that I'm wrong then help me learn those and so um I'm glad to be here and this is this is these are pictures from your websites thank you to the IT team for whoever takes great pictures um I just kind of cut and pasted them um don't presume anything by owning them they're yours and so I
014want to just give that caveat the other caveat is um as we get into the slides I come up with some ideas that are mine in my experience for my years of leading um you may already been doing them I I just may not know that you're in the midst of doing that and so I illustrate Charlotte danielson's um evaluative work which is pretty much a brand name in teacher evaluations uh last night late I saw that you already had Charlotte Dan Danielson listed in your strategic objectives and goals and so um some things are already aligned in the work that we would do together and uh so some things may be unique and different I removed the caveat that said anything on here is just for suggestion I'm not your Superintendent at this stage
015and so there's no uh guarantee that this is even a great idea but I did put some interesting ideas out there and I'm controlling the slides sorry uh before we begin any any presentation uh as a leader as a superintendent I really try to remind the board and remind the community of who we are I think keeping our discussion about kids Central whether it's a finance conversation or whether it's an academic conversation it doesn't really matter um I want to make sure that we're talking about kids and we're our work is connected Ed that way okay I'm supposed to point this towards the it guys okay that's right uh we have currently have 16 schools uh you all know this again this is reiterating for maybe members of the public that were not part of
016the strategic planning process I'm going to illustrate some strategic planning objectives that some of you in the room may not have seen and I think that's again my continual work uh we are currently uh 13,500 students um our Chief Financial Officer Mr Moore um he corrected this in his financial presentation and not necessarily funded pupil count and and all I'm not going to get into though he can correct me later but uh 13574 classrooms 50 buildings in the district 1,600 plus employees um a $231 million uh funding um utilization factor and so it's beyond just what we get our our general fund budget but also our building funds and other funds that He's listed and 11.7 in classroom in our classroom site fund our future State um 25% growth in Gilbert and Queen Creek I
017was able to again see almost all the schools today um just by driving around phenomenal buildings I mean just beautiful space um I'm a lot of a details person and cameras at every entrance and landscap I couldn't go in I didn't bother going in I'll do that tomorrow in our tour um but just really beautiful spaces um the thing that continues to strike me um as I have probably the world's greatest eighth grader watching this tonight on TV in Colorado is that my own kids will go to these schools and so when we have a 96% graduation rate that's a little bit of a sure thing that my kid's going to make it and so I I I put that on there to say that's really future thinking like our responsibility is to hold um
018accountability to maintain and what we've already got going on and for me as a superintendent to keep the good rolling um that's a that's a just a tremendous graduation rate I think highest one of the highest in the state just something really to be proud of uh your again vision for the district an Innovative District that prepares learners for Limitless pop opportunities on your buses thank you again for reminding me of that Limitless pop possibilities looks different for different students again my grandfather was a sharecropper he worked his entire life just to make this year's money on crops my father was a farmer Rancher he never went to college that was his opportunity our students have different opportunities and I know in some of my notes um we'll talk about some of our um career
019in Tech edpro we have over 40 CTE programs in one of our high school that's just phenomenal those are educational opportunities that are not traditional College Bound but those are Pathways for our students and milit military the portrait of a graduate again trying to make sure that we're staying focused on why we're here before I talk to about strategies of the one of those four strategic plan components uh we are developing responsible citizens with empathy again I have an eighth grader this is a really hard concept sometimes um we put them on the phone this morning and asked um if they had um tripped hit or pushed each other before breakfast and they both said no and so we're again training empathy in our in our own students in the Neil house um developing awareness
020and Global uh Global awareness and Community engagement um College and Career ready sorry for the the connection between words sometimes my designs don't always land here perfectly well but that our students would possess the knowledge and ski skills to be Su successful that is possess that is have it inside of them to be successful it's not I mean our if you're not in school and you're dropping out and you have our re positivism rate our our Dropout rates um are not allowing our students to return and our attendance rates are down those aren't kids being successful and so we need to continue to push for our students and at 96% um kudos to the amazing team that's doing a great job already lastly Innovative Learners that think critically that they just don't take an a
021a spoonfed answer but they can actually prepare their own thought process as our students they think creatively again I'm married to a music team feature Music Arts bands I can assure you she's evaluated marching bands like four times between one school or the other school and and who has the best program this is creativity um and how do we communicate effectively the district already communicates very well okay we have four components of our strategic plan um that are laid out um I will be tackling one of them uh these are the higher high arching uh statements of the Strategic plan pardon me as I don't dive into a lot lot of detail um many of you obviously know this work the word that came to my mind was that you have it tattooed but just
022kind of the thought that you do this work every day like this is your daily work so I again I'm humble enough to say I'm trying to scratch the surface on some of the work that you're already doing I tackled highly effective Personnel um in part because um I help with a lot of schools still today recruiting hiring motivating retaining is a really big uh opportunity Unity I don't to say challenge but a really opportunity for us um then bullet point 2.1 to recruit and retain bullet point 22 is to provide necessary PD resources and bullet point three is to ensure employes feel valued three very different components about recruiting necessary PD and ensuring our employees feel value the fourth the third one is was really about culture um how do we support our staff
023how do they feel the second one is really about are they learning and this is just these are teachers custodians um facilities workers you everybody in the district that they have appropriate and necessary professional development happening in their world so I I I just kind of took you through some of the things that I've done uh in my own work uh when I opened um a bunch of new schools as a superintendent I had to really look at our recruiting process we and so I'm shifting from your strategic plan at this point in presentation to the work that I've been asked to to explain that I've done in alignment with kind of your strategic plan I had a chance to increase our recruited Personnel our teachers that were coming into the school uh from 265
024to 1260 lots of different ways that we did it um we were primarily recruiting in you know one or two uh colleges and universities we really broadened this effort out we looked at qualifications of teachers we looked at grow your own programs uh we also increased our speed to hire from 28 days to three I know Mr Moore talked to you as a board this week about your financial plans and your um your finances and wanting to get those approved by the board so we be quick to hire our teachers really important to get that process going so that you can be first to Market that was a lot of the work that I did in the schools as a as a superintendent uh worked cleanly to uh recruit out out of multiple countries and
025so oftentimes we don't look to our H1B visas or other countries that are doing really well particularly our math and our science very difficult positions I know that you currently have a $2,000 stipend for those positions hard to fill positions and so how are we recruiting teachers uh through maybe an excellent College in the UK I've done this work before and so that broadening the perspective of how we recruit and where we recruit from I know the University of of Iowa has an an incredible uh special education program are we going there are we spending time at Magnet um schools that are really producing great teachers I know in the state of Colorado there are 6,800 graduates coming out of Education colleges there's over 9,000 positions available there there's almost one-third more posi more positions
026in the state than our colleges are graduate I know I teach at the University I teach uh leaders how to lead schools there are more jobs than there are teachers so how do we broaden that a 1% promotion to 23% uh we our internal process of how do we grow a pair of professional or support staff how do we walk them through the associates programs how do we help them with tuition reimbursement um I have another bullet point here that I had over 430 new teachers hired and wasn't the bullet point I was trying for sorry there's one more uh we increase our qualified teachers from 73% to 99.8 eventually I'll get there sorry come on there it is nope I must have skipped it for the sake of time um when I looked at
027the numbers of teachers that were just coming out of schools I knew we had to develop our growe own program and so working with our high school juniors and seniors to get them to go to college to become a teacher to become a PA professional to step into that role was a really large part of that work I was able to hire 438 new teachers in three years increase their qualific they're we call it highly qualified from 73 to 99.8 I had one teacher that was not qualified and that's just part of it she was a fabulous teacher did an incredible job and today she's qualified she went through the coursework to become qualified um parent satisfaction so in my district I had sent a parent satisfaction of the teacher um some districts do this
028some districts don't uh it comes with a lot of responsibility when you ask parents their opinion of their students teacher I wouldn't always advise this um because it's a lot of work U but we asked our parents what they thought of our their particular teacher and we were able to increase our satisfaction or the quality perspective of our teachers by a percentage that was very notable and then we reduceed our turnover rate from 27 to 19% and so what we did is we assured teachers that the teacher sitting next to them was qualified and we built the teams together from one teacher to the next and that really helped reduce our turnover rate our teachers felt the success of our efforts and the work we are doing in recruiting overall k12 and this is the
029real number if you want to talk about recruiting teachers that's great but over a a four-year period of time I was able to raise um academics as ranked by an nwaa map from our map scores from 53 to excuse me 52 to 7 3% of language artarts that came from great teachers doing a great job and us being really smart about our hiring on the front side making sure that teachers were ready to teach the content that we needed them to teach highly qualified teachers impact students in a highly qualified way and just that's just the reality of recruiting um 48 to 58% in math in all of our 11 schools so these are aggregate SC scores for those grades tested in n Bea map second topic on uh recruiting retaining and hiring excellent staff
030is developing a principal Leadership Academy um every Wednesday afternoon I had a chance to meet with our teachers and develop those teachers into Future Leaders we're always in this business of looking for principles assistant principles and and others academic officers Mentor teachers Master Teachers how do we know who they are are so I put the word out to principles and said who are they and we started a two-year leadership development cohort uh where I covered the cost of their training and their development um they met with me personally as a superintendent then they met with our chief a academic officer on the off weeks um and had a chance to take them to Harvard University in their principal preparation program um we were able to get a grant to do that and really developed a
031teacher leader cohort um I had gone through the the Harvard uh preparation program myself I knew the quality of the teaching so it was something that was really a carrot at the end of the two years that our teachers were able to go through um when you train teachers and when you develop teachers into your mode and how you are leading um they catch your vision before they ever become a leader so we looked at how do we look at data how do we look at our Ells how do we look at our minority and our um poverty populations we trained our teachers to become the leaders that we needed them to be as leaders and over time um and again academic assistant principal not every teacher is ready to be a become a principal
032not every teacher wants to become a principal a lot of our principles don't want to be principles um and and we work with them too to just kind of help them you know come along but it was VE a very experiential we put all of our teachers into um cohorts they had a principal Mentor they shadowed once a month they kind of followed the principal along or the academic Chief academic officer or the uh director of Grants we had a grants coordinator that just an incredible job and so they had a hands-on experience and we covered the cost of their seven days a year for them to be out of the classroom teaching uh out of I think there was 26 per year happening at one time um out of the 26 all 26 were
033placed into a leadership role Within in the two years 100% of all teachers hired came through of all teachers excuse me 100% of all leaders that were hired came out of our leadership cohort and so this train your own program kept us from having to go to market and look for principles and leaders that didn't know us and didn't know how we were doing things they came directly out of our promotion ranks great partnership with our Union or with our association um promoting from within very positive and really training opportunity for teachers to step into that um and the program's still going on today and it's really great to see actually broaden this I don't think I'll talk about this in a later slide broaden this to our classified or our support staff and so
034we had junior level beginning custodians first second year on the job that wanted to be leads lead custodians we worked them through a leadership development program we had mechanics U that wanted to be lead mechanics we worked them through how do you lead how do you manage how do you coach other employees how do you hold people accountable we did this in five or six classified support areas uh and nutrition services and I saw Chartwells uh vehicle out today I presumed you use Chartwells um great friends of mine in Colorado they bring me free food all the time it doesn't help me a lot but I eat their free food we had actual our own employees um previously that we went and did this process through all right 2. uh the last part of 2.1
035I did three examples of my own background recruiting hire and retaining exemplary staff this is a grow your graduates example I knew I had it in here somewhere I just couldn't remember where it was so early in my career this goes back into 2005 six and seven I worked for the Brighton school district Brighton was not that dissimilar than you are it was a growing District um it was out there all by the Denver International Airport area where all the land was vacant and they are building schools uh in that process we realize that we simply in one high school town one high school town growing at 12 14 16% per year they were they were and still are scheduled to grow one elementary school every year a new middle school every three years and
036a new Comprehensive High School every five years and I was there in 2005 and six that they added their first High School their first other High School I mean talk about and you all have this history here you had one high school splitting the community and just the difficulty of that but the challenge was Staffing it as well and so as you're building those making sure that you have graduates um out of teacher colleges and that's always a challenge so we did a growe own program where we partnered with Colorado State University and developed scholarships and internships for high school juniors and seniors um and in the senior level and as a Juniors they were um being began doing almost career in tech ed courses they were sponsored by the the color State University and
037given Associates and bachelor's degree credits and they were pipelined in we received a grant uh that we had written they were pipelined to come back and work for us after they graduated so we covered the cost of their tuition and then two years later as an associate they came act as a par professional and four years later they came back as a teacher and worked for us for three years and so that was kind of the contract exchange like we would help them we set up the relationship with Colorado State and they would in turn come and work for us and they were the best staff ever because they knew us and they knew who we were they had grown up through our system um and really had a very successful program first generation color
038students of that cohort uh because the community was a a fairly agricultural Community where 67% of those students were going to college for the first time bilingual placements and uh language courses were provided because many of them were first uh uh Second Language Learners and so we spent a lot of time helping them transition into being ready for college as well as going to college at the same time long-term commitments U reduced our overall turnover I'm sorry I don't have those numbers but over 30% of program graduates completed bachelor's degrees and 50% created uh uh obtained Associates degrees out of that three-year program more than a 100 classified employees uh came into the fold or came into the employment in two years and that was a fast gross district and we were desperate for those
039employees and they absolutely made the connections I'm checking on my time I have no idea thank you five minutes I was going to hit my stopwatch and that didn't happen so I think I only have this one left um NOP because I have 2.3 after this one resources professional development U what are we doing to train our staff I had an opportunity working with my 11 schools as superintendent to identify strategies for positive behavior um huge problem with discipline I don't I wasn't blessed with a 96% graduation rate um had a problem with attendance had a problem with bullying in the hallways and so we looked into different programs to help our second language Learners and our disciplined students and our all students for that matter and we landed on a a a program called
040positive behavior intervention and supports PBIS helps students understand what their behavioral expectations are in the hallway the playground the classroom um it really sets a and you have sources of sources of strength um The Leader in Me Leader in Me is what you use thank you took me a minute I was seeing CV's name in my mind and I couldn't remember his work you you have stepen cvy leader and me um positive behavior intervention that supports is very much a similar program uh but working with our students well working with our staff first to set a vision for how are we going to support our students addressing the big why and what is this massive change initiative in every classroom and every teacher and every student would adopt massive change to three-year development cycle ended
041up with every classroom having having a set of norms parents and students um understanding what positive behavior innovent mention was not that dissimilar to Stephen Cub's work again uh we've had one of the authors come out George sug was one of the original authors for PBIS came out and helped train our teachers uh we trained 900 teachers in this work uh parents support staff U as well we had atome kits for how do you manage positive behavior at the house I did videos of me with my seven-year-old at a time in the Neil house we have positive behavior expectations I spent a lot of time working on this project as a district over 3,500 parents were trained they came through this process of learning about PBIS and 900 staff um it was iterative meaning it
042happened every year it wasn't a oneit Wonder it's still going on today uh 11 10 years later um it's localized at the school level so principls own it and when uh students go from elementary to Middle they know what it means to be behavor behave and to have expectations on them in middle school and then likewise in high school so we're now seeing students that were first second third graders there are 10th 11th and 12th graders knowing what again leader me type behaviors should look like in every classroom uh generational meaning um student to student They carried it up through their system to all 6600 students the reduction of suspensions was incredible in three years we reduced 280 suspensions to less than 50 and in a culture that um we we had some serious challenges
043with discipline uh habitually Trent uh uh our habitually Trent students reduced by 53% this is prior to covid an increase in in student L leader Solutions so our students in student council and National Honor Society and leader programs really grew because all of a sudden students saw this as a area for growth and promotion and learn learning and not always on the discipline side of the work hopefully that makes sense I think these slides made a lot more sense last night about midnight but hopefully that translates okay this this ties into a little bit of the work that you all are already doing one minute I'll go I'll go quickly through my Charlotte daniels's work developing peer coaches Master Mentor teachers um that's the work that I've done in that supporting staff internally with a
04420% 7% uh increase in promotions because they actually did the work of growing and then my eighth grade team wouldn't H be happy that I put that up there but all grades except eth grade were green for growth and math and language arts um only e8th grade needed a little bit more work the following year last slide uh meaningful and strategic feedback um so I've LED monthly Zoom calls to all staff District walkthroughs and protocols helping teachers learn about um how they're going about their teaching we allowed all teachers and staff to do a 10% carry forward for their finances helping their culture of spending and investing in student um um stuff the word that came Stu student content student resources that kind of work um I'll say one more number five I'll illustrate that
045we because I spoke to the board about this briefly I launched a a teacher creativity Grant where all teachers were allowed to apply for a th000 2,000 or $55,000 Grant um this was out of the superintendent's budget we had put this aside because I believe the teachers really needed to have access to resources to do what they did great and we worked really hard to make sure our teachers uh had at their fingertips the ability to innovate so we had uh 28 29 teachers that were approved in that category over a period of two three years we had more than 100 teachers that received creativity grants to improve improve the academics in their classrooms in a very real way putting again the resources in the hands of teachers and that's all the H time that
046I have today we're going to shift my questions thank you thank you Dr Neil um the first question we have for you this afternoon is hegley is currently an a-rated District as you pointed out a-rated from your research on our district what do you see as the top three major issues facing our district and how how would you begin to handle them in your first six months okay top three major issues uh teacher recruitment is is right up there um how do we recruit great teachers coming through covid again I'm married to this we have tears in the Neo house on tough days our teachers are tired our teachers are working really hard right now we have students that are trying to come back from an attendance standpoint but they're not yet here okay we're
047experiencing some of this postco returning behavior and that pressures a lot of our teachers U some of my wife's second graders and third graders just can't stand in a line they don't know what it's like to sit in classrooms and be disciplined and so that's making it harder on our teachers and so how do we build a culture in the district where our teachers feel appreciated and our support staff feel resourced and appreciated that's a that's a very large issue with today's student population number two Higley um you're working through this growth Dynamic and so um when you looked at the numbers Mr Moore was explaining there is a flattening or a deterioration or a lessening of the numbers of students we're going to have to get A110 value out of every dollar invested and
048so we have to really look at our finances to see what can happen now you had a a $23.8 million carry forward from last year to this year a lot of districts don't have that but we're going to have to look at how do we make that money um spread over the next few years while we're doing the dip because with 125% growth in one area town and I think 25% in another um and it was on one of my earlier slides you've got growth that's coming how do we hold our breath long enough for our finances to cover that third area um I would say leadership um leadership development continues to be an area I I know at one point there was a a u principal and assistant principal leader development cohort um I
049don't think it's being done anymore how are we developing tomorrow's leaders how are we as a board and a superintendent developing our leadership how are we setting the example through communication and building trust H you know how are we working together to set that example those those are big opportunities for us to lead the way as a board superintendent collaborative and to help our principles leaders um academic leaders come up through the work and step into that role thank you pleas what does transparency mean to you and what would what would that look like if you were the superintendent transparen is asking the answering the hard question um I do a a monthly uh parent and superintendant online zoom and cabinet does not like this they we sit around the I'm the guy on the
050camera and I'm the one that is reading the questions as they pop up on the screen and then five cabinet members are handing me sticky notes on how to answer these hard questions this is being transparent with our community is being present answering the hard questions I was going through the process with a a school district that I'm working with there's closing four schools me standing in front of those parents and explaining to them why are we closing those schools right those are those are transparent those are hard conversations to have but communication uh building uh connection with our community um I actually was in I did a teacher uh teacher superintendent coffee in conversation um in every one of my schools last year so really being available and present um and supporting my principles
051um I don't expect to do to take over your school that's not my job that's that's your job I want to support you in your leadership as a school principal and so that means means defending you and that means standing up for you and that's what that's what transparency um yeah answering answering the hard questions even even when they're uncomfortable and I know you had some conversations with our Chief Financial Officer of you didn't get the information that you were looking for at the last board yes at the last board meeting and so that he was I want to make sure that our staff are providing our board the answers that they also need and so transparency is me owning that and saying we can get that to you we can my job is to
052defend and support the board and as their employee and I want to really make sure that I'm transparently doing that thank you what are some ideas you bring to the table so each student is seen heard and valued equally oh isn't this the $10 million question I've done it in several different ways I'm not sure that I have the answer to this question let me be transparent but students follow each one of their Pathways and we as a board and a superintendent need to ask the questions so we have a a a superintendent uh student council I sit with them once a month we have a um on during our strategic planning we made sure we have students in the conversation uh we have twice a year that the board sits and listens to our
053leader student leaders and so they have a voice at the table um but we're interviewing and we're spending time and we're engaging um a lot of those are just how we do our daily business as as a school district I have students that write letters to me as a superintendent and want something changed or that kept the same or don't close the school I work really hard to make sure each student's voice matters and I respond back to them personally and I expect our staff to as well and so making sure every student voice is heard is is really a broad question I don't know that you can answer it one looking at the data making sure that we have opportunities for our um underachieving students that aren't showing up that they have a voice
054at the table even though they're not representing themselves there's just there's just a lot of ways to do that thank you what style of communication do you prefer how would you communicate with the governing board parents teachers staff and community in an emergency and Non-Emergency okay what style of communication do I prefer a lot and and and I would say probably more than most superintendents um just mechanically monthly Zoom calls with um all staff monthly Zoom calls with all parents um I expect our principles to do the same and either sit with me or have their own digital Zoom conversation um I have a weekly video that I send to the board about 12 to 16 minutes and it updates the board every single Friday on what the workings of the district are are uh
055we obviously have the coffee and conversations I have lunch with our city council U members individually and I speak to the city council once a month and so we communicate that way with our County Commissioners I communicate that way uh we host a lunch and conversations with the board once a month uh for specific groups of constituents or stakeholders in the community such as a realtor lunch such as a pastor's lunch uh such as the Business Leaders of the community lunch so we're really happy having those conversations throughout the year I have specific group conversations with the board and parents so we have the special education dinner of the Year where we we listen we have the bilingual uh parents dinner of the Year where we listen to what parents are needing um so we
056have those conversations in a very regular way crisis communication um I'm pretty proactive um on both on social media as well as planned I'm a little bit let's plan this out um two years ago we had a forest or a a uh yeah forest fire in the school district the County Commissioners called me at about 11:00 at night and said we don't have enough firefighters to do what needs to be done to stop the houses from burning and so I canceled school the next day so our employees could go and help firefighters out right and we had enough relationship and it was awkward right we were serving food and we were giving out gloves and we were supporting the community and it was all over the newspaper School District employees stopped for a day to
057give back to the community and it was wonderful there were those crisis moments that I think we come together as a community about um pretty quick in that communication and I'm I'm probably texting while I'm speaking to you right now I mean I text all the time okay thank you as superintendent fostering authentic connections with the governing board teachers staff students and the community is Paramount for the success of our school district fostering what I'm sorry so sorry can you say that the beginning part again sure as a superintendent fostering authentic connections with the governing board teachers staff students and the community is Paramount for success for our school district additionally creating a psychologically safe environment is critical for collaboration and Innovation provide examples of how you prioritize meaningful relationships with your current Community sure
058um at the first thing that came to mind was leader and me of you know watching that work happen with our students while that's not necessarily the question I think there's a lot of how the solutions happen in the work that's already happening in schools my work as a superintendent um and our work as a cabinet and a principal cohort is to connect to our community so each one of my schools has a business leadership advisory Council I we talked about this with the board a little bit um when we interviewed you have four or five parents that are engaged with u as Business Leaders and when it comes time to work on a bond or to build a playground uh we're already well connected in our business Community uh each of our cabinet leaders
059and I have regular weekly one-on-one conversations uh we talk about uh how I can help break down barriers we have you know um cabinet conversations that are U very much intense and that we all agree to gree and we work it through so that's authentic communication I sit on the board of uh directors for the Chamber of Commerce I mentioned earlier that I work with the city council uh monthly conversations with our County Commissioners and then I drag along our leaders our principles our academic leaders um so that I'm not the only one here in the story and that we can all share in that responsibility um mayor and I have lunch and talk about what's going on with our own student in my high school and and um sometimes I talk about what's going
060on in her City and we kind of compare notes and how do we how do we improve things as a district and so I'm pretty relatable I'm pretty direct as a communicator um so and my community says that right we like seeing you there having you there being at ball games I try to go to every sport at least twice a year um so just being present was the MC for the musical you know that kind of thing Dr Neil share your experience with bonds what was the nature of the bond and the results okay so I've done six Bond elections I have failed two and been successful at four um over my career um and I wish that was the track record was fail to fail and and pass pass pass pass I think
061you learn as a bond what your community will tolerate so I'll give you the example that I did earlier in the Brighton Community we're adding a high school and we really needed a bond to be passed for us to build the new $65 million comprehensive school it failed in the first try and it was really heart wrenching because we were busting at the seams um we had been trying for two years we planned it well it failed at like a 62% failure rate unfortunately the following year we had to go to a split schedule so we had students coming in at 6:00 in the morning and students coming in at 12:00 noon we had football practice before school for team for the first half of the team we had football practice for the X the
062B team in the afternoon and then they combined together to play Friday night I mean it was a very difficult season as a community I'm going say the bond passed pretty well the following year as we went through that process so so part of this is timing and making sure that you you understand both the language and the need need of the community um what the tax burden is feeling like um when we're going through uh kind of this um a little the the financial struggles throughout the United States and through you know Arizona is going through a really strong growth cycle H how are we timing some of those purchases and do we have other options like your lease option to be able to build structures to be able to buy buildings there's there's
063a timing to this work I've been successful at passing four other Bond elections um in the 40 to 55 million doll range and learned a lot learned a lot on the timing and who to be involved with and and when principles need to be involved um but U again I think you learn more from the ones that you you don't pass and you kind of go back and you regroup and you figure out what what you did right and what you did wrong this question is about safety can you explain how you will handle student safety in Higley what will you do to reassure parents and children that their school is a safe place to learn sure so having built new schools one of the number one mandate between schools is we have Equitable safety
064procedures across all schools so you have some schools that are dated some schools that have different Technologic technological advancements and so we um when we build a new school we have to make sure that the rest of the district comes up to that standard right and so uh we will have Equitable safety procedures in our schools will have appropriately trained staff and a uniform application of our safety uh protocols those are pretty key components in how do we develop a clear safety program for all of our schools I I had a school that um the governor came in and he was so excited about this brand new school this governor of the state cut the ribbon and he pressed the button on the front door and all the doors in the school locked and then
065we realized that all of our old schools didn't have that feature and so I to go back through and retrofit all of our older schools to make sure we had Equitable safety procedures in in all of our schools that's my commitment as a superintendent that no parent is going to have a less than school from a safety and a security standpoint a lot of this is communication a lot of this is training of our staff a lot of this is keeping current with best practices and that's the work that I've done in the past thank you we'll do one more question so school choice describe your experience with school choice and having charter schools in the same area as our district schools sure so I've done quite a bit with school choice uh in Colorado
066there are independent schools that are separate from the district and there are charter schools that are um Innovation schools are managed or Independent Schools are managed by the district but yet at arms length and then charter schools and so I helped develop uh some of the charter evaluation Frameworks in Denver public holding CH charter schools to that kind of that renewal cycle I think when you look at schools meeting the needs of all kids you have to have charter schools because those are different needs for those kids and in some ways when I had a language immersion school and the district didn't provide it and the charter school did or a classical education and the district didn't provide it and a charter school did those provide options for parents and I I think those are
067very successful collaborative processes now the nuts and bolts of how that works we'll have the charter school principal join us for training on Safety and Security right we we're going to be of the same mentality and of the same family on some topics we'll open our doors to them and if they want to again they don't have to um but when we're having a challenge inside our district and a charter school is able to um or when the charter school is having a challenge or we're able to help fulfill I had a charter school last year that said we lost our oven today do you guys have any ovens so we went in storage found they couldn't get an oven for 6 weeks they couldn't serve kids hot food we went went out we grabbed
068the oven out of the storage unit and we put it in the charter school it wasn't our school but we have that relationship enough to know what their needs are and to see how we can support and the reality is going back to the previous question Bond elections are all of us together with Charter Schools and the district the time to become friends is not when we need something from the charter school that's our work today tomorrow before we ever get there and it's not it's not we're all Educators educating again whether we have kids we have students that transfer from a charter school back to a public school and from a public school back to a charter they're all our kids they're Al we're all here to support them regardless of who they are
069thank you Dr Neil and that is all for today we appreciate you being here thank [Applause] you thank you for the honor I appreciate it we will bring our next candidate out at 6:00 hello we will get started again now with our next candidate for superintendent Dr Nate Carman [Applause] thank you you're welate got it thank you all right well I think now the technology is cooperating so good evening I want to thank the uh Higgly unified governing board for this opportunity to get to meet with you this evening tell you a little bit about myself uh appreciate those 10 minutes to to talk about my 30-year uh career in public education I know you're looking up here thinking there's no way that young guy's got 30 years in but believe it it's true including
07011 years as superintendent of K12 school districts and have the Battle Scars to show it so thank you Higgly Unified School District um Higley is an outstanding high- performing School District doing great things for all students as evidenced recently um I think by the 12 a districts in this are campuses in this District the um highest graduation rate of the large school districts in Arizona and if I'm looking at it correctly with your 13,500 or so students uh not County Charters and private schools 18th Lar School District in the state of Arizona uh so it is definitely an honor and humbling to be considered for this position get the opportunity to share a little bit about myself um first and foremost I'm a teacher I started off as a teacher and coach in farman to
071New Mexico had the opportunity uh to work with junior high students and if any of you have had that opportunity I have no doubt you'll remember it uh a lot of good things a lot of learning along the way but I taught uh Science and Mathematics and I coached football and wrestling in that District I then had the opportunity to move to the high school I worked as a high school math teacher I was a head wrestling coach and football coach at Pedra Vista High School opening a new campus gave me some new experiences uh again a learning opportunity from there I relocated to Dallas Fort Worth area I taught and coached in ARL Turner High School part of Carolton Farmers Branch had some good success in the classroom had some good success as a
072wrestling coach took a program for example that had not qualified a student for the state tournament in the past two seasons and finished tied for 10th in the state tournament at that time there were about 250 high schools competing so my heart is there as a teacher as a coach and I continue to support our teachers because they are the ones making the impact directly with our students while I was in RL Turner as a teacher and Coach I was fortunate to be able to work on and complete my Master's Degree passed my principal certification test and then I took on the next challenge of administration I started as an assistant principal at a middle school in Lewisville ISD which is in the Dallas Fort Worth area I have had the opportunity to serve as
073an assistant principal at the middle school level the high school level and as a principal at the high school as well fast forward to uh 2007 I was working in Grand Prairie ISD a district the time with about 27,000 students this is my first opportunity at a district level position so I had the opportunity as a director of K12 mathematics to be able to provide support to our Math teachers through professional development to making sure they had the supplies materials to an align curriculum to help them be successful with our students during that time I was fortunate to work under the tutelage of a superintendent named Dr Susan Simpson and Susan was fantastic with systems and systemic implementation I look at her as one of my first true mentors in terms of how I am
074as a district leader she didn't look at things in isolation she was able to see the big picture and then look at those parts that be put in place place to implement successfully it's easyer to discuss what should happen What could happen in a large organization it is more difficult to put those pieces in place systemwide so you can do so successfully from there uh I finished my doctorate at WS in Grand Prairie ISD and I took on the role of assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction in Pine Tre ISD and there I was fortunate to meet my second Mentor Dr Maran Strauss Marian was very different from Susan in terms of her strengths she was big into relational capacity she helped me hone I think some skills that it's good to know what needs to
075happen within a school district it's good to put the systems in place but if you don't have people on board moving with you nobody's going to get there Mar was great in that so I I looked at those two mentors that really helped develop I think a lot of my skill set as an aspiring District leader based on my experiences to that point um I felt like I was was ready to step into the chair of superintendent let me tell you nobody really is for that first time but I was fortunate to be named superintendent in teag IST located in Central Texas uh Teague was the smallest if you're local it's TIG uh smallest School District I had worked into that point in fact ever with about 1,300 students I worked there four and a
076half years very pleasant School District but they were okay with being okay so I brought in an align uh system for instructural implementation we saw increases in scores learned some things and we did some things financially that impacted positively our fund balance and I will tell you the experiences I had in a small school district as superintendent can never be replicated you don't have people that you can delegate to do things for you in a small District you could hands-on experience in areas you might not have had prior maintenance and operation Transportation my goodness Transportation uh Finance Federal programs things that coming up traditionally through the school system not everybody gets the chance to to have hands-on experience with so I respect that time I appreciate that time from there I thought I was ready
077for a bigger challenge so I was named superintendent back in 2017 uh superintendent of San Bonito CISD San Bonito is located in the real Grand Valley area of Texas far southern part of the state 99 plus% of my students were Latino almost 80% of my students were economically disadvantaged I walk into a school school district who on the eigh through of accountability system was scored a 74 in two years we turned that around to an 85 prior to my arrival to add some of the challenges I came into a district where the long tenear superintendent Mr glone had left four and a or sorry three and a half years prior during that interim period there were seven acting interim or actual superintendents so you can imagine the disarray n b had a common Vision not
078was headed in the same direction so I worked there 4 and a half years I believe I was the consistent leader that they needed to move forward just to add to the challenges there I will tell you that during my tenure there it's a locally highly politicized area with a governing board of seven trustees I worked with 17 different trustees during that four and a half year period but the Student Success was there the increases with our finance were there the ability to support our Educators was there in terms of raises Reg ly and improved Healthcare benefits for our our teachers and Educators following that I felt as if I was ready for one more larger Challenge and I was fortunate and I'm currently serving as a superintendent in sakoto ISD sakoto is located in
079El Paso Texas we have over 47,000 students we opened Campus number 51 this year when I arrived um Soro was known to be a high performing High achieving School District similar to Higley unified two years prior to them having an interim superintendent they were rated back-to-back a rating in the state of Texas High performing did good things for students during the interim year they dropped to an 88 I'm happy to tell you that after a year of successful instructional implementation we have raised those scores up to a 90 back to an a school district and in the process opened up six Elementary acmis so I'll wrap up on my experience there um but I'm happy to say that I believe my experience 11 years of superintendent is what Higgly deserves I don't think that higgle
080unified is a school district where a new superintendent comes in and cuts their teeth so I'm happy to explain and give you examples of my experience that I believe align with uh where higgle is headed and I like to finish with this one because they're just beautiful people but two I actually have a point um this is my family my two lovely grandchildren uh my son there with the beard my daughter on the far right hand side most of those pictures are current with the exception of my daughter uh she is currently 29 years old this picture is taken one of her senior high school pictures and I put up there intentionally um at that point in time she had been a dancer from three years old ballet tap Jazz all the way through high
081school I have the bills to prove it um graduated blonde hair blueee buck5 so when you look at someone like that by human nature we have some preconceived notions right at first First Take on what we think people are who they are so as you look at her you might think based on what I told you that when she U graduated she went to college maybe she was a dance major maybe she became an educ educator like her old man attorney maybe she graduated with a business degree just take a second if you look at her play along with me show of hands any of you when you first look at her and hear what I say about her think yeah she was a mechanical engineering major and she's now working with a row Construction
082Company in Dallas Fort Worth as an engineer anybody there we go my point is this as Educators we have students come into our classrooms our hallways our buildings our district we have some preconceived notions based on what we see about them or how they first act or behave in our classrooms our job as Educators my opinion is to give them the ability to pursue their passions while providing them with the skills and knowledge so they can be successful when they walk across that stage in the career pathway they choose based on their aptitude and interest I bring that lens to you if I'm lucky enough to be your next superintendent and I will encourage all of our Educators and eally unified to look at our students in that manner thank [Applause] you here we go
083all right for this next portion uh we were tasked with looking at the hly unified uh strategic plan and identifying two areas that um maybe I've had some experience implementing in the past and then share hopefully some successes in in doing so so I looked at the Strategic plan in the area of your first anchor teaching and learning Student Success uh being strategic in that in that area specifically indicator 1.1 to provide exceptional opportunities for personalized instruction including differentiation acceleration Innovation and Leadership opportunities I'm going to talk a little bit about really the Innovative part of that when I was superintendent in San Bonito Consolidated School Independent School District I had the opportunity to take three traditional elementaries and over a period perod of two years reimagine them as Elementary of choice we're able to
084develop a steam Academy at Dr R Garza we were able to develop a Fine Arts Academy at at downs and an environmental Science Academy at Sullivan Elementary and the thought behind it a couple of things um we're facing some challenges I don't think unlike maybe what Higley and other area school districts are facing Charter Schools um are taking our students um I believe as a 30-year veteran K12 all the way through we provide more for our students than any Charter ever could but parents want choices students want different opportunities and we felt like it was important to offer those in place of strictly traditional Elementary campuses so we looked at their districts I'm not going to lie we stole some of their ideas we went and did site visits um didn't poach any of their
085employees just um got some ideas on what we could do systemically to reimagine and reinvigorate some of our campuses and and as it turns out it's not rocket science if students have something that they want to come to school for they are more apt to come and they're more apt to come more regularly and more prepared to participate during the day think back many of us for some of us it may have been that favorite Home Room teacher that you had could have been your PE teacher could have been lunch whatever it was got you into that building got you excited about being there and so we tried to really build upon that with this Academy idea first Academy we opened there we go was a Garza uh we turned this over from a campus
086that um boy I wish I could read that back screen a campus that uh had many open seats it was an area of town where um there was a dropping enrollment in fact our district as a whole in sanito have been declining enrollment for over a decade so we put programs in place you can see them there such as robotics our engineering lab a Minecraft lab uh we did some 3D printing we had drum drones we worked on some things with coding with our students things they had not done the units mostly were taught in a thematic manner so that they were writing about the things were working on the lab so things connected for these students we saw some pretty good success year one so the following year we decided to move forward with
087two additional Elementary acmis we opened up a Fine Arts Academy at what had traditionally been Ed downs elementary and you can see the programs in place we put in that campus as well now I put dance up there I have to brag about this a little bit I probably should have put a picture of this every Fine Arts Academy at the elementary level that I've opened uh we have a true dance room so you have the hardwood floor you have the mirrors you have the bar uh true piano Labs so we have 25 pianos set up with an instructor we have 2D and 3D art in our 3D art classrooms the teacher uses Aon but kids get the idea what the concept of that is there aren't many elementaries that I was aware of that
088are on fine artsies that offer a kill to kids um we have violins that are size appropriate for the students I don't believe prek and K were allowed on those but starting the first grade about this big um so it's cute but they're learning skills at the same time the third Academy that we envisioned and opened there it is uh Sol of Environmental Science Academy so throughout this campus uh we changed the landscape of it quite a bit opened up a greenhouse we have Hy ponics we have raised gardens kids were raising food that they would then have parent uh groups come in they would serve the parents I mean they were actually seeing this entire process had a chicken coop and they got to see the whole lifestyle process um we took in Old
089cafeteria building that have been kind of vacated turned into a large Hands-On lab for their science classes and I had to include uh well they had class pets which in terms of student Behavior incredible uh you would go in and they wanted to be sure their behavior was how it needed to be so they didn't scare the rabbit for example um the rabbit would sometimes run around as they were sitting on the on the carpet on the floor Chang the entire climate of that campus and I had to put crispy bacon on there Krispy bacon was the name of um kind of their CL or their school pet it's a pot belly pig and depending on when you go into the building you might be walking down the hall with Crispy uh wasn't harmful at
090all but it was it was such an experience it completely changed the tone the climate of that campus uh kids love being there parents loved coming in we saw an increase in in Parental involvement and objectively there it is oh this is going to be hard to read objectively um these are some of the successes we experienced Dr R Garza uh we opened up you can see the numbers there on the screen I wish I could see them on the back screen but I think it says something like we went from an enrollment of less than 400 to nearly 600 a growth of about 196 kids a decade of San Bonito CISD losing enrollment this was the first year in over 10 years that the district as a whole saw small growth and I attribute
091it to the nearly 200 students we gained at GZA increased attendance rate first of all the fact they had 96% to begin with is is very positive but that they could improve from there while adding 200 new state new students up to 96.7 I feel like is impressive State assess at that point in time there were eight Assessments in the state of Texas for third graders through fifth graders scores improved in every one of them and while I thought the improvements of that campus would be more math and science related I was wrong fourth grade reading which had suffered a little bit the prior year grew by 21 points Ed downs and Sullivan I can show you the increase in the enrollment they were smaller it's kind of based on where they were on in
092town um but I can't give you full year data because that was the year I hope everybody remembers the uh the pandemic so I didn't have a full year of of year-to-year data for that for um attendance or for the accountability no State tests were taken in 20 excuse me and no accountability ratings were given in 21 in the state of Texas continue down this vein so cororo ISD when I arrived I challenged our cabinet and our board with opening up two of our elementaries asies in year one second year four additionals and you can see them there uh there's a repeat steamies fine artsies and a couple of new ideas same challenges Charter Schools but unique to Soro ISD we had one side of our district that was the older part where we have
093buildings with open classrooms the newer side of the school district growing full to the brim including Portables so to try to encourage in District and out of District students to attend the older part of our town we renovated many of these facilities into Elementary acms program is going to be similar so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it um poso Del Norte Fine Arts Academy opened up in year one and I will tell you there is a clip of The Lion King uh presentation that our our students did from this campus it's amazing to see those students stand up there and be able to act as they did speak as they did and sing as they did was just incredible second Academy we opened same year was another steam Academy esri
094steam Academy similar to the steam academy uh that we did in San Bonito CISD we didn't just change it in name we didn't just put a new sign up there slap some paint on the wall and say now it's a steam Academy absolutely not we believe that we had to change the climate the culture the instruction that took place and it started with a lot of Prof professional development um so similar to Garza earning the um National stem certificate our teachers our Administration trained at escontrias and they became the first El Paso are area to have this National stem certification and it has changed completely what happens on that campus year two of implementation in Soro included the addition of Environmental Science Academy again the programming is very similar added an outdoor learning lab and
095a walking trail it's on a very large property OA kellerer this was a new one for me I didn't have any knowledge or any background um with this type of Academy but when I challenged my cabinet um to begin discussing with principles options that might attract our students this is one they came up with and I have to say it's one that we received a lot of positive feedback on um but IT addresses the whole child making that child healthy through nutrition social emotional technology available to them we have a discovery Hands-On lab that includes um some stem activities as well as some technology activities and then physical health so it focuses on making an entirely healthy child we open opened up an additional Fine Arts Academy and an additional steam Academy this past year
096I know it's going to be small it's real small in the back screen um I can share with you year one data for pte and escontrias um the other four this is year one of implementation so posal Norte went from a situation with 86 students where we had over 200 empty seats to being completely full with a waiting list once we opened online registration within 1 hour um they now have over 1,000 students on that campus an increase of over 2% in the attendance rate we saw overall growth on the estate assessments on six out of seven including third grade math gaining 20 points uh in passing rate from one year to the next as contas we saw a growth of about 60 students increase in attendance and five out of seven assessments we saw
097some some improvements in prompted us to change our plan a little bit the master schedule for that campus has changed a little bit we kind of feel like maybe some of the engineering lab time is interfering with some math instruction um I'm hopeful we've worked through that and we will see increase across the board this upcoming year the second area of the Higley strategic plan that I looked at and wanted to discuss with you is indicator 14 to develop and Implement a comprehensive relevant curriculum that is align with State academic standards fortunately I have been doing something similar since I became an assistant superintendent for cni 15 years ago here is an overall look at start to finish from the time that we plan with our teachers to time we Implement and assess where our
098students are uh kind of an overall road map to success if you will we start with our scope and sequence uh year to glance we put the the SE Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills similar to your Arizona standards broken up by unit within the nine we grade nine week grading period it's a pacing document it helps keep our our teachers on task on pace so that they are able to teach the entire curriculum that's required by the state in the time that's allotted to them if you can see some of the color coding on this year at a glance um in Texas we have Readiness standards and supporting standards they are similar nature to for example your math major clusters and supporting uh clusters one way this is used at the beginning of the year
099looking at the entire calendar takeout days for example that are used for assessment take out days that are used for field trips those are the true number of days you have for instruction by nine week and then cumulatively for the entire year back that down to your your yag your gear to glance and you have an idea of how many days you have to teach each each of these Concepts we don't get into a situation where we run out of time at the end of the year we haven't made it through all all 12 units because because we plan that pacing from the very beginning going in this is an instructional Focus document or example of one uh the IFD includes components including the overarching ideas it has potential misconceptions things that students might understand
100correctly it has vocabulary we include performance indicators methodologies the student or the teachers can use to see if their students understood the material there we go this is a continuation of an example of an instructional Focus document depending on the unit this can be rather lengthy so we have developed a one-page notetaker in this notetaker as you can see they can take the information from a multi-page instructional Focus document break it down so that it's easily manageable for that teacher we break apart the text's Essential Knowledge and Skills we look at the noun for the content the verb for the action idea um similar but much smaller and more acceptable in a one-page document once our teachers have taken the time in their PLC to study the unit look at the IFD we even include
101a checklist these are the things we have posted in every one of our PLC rooms across our district all 51 campuses want to make sure that our teachers have thoroughly reviewed the units prior to writing their lesson plan and before they go in front of our students then we unpack the student expectations so unpack the standards here in Arizona would be very similar again breaking apart that text is Essential Knowledge and skill uh what have the students learned before how do we know they learned it before we move on then they look for well aligned resources and activities whether it's textbooks whether it's methodologies from Le forward instructional programs provided by the district or that they have the campus level looking for aligned materials and activities we use one lesson plan template in Soro ISD
102we have over 3,000 teachers they're teaching over 47,000 students every one of those teachers teaching those kids uses one document we think it is Broad enough in scope um and gives them the flexibility to insert what they need to without being too intrusive in the amount of time it takes to write the lessons they can certainly include attachments to this they can add to it we use one form formal common um lesson plan template makes it easier we believe as they work together as teams when they come together in our district plc's as well as for our administrators to review prior to doing their instructional walkthroughs instructional walkthroughs every district has some type of evaluative walkthrough that aligns with the evaluation of the teachers not every district has a separate instructional walkthrough plan that aligns
103with if we're telling the teachers up front these are the things we want you to put into your lessons and your plc's then that's what we as administrator should be looking for when we go into the classroom it's not all about evaluation a lot of is about gauging that instruction are the key Concepts being taught to the depth and rigor they need to be taught and are the students understanding it of course we base um a lot of our student achievement on assessments uh we have standardized assessment protocols um for example the nine weeks assessments are district created in between their formative assessments either the four and a half mark or three and six mark depending on on the subject area or Campus based um so that then determines whether they are unit specific or
104if they are pacing specific and but included in some of these protocols we include the percentage of questions that are Readiness standard based supporting standard-based and is similar to what our state assessments reflect and very similar to Arizona 65 to 75% Readiness 25% to 35% supporting um but we have a blueprint we know what to expect we train our teachers we're writing those assessments there's consistency across the district so our data is valid as we look for areas that we need to improve upon whether it's successful or not I'm share some data with you this is the most recent data on state Assessments in Soro ISD fortunately you can see that most of these numbers are green the difference between the percentage of students passing in Soro versus the state of Texas the one assessment
105you see up there 8th grade math where we are 10% behind the state of Texas it's a byproduct of what Our intention is we know that Algebra 1 is a great indicator of having our students ready college career ready when they graduate high school and we know their success on that test is very important as well in the classroom over 90% of Soro ISD 8th graders take Algebra 1 so the 10% who take eighth grade math are there either because they transferred in and did not receive that accelerated instruction or they've struggled with math or their IEP might call for it but over 90% of our eighth graders take algebra one so we're okay if our passing percentage is not where the state is in eth grade math because we know the positive impact we
106see when our kids take Algebra 1 again the vast majority of those kids taking eligible one in Coto are eighth graders and we're still passing at a rate of 8% higher than the rest of the state so on 19 out of 20 assessments we are above the state passing average I believe that's a direct impact of our systemic instructional implementation model I will tell you the year prior uh they're at or above on 16 out of 20 so we're seeing progress It's a high performing School District it's difficult maybe more difficult to maintain or improve when you're high performing than when you're low performing low performing you can throw just a couple of ideas anything that is structured and and gets people moving in One Direction can be beneficial but when you're an a performing
107District it can be a much greater challenge so I'm happy to share this with you I haven't seen the two minutes yet oh I have so wasn't sure if I'd have time to share this so I did not include it on a slide but I do want to share this this shows one year worth of data from the systemic and structural implementation model in Soro previous District sanito when I arrived in 2017 they were at or above the passing percentage on only two out of 22 assessments there was an average dis uh difference in passing of 88.3% lower than the state average when you average the passing percentage for all 22 assessments and on one assessment the Gap was 22 points one year after implementation we were at or above instead of two five out
108of 22 assessments the average percentage dropped to 6% largest gap dropped to 15 second year in 2019 last year before the pandemic add or above on eight out of 22 assessments consistent progress the average passing rate had dropped to an average of 3% and our largest gap stood at nine points so evidence to to support that this type of implementation can be successful in terms of student achievement and I am hopeful that it aligns to what heily unified Bel light to see going forward as we serve all students thank you thank you Dr Carmen now we'll start with the Q&A your first question Higley is currently an a-rated district from your research on our district what do you see as the top three major issues facing our district how would you begin to handle them
109in your first six months all right so I will tell you this my uh Research into Higley is still in an initial stage and I would anticipate during my first 90day of Entry to school district I will learn a whole lot more about higly unified um the information that's available publicly is good um but a lot of it's from for example last year's assessments um when you look at year end prior year I mean it's kind of like uh it's an autopsy it's done it's over there's nothing you can do about it I can't see right now what's happening inside of the school district what are your scores looking like on your internal documents um at the end of your grading periods are students progressing as they should be showing the progress we know that
110they're understanding um the academic standards that are being taught to them so I can give a partial answer based on on prior uh information one of the biggest challenges uh whether it's for Higley any school district in Arizona most school districts across this country uh look at our teacher recruitment retention most districts have a shortage in key areas whether it's bilingual special education math and science secondary used to be the big one maybe not as much but keeping the teachers you have is crucial and then recruiting quality Educators is crucial as well and in my experience the recruitment part has to be done in conjunction with local area universities um for example where I'm at now we have developed a one-year Residency program for ASP aspiring teachers instead of doing the traditional one semester student
111teaching and then here you go you're in a classroom on your own they partake in a year-long residency with a mentor teacher three of the days they work with that Mentor teacher one day they received training from utap one day they are in a classroom substituting uh on their own with children we think that helps develop their classroom management skills one full year of that because they provide a service to us substituting into our classroom on Fridays those of you who have worked in school districts understand that's a rough day to get subs sometimes because we seem to have a higher percentage of of teachers out but they serve a purpose for us so we're able to pay them so they get a year-long worth of experience some direct classroom management on their own we
112feel like they're more prepared as they enter the profession so there's one area your teacher Recruitment and Retention second School finance and it's not that is not specific just to this school district school Finance is a challenge across the board um it appears as if higly unified has been proactive you're bringing together a community group to review your existing maintenance and operations override I believe set of 15% begins to Sunset I believe in a year so it looks as if Higgly is well on the way so I don't know that I would need to change anything learn what's going on Monitor and uh see it as it goes forward the third thing um you've had some change in leadership so I think that in order for a district to move forward you need to have
113the cabinet level working with the superintendent moving forward and working with the governing board moving in one positive POS Direction varying viewpoints are great and they're fine but if we are all focused on improving the student outcomes of every student in hler unified whatever challenge is thrown away can be addressed so I believe those are three at least that are important thank you what does transparency mean to you and what would you like what would it look like if you were the superintendent well transparency in my opinion means that um anything that should be public knowledge is public knowledge um Finance spending putting reports to where they're easily accessible um for the public we think we put them where they're accessible um but then reporting on that in our in our meetings um I'll give
114you I'll give you an example our strategic plan currently it's qud is very similar to toly unified and it's very similar to most strategic plans I I have reviewed and seen as I've developed a couple in a couple of different districts but um what we are doing differently to be transparent and to show the progression the work that's being done in every one of our board meetings we present on two indicators to our board in public it's live streamed out there so people don't have to go looking and searching necessarily on our web page because we're going to present on student outcomes we're going to present on what's being done for our staff we're going to present on what's being with our facilities and we're going to discuss what's being done with our finances two
115of those indicators every single month realtime data what's happening so to me being transparent is one communicating what's happening in the district but then two how you decide to communicate it I think is important seems to be effective where I am that may not be the strategy used here but I'm open to investigating because most districts put that information available to people but I think we need to look at how we're communicating that to make people make sure people who want that information are receiving that information thank you what are some ideas ideas you bring to the table so each student is seen heard and valued equally well I can go back to discussion on my daughter um I we look at all students I look at all students through that that perception that perspective
116um we want to make sure every one of our kids as they graduate and walk across that stage are ready for that next step in their life and we follow kids and if we're using the data we can determine where they are excelling the challenges they have um we can determine what career Pathways they have an interest in what they have an aptitude in but we need to be consistent um beginning very early on we can't wait till they enter a CTE pathway in high school for example um more like in Middle School to determine where they are what strengths they have what are they interested in and then how we can help them build along those aptitudes and interests so that when they graduate they are ready um but it comes back to me
117a lot in how we use data if we know where the students are and we know what they're interested in then we can design plans individually for our kids and help every one of them be successful in what they want to be not 100% of our kids when they graduate and leave here are going to head to a four-year University and that's okay many of them will go into trades they may go to a votch school that's great have any of you looked at what you pay a plumber when they come to your house financially there are a lot of careers that don't require a four-year degree and that's okay if we find what they're interested in we give them the support the skill set knowledge to be successful but that starts with the data
118know where our kids are what style of communication do you prefer how would you communicate with the governing board parents teachers staff and community in an emergency and in a non-emergency situation emergency and Non-Emergency okay with the um the governing board I I give a weekly update a weekly report on Friday that includes information I believe is important and responds to any request the board has for for information for our board to be effective in making decisions they need to know the information at hand so there's a formal weekly communication that goes to them um and I'll I'll stick on the board for for a moment anytime inside of that week that there's an emergency if there's a fire truck at a campus if there's a police car call to a campus outside of what
119we have there already um I send a text text to the full board letting them know what the situation is and then I let them know when it's resolved um additionally if there is a situation that comes up bus driver got into a large accident a student was accusing a teacher or other employee of some inappropriate action I inform the board so they are aware because the last thing I want is for a media Outlet to reach out to one of our trustees and they have no idea what they're talking about so as soon as I get that type of information they get that type of information for um for the staff uh newsletters is what I'm used to sending out regularly with information but we also have advisory groups I have advisory groups of
120our students advisory groups with teachers advisory groups with our parents so we have two-way communication we have information we're prepared to present to them but at every single one of those meetings we open up two-way dialogue where myself and my cabinet answer the questions those individuals have so they can take that information back to their families their campuses people stay informed in that manner for the community at large I've done a few different things um one is a a mail out we put together an actual newspaper in one District some success maybe not where we wanted it social media I think is important when I came into Soro ISD um I was told directly that if you don't tweet it it didn't happen so I worked in smaller districts I worked in a district over
12110,000 students when When I visit campuses um I'm with the principal I'm walking into classrooms I'm seeing what's going on and I enjoy that smaller District I actually help gauge with our instructional walkthroughs with our principles but uh in squo ISD if I'm on a campus I get to tweet it out so that everybody sees that it happens so social media um is a good communication tool I believe that many people rely on it um you make sure it's valid I guess when you look at it but social media certainly has to be used um Additionally you can do videos whether it's with your superintendent your board president um monthly putting out that information so people can listen see what's happening within the school district um all those are examples of communication that I've used
122in the past I think what would be important is during the N9 day entry plan to determine what type of communication is considered effective uniquely for for Higley unified thank you as a superintendent fostering authentic connections with the go governing board teachers staff students and the community is Paramount for the success of our school district additionally creating a psychologically safe environment is critical for collaboration and Innova Innovation provide examples how you prioritize meaningful relationships within your current Community that's a great question um so SE several means I believe I'm an authentic person when I go to campuses I take the time if if a student stops me if a teacher stops me to talk with me I take the time to listen if I'm at a basketball game parents stops me I don't tell them
123I'm I'm going here I'm going there I need to do this I don't get on my phone I take the time I shake their hand I look them in the eye and I let them tell me whatever it is drill team moms I'm at a football game they want to relay to me their concerns or cheerleading moms I'm going to hear it I'm going to listen to it I'm going to give them the time and the respect that they deserve um so I think that's crucial I think we can talk about mass communication and that's important so people have facts and information but I think when you're given those opportunities to engage face Toof face oneon-one you take advantage of that um you can never be too busy to talk to people that you work
124with or the people you work for so I try to set that time aside um I many times with 51 campuses I will tell you my plan this year was to visit all 51 in nine weeks I did so if you don't believe me check my Twitter or X account or whatever it's called now uh it's there it happened but um The Challenge was we had a certain amount of time set up for those visits but because of my Approach we never made it through the four campuses or six campuses that we're supposed to make it through because if a a principal has a concern or they want to talk or brag about something that's going on to me it would be silly foolish of me knowing that I'm not going to see them on
125their campus again for another nine weeks to not stay there take that extra 10 or 15 minutes and interact and engage with them so authentic communication when you have those opportunities but then intentionally set setting up some of those opportunities specific to uh governing board um I will tell you this I still have um trustees from previous districts who will text me ask me questions call me I see them at conferences they approach me I have good relationships with many of them um some of the texts I wouldn't share publicly but some of them are specific about school business others are just to check in I know their I know their families I know their kids um I know if they're in football if they're in band and so we have discussions that are on
126a personal level and I think if people understand that you're interested in them as people it's much easier to make those connections and move forward professionally thank you the next question is about Bond share your experience with bonds what was the nature of the bond and the results so in my last three superintendencies three separate districts I have had the opportunity to work with Bonds in varying um varying levels varing degrees first superintendency in TIG uh they had approved the bond they were nearing completion so I got to see the finishing out of that project uh the warranty work make sure that everything that supposed to be in place was in place in San Bonito um a district with 10,500 students they had not passed a bond in a number of years and there was
127a desire to add some facilities for our students we took to the public with a a $40 million bond which may not sound large but it was the largest they had done in a number of years and we passed it with nearly 70% success and I attribute that to the communication um I can't tell people to vote one way or the other but I can certainly tell them and inform them what it is here's what it's going to do to the impact on the tax rate be very thorough very clear and take the time to answer questions I must have presented in that Community probably 100 times um to the campuses to different groups with within the community chamber rotary Lions Club Etc um to make sure people understood what they were voting for then
128how they vote is up to them uh but I believe it was successful and I will add to that it was a bond that included zero school buildings it was three extracurricular co-curricular um buildings we built an indoor facility at our high school campus that included 90 90 yard indoor turf room and a 10,000 square foot weight room we passed a bond that included a fine arts facility and it included an auditorium not a single School building not a single classroom and those of you who have experience with bonds understand those are not easy bonds to pass but we did so and again I believe it was through the uh the communication process in Soro ISD came into a situation where they had passed nearly a $500 million Bond and we were nearing uh we're
129still nearing that completion probably the last year coming up so I got to be part of the last three years of that construction so some of that was value engineering some of that was making sure what was taking place with change orders aligned with uh what was necessary for those buildings not a want from the architect but a need for the end users so I think had some experience one experience as a superintendent passing it but then two different areas where I've had um experience in implementing the bond fall through thank you can you explain how you will handle student safety at at Higley what will you do to reassure parents and children that their schools are safe place to learn so I heard student safety and reassuring parent and students a safe place to
130learn thank you um well I it's no secret um school safety has become a huge topic and a necessary topic for people to address uh I can tell you that security assessments are important in terms of perimeter security are we able to keep people off our campuses that we don't want on the campuses off the grounds and out of the buildings I can tell you I have worked to develop protocols so that we ensure doors are closed and locked as they should be and then a lot of lot of the things we do we communicate to our parents to let them know what's taking place to keep their kids safe in Soro um part of the desire there from the community and the governing board was to have sro's on every campus and two at
131our high schools so we budgeted appropriately in addition to our security guards we do have licens sro's on every one of our campuses I'm not saying that's the Magic Bullet that's the answer but we know that does reduce the response time if you have a licensed police officer armed police officer on on a campus should anything transpire where one is needed additionally um I do have experience looking at technology as a solution um the cameras are important to know what's happening in campus um we're actually investigating right now an AI solution that works with our existing cameras and can identify as people approach the campus if they're carrying a firearm it's able to pick that out apparently uh we're piloting it we're testing it um but if we can work smarter in that manner why
132wouldn't we additional technology um there are alarms you can put on exterior doors uh that make a noise when the doors open but there are others you can connect to your Wi-Fi that can alert the office so you know that they are open where that location is and to take care of it um Vape sensors are another solution that can be used um to provide safe environments particularly in restrooms in our campuses um but using technology is important having your personnel on campus that's needed as important and then training your personnel uh we still have Educators probably not here um but we have Educators who still will think I'm going to run out to my car for just a quick minute to grab that one thing I left out there and they'll prop that door
133open with a rock or something they have there to keep it open creates an unsafe environment um fortunately we've not had any negative repercussions from that happening but part of that's training we need to let everybody on that campus know because if we have all eyes paying attention to what's happening and doing their job much easier to keep a safe environment than it is if we delegate that all to one SRO or one administrative individual so those are some ideas describe your experience with school choice and having charter schools in the same area as our district schools well I have a little experience with that um sanito CISD that was one of the driving reasons why we developed the elementary academy uh model we knew that we could give our students choices within our K12
134situation better chance they're going to stay in our schools if they're happy they're doing things activities they like to do they enjoy to do um they're going to stay with us but it's a challenge parents want choices students want choices um our job as a K12 school district is to make sure that our programs remain remain top-notch and that we do the best we can to communicate that out to keep kids in our campuses and not going to Charter where I am now in Soro uh we have a number of students who will leave um Elementary and and really even in s Bonito they would leave during the elementary years um knowing or at least I knew that many charter schools have a much higher ratio classroom ratio student to teacher in Texas at least
135than K12 schools do so part of what we have done is educate we have a um roster by Campus of students who have left our district for Charters we do a Saturday walk where we knock on doors if they answer we give them the information we have a pre-prepared flyer that gives the stats of what happens in terms of student achievement in our campuses versus these Charters and we try to have a conversation with them not everybody answers the door but at least they get a flyer on their door we make the effort um to have that that positive impact in both of the last two districts I've worked in secondary campuses is when we get a lot of those kids back my experience with chargers in terms of competition for students is they do
136not offer the co-curricular or extracurricular activities that we're able to offer for in a K12 setting so again communicating those opportunities the CTE programs the Dual credit the co-curricular the extracurricular if we communicate that to those people we'll get a lot of those kids back into our building where we're doing what's right for students thank you Dr Carmen that concludes our forum for this evening we thank you for joining us and thank you for joining us tonight