Governing Board Retreat - Virtual Meeting 8:00 AM

001is asked to enter so it was perfectly good good that she's coming in all right well curtis i'm going to start i'm going to call this meeting to order dr foley how about roll call this morning president kaler members of the board please let the records show that we have four members who are able to join us this morning uh vice president reece is unable to join us today thank you very much um i move that we approve the agenda second all those in favor aye aye is tiffany in yet um your mic is off and your camera well my camera's not off it's not working so i'm trying to switch computers just we're voting on the agenda yeah i know i'm here i just can't get my camera to work on an eye or

002a knee motion carries four zero um so good morning everybody thank you for giving up your saturday mornings for our board training with asba uh nikki whaley will be leading us and she just gave us a little background while we were um waiting for tiffany to join us so thank you for that um i want to kind of preface today um first of all you know if you need to go get a drink get a drink if you have to go the restroom go the restroom this is very informal and also let's just because this is team building i'd really like to keep it as informal as possible i know we do have some doctors in the house but you can call me amy today i would i would love that just because i think

003this is a very important time for us to um just be a team building exercise so be casual professional but casual and i welcome you all here this morning so i'll pass it over to nikki great good morning everyone i'm so excited to be here um i'm gonna give you a little bit of an overview of what we're gonna do today we are gonna cover some roles and responsibilities and that's really something that you may already know it's always good to get a reminder um especially as things uh progress and get more um notice so what i mean is when we have something like covid where a lot of people are paying attention and a lot of people have input and a lot of people are going to try to want to contact you it's

004important to remember what your roles and responsibilities are so that you don't kind of get sucked in into getting out of your lane because that usually causes some issues so not that that's happening yet i don't know what that situation is um i also want to preface this with saying that a lot of times people think training comes in their experiences when you've done something wrong or you've messed up that is not the case here um we love when people ask for training when they're just trying to do better they want professional development and actually when we go into roles and responsibilities we're going to be discussing the eight characteristics of effective boards and learning together and doing training is one of those characteristics so you are actually practicing best practices for for board service

005so i do applaud you all for making the time to do that so just for the audience my name is nikki whaley and i work with arizona school boards association i do training and development which means that i provide training and support and facilitation to school board members and districts throughout the state of arizona i also am a school board member myself in the phoenix area and so i bring that perspective as well as a background in human resources and children and family services so um without further to do i am going to pull up our first powerpoint and of course i want to echo what amy had said that as we move forward do what you need to do but i will let you know that we will be taking periodic breaks um throughout

006this especially as we switch between the two topics for today the other one being team members style so one participant can share at a time and if people can give me a thumbs up when they see the screen awesome okay so as we talked about today this is a productive space we're to be you know learning and growing together going through the responsibilities a characteristics and then we're also going to talk about policy governing of school boards and and talking a little bit about self-evaluation and continuous improvement so um real quickly i think it is always good especially when we're getting to know each other i'm sure you all know it seems like you know each other pretty well but i'm not really sure how well you know each other so if you could just

007very quickly uh unmute um and what i'll do is i'll call names so that we're not all talking over each other i'll just call them in the order that i have them here um if you could just give your name how many years you've been on the board and what brought you to board service just in a couple sentences that would be great so i'm going to start with jill is the first person that i see hi i'm jill wilson um i've been on the board for two years um my why is for the kids it's always has been um i really want to just make sure that they're getting the proper education um i've been attending board meetings for probably three or four years before i even became on the board pretty regularly thank

008you thank you amy uh this is my sixth year i'm sorry fifth year my term is up next year and my why's always been i am passionate about public education i think that if public education were to ever go away or is not a priority in our country it would be um devastating for so many families so um i'm just passionate about education and i love being a part of this community great thank you don so i'm not my i'm don foley associate superintendent i've not been um a board member but this is my 26th year in um education for me my passion has always been teaching and learning uh that is meaningful teaching and learning impactful um whether it's in the classroom or at the district level at the university level that's that's my

009passion great thank you so much um tiffany i know we don't have a video but i think we have audio yes i'm hoping to change computers at some point but um i'm tiffany schultz and i have been on the board for uh about a minute i think it's been uh 16 days and my wise is my passion for public education and supporting uh students and making sure that uh like amy said public education continues i i have a strong feelings on that and my children thank you tiffany my name is shawna i am the director of special education i have been in education for 19 years that's a long time um and this is my uh 15th year with the district great thank you so much michael good morning um michael fowler and i'm uh

010the assistant superintendent of support services i'm actually in my ninth year here with higley which is my 23rd year in arizona and if you count my experience north of the border actually started teaching and and being administrator in canada this is actually my 33rd year it kind of sounds scary when you say it but it's my 33rd year as an educator but you must be like 43 right yeah i wish but uh no i i i really value um making a difference for students and uh through the different levels that i've been involved um you know starting at a classroom teacher um the the as i've moved up the chain in different areas um i enjoy the ability to influence more people you know when you're a principal you're you're having the ability to have

011an impact on an entire campus and now as a district administrator we're making decisions and able to influence the entire district it's it can be very rewarding thank you mom good morning i'm mom martins i'm the executive director of human resources for higley this is the start of my fourth school year in higley uh prior to that i came from the chicagoland area and um been in education 17 years like dawn a mix of higher education so higley is my first pre-k 12 school district and always knew i wanted to be well it took me a little bit but in college realized i wanted to be an education to help others um didn't matter what phase great thank you mom michelle hi i'm michelle anderson um this is my first year on the board but

012i have uh i'm on my 16th year in education i had uh 12 years in higley through various positions i've taught i've worked in human resources i was governing board secretary for a little bit in the district and i've taught in a couple of other districts as well my reason why is because education is just something i've pursued since a child it's it is it's not you hear it a lot but it is what i played i was the only child for a very long time and so it was teaching my stuffed animals and using my mom's college books you know pretending like i knew anything but i really enjoyed it um mom just says i'm bossy and that could be a lot of it but uh um being that i have such a wide

013range all these different um jobs that i've had in education is just my pursuit of wanting to be a part of the decision making and giving advice and helping out and contributing to making on the organization and education as a whole better i've just jumped in spaces been asked to go places sought out positions and it truly is just something that as much as i try to push back and say i don't want to do this anymore because it just it physically hurts sometimes to be an education and it hurts the heart and the soul i just keep coming back it's it's where i am and you know how i was created to be and i am overjoyed to be in this position it's it's good to be here and i'm very excited to work

014with um all the ladies on the team and all the gentlemen and ladies on in on this in the school district because i think we have a lot of brilliant minds and we are going to do really good things continue to do good things too thank you michelle sherry hi i'm sherry richards i'm the executive director of elementary education i'm excited to say i'm in my 10th year in higley had the opportunity to work in three schools and then at the district level this is truly an amazing place i think we can continue to be proud and brag about what we've done and what we will do and i have colleagues telling me what an amazing district we have here so i love the opportunity to make a difference for kids and that's why we

015went into this but now we get to support adults as well so thank you and then i believe last but not least is david good morning my name is david lotzenheiser i'm the executive director of secondary schools and athletics this is my seventh month in higley and i honestly don't remember my life prior to june 15th uh it has been a whirlwind uh to say the least this is my 23rd year in education i started out as a high school math teacher basketball coach at gilbert high then went to chandler and got into administration and now here and i tell people who call you know what what's what's going on do you like your job that's what i get a lot you like your job and i said it's the best it's best move i've

016ever made professionally in my career to come and be a part of this team and so as challenging as it can be um you know i thoroughly enjoy how i feel like we're coming together and working together to try to set people up for the best chance of success and so when you ask about my why i think it's evolved over the years originally it was so that i could coach basketball but now it's about how do i how do i set others up for success and and like mike said originally it was for kids and now we keep the focus on the kids and we look at adults and say how can we set our adults up to set kids up for success and so i'm really happy to be here thank you and

017i just on that note i love what you just said how do we it's still about the kids how do we support the adults and being more effective in supporting the kids and i think that's such a great focus because one of the things that we say in asba is the primary responsibility of boards is student achievement and we we say that broadly stu but student success you know academic social emotional our job as board members is to make sure our students are succeeding bottom line there's lots of other roles and responsibilities but at the end of the day all of that is to the ends of student achievement so i just real quickly with norms and expectations i'm not sure if you all have board norms um and expectations in terms of how how

018you engage but just uh to recall and because we took we had a larger team um i'm not going to take too much time usually we can brainstorm around some norms but i'll just offer that if as much as possible we can make sure that we're talking from our own perspectives so i statements um respecting each other's perspectives as their reality so you know we're going to be talking about different things um and the way that we're not going to get into things too deep or too controversial today but just re uh just always a good reminder that um as we heard today everybody's intention we assume positive intent so everyone's intent here is to do the best that they can to support higley and the students of higley and so as much as we

019can try to understand the perspectives of others and ask respectful questions and and with all that we'll just move on and dig right into the roles and responsibilities of the board and we're going to start with a quiz how do you like that on a saturday morning um and we're going to just do a thumbs up or i'm sorry fingers so you could use your fingers to tell me how many bosses does the superintendent have i only see a couple hands i saw a hand i see a one i see five all right the answer is one so the superintendent has one boss and that is the board collectively um and so this is an important thing to start because often times board members all approach the superintendent as if they are the boss and

020i'm not saying that that's what's happening in hindi i don't know but across the state you know sometimes if we're not clear on this and sometimes it's unintentional you just come and you start asking all these questions and that's perfectly okay to do but when it comes to giving directives um and when it comes to evaluating that's the board as a whole so each member is if you want to say a fifth of a boss um and then nothing can be done without the majority of the board and the will of the majority of the board so it's really important when you go to give directives to the superintendent that that's coming from one voice and not multiple voices and if there's disagreement in terms of how to proceed or what kind of direction to

021give the superintendent that's where the the board agenda comes in that's where you you can take action items and provide guidance in that way um it is a five-headed boss so if you can imagine your own work experience um how great would it be to have five different bosses telling you how to do your job possibly five different ways um not fun um and so it's really really important that the board remember that they have to work as a team and that directives can only come from the board as a whole next quiz question what is the authority of an individual school board member do they have uh authority on their own thumbs up thumbs down i'm so glad none so as an individual board member you have no authority um you're at least not

022any more than any other citizen so when you are not in a called to order noticed meeting um you have no authority and that's really surprising to some board members and some board members know this but the problem is the community doesn't always know this and so when a board member comes to a campus or when a board member's out in the community and a parent or a teacher somebody comes to them they assume you do they assume that you can go and tell the superintendent or you can go and tell their principal you can go and tell their students teacher what to do and that's really not the case so it's important that you be upfront with that and and let them know that and we're not talking about it today but there is

023a chain of command and a communication protocol that that is in place for this reason because there there is a role and a responsibility and and um the board is the last stop and so you want to make sure that you're not trying to exercise any type of authority or give the illusion that you have any kind of authority that you don't have the same is the case in terms of access sometimes we have board members that think that they can just show up at any campus they want anytime and that if they want a tour they can show up and ask for a tour if you would not let anybody's grandma auntie mom come in and just demand a tour of your campus or a one-on-one meeting with one of your teachers then don't

024expect as a board member that you have that because without again the authority of the board you are the same as anybody else so your authority really comes in that vote and that vote is equal amongst all of you so when you have a call to order meeting you have a vote and that's where your authority comes into play and that's important to remember too because we're going to talk about um respecting the will of the majority when you have a vote and it doesn't come out anonym unanimously a lot of times we can get a little upset about that um and sometimes in some districts that turns out to be come name-calling or pointing out pointing fingers and and doing all of that but what you do when you're doing that is you're not

025just doing that to one member you're doing that to the the portion of the community that that talks uh that supports that member or thinks like that member and so that's really also important to remember that each vote is equal in its weight um and so if it comes out 3-2 um you that's just the way that it is you can't say that my my vote should mean more than the vote of the people that that vote represents so skipping that what's the authority of the governing board as a whole a lot you all to collectively vote on the policy so you are creating the rules of the game um so you are going to decide how things should be done in terms of what the rule the general rules are and the administration is

026going to come up with how do they comply and so that's one of the things you also control a budget and then you know to a certain extent there's not um a whole lot of control because a lot of that stuff is already earmarked but there are times where you have to make tough decisions and make priorities you guide the priorities of the district um and so that's a lot of authority um and so in that way you make a big impact on the whole the system as a whole um and the decisions that you make impact um all the students and families in your community so where do you get your authority you get this authority from arizona revise uh statute and there's two main statutes it's 15 341 15 342 for those that

027really you know love policy and want to dig into it um but basically what we find in here are things that uh first of all the governing boards get their authority through the state and that's because we believe in local control in arizona which means that we believe that communities are best suited to make the decisions for their students and families um that is going to provide the best education possible for that population so that means that we're not going to sit at the capitol and decide how education should look for everybody in the state because we may not know what's going on and what the situation is everywhere in the state so that means that you really are as the board making those decisions on behalf of the state and they tell you in

028that statute things that you must do and things that you may do a lot of the things that they say are more things that are permissive meaning that these are things that you provide oversight over but you don't have to do and we'll get into that in just a second so um while there is an oversight function um they do not do day-to-day operations of the district their oversight is the big picture so their oversight is um do we have policies in place do we have processes in place do we have money for this this job is this aligned with the way that our mission vision values in our priorities it is not about i don't like how you're doing this teaching model or i don't like how we're not doing you know girls softball

029at this month instead of this month it's it's really not getting into the day-to-day operations um so the duties that are not delegable meaning that you can't give it to somebody else is a proving policy so um i'm not sure do you all use asba model policies i believe you do okay so it's not even asba right asba provides model policies these policies are compliance driven meaning that we give you policies that are going to keep you from getting sued and we put a little copyright on there and we say you know this should we we've looked through this and this should keep you in compliance these are things that you have to do according to the state however they are not your policies until you approve them so once we send them to you

030the board has to approve them once the board does that they are no longer asba's policies they are your policies they're higley's policies so if there's something in there that you don't like you can say well that's asba and that's not our policy if you've approved the policy you as a board are obligated to follow through with those policies as stated you are the models for the rest of the community in terms of making sure that you're you're following the policy and that's important when we get to roles and responsibilities because those are outlined uh in that policy and when you skirt away from those things or you circumvent some of those practice fair policies um you're not setting a good example um of a leader and you're basically breaking your own rules um so

031policy is a big one you can't just say oh well let's just give them over to dawn and let her figure them out and as long as don says they're okay they're okay and then because that's not gonna hold up in court you're not gonna be able to go to court and say well i mean they said it was okay they're gonna look to you as the people that approved it not to scare you because i don't know the last time somebody got sent to court because of a policy but that ultimately rests on you passing the budget ultimately the superintendent and the team come up with a budget because they know where the money needs to go and they know what the priorities are so they are going to present you with a budget

032but you have to give that budget the okay it has to make sense to you um that the money is being spent in the way that the community would want the money to be spent and then finally hiring firing and evaluating the superintendent um that is the only thing that you that that's the only staff member that you have so just like i used i asked you how many bosses does the superintendent have i will ask you this question how many employees does the board have one employee their only employee is the superintendent and that's also important to remember because even the board admin or the board secretary is not an employee of the board that is an employee of the district and their supervisor is someone else you have one employee and that's the

033superintendent so when you go um and it's really important because we talked about what authority you have there's a different thing called perceived authority right and so when a board member shows up at a district the principal is going to do what you say you know going to try to do what you say the teachers are don't know necessarily that you're not you don't have some kind of authority so they're going to treat you a little bit differently and the same is true with some of the associate staff the director-level staff um they're going to probably tell you maybe yes to your face or not a clear no because you hold some amount of authority um but really all those things should go through the superintendent no direct asks or requests should be made of

034any other staff members um directly that your one staff member is the superintendent all right so we're gonna do a little game and i'm going to give you ask you for a thumbs up or a thumbs down oversight meaning this is the role of the board or over step meaning that's not really the role of the board a board member posts a question on facebook asking for input on high school on a high school teacher's actions and behavior she continues to post that her daughter is upset with the way the teacher runs the classroom and wants to know if there's other people having similar concerns she shows all the comments to the superintendent and wants something to change in that classroom thumbs up for oversight thumbs down for i'm overstep good i'm seeing a lot

035of thumbs down um so yes that is an overstep um there's a whole other training about etiquette and law and that we're actually doing something at the boltz conference on social media um but the key point here is that uh as a board member um you're not just a parent first of all this is probably bad etiquette for a parent to just put that out there but as a board member you have a responsibility to first of all not overstep your role which you're you're trying to kind of guide what's going to happen for a particular teacher but also legally that would put you into some hot water because if there were cause or potential cause to dismiss a staff member or to consequence a staff member um you're already putting this information out there

036and they can come out and and claim bias or something else so um that's an overstep not only is it not your role but it also you never want to do anything that's going to potentially put your district into into some trouble okay so nikki can i can i step in for a sec absolutely um i think that is one of the struggles sometimes as board members so i'm glad you brought up that um this particular just just you know we hit we have teachers ourselves as moms in the community and you know there's always that we have to follow the same chain of command when it comes to any kind of teacher issue or staff member issue we still have to do the same thing that we would expect a parent to do in

037our community and that is sometimes hard as board members and i just acknowledge that with you know my fellow board members that sometimes that's a difficult um road to navigate and you just kind of have to do the same thing you would expect any parent to do so yeah i mean i recently had this um situation where they're you know being home i can hear everything that's going on in my studio my my kids classrooms um and i had a concern and i um i had to i went to the teacher right i didn't go to my super i'm a board member and i was also really respectful so i i did not use my district email to kind of provide any kind of context i used my personal email to reach out to her

038i used my first name i just you know sent her what my concern was she called me back we dealt with it um it continued to be a problem so i emailed the principal um and you know and eventually it got resolved i again didn't try i haven't even mentioned this to my district so if they're watching they're finding out now but i mean i didn't even mention it to any uh any of the directors or anything anywhere else because it had nothing to do with that it was a parent issue um and and the whole thing with going to facebook i mean facebook is a tool to connect and if you have a concern you can see if this is a concern for anybody else but in your in your roles it's just a

039really really bad idea i think we've been taught um at asba law conference a couple years ago there was a whole facebook and instagram or social media i can't believe i can't remember and there was a like don't if you put it on facebook it has to you can't delete comments is that correct nikki is that the rule still like you weren't allowed to delete comments of people who didn't agree with you if you had ever mentioned that you were a board member on your facebook i am not a lawyer but i'm trying to put my chris thomas hat on in that position so i would refer to your lawyer but i think the understanding here is about equal access so if you're serving as a board member and you're trying to to and you're

040providing a space for comment um then you are you don't want to violate people's uh free speech by um by cutting out comments that you don't like i've heard them have a conversation of that thing but i would definitely say that's what i remember as well something along those lines that you were not allowed to cut out comments so just for like the new board members who may be on um who are on sorry um that they may want to think about that like if they do decide to post anything on facebook you can't cut out comments which sucks i mean sometimes people can be really hard so okay so we're gonna move on this is a um [Music] for those that are visual learners this kind of talks about um where the delineation is

041and where the overlap is so for the governing board team you're really about the what what is it that we want what are what do we believe in what's our vision what are our priorities what are the policies that we need to get that to happen okay you're that 30 000 foot view your administration teachers and staff are about strategies tactics and techniques they're going to tell you how to get it done you tell them what you want they're going to come up with a plan on how to get it done you may not like the plan that they come up with to how to get it done but you have to let it play out and if you don't like the plan and you don't like how it's playing out your recourse is through

042direction of the superintendent and what does that take a majority of the board so if you don't you're free to give feedback to the superintendent if you you're seeing something in the house side of the house that you don't agree with or that you have questioned about but you are not to direct the how that becomes overstep that becomes micromanaging but you can surely give your opinion and your feedback on it you can only direct it through the superintendent and your other thing is the evaluation you're one of five in the evaluation if you truly feel like that the visions priorities and policies that you set forth are not being achieved are not filling with your intent on the house side that's your time to to let that be known um so that area in

043the middle is that strategic area of discussion and vice versa you the administration teachers and staff shouldn't be telling you what the vision priorities and policies are they can provide impact or input but ultimately you are a representative of the community that means that you your best judgment and how you feel about what's going on is what you need to go with not what people are necessarily telling you yes you might think that they're your constituents but that's an equity issue think about your spirit influence and who you talk to if you only get input from two teachers and you know a handful of your friends or people on facebook is that equitable to take those seven voices and say okay that's what the priorities of the whole entire district should be no it's not

044um and and oftentimes that's what it's human nature you do with what you experience and the people in your sphere of influence but as a leader you have to think for the bigger picture and that means that the the community the the voters have put you all in the position to use your best judgment and so from this point forward you have to do your best to represent them yes you listen to them but you have to also question yourself and say who am i listening to what are the voices that are getting access to me and is that equitable because sometimes what needs to happen is to create a a process at the district level to gain feedback that the board can agree on so that there is a process in place to collect

045that and that people don't go off on their own because a lot of times what happens is if there is no process in place to do that that's why people go off on their own nikki i really like this visual because when you talk about the what and you talk about the how sometimes that little lovely space in the middle is the why um you know and commute effective communication is really important whether it be through our status reports through our through our meetings with informational sessions you know but for us to kind of um have those conversations is really important and it's one of the things that our team is working really hard on doing is the communication aligned to the beliefs our visions our prior our our policies and our processes and explaining

046the why you know you know i love that and i'm gonna i'm gonna talk to julian see if we can add the why to underneath that because that's exactly right um that piece in the middle is where you have a conversation to see is what they're proposing aligning with what your intent was when you set up these things because you know you do want to make sure that that that is happening um and that's where you give that input as to why why are these your release visions and priorities because that's going to give the input on time in terms of what the administration's going to try because i guarantee they're not trying to do something that's going to make you mad or trying to do something that's going to get shot down that's a

047way a waste of their time so it's it's about using that opportunity to have those conversations setting up regular times to have that conversation whether it's a study session or being strategic in the way that you calendar your board meetings every morning should have relevance to progressing the goals of the district if you're spending time on a lot of fluffer or outside you know issues that are are not aligned to what you're trying to achieve as a district uh making sure that you structure that meeting in a way that always ties back to your strategic plan and your mission vision priorities is a way to cut a lot of that out also a good opportunity here now just to thank our entire cabinet and dr foley for they send out a status report every a

048superintendent's report every friday and it has been so comprehensive since dr foley has joined us and i can just say i have learned so much more of the why because i can see what's going on throughout the week so that when those items come to the board i already have the background and it's so in-depth so hats off to the cabinet i know you all spend a lot of time getting the information to dr foley and it's it's made a huge difference in the way that i can see things thank you okay so just in bullet form for those that like it in words when we're talking about the board your role is really to govern so yes you're going to be doing the hiring and performance management as a superintendent with the support of

049district staff you're going to help set the direction and the policy um you're going to approve the budget you're going to monitor project uh progress towards the set goals and you're accountable to the community so you are accountable to listening to and your community includes not just the the students not just the parents um not just the teachers it includes a variety of that um and so it is important to listen to them and that's why i say it's so important to create opportunities to have an equitable way in which to receive representative feedback because you do need to hear what they have to say but you want to make sure that you're doing that in a fair way and then the superintendent's job is to manage they oversee the day-to-day operations they implement policies

050and establish plans to meet the goal and ultimately they're accountable to you the board so another little quiz question thumbs up thumbs down a board member comes to meet with the superintendent the board member is adamant that the district adopted new math curriculum his brother's a math teacher in a nearby district and has told the member about a great material uh how great the materials are the member has lots of information about the textbooks and the materials and would like to share it with the whole board for approval all right thumbs down okay i'm seeing a lot of thumbs down yeah that would be an overstep and the reason for that is the adamant and the they wanting to skip right over the process and go to a board approval first of all you have

051a policy of which how curriculum has to to go through a process curriculum is not cheap it's a budgetary issue so again that has to that will have to ultimately go to the board um but but really what math curriculum you use is that a what right if the question that you're asking is a what and not a um i mean sorry is a how and not a what then you're probably overstepping and you're telling them how to do math you're not telling them that you want the state of you would like to have math be a priority you're not saying that you want math to be updated and fresh you're saying you have to use this curriculum and this is a how um however if you happen to have resources you send them the

052superintendent's way and you let them share and process that um i know that i sent him because i do a lot of social services and think and see trainings on equity and social services i'll share things with my superintendent that um they may or may not choose to share with our support services or our social workers but i like that um dr stanton make that decision i don't just go hey social workers you should all attend this training because again even though i don't have authority they're going to feel like oh my gosh the board member just told me i have to attend this training and then what they do is they go and they talk to their boss and say do i have to attend this training and then it makes the it starts

053to make your staff feel really uneasy when they're put in a situation of of trying to tell a board member no they don't like that it makes them very uncomfortable um and it starts to build a culture in which people start tiptoeing and i feel micromanaged from a board so another visual in the process board authority is oversight management set expectations and parameters so you set the goals you adopt policies um superintendent provides a recommendation so they develop the plans implement the plans monitor their progress and then report back out evaluate results so they report back out to the board and the board provides input again the reason why the line in the middle is um is it i don't know the right name it's not perforated what's the name of that but anyway the

054reason why it's not solid uh is because there is a give and take between those things um but really that is the process that is the cycle okay another quiz here we go during a board meeting several members have questions about expenditures that were in the budget they approved including the purchase of a new technology for the high school board members are curious about how the money was spent and want to make sure that teachers are receiving professional development on the new technology so they know how to utilize the materials in the classroom is that an oversight or an overstep i see some thumbs up i see some questioning they're not really sure that's a thumbs up so if you spent money on a curriculum as a board as a board if you pick this

055new technology you are being proper stewards of public dollars when you say hey we bought this technology i want to know if if the staff was trained on it and that it's being used correctly and that it's being useful it's perfectly okay to get a report on that what's not okay is saying oh they're only getting three hours of pd on this no i think every board member or i think every staff member needs to take a quiz and six hours of training and you know when you start getting down that path of of again the how you're gonna do that that's not okay but when you're asking the question of tell me the process that is perfectly okay so um superintendent board relationships school systems suffer when either attempts to overtake the responsibilities of

056the other so both ways when the board tries to get too much into the day-to-day operations and micromanage the superintendent or staff it causes resentment it causes confusion the board members that are staying in their lane start getting frustrated and will start doing in kind so they sometimes will just decide either they stay in the resentment or they say well shoot i might as well start doing this too and both of those things just lead to more problems conversely superintendents that try to limit the influence of the board try to tell them what they're supposed to do try to block access to information um all they do is increase the the distrust and increase the questions and increase the likelihood that they're going to go around you to get the information from somebody else so

057it's really important that you trust each other in the roles that you're doing and you share that that information involvement with administration and operational functions again it distracts from the essential function of planning planning policy and promotion so you want to make sure that you keep looking at this higher level because if you're not as a board then who is right you're too busy looking over here in these little pots that are of interest to you then there's nobody looking at the bigger picture making sure it's all working together so the the key here is to be informed versus involved you need to be informed about what's happening you don't necessarily have to be involved in what's happening and this takes relationships right so we have to foster positive relationships the first thing again is

058assume positive intent even if they want something different than you i'm pretty sure they don't want it because they want kids to suffer and parents to hate them right so even if it makes no sense to you as to why they want that i'm pretty sure it's not because they want to see the district burn to the ground right um so assume that they have some kind of positive intent and try to operate from that point of view and that will help you to better acknowledge their point of view even if you disagree um and you can and should disagree if that very much doesn't feel like the right way that's fine but um to to disregard it completely again you're not just disregarding that person you're disregarding any part of the community that may

059feel similar to that identify each other's key values and leadership styles we're going to do that today so that's going to really help you understand each other's communication and then build up relationship capital through positive interactions if you've heard some of the relationship capital it basically means that everybody is a bank we're all our own little piggy banks and we as we walk through our lives there are deposits and there are withdrawals and so if people put coins in it doesn't hurt as much when they take them out so i want you to think about for example the the person that you love most in the world um think about a significant other a best friend um a sibling a mother father whatever now if you have that person in your mind this person you

060just absolutely love and adore now raise your hand if you've never ever been mad at them okay i'm not seeing any hands right sometimes the people that you love the most are the ones that can really make you the most angry as well um but the reason why your relationship stays and your relationship is strong is because there's enough good in there that when things like that happen you have enough capital left to make it through and oftentimes that leads to even more gains in the long run um however if you think about something buddy that you barely know a person on the street and they said something rude and nasty to you you have no reason to like them you can write them off you cannot listen to them you can call them mean

061and nasty things back because there's no relationship capital there um and so and as a team you have to make sure that you're putting deposits in if the only interactions you have with your fellow team members is to tell them what to do or tell them how they're wrong then you have nothing to build common ground on and so you need to try to put those deposits in thank them for their service thank them for their uh their input the way that you treat them when you disagree all of those things add to the to the piggy bank so that when you do have to disagree or when you do have to say have a difficult conversation with them there's something there to keep the relationship solid enough for you to work forward um so

062that takes creating opportunities to communicate a lot of times boards only see each other on that um that board bias and that's by design i mean we do have to be careful about open meeting law but remember open meeting law talks about that you have to be talking about board agenda items or future agenda items so you can still have a coffee and talk about each other's kids you can still um have study sessions like this where you get to learn about each other's personality you can still attend events together and trainings together um so there are opportunities you have to create them though and it's it's not going to happen by just saying okay we're only going to come to the meeting and that's the only time that we talk so um we're on

063schedule we're um we're doing good um does anybody need a break cause i know we got on a little bit before eight we are taking a scheduled break when i get through this but i just wanted to to see not seeing anything so i can only see a few people at a time so if you want to use your little hand raising icon i get an alert or if you want to use a chat i get an alert that way so um moving forward with the eight characteristics of effective boards so there was a there have been several studies in terms of the impact of boards school boards on student achievement um you know a lot of people don't know what school boards do they don't even maybe even know if they exist um and

064they certainly don't know if those 5 seven three people sitting at the dice have any real impact on what's happening in the classroom um and so there's there has been an increased uh research and study into this the first was the lighthouse studies that looked at boards uh and and their impact on student achievement and then there was a study that we really like it's called uh it's by devaricus and o'brien it's called the eight characteristics of effective school boards um and what they did is they went and looked at all the various studies of boards and their impact on operations um and they they put together their findings what were the commonalities what characteristics were boards demonstrating um were the boards that were seeing a lot of achievement in their district what were they

065demonstrating because um they want to know what what was working and what they found is there are some things that definitely help the district and and that there's a correlation between if their boards do this they saw student achievement and growth if their boards did opposite of that they saw decline and so we're going to go through those things right now um a lot of these things align to and there's a reason for that but nsba has what they call the key key works of school board service and you see there in the middle student achievement this is from nsba student achievements in the middle and then they have these different things that kind of feed into the work of boards um asba has our own version of that it's called the pillars of service

066um and this is what our self-evaluation tool is is um centered around but it's structure vision conduct and ethics accountability and advocacy and that's what we say these are the things that the board um really needs to do these are the work this is the work that boards do um so as we go through this i don't have a um i don't have a whiteboard or anything to go ahead so i'm going to ask you to take your own notes um and just on the side of a notebook piece of paper put down the the characteristic like a number and then if you think that that's a strength of your district currently or an opportunity so the first one is effective school boards commit to a vision of high expectations for student achievement and quality

067instruction and define clear goals towards that vision so that means everybody is on the same page they believe that all students have the ability to achieve and they're going to make sure that they have some goals towards that end and that aligns to asba's pillar of vision so again you can put characteristic one and then you can say you know plus or minus strong strength or opportunity effective school boards have strong shared beliefs and values about what is possible for students and their ability to learn and of the systems and its ability to teach all students at high levels this is critical um and it ties along with equity as well you have to believe that every one of your students can succeed if you come in thinking well and you know half of these

068people aren't going to make it um or they're they're so doubt far down that there's nothing that our staff can do to fix them you know there's nothing we can do to help if you already don't believe that and you have that kind of belief system at leadership level it's not going to happen going down the chain and again this ties to the the um demonstrating that you really do believe that it's possible um is is a characteristic of effective boards and it's tied to the pillar of vision effective school boards are accountability driven spending less time on operational issues and more time focused on policies to improve student achievement so um part of what this says is high performing boards focus on establishing a vision setting policies and keeping their conversations focused on student

069achievement and remember we talked about achievement doesn't have to just be academics but achievement in terms of their social emotional their their welfare their their activities any of those things that that you would put in that box of success or achievement poor governance was characterized by factors such as micromanaging of the board so this talks about structure do you have the structures in place in order to ensure that your policies are operationalized um and that you have a structure in place to make sure that you are fo are aware of what those practices are again aware of informed not necessarily involved so when uh when we do the the self-evaluation it will ask things like we have uh we have a effective way of managing our maintenance to ensure quality products like we're not going

070to ask you to go out there and and make sure that all the buses and air filters are great and go there with your little check box and make sure that they are but we are going to say are you certain as a board member that you have a process in place that and that that's getting done and and that's what we're talking about structure effective school boards have a collaborative relationship with staff and the community and establish small strong communication structures to inform and engage both internal and external stakeholders in setting and achieving setting and achieving the district's goals meaning that they're part of the process not just given a marching orders high achieving districts school board members could provide specific examples about how they connected with and listened to the community and school

071board members received information from many different sources including superintendent curriculum director principals and teachers and this ties to our pillar of advocacy effective boards are data savvy they embrace and monitor data even when it is when the information is quote unquote negative and uses it to drive continuous improvement high achieving districts identified specific student needs through data justified decisions based on that data board members regularly sought out data and were not shy about discussing it even if it was negative and that is a part of accountability but this is also an essential component of equity in schools educational equity it's also just good practice because it really helps with uh it's hard to fight with data right so if you can make sure that your decisions are data driven um it takes a lot of

072the by the assumed bias out of it doesn't mean you can't still use data in a biased way i don't want to get it twisted but it definitely if you use that as a guide it makes it seem less like it's um arbitrarily decided effective school boards align and sustain resources such as professional development to meet district goals to this end successful board supported extensive professional development programs for administrators and teachers even during times of fiscal restraint meaning that you invest in training not only for yourselves as board members but throughout your system and that's part of structure number seven effective school boards lead as a united team with the superintendent each from their respective roles with strong collaboration and mutual trust boards defined an initial vision for the district and sought a superintendent who

073matched this vision um there has to be trust there if you have a vision and you find yourself micromanaging that says that you probably don't trust the administrator to execute on the vision and so instead of trying to force a person to be something that they're not you you have to start looking on whether or not you have the right person for the job and if you're the only person on the board that doesn't think that the administrator is doing their job then that seems like more of a communication issue between you and the superintendent and and kind of leaning on the rest of the board to go forward you should ask yourself you know why am i the the only one standing doesn't mean that you're wrong but it just means that like why

074do you think that that might be the case and this comes to the pillar of conduct and ethics finally effective school board members take part in team development and training sometimes with their superintendent to build shared knowledge values and commitments for their improvement and effort what you're doing today is one of the effective uh traits of a school board high achieving districts had formal deliberate training for new board members they also often gathered to discuss specific topics low achieving districts had board members who said they did not learn together except for when the superintendent or other staff made presentations of data so again if that's the only time that you're learning things together is that that dice when there's a presentation that's not necessarily checking this box and this has to do with accountability so

075we don't have a worksheet but i would be curious to hear um and we'll just popcorn around um with the board members um in your perspective if you can give me it um one thing that you think you're doing at least one thing that you think you're doing really well and then one thing that you'd like to see some improvement in doesn't mean that you're necessarily doing it terribly but just one thing that you think you could be doing a little bit better in um i think we do a lot of these really well um a lot of the strengths that we listed that were listed i feel like they were strengths um i think number six kova being a restraint has been hard for us um with professional development um so i think that

076one is we've put a lot of restrictions because of professional development um because covid so i think we could work on that and number three i jotted down as being something that we could work on that was just my thought thank you anyone else uh jill i concur those were my two where i thought we have number one we have our strategic plan we're working on equitable um late our equality above our school districts number two because our north side was a little bit unequitable is that the word unequitable inequitable we're working on that really well um i think number three is just difficult copied this year and just operational and making sure that all the safety precautions are put into place on the daily i think that's just been you know difficult for i

077think we are listening to our committees really getting our teachers involved in ideas um again kovid5050 the community is split so you can't make the entire community happy uh five data-driven definitely six support we're working on our professional development we've got at least dates on the calendar now for professional development that we didn't have before especially with our middle schools and high schools and then um yeah seven it's awesome strength and eight i think we do as much training as we possibly can attend as a board so and i put six in the middle amy is that where you put six i just like there's kind of there's there's like an opportunity to grow but like it's still a community i kind of put it in the middle of my little columns i had um

078it overall i feel like we did okay it's not that we did horrible but i know we had to restrict a lot this year for like travel for a lot of our counselors that wanted to go to some things but we were feeling like it was the time and so that's why i put sex maybe in the middle and we're working towards it we know that it's a goal it's a something that we're working towards something that we have i'd like to hear from um michelle or tiffany as you being a little bit newer on the board um because a lot of times um what i found is uh especially when i i was a newborn member not too long ago um less than three years it's um it becomes a history you learn things

079and then you just assume they were always there always taught so i just want to get a perspective from a new or where you thought the opportunities and the strengths were um i from like from a bird's eye view from sitting in the classroom and observing the board and as a parent observing the board so my perspective would look a little bit different but it from listening to amy and joe it was pretty much right on honestly um and i'm glad joe mentioned putting stuff in the middle because i had stuff in the middle drawn from opportunities to actually write going into strings i've seen so much growth and changes but i had one two five and eight as strings no doubt 100 strengths and i had three and four as they were opportunities at

080once that have now are geared into the strengths and i think six and seven more things that can definitely be worked on but they're still more in a strength than uh something that is in the true opportunity calm for me a lot of a lot of good things overall doing well but of course on any of these there's improvement but that's where i stood out on this one and then i'll just ask tiffany if you have anything to add um i i don't i mean one i put in an opportunity i know that uh one i put is an opportunity and i think there's um just from the outside looking i'd like i think there's some room for growth there um but but um as far as uh four seven and eight and uh six

081i put as strengths um and then uh three as opportunity great well thank you anybody else from the team have any um burning insights or anything bad no i i i had i i appreciate hearing where board members were thinking on this too because as as we were working through these there were some i had us both there were there were examples i had as true strengths and opportunities for growth and especially when we were talking about number three when we look at operational issues at a at a pandemic where there's a lot of unprecedented things we spent a lot of time having to look at um things that we've never had to talk about before that were huge decisions that needed to be made but interestingly enough those that those that created an opportunity

082for us in lots of different ways that i think are positive so i appreciated hearing perspective here and kind of utilizing this as a reflection tool for us as we grow and go together moving forward and i'm glad that you brought that up because covet has brought um a different you know perspective for board members and we've had board members feel like oh man i really feel like i'm micromanaging or i really feel like i'm maybe getting into things that i shouldn't and i think it's really important to just have that conversation because um a lot of the things are under the um permissive board thing like for example um staffing that's not something that you're gonna get involved in um but you have you do oversight and you approve you know people being hired

083um so when we're getting into a situation that's different and when we're getting into a situation that's high profile where there's a lot of attention being paid um it is not we and i think i forgot which presentation we did um i i think chris might have said it but it's not a bad idea for superintendents to maybe put bring some of those operational things to the board because it gives them a little bit of cover right you're getting they're representing the community and so if you're not quite really sure or this is something new um you may want to say hey these are this is what i'm thinking about but i want you all to to give me the guidance um and so i would say that sometimes yeah you might get into that

084operational thing but i think that should come from um a conversation about hey this is something the superintendent is either requesting or hey this is something that is really important in our community and you know as voices of the community i think that we need to be involved in this decision-making process nikki i totally agree because when you look at number four when we talk about a collaborative relationship with staff and communications on the structures to inform when we do informational items on what is our process or why are we doing this it's informing the why because of the how and it should be aligned to the what our goal our mission our vision so that you can kind of see some synergy between that and in it and i like how it's identified as

085a an effective characteristic here so i i completely agree all right so learn and grow and i think you uh i'm getting the sense that you are very much a learn and grow type of district and i love that so um this is just a quick reminder of where board policies are the law of the land so they are the rules in which uh the district operates including the governing board um b section b policies are specifically for you all so if you're newer and you have not um looks at it i would say look at the b policies because that's going to talk about b for board um my recommendation let me just really quick where does the policy come from district policy is based on various laws so whether those are federal or

086state laws asba policy services provide these model policies based on compliance with laws and then districts adopt them we talked about that districts can alter the language of these um policies to fit their communities though you should have changes reviewed by your legal counsel have to put that disclaimer in there um and then once the district adopts the policy it is their policy regardless of who provided the language um so that is your policy and that's what you'll be held accountable to it's important i'll just put this plug in for districts to do a policy review because we have found that some poli and people usually try to do that at least once every three years um and the reason for that is what happens is people start doing something and it's been done so

087long that they don't realize it's not aligned with their policy and that can get you into some trouble so you want to make sure that you're doing a policy review as a board um that could be done in a couple different ways we have people come in with uh administrative staff and a board member that will sit with our policy team and do that um our district did it with um basically doing a chunk of policies every board meeting for two years it took two years to do it but we would do like okay here we're gonna do um all of b policies or you know maybe k was really big so we're gonna do half of k this month and you know at this meeting half of the next one um and that's the

088opportunity to make sure that it's aligning it's also an opportunity to look at the practices that go along with that because a lot of times the practices even though they do not come from the board um they're in there aligned with the policies and so it's a good point uh time for the administration to make sure that the practice is still what the practice really is um especially when it comes to things with parents and staff and the communication the complaints process the evaluation process you really want to make sure that those things are aligned um doc nicki and dr foley this is one area where we used to have a board policy committee that was meeting on the regular basis and we probably need to start that again that was with our in-house attorney

089and then she retired so this is something definitely we need to start up again i don't think they got through all the policies when they were doing that and i know darlene probably knows exactly where we left off but good reminder thank you nikki yeah and i also want to help this hopefully this helps you too when you have a committee of the board so the board has established a policy committee any committee of the board has to comply with open meeting law so when that policy committee meets with the the attorney unless the attorney is specifically giving you legal advice if they're just there to help you go through the policy um it that needs to be open uh and you would do many meeting minutes and post it just like anything else so

090again talk to your attorney but you know most of these are are pretty commonplace and and you wouldn't need to necessarily go into an executive session to talk about altered you know and i think nikki how they would do it is they just had one board member present during the policy meeting so it wasn't an open meeting law or they didn't have to post it but then they would bring any of those um policy renewals changes to the board for a full vote and discussion does that make sense uh it does i'm just uh letting you know that regardless of whether or not a board member is present if it is a committee of the board meaning the board for it it's a board and it still is required and that's something a lot of

091people don't understand regardless of whether or not a board member's even there if it's a committee by the board um for the board's purposes then that's fine it's different than the board saying hey you know what i'd like to get some feedback on um what parents think about this new practice that we're doing um and the administration says okay yeah we'll put something together that's a superintendent's committee task force whatever they're doing but if it's a committee of the board and i would say policy because it's the board's thing would be one of those things you just want to make sure that uh in the future that that those are are treated as such um so in the b policies you have about your value self-evaluation it says in there that you'll do a self-evaluation

092annually board powers and responsibilities etc b is also the one area that you can write your own practices so generally you approve the policy and administration comes up with the practices but because b is your own governance b is the board policies you can create practices around these so for example if you want to say okay um of self-evaluation and then you want to build a practice of how you're going to do that and what that's going to look like you could do that if you wanted to do the board organizational meeting right now it's just very general you'll have one by this date but if you want to put a process in there and this is the process we're going to use we're going to have a meeting in december to discuss it um

093openly and then we'll do the vote in january or on january's organizational meeting we'll follow these steps like you can create a process for those things so i just wanted to put that out there this is the one area where you can dig in a little deeper and give you a come to an agreement around a practice code of ethics i don't have the handout with you but it isn't in your policy manual and it basically just says a lot of what we talked about and i put it in orange here um here's a couple of the key points i wanted from the code of ethics that i wanted to point out um because there's oh sorry the orange thing is remember always that my first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of

094students attending public schools at the end of the day that's what all of that leads to um and the code of ethics is really important and i'm now sad that i don't have it to pull up for you but i hope that um i could try to pull that up during the break um but that's really an honor system there are very little there's very little recourses for board members who are quote unquote behaving badly um you know everybody we get calls all the time at asba um from the community or other board members trying to to rat out a board member or a district and they think that we have some kind of authority to go tell them what to do we don't we we educate but we have no authority over boards um

095and then they always want to say well how can i get rid of a board member you you really can't i mean unless that board member moves out of the district uh commits a felony and is in able to run for office um or gets recalled and recall is a timely and expensive process which may or may not result in what you want because all it does is make them go back to the ballot and if they get voted again they're right back in so um it's really about creating a process internally that is dedicated to collaboration that puts protocols in place that are fair um that builds communication between the team that's that's really all that we can do and then when things start to go awry i love it when they say okay

096look we've got new people we want to get everybody on the same page or hey i'm starting to see that there's some tension around these things let's come and think of something before it gets out of hand i love when that happens because sometimes we also get called in when it's imploding and nobody likes each other and things are going bad in social media um you know and and that's a tougher place to come back from okay and then just a real quick plug for uh self evaluation school boards do play a significant role in the outcomes we saw that from the effective characteristics and from the studies that have been done and we also know that they need some self-evaluation accountability is a big part of that and so self-evaluation is something that um

097that we encourage you to do we do have a tool it's an online tool um every board member and the superintendent takes it um and then it gives you a rating um and then that gives you a place to start and make sure that you're all on the same page in terms of where you think the priorities of the board should be it's also a tool to help you create board goals and board goals are different than district goals a lot of times say well we have board goals we have our strategic plan board goals are actually completely different they are the goals for the board themselves what are the things that the board needs to work on in order to be a better governance team um and so the evaluation uh can provide some

098insights into that and and it covers conduct and ethics as we talked about um vision structure do you create the conditions district-wide for student success accountability are you making sure that the district is being held accountable and meeting expectations and then advocacy are you engaging the local community to represent themselves and to and value the expectations that they hold and so that talks a little bit about that but we'll go we don't have to go over that school boards in review play a significant role in the outcomes for students they also play a significant role not just directly for students but i want to highlight here um the impact they have on staff which in turn impacts students um we know that our staff are watching and even before when there's maybe just a handful

099of staff in the audience um they are sharing what they are seeing with their peers and so that really goes a long way in terms of how much trust there is in the board um and how much um they're willing to participate if you are saying one thing and doing another the staff have an inclination to just wait that change out and see if it really sticks right um if you are bickering or can't get on the same page or are trying to micromanage um you might find that you lose staff or that you can't recruit staff we've been in situations where uh and some difficult soup searches at times because superintendents do their homework and they're like i don't know if i want to work with that board you know um so it's important

100that you realize that the way that you are coming across in your meetings is uh heidi our communications director likes to say it's a pr um it's a pr event every time you do it and it's either going to help or hurt um so you want to make sure that you are putting your best foot forward um as much as possible so that is the end of this section i'm gonna give us all a five minute break while i switch slides um if you have any questions feel free to use the chat to put those in um and we'll re we'll uh i'll i'll answer them when we come back from break ready to take it the moment he got it so um let me share my screen we're gonna give you a little bit

101of a history and some some uh you know context for this so let me come on go away okay so this is a booklet this does not come from asba this is from hrdq they do several different kind of uh assessments and different things for uh teams they have lots of different personality assessments for uh for different situations and things like that so we like this one because it's pretty simplistic there are four team member styles that they talk about um we also like this one because it's specifically about team and teamwork because sometimes we're a little bit different in our own bubble and our own work than we might be when working with others and we're going to talk a little bit more about how sometimes we surprise ourselves because depending on the makeup

102of our team we may see different kind of traits come out that we don't normally have in other situations so we'll talk a little bit about that we're going to identify our own personal team member styles and then we're going to learn about how to capitalize on your strengths and improve on your trouble spots so just like too much of a good thing can can be a bad thing sometimes um things that our strengths can also some and in the wrong situation or in with certain other people can um can leave places for opportunity um where then after we do that we're going to identify the team member styles across across the team that you all are working on so we're gonna get to know each other's styles and then we're gonna talk about how

103we can take full advantage of the the mix of styles because we're also gonna be talking about roles and what are some good roles that align with a style if this is a style this is a good role that you could play on your team um so we're gonna talk a little bit about that as well we already did this so um i will ask though for this question um and you could just put it in the chat and i'll read out a couple so it's it'll be anonymous um if you put it at what do you enjoy about working with your team and what do you find challenging and when we talk about team we're going to really ask you to put your focus on the on this board team and for those of

104you that are newer to this team you might not have as much experience working with the team but to the best of your ability try to to keep it in that lens um and where you have some trouble you can refer back to maybe other teams that you've worked on but what do you enjoy about working with this team and what do you find challenging and you can send it to me privately or to everyone whatever you feel more comfortable with um i'm seeing uh they enjoy positive focus and professionalism enjoying the people collaborative nation nature of the team um we get to work together um so it seems like people really enjoy that this is a team that that wants to work or does work well together um they enjoy getting the different points

105of view enjoy that everybody's working to move the district forward they enjoy gathering different perspectives um also combining the gifts and talents of people to problem solve that's good to use the different skills and skill sets of individuals any challenges i haven't really seen any challenges um some challenge that might be is just issues with your own emotions you know navigating issues uh on the team you know when our feelings are involved um dealing with no win situations such as covet where you're always going to have somebody upset um there's a challenge sometime with responding and not reacting i know that that's a challenge for me sometimes as well um to take that breath and make sure that you are being in control of your response instead of emotionally or viscerally propelled okay well that's

106good i think that's a good amount of things to talk about uh or things to acknowledge yeah there's there's difficult in team um i've had people say some people just aren't good at team they they really like to do work by themselves they're kind of an individual type of person so it's difficult for them to work in teams because they like you know they admittedly like to be in in control so uh it's hard to relinquish some of that so the benefits about knowing your own style is that it improves your interactions with others if you understand what makes you tick and what things set you off you can kind of be aware of those when you're interacting with others it also helps you to interpret helps others interpret your behavior when they understand your

107personality and they better understand your intent and so it can help them again react to you differently um and then it can influence your success if you work to your uh style and the skills that are associated with that style you're more likely to be successful um we're more challenged when we're forced into situations that's not really comfortable for us um and and so sometimes it's okay to say hey that's a shortfall for me and i'm going to lean on somebody else in my team rather than think that i have to do it all um and sometimes it means you know i'm stepping out i we had a conversation that there was a longtime board member that's never been board president and they was just like i know i don't want to do that i'm

108not a good facilitator i don't want to be you know making sure everybody's had a talk i'm really good at giving my opinion but i don't know if i'm really good at organizing that and that's was really great for that individual to know that that just wasn't something that they needed to do for a title because they knew ultimately with the team that just wasn't going to be how they could be most successful um and so we're hoping with this that you get to know a little bit about yourself um and the the people that you'll be working with as you move forward so without further ado we're going to get into the um let me pull out i have a copy of it here so for those at home we're doing a little workbook

109here it's what's my team member style i'm going to invite you to take out the response form it's a carbon copy i know it's been a minute since you've seen something like that it's a little old-school technology but we're going to do a carbon copy here and on there there's questions a series of questions and each question has two answers that are are possible so for example the first question says i am most engaged when our team is option one brainstorming creative ways to solve a problem option two analyzing facts and data to arrive at a decision what you're going to do is you're going to assign a point value to each of those between zero and five so whatever is most likely like you you'll want to give more points to if something is

110totally not you then you could say that is a zero and give all your points to the other um the other uh selection you cannot use fractions so for those middle of the line folks there's no 2.5 um there's no three and a quarter they have to be whole numbers um and so that's what we're gonna do take your time um you know go through the questions do not do anything else don't separate don't do any math because it can get a little confusing when we move forward so at this point what i'd like you to do is um do the the quiz give the point values and then if you can just chat me a done when you're done i can make sure that we move forward when everybody's had a chance i have

111about half of the team done a couple more people tiffany i don't know if you can chat or not so can you let me know if you still need time oh she just put done okay good so she can chat i think that might be it let me let me know if you're not done i just it's hard to follow the chat so i think that that might be it okay so now we're gonna go to the next step we're gonna do a little bit of math here okay so you're gonna separate your pages and then underneath you'll have a yellow one and that's important because it has some shapes associated with it so when you lift it up you'll see that the number that you wrote is now inside of a shape okay now

112this seems very elementary you know your shapes and you know your numbers through four i cannot tell you how many times i've done this and people cannot get the numbers to add up right and it's the eyes trick you with the whole triangle square rectangle thing and sometimes you miscalculate so i want you to very carefully chart the totals of each shape um and so this might help you a little bit first do all the diamonds so go through and write down all the diamond numbers then do all of the square numbers then do all the triangle and the oval and there's a little bit of a cheat sheet here on the screen because it'll say okay number one has at least one diamond question in it so one the total should be 90 right

113uh yes i believe so just making sure i can add yes then i'm going to do the same thing just when you're done chat me a done whoops okay we're about halfway there okay i think maybe just two more no way i think everyone i think we're good i apologize if we're not please do tell me oh yep oh there's one less please do tell me if we need another minute okay so yes hopefully you got a total number at 90. and now you're going to look in your workbook so they're on page three um chart one you're going to go ahead and put the total number in the triangle diamond oval and square or rectangle that's there on on page three okay so as you can see here these are on a uh an

114access so we have ones that are high assertive low assertive sometimes people have a negative connotation with assertive um but it just means that somebody that is vocal somebody that is um finds it easier to communicate or to share their feelings um low assertive is somebody that does a lot more thinking and maybe not not as vocal or doesn't always say what's on their mind um they're kind of more in their head um and then we have um and so you see they're tells versus asks so um you can see that they'll tell you how it is and then they might ask and and couch kind of their their their question or their thinking in a question um and then we have high expressive or low expressive again displays emotion that you can very much

115tell you know how they're feeling and then controls emotion you can't always tell what's going on in terms of what they may be thinking about something so uh in in some our directive our direct folks are assertive and they're forward thinking thinking about the future our spirited folks are energetic and creative considerate tend to be thoughtful and supportive and systematics to send tend to be consistent and well organized so digging into each one of these styles a little bit more and i'm not asking anybody to say what their style is just yet um i would like what i will do though is at the end of each one of these i will um ask you don't have to worry about writing them down because um we're going to have a discussion about it later and

116we're going to be talking about the team ones as well so our direct style people their strengths are that they are good at focusing at the on the big picture so maybe they're going to be less likely to want to get into the the weeds or micromanage because they like to focus on the big picture and i apologize my dogs are barking um and i don't mean my feet believes that conflict can be constructive so these are people that you might think you're fighting somebody might think that they're fighting but they just think that they're having constructive conversation right they believe that conflict can be constructive um they are more likely to take risks um and they communicate assertively like so there's no you know questioning what it is that they think or or or

117want in terms of what they think that you should do going forward for our spirited style folks their strengths include a love of generating new ideas they're open to change so they're pretty flexible they recognize and praise the accomplishments of others so they're going to be like the cheerleader of the team in terms of yeah look at what we did and they have a lot of energy and enthusiasm they bring the energy our considerate styles tend to be more active listeners so they really listen to other people they are always willing to lend a hand when needed they encourage others to share their ideas and feelings they're more about making sure everybody else feels like they're they're being heard and they tend to mediate conflict within a team they're the peacemakers of the group our

118systematic style strengths include thinking critically and analytically so really digging into the data and trying to find the connections they have strong organizational skills high standards of performance so they're really dependable and they tend to pay attention to the details okay now let's talk about our trouble spots direct styles um can tend to be overly critical they may give feedback with little regards of the receiver's feelings again they're just getting to the point and not really thinking about how that lands and that can come off as aggressive or impatient so they are somebody that doesn't want to do a lot of talking they want to kind of talk a little bit and get it done so that could be impatient um spirited style trouble spots so sometimes they can be distracted or undisciplined meaning they

119lose focus or they they can't um they might not finish it a task which keeps them from maybe struggling to meet deadlines um sometimes their behavior can be disruptive meaning they may interrupt or bring up something that doesn't have to do with the current topic and so that can be disruptive to the conversation and sometimes they have difficulty sticking to the plan so if you create a plan and everybody's on the same page because they get distracted and they're one of those people like to generate ideas they may start working on another plan or think of a different way and so that can have difficulty sticking to the plan considerate styles um they don't express their opinions so they're kind of just go with what everybody else says and it's it's hard to know what

120they think and they don't um they don't express their opinions so that might lead to some resentment passive independent so they kind of just go with whoever they think probably they're going to make the least mad they want to go with that option trust too easily and also overly sensitive so maybe somebody that's not great at taking feedback or construction or that deals with disagreement very well are systematic trouble spots they can be perfectionists meaning they don't want to move anything forward until it's completely perfect which makes them resistant to change because they like the way it works it's not broken let's not fix it values data over personal relationships so sometimes they really want to focus on that quantitative data the numbers and less about what that means or the context they just want

121to get you know data values uh values data over personal relationship uh and then they can sometimes be rigid and inflexible meaning they thought about it so much they they're pretty sure this is the right way and that's they don't they don't can't be convinced otherwise because they thought about it and they know that this is the right way so that can you can see how all of those uh challenges of the different personalities can be difficult in a team right so now let's talk a little bit about styles and roles and this is all for your own thinking because we're going to do a little bit of reflection here at the end um so our styles are preferred behavior meaning that if left to your own devices that's what you naturally gravitate to right

122so we just talked about our styles roles are assigned responsibilities and so certain team member styles are favored for certain roles so if your natural inclination is this then these responsibilities are going to be a natural fit for you and this is good to cover because we need all of these roles on a team when you work on a team there's lots of different things that need to be to happen and so different roles need to be played this is going to help give us some insight into looking at what your natural personality is and what responsibilities on this team you may may be best suited for um it's also going to give us when we we go to talk a little bit about each other's styles it's going to give us some ideas of

123where our strengths and where our gaps are in this team meaning that if we have a whole lot of one style and they all want to do that role somebody's going to have to step up and do the other roles or they don't get done and you have an imbalanced team okay so task roles um there are task roles which are uh initiator they get the discussion started and they address difficult issues coordinator they organize people and projects evaluator they're going to ask the questions and measure progress and the fault the completer they follow through on the details so just real quick you can kind of take a guess at who which personality styles might go with that um so initiator is is most likely going to be what anybody want to take a guess

124direct someone who's direct yes so your direct people are going to be like all right let's get this started um and then coordinator organizes people and projects systemic yes stomach um uh spirited at um asks questions and measures that uh the progress um and then completer is that considerate person that focuses on the details so in addition to your task rules you have your maintenance roles so once you decide what needs to get done then how do you keep things going the gatekeeper they get people involved they make sure that everybody on the team feels like they're part of the team you have the harmonizer who mediates between conflicting parties the energizer keeps spirits and motivation high and the encourager um who is the person that recognizes and praises good performance so if you look

125on page nine of the workbook you can see a summation of what's going on there um and you see that under direct you have the communication and i'm just gonna read a few of these because i know that they're not in that the book and for the audience so under communication under direct a direct person freely shares opinions and is candid they get to the point quickly and concisely and they ask tough questions and raise difficult issues their work preference is that they're most comfortable in a setting setting individual and team objectives they like to work independently and they move from one task to another with speed and confidence and they are best suited to the roles of initiator and evaluator our spirited folks enjoy socializing before taking care of business they are energetic and

126enthusiastic and they are uh persuasive and engaging meaning they're people people um they excel at the creative process they're good at multitasking and they prefer to solve problems through group discussion they are good at the energizer and encourage your roles our considerate folks enjoy listening to others building trust they use supportive body language eye contact head nodding uh when the in their communication style and their work preference is that they prefer flexible and collaborative work environments and they're comfortable taking responsibility for the less high profile tasks so they they are comfortable doing that the details or the things that don't seem as quote unquote fun to the other folks and they're the gatekeeper and the harmonizer type roles and then in systematic their communication style is conversations are precise and to the point they take

127care of business before socializing they prefer to discuss facts over feelings in their work preferences they are well organized they successfully meet deadlines and they work consistently and accurately but prefer to focus one task at a time so they don't like to do the multitasking and they are in the roles that are good well suited for them are coordinator and completer so now i'm going to invite you all to take i'm going to give you about five to ten minutes i'll kind of check in with you but this is uh there's several questions on pages 10 and 11 of the workbook um where you're asked to reflect on your own style and remember you can go back to the other pages to look again at the roles and then the the um strengths and trouble

128spots are on page six and seven and so we want you to take some time or i want you to take some time to reflect and answer these questions what is your personal strength as a member of the team what is the greatest challenge you may face as a member of this team what can you improve to what can you do to improve your team member performance what are some of the roles that you think you might be able to take responsibility for in the future that might be a good match um and think about one other person on your team and how you can apply what you've learned just so far that might help you improve your relationship with them so i'm going to give you about 10 minutes to do this these are

129kind of difficult when we haven't even had a first meeting of january yet to know than two new board members you're muted nikki jill i agree i'm struggling with number three quite a bit i'm like um i have no idea i'm just trying to be general i think i know i'm like um number five is pretty rough i know a lot of us i guess i could because we're supposed to do it within the board right or can we go to the board and the administrator this is the community that is working today okay okay we can do administrators i went admin jill okay yeah because i'm like i could do amy but that's really the only person who's on here so it felt like i was picking jesus and you don't have to get

130into it um we number five yeah if you're not really here yet that's something that you can reflect on um always come back to this workbook and in fact we often tell people you know because we we've done this where people do this brand new and everybody's still in kumbaya right and some people stay in kumbaya and other people don't so when they start to not um we always tell them they can come back to here if you start having um like you're not seeing eye to eye with somebody on your team you can always come back to this and look at you know some ways that you can change your behavior but you can also when we get to the team section remind yourself of what their preferences are and think about a new

131way to approach um so you may not be in a spot right right now for that and that's that's okay just to give you some thoughts um in terms of in what ways can you improve your team member performance um this might be um where you talk a little bit about you know your trouble spots and and are some things that you think you might want to be aware of um just in general um when you were you're working with negro group but um i was going to give you just another minute that would have been 10 minutes um so let me just give you a minute or two more to finish up and then we're going to have some conversation okay 30 more seconds in the meantime who wants to take a stab at

132what mine are i actually have two pretty close ones um so who would like to guess what are my style are you spirited i am spirited that is one of them i would assume systematic i will tell you that i'm the opposite of the two that julie is so both rt you're perfectly balanced she has two and i have two are you systematic no that is a close one for me but no that's not mine that's one of julie's well it's 50 50 at this point so i'll go with um considerate oh i appreciate you that's my lowest one that's julie i am uh spirited and direct so you can imagine how high energy and intense i can be at times um but yes i'm spirited and direct and julie is considerate and systematic and

133so i always say she's the yin to my yang because we between the two of us uh it's a really good merit work marriage in terms of making sure all of the boxes are checked lots of idea generating lots of checking in on her part you know because sometimes i just go go go um when i create something and that i just do big picture kind of stuff she's really good at coming back in and filling in the process part with her systematic and so i really enjoy the work team and that's how a good team should be you really should have all of these personalities could you imagine if you just had you know five direct people five direct systematic people at that where everybody not only was very assertive in their thinking but

134very certain that they were correct that would be a very difficult team to work on and believe it or not i have worked with teams that have um predominantly one of the characteristics either a lot of direct or a lot of considerate you can imagine on a considerate board there's not a lot that gets done everybody's so worried about making a decision that that hurts somebody or they so much want to hear all the input from everyone that sometimes it's hard to get to get decisions made um so really like i said in the beginning all of of one is all of a good thing or too much of a good thing can be difficult for a team um all of these are really needed so with that what we're gonna do and i'm gonna

135do the same thing um i hope that people are comfortable enough with me popcorning around um but what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna go through everybody on here and that's the team included because uh you made the decision to to not just say the board and the superintendent but to include the administrators that you all work with um i'm gonna set a timer because if you're a spirited person like me you may want to talk for five minutes so i'm gonna put a timer everybody's gonna get two minutes there's ten of you so that'll take us about 20 minutes to get through but what i'm going to do is i'm going to give you two minutes i would like you to tell us your top style if you're close like if you have a

136top two like you're tied you've got 20 something in both of them or you got like 23 and 22 if you if you feel like it's really close um you can go ahead and share both of those but we um but we don't need to know all of them you can tell us your first second third and fourth um so that you know just if you want to but you have two minutes to share with us what you'd like using the questions that you answered as a guide so you might you don't have to answer all five questions in that two minutes but if you want to talk a little bit about first of all of course what your strengths are and then how you think that that would help the team um and what

137some what you're recognizing are going to be some of the things you're going to need to work on as a team member that those are the two that i think i would focus on instead of the jobs and future projects we'll talk about that a little later um but i'd like you to really focus more on what what are your strengths um and what you what you think that you bring to the team and then some things that you're kind of going yeah maybe i need to make sure i watch that going forward okay and what i'm going to do is if you can't hear my timer sometimes that happens i will just kind of wave it like this so i am going to start at the bottom of my screen i'm going to go

138to mum so i am considerate and then i'm really close to um systematic and direct so i know in terms of strengths when working with groups you know i listen i have high standards of performance at times and depending on the subject and the information i can get into the details and i'm always open to listening and change some of my challenges is that sometimes i'm too trusting of others um or the situation or a lot of times i trust until you break the trust and sometimes can be impatient with certain things depending on the topic or the area in which we're discussing so i do think it's important that i make sure if a voice isn't heard depending on the meeting and the type of meeting that we make sure that voices are heard

139from everybody so we can get their perspective and i think sometimes i can help other people understand or see the big picture depending on the dynamic of the group and if we're having conflict or if we're not agreeing on certain topics mom did you say you were considerate and what i was considerate and then i was very close with um direct and systematic they were just uh two points from one another or three points so consider it and then systematic and direct 30 23 and 20. okay so 30 was a strong one um consider it is your your primary so that's what we'll we'll mark um and if you see on page as we're going along on the next page there's a um your team's style profile on page 12 and on there you see

140the triangle diamond oval and rectangle for the different styles go ahead and just put a initials or draw a line and put a name so that you know who's in which which one um it's not a lot of space so i would say try to focus mostly on their primary one unless their primary one was close like so if so for example if mom had one that was and 28 i would say those are both her primary ones okay thank you mom let's go to david so my top two were very close i was a 27 for spirited and a 26 for considerate and so when i look at that i think my my strengths and what i add to the team i think i'm good at building collaboration within the team and being kind

141of an energizer and an encourager and harmonizer i think those are the pieces that uh i add to the team i do like to listen and hear from everyone on there um and then be able to get their points of view and look at their perspective as we go forward making a decision uh i think definitely one of my um greatest challenges uh is is staying focused and staying in my lane i think sometimes i have a tendency or i feel it to um maybe step outside of my role a little bit and then as uh i'm sure dr foley would agree she might have to remind me to stay on task and stay going and i feel like i'm i'm dug from up every now and then and i see squirrel and i just

142start going that way but from a big picture as well uh my my absolute worst was systematic um and you know when you talk about deadlines and meeting things and and uh that's why i think it's really important that we have good support from myself for sure staying on top and staying in those deadlines and i appreciate virginia so much strong-arming me to make sure i can get my things done and turned into dr foley on time so we can get to spirit definitely fits with coach right so um that that's a good spot for you and consider it mom is a perfect role for hr because you really have to listen to other people and make sure they feel comfortable so at least you know you can feel good about the life choices that

143you've made um i'm going to mix it up and i'm going to go out of order hopefully this doesn't result in me forgetting someone but we have a lot of staff i want to do a board member here real quick let's do um amy you're on mute amy you're on mute oops um okay so i'm considerate and then i was also like mom direct and systematic were close second um i believe i'm a good listener i try to lend a helping hand whenever possible i try to encourage those around me i'm able to disagree with others with kindness but some of my challenges are then i am sensitive and i take criticism very personally i want to make everybody happy and i can't and easier easier for me sometimes to stay very quiet during board

144meetings because i know every word i say will get twisted in the public view or misconstrued so i'm very very careful um when i speak in board meetings and i think sometimes people expect me to say more because i'm supposedly the president but um i just have seen things go south for many school board members and another challenge i face is i hear a lot all the time i'm very into social media i have kids in the district and so i do hear a lot of um grumblings and i again take all that to heart um in ways i can improve i need to keep a more bird's-eye view and not listening to the only loudest voices in the community thank you guys don't even need this timer okay um [Music] let's go with dawn

145okay so mine was really interesting because i am like so close on three of them i was a 26 on considerate but i was tied with 24s on systemic uh or systematic and direct um so i think when i was reflecting on that i think that um maybe my strength is being um a harmonizer because i try to kind of conduct but i'm very comfortable going between um wanting to listen but then jumping into being real direct systemic and explicit with so what now what and how do we move forward so i think i'm kind of it's interesting that i'm my numbers are so close is that is that is that unusual no and it's actually not unusual for things to be almost i don't know if it's possible for them to be exact because

146of the the um the number but um yeah there's it's uh people can get almost exact numbers close enough numbers in all four and be kind of in the middle and the interesting thing about that uh dawn is that um and we'll talk about it a little bit more on the team as as we get through all of this um when you have something that's close like a a close one like that um you have your natural and then you have what's natural with you given a situation so if something is missing so if you're on it for example um i consider it as my least my least one in terms of taking time making sure everybody's hurt making sure people feel good and all that stuff i'm like a go-go-go um but if i'm

147on a team with a bunch of other go go go go i can kick that one into gear because when it's missing i notice it and so i will kick that into gear so that might make sense to you in terms of um so far what we've seen is a lot of considerate um and so you come across more direct um in that because you work with so many considerate people so i think that so i think that when i look at challenges i think one of the hard parts is is that um obviously we're so new things are so have been so different we've had such um uh crisis management situations that are beyond our control and so i think it's interesting that our i think it's we've had to rely on different parts

148of our strengths uh to kind of come together to figure out what are we going to do what's best for higley and how are we going to do that with what we know and are able to control um you know i think um the idea of of um in a way i was thinking you know when i was looking at the the team roles being so close i think being a harmonizer and a gatekeeper to help coordinate coordinate and complete is probably a good thing with the strengths and talents of the team we have with the work that we have to do together as a new team um would be a positive um i think two is a challenge i too am someone i think probably the considerate part is uh true because i do

149i take it to heart i you keep me up at night i will work on it until we have a solution um so that was my reflection on kind of this this has been this was interesting and i love hearing what everyone else is oh perfect timing your timing just went off um okay stop i gotcha okay thank you dawn for sharing um let's go to sherry so you're gonna hear that david and i balance each other out pretty well because i'm the systematic direct person they were 29 systematic and direct was and the other ones were completely different so i think i'm good at thinking critically and analytically organization is a strength i have high standards and expectations i pay attention to details i don't mind conflict and risk i try to focus on

150the big picture and sometimes i'm assertive maybe too assertive those weaknesses include being impatient highly critical of myself and sometimes others being a perfectionist and trying to focus on data instead of people and that's an embarrassing one to say sometimes because i love people but i get distracted by data sometimes i really need to work on listening more intently and lightening up should i say but that's why mr jokester is two offices down so that's mine thank you i really appreciate those that have gone so far being really honest um and that's what this is about it's it's just it's not bad or worse it's just acknowledging where you're at and where that uh is helpful and where that sometimes can get away from you um so thank you so much for sharing nikki is

151it like are we going to share what we think of others later because like what sherry just said i don't picture her being she's so kind and so compassionate so i i see that in her that she didn't even mention i don't know i think that's interesting um not necessarily we are going to talk about um the team and at that point we might say like hey i um because sometimes we don't always are like hey i would be good at this role you know or if we do think that we might not say it so when we get to the team one and um we can start like saying hey you know this would be a good role for you because um we see this this characteristic in you um you can certainly use

152um this to have a conversation that's the sad thing about not being um in a room is usually in a room when you don't have zoom that cuts you off if you try to talk over each other people will be laughing going oh yeah i totally see that or i don't know what you're talking about never seen that and um so yeah it's a little bit unfortunate we're not going to specifically go around the room and say what you think of each other uh or what what you have seen but you can definitely have a conversation later like yeah i really see that direct like that makes sense i see that now um and we we will have a chance to say some ahas because as people go through their styles you might be like

153oh okay that's why they're like you know that's why they're like that i'll give you an example um i am a spirited person and so i like to go around and say hi to people in their offices i um work with some very systematic people who have every 15 minutes of their day scheduled of what they're going to be doing each each 15 minutes of their day and um some of them don't like when i do that and i didn't i learned that the hard way like they just looked irritated and i just thought like oh they must be having a bad day no it's because i came in and messed up their stuff like they had a plan and i was messing it up by just popping in and just talking about something random

154and even if it was work related i didn't schedule an appointment with them or ask them if they had the time to talk i just went in and started talking not about it wasn't a bad intention but just not recognizing that that was uh while i love when people pop by my office to say hi other people aren't like that they they like to schedule those things so um one of the things that i had to learn to do for certain people is send them an email and say hey i'd like to stop by today one would be good um and that was just a little tweak that that you had to do but that's um that's the purpose of this let's go to tiffany all right um i am correct and spirited uh they

155were both pretty even at 28 and 27 and um this is no surprise to me at all um uh considerate and systematic uh we're pretty low with systematic being the lowest um i am uh more of a vision big picture uh person i um the details are very hard for me i i don't like to get into the minutia of things i i um i like to take charge and uh i'm direct and assertive i often um uh the feeling side of things isn't always easy for me when we're talking about um business i i tend to be more business and and have trouble taking into people's feelings into consideration uh sometimes as far as being considerate i try to be considerate but i just am more business and open and direct um i am

156not someone that gets hurt my feelings hurt easily um and i'm not easily offended at all uh i um i uh i like to work on a lot of different projects um and i tend to be very spirited um which is an issue with uh um being direct sometimes because i tend to to want to take on different projects and go in different directions and then sometimes um can't get it all done uh at once i uh um uh have the issue of uh seeing a squirrel and and i wish i could be like you mentioned nikki where i schedule 15 minutes of my day each day um and i'm able to get that done and stay on track but i don't um one of the the challenges or some of the challenges i feel

157that i do need to listen to people's feelings a little bit better um and uh stay stay focused and uh dire uh what i'm doing instead of being um in different buckets all the time uh i am sorry i think that's a and just and patience i i need to have more patience as well i like to get things done right away and with government and school board you know things don't happen right away and and i uh i struggle with that a little bit thank you tiffany we are the same animal director um yes thank you for sharing i know and that that considerate thing um it's not and people say oh yeah that makes sense that person's not consider it's not that we're not considerate it's just not our go-to to be like

158how are they feeling how is this landing on them um my husband i love it too my husband is also opposite of me he's a systematic considerate so he um thinks so much about how his words are going to land on other people that that sometimes it the conversation passes them by and now he's like well i don't want to go back a week later and say my feeling because that seems weird right but uh but yeah it's definitely a skill to be able to simultaneously hear people or or speak and and be able to know how that might be landing that's such a gift and i wish i had more of that i kind of say it and then afterwards go oh put it like that right i'm i'm i feel like you said

159i'm not i don't just um i don't um not care about people's feelings it's just not the go-to and i'm open to listening to everybody's thoughts and ideas it's just i'm not good at the the pleasantries i like the the the feelings and always asking how people's feelings are all the time well definitely something that uh being a board member and then having all these people um listening to what you say it's definitely something that we have to work on yes all the time so um let's go to michael all right no i uh i was i was reflecting as i did did my um stop styles and um i think um we have the long weekend so i'm going to go back and and my wife loves this kind of thing as well so

160i think we're going to going to do it together too just so because you want to know what i rated and then to talk about her but i can see that there's some some opposites there um for sure but um so i i came out the the two um i had i was tied for 25 with considerate and systematic and so when i looked at that um for the most part um you know some of the personal strength active listening helping when needed but also thinking critically and adequate analytically tied to that and certainly the need for for lots of organizational uh pieces um some of the areas of challenge that that that i pulled out of that too i think sometimes i don't always express my opinion which is certain certainly an area to

161to to grow grow on i think um though another one of the the trouble spots for me is sometimes trusting too easily and then and it may be coveted enhanced but i do um you know and i and i i tell myself no no it doesn't bother me but i think i think i've been i i'm overly sensitive to or i really have felt the criticism kind of even what amy has reflected on too it's it's kind of like you're in a no-win situation right now and it's been it's been it's been really hard i mean it's it's in all the years that i've been in education this has been the most difficult one for sure um but but i i feel like as a team um we've all been in it together and one

162of the things that i've enjoyed this year is just the collaborative nature of our work great great um co-workers that was a considerate and um she always kind of takes offense to doesn't share her opinions she's like no i'm very opinionated i share my opinions we were having a conversation she said you know what i realized is i think i am sharing my opinion but i'm saying in a way that's gonna you know be considerate and it's not always picked up like people don't pick it up that that was her opinion um because she's it's maybe not direct enough to say like so some people just go right past it and don't realize that she did give an opinion you just didn't hear it um and so she said don't people think that we're not

163opinionated as considerate people we are it's not that we don't have an opinion it's just hard to make sure that we articulate that in a way um that we're just working hard to make sure that that lands the right way and like i said with my husband sometimes you know in a board meeting or in a staff meeting it's you know at the moment passes and you you know your ideas come later that's why it's always good to think about the people on your team and and give opportunities that's why with the chat i like the chat part um because there's people that are going to unlike and share their opinions and there's other people that are still thinking on it so i love having the chat available for people to put that in after

164the fact when when they've given it a little bit more thought um let's go to shauna and that's my sister's name by the way oh there's not very many of us and my last name my maiden name was richards so um sherry has my last name so oh anyway not that it's not about me it's about you shawna let's hear more about you well this i i was i'm a lot like dawn and the fact that i'm even kind of even i should say my two strongest which is not going to be of any surprise to a lot of people um is direct was a 27 and systematic was a 26 with spirited being a 20 and consider it being a 17 um which is the story of my life um i am a super

165task oriented so if you give me a task i will get it done um in my position with special ed i have to be straightforward so i i'm able to have really difficult conversations and share difficult information and it doesn't make me nervous i almost feel like honored to do it because i'm helping a family work through something difficult um but with being that way i am so assertive that sometimes i run people over and i know that or i'm also so assertive that sometimes people in my group don't step up and have the opportunity to grow because i'll do it just get out of my way mentality kind of um i'm also very impatient so and because of that sometimes i don't want to follow a process because i just want to get to

166the end because i know what the right answer is and then when i go back and actually follow the process i grow more through the process than if i had just done it the way i thought it needed to be done and then um the other thing is i think because i'm so assertive and and i'm comfortable with difficult conversations i think people sometimes have a hard time coming to me because they're nervous because they know i'm just gonna hit it head on and so i probably inflict stress on other people that have to come to me and have difficult conversations because they just don't want to do it with me so and i can say if being in special ed has really helped me even these things out um because i've done a lot

167of things wrong in the beginning and i've had to learn to stop myself follow the process listen before offering fixes just all of that stuff and i also think as i've gotten older the considerate has gotten less i don't know if that's just what happens as you get older or sped did that to me i don't know well yeah you would think with that because uh you have to let like people uh and working i used to work you know with a lot of students that were special ed or emotional um and social emotional issues there's a lot of talking and a lot of times they don't know what's wrong with them so they're not very direct on it and it's a lot of you know listening so that can be um pretty difficult uh

168to be a direct person and be patient enough to like listen through that and to also let them speak before you're already solving their problems for them that's another another challenge that i know i share that as well um but i want to again thank everybody for being honest and to remember that this is not just um a confessional where we dump it out here and then go okay i feel better because i acknowledge these things that i i do or don't do um this is really the opportunity to take notes on that to to make sure that um you come up with a plan on how you're gonna address that so you know all those things where we said oh i really don't know you know a number five anybody that i need to

169work with better maybe at the end of this you might go hmm maybe there is a way that i can there's some things that i can work on to work better with these these types of personalities or these these types of people on my team um so as we move forward just remember to be taking notes for yourself on things that they like and appreciate and things that you know that maybe you could change to help you uh be a better team member um let's go to um michelle um my top one was systematic with the 26 and consider it was right behind it with the 25 um with spirited being my least but not far behind strengths are listening and i put hearing what people say um i love to take into account as

170many sides and views before i i do anything or truly make an opinion about anything um my personality is business first social second um i can relate to a lot what sherry said and i agree with what amy said like i don't see that side of sherry but i can relate to it a lot um another strength is that i'm super motivated um i get very excited about things i am very competitive very competitive it's actually irritating but um i love challenges so i look forward to do a lot of things um some of my greatest challenges are just human nature in general um i have a lot of fear the unknown so i'll stay awake thinking about all the what-ifs and things out of my control um a lot of it's confidence as well

171for me um i will and can never feel um or establish myself as the most intelligent person in the room so um i hold back on speaking up a lot um i just feel like it's rude at some times or just like what people will judge me to say being just dumb or just not necessary because i guess i'd probably do that like oh why are we talking about this so i'll judge myself on the same um but with that about speaking up i do feel like i have um it's full of regret because um although i'm not the smartest but i feel like i have a lot of experience so i can share they could help with the topic of discussion um a challenge is also just time to dedicate um just you know

172i i want to be educated in all discussions and and making really informed decisions and um the whole goal as i love that was stated before was to children students are first but it's helping the adults to um to do that and that that comes with um education um also it's right now with teaching um i'm exhausted uh teaching uh two different science classes and that plc lead on top of that site council um on spread of it then so i worry right now the start of it hopefully you make some changes if you move forward i like to have quiet focused work time but i uh i crave human interactions so it's a constant balance for me to want to focus on the matter at hand but look forward to when people do walk

173in the room or if you want to go walk to other people's rooms but i have to choose wisely at times um and i'm always concerned about it's not necessarily people pleasing and maybe it is i don't know but um i'm always concerned about letting people down um that probably just encompasses all the yeah and challenges stated that's me in a nutshell thank you i appreciate it yeah systematic considerate um that it that combination um because you want to hear everybody and you also want to think through the problem so much it does make it difficult to to kind of land on a decision and land on you know going forward because um you know you do want to make sure that you didn't you didn't miss anything right and sometimes we don't always have

174the luxury of that much time um and that makes us uncomfortable sometimes with the decisions because we didn't check all of our boxes yet um and so that that can be difficult to challenge especially in something with uh when you're working in a team and you only get one of five votes right then it's uh it's really difficult but i appreciate you you sharing all of that and i those considerate soft souls i feel for you so much because i'm kind of like tiffany in that i it's very hard to get my feelings hurt um and i i really feel for those folks that um you know kind of really just persevere i mean there are times i do perseverate on those things but you know um i always love doing this training because it

175reminds me to be kind to be kind with your words you know because you never know what you're gonna i would i would give up a kidney to have a piece of tiffany's have a piece of that what she had just like that's what well the nice thing about all of these things before i move on to uh jill is um you know the they are things that you can build up and take time and i've heard a couple people say like with age or with different circumstances or you know with time you can work on that um i've worked a lot on my um systematic and my considerate over the years um so that because i've been able to have people call me in and i've been able to have opportunities like this to

176learn that i'm like okay this is something that i need to do in order to to be a better leader to be a better team member um and so it it's uh it's good to always be looking at that because it's not going to be your natural but it doesn't mean that you can't do it it's just going to take a little bit more intentional effort joe so i am systematic and considerate with 31 and 29. uh the other two are very low or lower much lower um i'm an active listener i'm a good note taker but like michelle said definitely have some of the same struggles um with perfectionism if i notice something's wrong on board docs i definitely let them know like hey i noticed this and uh maybe i should not be

177as much like that uh i'm definitely a little more sensitive a lot more this year like amy said with social media you read what people are saying and definitely uh that can be a struggle for me um i like how our team and i'll extend this even to the cabinet always checks in with us because they know that we're getting a lot of the negative feedback and they're just always especially sherry i i'm shocked that she's not considerate because she always asks me how's it going how are you feeling so i do appreciate that so thank you thank you so did i miss anybody i like i said i only have four pictures at a time so i wasn't sure if i scrolled past okay well we're going to move to the next page where

178you probably already at but your team members style i just want to have a little bit of a conversation first what are we noticing anybody can unmute what are some things that you noticed as we we started marking down people's um styles we have a lot of considerate people have a lot of considerate people and a lot of systematic people yes i don't know how your other board member i know we have one board member that's not president so i would love for you to offer this to her and um let her let her go watch online if it's still up online for her to watch and see if she can gain something from that but from what i'm seeing right now you only have one board member that is direct and spirited so that's

179going to be a little bit of a gap for you because as we said all of the roles are needed um so if uh you know you have one board member spirited people remember also one that keeps the energy and keeps the ideas you know generating and if everyone else is kind of stuck in the system and and they're you know don't want to hurt people's feelings and they don't want to get hurt um you know she's going to get tired of trying to get everybody excited about you know the work uh and conversely tiffany you know when you're working with a whole bunch of considerate those things are gonna feel even more so because what do we do when we start feeling something um we go check and verify right we go to our

180friend with somebody else like am i wrong to think this right exactly yes they tell you what you want to hear especially if they're also considerate because they see the thing the same way so um it's going to be important for people uh to realize that you do have a a pretty big gap in in uh in terms of the natural and remember these are your natural personalities your roles are going to be a little bit different because like i said before when i'm in a space consider it's also one of my lowers i think it was like around the 17 too but when that is missing you will find that your other things kick up some um for example when i'm at home um i'm uh my my husband is um is a systematic

181um that's probably his primary would consider it secondarily but uh not a really lovey-dovey didn't come from that type of family and so when i'm at home i'm the one that's intuitive with everybody's feelings and ask you know how that that's going and stuff like that so um you can flip if it's absent does that make sense to some of you some of you i see are shaking their heads like when you're in certain situations you'll notice your other skill set pop up because it's not it's missing um and you might have already seen that on the board like maybe you don't consider yourself a direct person at all but you have enough of it in you that when you see things it's just spinning and nobody's going forward you'll speak up um and so

182that's really important because what we're going to do in this next section is to to think about just that so just like we did 10 minutes of reflection just on our own and what we learned um we have the the team reflection and action planning so what did the team style profile reveal about your team do you have an even distribution of styles we kind of already talked a little bit about that how does your team take advantage of its style strengths reflect on that i mean one thing that i can clearly see just getting to know you all is um the first thing that you all said is we all collaborate we all talk a lot and that's that makes perfect sense given how many considerate folks you have on your team and that's

183that's fantastic what are some of the challenges that are created with uh in that dynamic and what are some of the actions that you can do so this is where you're going to talk about yourself to help each other balance these trouble spots what are something that you see that's maybe missing because that goes into the fifth one of descriptions of the tasks and maintenance roles what are some things that you're seeing on your team whether it's on the board team now or on an administrative team and then this team as a collective that you could see yourself helping in that you could step up and do a little bit more of or something that you're currently doing that you feel is a really good spot for you so just give yourself some time again

184you may not have answers to all of these questions um right now but i want to give you about 10 minutes to um to jot some stuff down and then we're gonna do another quick share out before we wrap up for the day about five more minutes nikki i think this is really interesting to do um coming in from january with two new board members because the change of the dynamic has so changed um before we had some i think that we're a little more spirited in areas or direct in areas so it's a little different to come into this i think being that we haven't even like fully met yeah um and it is new i mean but it's good to do it early so you kind of know what you're you know in

185going in um but i also think it's so important because uh what we our kind of motto at asba is one new team member makes a new team right 100 so i feel like this is a brand new team and i'm like well we might all morph a little bit because when i filled out you know the scoring i thought of more the old team because i don't know the new team um so i thought it was really interesting i totally agree doing it early is great but just something you could you could do again you could do it again in two years when maybe or maybe not you have other team members or you know maybe everybody's the same but like you said you're you uh you're you stepped up or you act you

186you behaved a little bit differently than you would have thought you would have in in the team i think this really helps me nikki coming in because it's not that i um as to not offend and work well and better as a team knowing the different personalities as i as i come into it it's it's very helpful great i'm glad that you are finding some some benefit out of it i really am and like i said it's simple you know you're not going to get you know seven paragraphs about your innermost workings uh like you do with some of the the strength finders and the other personality types but uh it's it's simple and it it gives you enough information to to put your best foot forward in a team situation so i have um

187just two more minutes we'll give people just a couple more minutes and then we'll do the same thing i'll probably only give you about a minute or so to a minute minute and a half to share your thoughts as a team of um where and i think we'll focus on the positive we'll focus on um where you think you would be of of benefits and where you think you can where you're going to focus your attention on question number three what ways can i improve my performance knowing what you know now of the team and what you know about yourself just you know i'd like to hear a little bit about um a what you think you can bring to the team what roles and when you're looking at that tasks those task roles and

188um innovator evaluator energizer um where you think you might be a good fit and then something that you personally feel like you're going to work on in order to be a better team member so and real quick i'm going to go back to those task roles here so remembering that the initiator is somebody that makes sure that they get the discussion started started and help us tackle some of the more difficult issues um coordinator making sure that people and projects are getting done so if there's things that the board needs to do uh making sure that those things don't fall down the crack cracks watching the calendar making sure you make the most out of of your agendas evaluator asking questions and measuring progress so looking at that data following up you know a lot

189of times some of us i can say from my point of view we did it it's done and then you know forgetting to go back and look at what got done um the completer follows through with the details uh again you know a lot of times that might be a little bit more difficult in in the board member role because you will not be following through so you know understanding kind of where that lends you in terms of your your desire to do that role gatekeeper uh getting people involved um this is a good skill for a board president to have um as is harmonizer mediating between conflicting parties um all of these really i mean a good leader can come from any of these perspectives but depending on what the current need of the

190board is um and then energizer keeping spirits high and motivation high you know especially things something like now where people can get feel pretty beat down um that might be a good skill to have on a team and then the encourager you know not just focusing on what's broken or what needs to be fixed or where we need to improve but recognizing the progress that's been made and the things that are going well also very important so with that i'm going to start at the top here and i'm going to go with jill do you i'm going to take the timer off give you a little over a minute just to share your thoughts now that we've gone through the team and where you think that leaves you yeah i think i could step up

191and be a more of an initiator or a completer both of those roles i could do well um like i said before the team dynamic has changed a little we have a new team um so i think it's going to be more feeling it out and seeing where everybody is once you get up there because i thought going into this two years ago i would be in a much different place more direct than i ever have been but i've taken more of a compassionate or considerate role than i was maybe going up on the dice so great thank you thank you i'm shauna um i feel our admin team right now is phenomenal and i think we're a good group of people with a lot of really good strengths um and we did the profile

192um i i feel like our team is really good at taking into consideration the feelings of all of the people that we represent and and really spending a good amount of time on why while we know what we need to do how does what we need to do fit into all of the different subgroups of people that we're making decisions for and really thinking about their thoughts and feelings um and i feel like our teachers and stuff would say that as well um as far as what i can bring to the team i just am just so grateful to be part of the team because i think a lot of times they bring more to me than i bring to them just on what i learn listening to the thought process and the collaboration piece

193um just makes me a better leader so i'm curious to see what everyone else says about our team but that's kind of how i feel great thank you i'm tiffany so being that this is a new role i am a initiator and a coordinator by um trait but i think at the beginning i i would like to be more of an evaluator and and uh ask questions and listen because i am new to this and i don't i also don't like to overstep um my boundaries either so um i am not good at a completer so i would um defer to another team member to be better at the completer but as you mentioned we aren't um the ones that are in the details as much on the board as well great thank you sorry

194my husband's making noise it's fine uh i was glad it was on me my dogs got all excited when my family got home so um let's go with dawn there we go um boy i have to echo what shauna said i loved hearing everyone's perspective here and when i think about the district admin team i look at it so we're a very little balanced group and then i look at hearing with our our amazing governing board our extended you know you know community district leadership team i look at such potential and opportunities we have together through this and i'm just i think i like something that you said about that as we work continue the more we know about each other and situations to present themselves that other traits may begin to uh you know

195that may not have been our are dominant but that we sort of step up to fill that need because i think awareness of it allows us to be real thoughtful in what we do and how we do it together and going back to our priority i mean we as a team uh need to make sure that that we do what we do for students because we support the adults and system that allow us to make sure that that happens and a functional team a balanced team that supports each other is how we do that um and i tell you i could not be more proud of our team and how we've come together through some really difficult things and i think the difficult things in some instances of how we've um even helped grow each

196other through this and so i just i really appreciate this opportunity to kind of really truly hear where people are uh personally i think uh continuing to be that coordinator that gatekeeper and harmonizer to help organize where we are and how we move forward together on both sides of our strengths and our needs um because our community will be very direct and spirited with us too on needs as we continue to navigate this together thank you dawn um michael so so i think just reflecting um a little bit one of the things that that they always say is the first step towards recovery is identifying the problem and i think for us i think just reframing and and looking at the roles and the tasks um from this perspective is probably um really beneficial um

197not just for internal reflection but then also you know working with and understanding your team members and um certainly there's um not been a better environment than the one that we're in right now to to to really kind of test those relationships and those roles and so um i just see see this uh feedback um enhancing what we're able to do and just even to be able to do it better so for my personal um tasks just looking at the the roles that are kind of naturally my roles and certainly do those well which is probably more coordinator completer but then i'm just challenged to to look within our team and see where there's needs and if if an initiator or energizer encourager is needed then to kind of stretch myself and uh and maybe

198go a little bit outside my comfort zone and and just help what's what's needed maybe be a little bit more situational depending on what the the need is for the team but um i do echo what other team members have said and uh you know it's it's a great team to work with thank you michelle um looking at the profile um looks like we're pretty evenly distributed for considerate and systematic for the top totals um i just i guess i go forward to hereby nominate david as the director of energizing and being director of enthusiasm because he's over there um which is good but which comes down to the bottom what challenges will that create is one or two people can't carry the team um david can't always rally and tiffany and shauna should not

199always be the ones to ask the tough questions and raise the difficult topics at hand um and so and then possibly do all the work so it's just some things to to think about um as we all kind of get ourselves into some tough times and we're going to get tired and worn out just to make sure we're not abusing those these um hot these top these um areas that only a couple people fall in and as far as the strengths goes for that you know we have a lot of people that are focused on getting the job done um those two couple of shapes as you will um and then i guess um what actions can you take to help each other balance these trouble spots let's just let's just stay focused on the

200topics of at hand let's focus on why we're here thank you so much i appreciate it i'm david i think one thing that i've that i've appreciated looking at at these different how people have responded stuff is the fact that i think that we're genuine people and i think that's really important as we move forward and it's okay for us to be in a certain spirited or considerate way it's okay that's where we're at as long as we're genuine i think to what we do and how we react to people and that in that you know it's okay it's okay i think when as we look through some of the situations we're dealing with especially with you know the conflict that it's all right for us to go back to our strengths and i think

201sometimes and and as i reflect on it i you know as i wish i were more organized or i wished i were more direct in certain situations to come back and think but i need to play under my strengths to be able to help the team and how we can coordinate together it's interesting to me some of the reflection i think and some of the tasks when we when we look at what our role is you know in in terms of being the initiative perhaps you know and and don's put in that situation so much more as the boss right and and but how we can respond and support uh to her you know um i am i am grateful the fact that i believe that we are here to support each other and and

202i hear about other teams and other situations where the individual is more important than the team and i hope that for us that we never get to that point where it's more about what we feel and what we're doing as opposed what the team is doing as a collective and and and i think that that's something we have to focus on and continue to work with how how do we make sure that we're working as this team and as this group together and it's not about honestly it's not about the board getting glory or the superintendent getting glory or the opposite the superintendent getting killed or the board getting killed it's about us presenting this fact that we are going to work together we are diverse and now we know a little bit more about

203how diverse we are right but that can we continue to support each other within our roles to make sure we do the best thing for our kiddos thank you david and i'm just before i go to mom and amy um i've also heard and this is not part of their official curriculum but in the different um strength finders and uh true colors and all those other ones that we've done um the idea and maybe that this is just my thinking but um sometimes i feel like in times of high stress we will revert to our least likely ones i don't know if that makes sense for anybody else but i'll give you an example with me being spirited and direct when i'm really upset or if i'm really stressed i will become very quiet and

204very sensitive and very much want to control things want to like come up with the plan all right now we're going to do x y and z um and you know um so sometimes we do the opposite right when when we're pushed to a point um so that's something to consider too um when you flip it like how am i when i'm under stress am i still super considerate or do i become very direct um and so just think just some food for thought um all right i'm gonna let amy close this out so let me go to mom i think i just have to echo what many of you said um you know i like what you've said david in regards to the fact that you know we are a team and thinking about

205everybody and going back to what many of you said from the very beginning we're all here and we're all in education um because of students and whether it's helping them directly or indirectly through our employees through our community or through working with them um on projects or them having a voice in other areas where you know going back to assume positive intent um we're all here because we want to be here for the success of our students and how that plays within our community in the bigger picture and we all have different roles in which we present and um view that but making sure that we're listening to one another and staying on track for our end goal in the bigger picture so um you know i think everyone's kind of said different things that

206i think is helpful i don't have to go into more detail with that but just always remembering that we're all here for good reasons and why we got involved whether it's volunteering on the board and running and taking the time of your schedule or to us as administration and making sure that we make the right decisions and choices and listening to everybody and doing the best we can because we always just try to make the best decisions that we can in the moment with the information that we have um knowing that there are polar opposites and everything between um but what's best for all in the bigger picture great thank you mom all right jill you want to round us out amy amy i'm sorry amy if it's okay um i just want to say

207like and many many of this many of my team members know 2019 was a terrible year for me on an emotional side because i lost my mom to alzheimer's and i just it was like the worst year and then 2020 said here hold my beer because in education and as a school board president it is by far been the hardest year emotionally of my life and i can't imagine doing it with anybody else than who's on this team so i just want to say i mean dr foley has been such a spearhead in our team and just she's in the detail she's in the processes and the procedures and that has been something we are so thankful for and mom and hr just handling all those stories i mean there's just so many every this

208whole year of cobit it's she's just handled it with such grace and kindness and i've seen sherry and david work together they are a fun team i sherry i just think you were you are so kind and compassionate i don't know if you see that in yourself but um and david the life of the party we appreciate that we need that i hope i can do more of that because that's not my go-to um i would say i'm more of an encourager like jill and um i look forward to getting to know tiffany and michelle better and see how they play out on our board but i just i think this is the greatest team that we've had in higley that i've seen in many many years and so i am just really grateful to

209get to know you all better today oh well that was a nice thing to end on then um so again and like david said i think the genuine of these people it's apparent it shows so thank you well i am glad to have been here to work with this team that so very much wants to do what's best for their community and is working really hard to be good team members to each other so i applaud you um with the roles and responsibilities and the eight characteristics i know you're working at those as well so i would encourage you to continue to do that continue to focus on your development on what you've already shown a commitment to in terms of this workbook i do want to remind you um bring it out bring it

210out in six months maybe even schedule a study session check-in to say hey how do we feel about this anybody wanna you know talk about how they've changed or grown or things that they're feeling i mean it might be a good opportunity to do that i'd be welcome to facilitate that or i'd love to see nikki are you are you doing our training on the 30th or is that julie i think that might be julie um communication protocols yeah okay so um yeah fun to see her now after spending the morning with you so yes well i will say that you know you get the whole package we we really are um the yin and yang we have different strengths and um and i think it's it's been really a pleasure to work with her

211and i love when um our teams are just get a chance to work with both of us because we do bring different things so um and um with that i just want to thank you for your time we are going to be doing it for your turn please that's nice i'm about a half hour early i will be following this up with an email with a survey if you all would be so kind as to complete that and um i will unless there's any questions um i will turn it back over to you to con um i think i left somebody out mike dr fowler i've seen you grow so much this past year in your role because he he's had a tough year and i think him and i can commiserate together a lot

212on um just the covid so i i didn't mean to leave you out there dr fowler okay any other questions or comments from anybody i'll open it up for just a moment just a just a big thank you for everybody in your time this morning nikki this was such a fabulous way for us to start as a new team thank you for this uh and and to our governing board we are so grateful and appreciative of you and all that you do uh thank you great thank you thank you anyone else just uh thanks again to uh to to our board i mean it's so great to work with a supportive board um i've been in places where that hasn't always been the case and so thank you um because especially this year i know

213that um it seems like it doesn't matter what you do and you're going to be criticized but we really appreciate your support it goes a long long way yes it does thank you dr fowler and shauna too in our in our special ed department just navigating special ed in a pandemic has been nothing but difficult so i really appreciate all the hard work i've seen it first hand okay with that uh board members i move that we adjourn second all those in favor aye aye motion carries 4-0 have a wonderful saturday everybody thank you everyone thank you thank you enjoy the long weekend yes mondays off enjoy you all deserve it you