Littleton Elementary School District - 28APR2026 Board Meeting

001the governing board of Littleton Elementary School District. For those online as well as here, thank you very much for being here. Uh, first item of business is called to order. Aita, would you like to do a roll call for us this morning, please? >> Mr. Nielsen >> here. >> Mrs. Barnett, >> here. >> Mr. Santos. Mrs. Sashin, >> here. >> Mrs. Stalard, >> here. >> Thank you. We would all like to stand now and recite the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. To begin our meeting, we'll uh take observe a moment of silence. As a courtesy, you kindly silence your phones and Thank you very much. Item

002number five, Dr. Would you like to live 5A there with us? >> Good morning, President Nelson, governing board, presenters, and guests. Thank you for making the time to be here for your and for your continued commitment to the staff, students, and community we serve. Today's retreat is designed to strengthen how we work together as a governance team and to align our efforts around the future of our district. The topics we'll be engaging in are both foundational and forward-looking. board norms and accountability protocol protocols, the board's role in professional learning communities, a strategic plan update, a bond discussion, and a review of our board goals. We are intentionally beginning with board norms and roles. This is not by accident. How we show up, how we communicate, and how we hold ourselves and one another accountable will

003set the tone for everything that follows. If we are aligned in our purpose and clear in our responsibilities, we position ourselves to have more productive conversations, make better decisions, and ultimately serve our students at a higher level to model the work being implemented across our district. Our first two topics will be facilitated by site and district leaders. This is an opportunity for us to experience the same learning structures and expectations that are being carried out in our schools and departments, reinforcing alignment between governance and practice. From there, we will move into our strategic plan update, which is our road map for who we aspire to be as a district over the next five years. This is our opportunity to ensure that our vision is clear, our priorities are focused, and our work is coherent across

004all schools and departments. We will also engage in an important discussion around the bond, recognizing the critical role it plays in supporting safe, effective, and future ready learning environments for our students. Finally, we will revisit and refine our board goals to ensure alignment with our strategic direction and to refine our shared commitment to measurable progress and accountability. As we move through today's agenda, I encourage open dialogue, thoughtful questioning, and a focus on what is best for students. Our effectiveness as a team depends not on what we decide, but how we work together to get there. Thank you again for your leadership and your dedication. With that, let's begin with our first topic, board norms and accountability protocols. We have um two of our leaders who stand up to present that item. We have Miss Sam

005Armstrong, principal over uh at Estraa Vista Academy. And then we have Miss Tina Kaufman, who is our special education director, and they'll lead the beginning of this work with us. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity. I'm Tina Kaufman, director of special education. Samantha Armstrong, principal at Estraa Vista STEM Academy. I was going to go walk around, but that's all right. We'll stay back here. That's perfectly fine. So, uh, thank you for this opportunity this morning. We're very excited to take you through some of the fundamental work that the campuses have been doing as well as here at the district. And so really what we want to do is set the tone for how we operate within the district. Um talking about our collaborative team time that uh the campuses do as well as

006where we want to engage you all in this learning. So you guys have the opportunity to really see how we operate at the school level and at the district level and provide you guys the opportunity to start those practices and establishing team norms as a board yourselves. So we're going to go ahead and look at the next slide and then if we could start with Miss Stallard and then go to Amy and then go to Rachel. Uh, Linda, will you please take the content goal and read that aloud for us? >> I will be able to establish norms with my collaborative team. >> Thank you. And then Amy, the language goal. >> I will be able to participate in written and verbal reflections. and Rachel, >> I will be able to participate with authenticity and

007openness to make the most of my learning. >> Excellent. Are these all goals that we are good with today and we have a little bit of what we're going to come out of when Samantha and I are done? Okay, awesome. Thank you for that. And so these are also things that as you guys do walkthroughs in schools that you probably see on the board as you see content, language, and social goals. And so, um, this gives you the forefront for what we're going to do this morning for this next hour. And then let's go ahead and what we're going to do next is we're going to cover some basics. And Brian is going to play a video for us on the next slide. And so this is going to give you some basic information on

008creating team norms. I would like you to look at page uh 18 in your packet is where it starts, but the rubber hits the road on page 19. Show me what you know about team norm. Scale of 1 to five. Five means you're the person at your family reunion that's trying to set norms before the turkeys cut on Thanksgiving. >> Zero means I don't know a thing about norms. Can you show me on your hands? Okay. So, norms are the common patterns of participation in any group and those common patterns of participation might make your group work at higher levels and similarly those common patterns of participation might just completely destroy your team. So, you've got to talk about your norms with each other. What do you expect from one another while you're working together?

009Most schools write norms at the beginning of the year, never talk about them again. That's a mistake because when you're expressing your norms, what you're really doing is expressing what you need and expect from one another. If this meeting is going to be worthwhile for me, I need you, too. The behaviors that I need in order for this meeting to be worthwhile have to get out on the table and have to be honored because if they're not, I'm going to hate this meeting. You guys know that. So, page 19 is where my norm setting activity starts. Comes from a guy named Daniel Venibals. This is a an idea that I stole from him that I think is great. Daniel says, "Start by giving every person at your table the chance to tell you what's one

010pet peeve that they have about working in a group and then what's one thing that everyone else at the table needs to know in order to understand your behaviors?" You got to throw those out on the table. That's where your norm setting starts. My pet peeve. I hate it when people are looking at their devices rather than paying attention to the session or to our meeting. I got a guy, his name is uh well, I won't tell you his name because I'm being videoed. I had a colleague that I used to work with who was on his phone all the time. His part-time job was an Instagram page where he called himself Dapper on a Dime. So, he would show his outfits and then recommend that you buy his fashion outfits. guy was making more

011money off of that than he was off of teaching, right? Good for him. But he had his Instagram page opened every single meeting that we worked on all the time that guy was on Instagram. It drives me bonkers. Just leaves it chaps my hide, for lack of a better word. Now, you've already figured out this about me. I'm also a hammer. I'm ready to move on fast. I don't need to think about a decision. I want to go. and you need to know that in order to understand my behaviors. So developing norms gives you a chance to talk about what you need from each other. Please take a look at that document and talk with your partners. Is this something that your team needs to do with each other? Yes or no and why? Go.

012So I'm going to give you a pro tip and then I'm going to give you uh a question that people ask me all the time. The answer to a common question. Ready? Pro tip. Once you've written your norms, they should first be added to the top of your meeting notes. They should be written at the top of your meeting notes. But more importantly, at the beginning of every single meeting, you need to read them out loud as a reminder to the people in the room of what your most important needs are. You need to read them all the way until it they become the common pattern of participation on your team. When your norms have become habits, that's when you can stop reading them out loud. But until your norm has become a habit, until

013your expectation has become the habit on your team, you need to read them at every single meeting. It's it's a reminder to everyone of what you need in order for the meeting to be productive. Sometimes teachers are like, "My meeting is a total waste of time." And my response is, "Great. What are you doing about it?" There's no need to sit in a meeting that's a complete waste of time if you can improve the meeting. And one way to improve the meeting is to be clear about what you need from each other in order to move forward. The question everyone asks me is what do you do about that guy that breaks the norms? The question that people ask is how do you hold people accountable for breaking the norms on your team? How do

014you address that? Me, Bill Farader, I have a different approach than a lot of these other presenters. In fact, I think Tim said on Monday that the best way that you do it is when somebody's not adhering to your norms, you confront them in love and you address the behavior in love, but you address it. I sort of disagree about that and that's because that's the most difficult conversation you're ever going to have with a peer and that's going to jeopardize the relationship that you have with the other people at the table. When you confront somebody, especially when you have no authority, right? Like we're each other's equals, that becomes really uncomfortable. So instead, what I recommend is this. Instead of trying to figure out how you're going to hold somebody accountable when they break

015the norm, why don't you spend a minute or two at the end of every meeting celebrating someone who has honored your norms? In fact, we're going to do it right now. This is gonna be so hokey, you're gonna hate it. Right now, I want you to thank someone at the table for something they've done to move your learning forward in the last 45 minutes. So, you've been working with each other for the last little while. Who at your table has made a real contribution to your learning? I want you to look them in the eye and say, "Thank you." But be really specific about what you're thanking them for. Got it? Go do it right now. Practice. >> Shocker. Showing gratitude to other people is a win. Shocker. Saying thank you to other people makes

016them feel good, too. You want some research? Okay, I'll give you the research. I don't think you need it, right? Like, this is just a no-brainer. This is just being a productive contributor to a group 101. This is called being nice, right? But if you want research, Steven CVY calls this the emotional bank account. You make positive deposits in someone else's emotional bank account. And what that by saying thank you, by showing gratitude, by doing them a favor. And the result is that when you get to that moment of tension where you have conflict, your relationship won't be completely destroyed by the conflict. So if you've made lots of positive comments to a member of your team, if you've thanked them repeatedly over and over and over again for all the contributions they make to

017your learning, you're building trust. And then at that moment where you have to say to them, hey, listen, that went really wrong and I don't like what happened there. your relationship won't be destroyed. You know why our relationships with other human beings get destroyed? Because we have the conflict before we build the trust. So how do you build the trust? The end of every single meeting, you say, "Hey, let's go around the table. Anybody want to thank someone here? What contribution did somebody make to our learning?" You It's so I just got chills. We need to hear thank you more often, right, from the people that we work with. That builds trust which then you can leverage later when things get messy in that short five minute video. And so really a lot of reflection

018for ourselves going on in there and looking at our norms and how we operate, how we interact as a board and with our executive team and our community is going to be critical. And Samantha is going to take this opportunity to dig in a little bit deeper with you all right now. >> Good morning. I'm going to go ahead and give you about a minute or two to go ahead and I think you have them on your screens as well to go ahead and read this to kind of set some purpose. If you can just look up at me when you're done. Thank you. I do appreciate the opportunity to be up here today and show you a lot of the work that has been done on sites. So, the videos you're going to watch

019are from Solution Tree. I know you've seen that name several times, right, in the board docs and things of that nature. and this is the work we've been doing. I'm proud to tell you that I've been on three different campuses that have done this work and seen the positive outcomes for students. So, it's exciting to be able to share with you the things that we're doing on our site and at the district level to ensure that we have highly functioning teams that best serve our students. So, thank you again for that. It was important for you to take a moment to read that so we could have a common framework, same with the video, to kind of jump off at the same point and grasp an understanding of what this is and why this might

020be a way for your team, group, whichever you want to refer to yourself as to be able to operate to the fullest ability that you are. And that means honoring different perspectives, right? Different opinions, different cultural norms, different ways we process things. and norms help us to do that as do the accountability statements. So, we kind of gave you a preview to what we're going to end. So, hopefully you got out of that. Actually, I've don't need to talk the whole time. So, in reading that definition, are any of you feeling brave enough to share something that stood out to you? Thank you. Highly functioning teams uh learning teams uh take developing clear set team norms. I think many times if you think of basketball football it's easy to see what the norm is. it's

021to get across the goal line or it's to make the basket or something in other meetings in uh churches, schools, wherever you might not be. Sometimes it's to sit together and I've been in some awful long meetings that probably could have been done in 15 minutes and an hour later there's still not something accomplished. So if there's some clear cut set team norms as to how you interact with one another or that you know this is what we want to accomplish or complete today make the goal and then we're done with it we can move on >> absolutely it helps us to be effective and efficient Barnett did you want to share your thinking >> I guess it's similar um my thought is that the idea of it being a common pattern you know in

022the understanding that in order for there to be an established norm there has to be a common denominator so if people are coming to the table with different agendas or people are coming and thinking um you know something as simplistic as well I'm coming here um you know to a party and I'm dressing to go to a party but then I come and it's a Bible study I'm coming with a different norm you know I'm so I think the commonality of it that aspect of it really ties the whole concept in >> thank you both for your feedback I appreciate that so we definitely want to set a space to be effective on our people and to ensure that we feel worth right whether the time is spent what is worthwhile are our needs are

023being met because if our needs aren't being met at the end of the day we're all human beings right if we do not feel honored or valued we do whatever version it is we do of our shutdown right I'm assuming um the interesting part about this is having the conversation with your pe when you are peers I will tell you in working on campuses our teachers do hold our each other accountable to the norms terms and it can be difficult because as adults we don't necessarily like to have those conversations especially if we feel they're confrontational. Some people are more comfortable with it. Some people feel they're more comfortable with confrontation and they're very confrontive, right? Kind of combative almost. And some people do it in a different way. But I will let you know

024that a lot of the work I do on campuses is helping other adults figure out what words they want to say to the person that cause them to feel that way. And that is why we do this work. >> Okay. So, I wanted to kind of set the stage as Miss Kaufman did with the district mission, vision, and norms. These are things that I'm sure you've seen several times and what we do to organize ourselves as to why we're here. So our mission to create that highquality comprehensive successoriented learning our vision leaders in learning caring and growing and then our values our values help us anchor in the things that we want to see. So from the district norms sites also develop norms. So I shared mine because they're the ones I have access to.

025So if you will look at our mission, vision and norms at Esttoria Vista, you will see that our mission vision is aligned to the district because we should be working right at our site to make sure we are able to meet the mission and vision of the district. Instead of values, we also have the district values on many of our presentations. We have developed our own norms and I wanted to go ahead and show those to you so you could kind of wrap your brain around what works for our campus. Be mindful that is one set of norms for my campus. The norms that you see here are the ones when we meet on our Wednesday or our whole staff professional development days that this is what the team my staff generated and they have

026agreed and committed to. We have different norms for first grade team. They made their own. My leadership team has their own norms. Our guiding clinician has our own norms. You can see some repetitive patterns because there's common people on my campus and we have the needs that we have. But each of the groups have them. I can tell you when I'm up here working at the district, when I'm at a district meeting, there's also norms that were developed when we bring all the leaders together on various things like ILLC, we've also created norms and I've been able to help with that work. So, any questions before we move forward? Yes, sir. on those norms, on those visions, are they posted? Do you have them in the meeting with you? Is it memorization? How do you

027keep those always in front of your face? >> That's a great question. The answer is all of those things. So, um, our main norms, we do have them in the library because that's tends to be where we meet. That's the biggest space for us. We also start every meeting with them. So, what you see up here starts my meetings along with our academic goals. And my site will take turns. Sometimes I'll have them read them to themselves, sometimes they'll read them out loud, but they are at the part of every meeting. The same with my guiding coalition and my smaller meetings. They are on the agenda and they're also part of the presentation. So, we will review them at the beginning. I'm going to be honest with you, my leadership team has been together for

028a minute. So, we review our norms less frequently, but they've become our operating practices and we have switched to um collective commitments because we are able to hold ourselves to those. But we do review them minimum twice a year to make sure they're still meeting our needs because sometimes things change, right? We have conversations or we stumble into something that we weren't planned for and we need to address it. So minimum we'll look at it at the beginning of the year, actually three times. We'll look in that January and then at the end to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for success. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. So now I believe in your packets you should have a handout and I believe Miss Kaufman is going to go ahead and

029talk to you about that. But let's make sure you have it first. We just have There we go. >> It's right after like it says board retreat establishing team Norm's note catcher. Almost there. >> It's the last last. It got out of order. >> There you go. It should >> There it is. >> We're going to have some individual work time for a couple of minutes for you to just quickly your first gut shot look at each of those eight areas. Obviously, we're going to read the directions first because we always prep with reading the directions. And you're going to rank where you are. I'm going to give you two minutes to do that quickly and then we're going to transition into a video where we're going to discuss ground rules versus norms. about 45

030seconds. And then I see some of you are starting to wrap that up. Make sure you total your score. And something you want to reflect on is at the bottom it says the higher the total number, the more likely the team will benefit from operating with norms. The lower the number, the team is more likely to need ground rules. And so we're just going to use this as your little basis of your own individual work before we go into a video regarding norms and ground rules. Miss Barnett, did you? >> Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Is if you look at each question, some go one low up to five high and then like number two, it goes one high and five low. So definitely paying attention to the scale is going to be critical for your scoring.

031Just pausing a little bit longer as we have people still working. Thank you for engaging in the work. And what we're gonna do now is we're gonna have Brian transition us to the norms versus ground rules video. And it's about five minutes long. Okay, I lied. It's the It's the next one that I have a video on, but we're fine for now. This was we were using this as the think time and I got them backwards. So, the norms versus ground rules and so people are adding up their scores. Anything that came out of each of those that was like I never thought about it that way. Or wow, I didn't think that I was operating like that, but maybe I am. You did what about the team. Excellent. So, some people may have looked

032at this as themselves. Some people might have looked at it as a team and you guys are a team and the productive work to get us to establishing norms is going to be critical. anything that somebody wants to be brave enough to share as well. Oh, I thought for sure you were going for to say something. I had hopes. Okay, that's okay. Right now what we're going to do is we're going to talk about past norms now and sometimes people might have have never established norms in any other group or committee or team previously but what I would like for you to do is take a moment in your head and think about any past teams that you've worked with. Were there norms? Were they effective? Why were they effective if you had them? So,

033just take a moment in your head and then I'm going to have you share with um with the team and we'll do a three and a two as far as our pairing goes. Okay. So, we're gonna have Barnett, Social, and Stallard be a group and talk about what norms have you had in the past. And maybe maybe one or two of you haven't had norms on a team before. And maybe you have, but talk about what was good about them. Why did they help work and then gentlemen, if you guys will be paired up and talk about norms that you've had in the past for different teams and what happened? How did they work? And then we're gonna ask one person to share out from each group. seconds and wrap up your conversation between your

034group and select your person who is going to speak from each of your groups. Okay, about 10 seconds. >> Okay, thank you. Thank you for engaging in that learning. And then we'll wait for Linda to get back um for your guys' group to share. And then gentlemen, did you want to go ahead and share? >> Yeah. So me and President Nelson said that um we've seen norms in school environments, but we've typically seen um I went to West Point, we had them on the walls and um expectations more or less the adults following them more than than students. So um that's just my lived experience you know with norms but more or less I've seen that you know when you have new people come in you know they may disagree with the norms so they

035change them so um you know it could be usually a never-ending cycle you know of changing things >> you know what thank you for pointing that out and that kind of makes me think also back to what Samantha was talking about is that you have to monitor things as they go and as new people come in you have to sometimes sit back and reflect and go okay we are in a different place right now so let's look at revisiting things so that's awesome and then ladies over here >> rock paper scissors >> so we talked about how in education there's always norms um it's just like Marcus said like it's just something that's very common um our conversation kind of lends towards it always seems to be the team lead that's like enforcing the norm

036times and I know that the goal is that it's a collective group accountability. So that's always a hope that you eventually get to that point >> that the team hold each other. >> Yeah. And we're going to we're going to take you through a little bit of of that as well. So can we all agree that norms have a great purpose in order to make us be more efficient, more productive. If we could get a thumbs up that everybody agrees. Okay. Little hesitation there. Okay. Okay. Excellent. We're going to transition to Miss Armstrong. This clicker and I aren't friends. There we go. So, I'm going to go ahead and overview the process. Now that we've played the where's Waldo game on where your handouts are, we all should know there's a couple handouts that you

037guys are going to be using. So if you can go ahead and orient yourself to this, it'll help you to understand the two different steps that we're going to do to help you as a team create your norms today. So step one is going to be done independently. You will label one pet peeve. So, one thing that you don't like, right, that can kind of set you I set you off or make your mind in that negative space when you are in a um meeting, some type of setting like that when you're working in groups. So, whatever your experience is, go ahead and tie it to that. And then you're going to give an example of one thing that people will notice about you when they're working in a group. So, that'll be the first

038step. We're not there yet. We're getting there. From there, you guys are going to have a conversation because I think it was Vice President Cincner who said see them on the wall, right? And if they're just words the adults follow, then they're kind of just there almost ornamental. We can't create your norms for you as the group. You need to create your norms for yourselves that you then hold each other to. And then members, as Nick, you talked about the accountability. So, we'll go back to my um norm example and we'll talk about that before we wrap up. So, the first thing that we're going to do here in a moment is the pet peeve and the thing that people will notice about you. From there, we will go into the brainstorming process. Sound good

039so far? All right. Now, let's play the where is in the back of the packet. Is this? Let me click it so you guys can see what you're looking at. It should be the one that we all found initially, the one that says work step one. It should match that. >> All right. As I shared, step one is going to be a pet peeve that you have. So, something that does not meet your needs in a group and then something that people will notice about you. So, I'm going to go ahead and give you guys about 2 minutes and you can look up when you're done. And if we need to give you more time, we will do so. Are we okay to move on? I don't want to rush. Yes. Yes. I see some

040head nods. Member Sosnik, are we okay to move on? Are you sure? I don't want to rush your thinking. myself. >> Okay. As long as you're good, then we can move on, right? So, um, at some point here real soon, step two, you will be sharing your pet peeves because that's the only way that you're going to be able to figure out how to not right do that and sharing that things will people will notice about you. I'll go ahead and share a couple of mine and an interesting fact that came out of that. So, the first pet peeve I've shared, and I've shared it a number of time, is I don't like people arriving late to meetings. Fast forward to this year where people thought I was that guy. No, like I'm worried. I

041think you're dead on the side of the road or like you've been abducted by aliens and I can't focus if I don't know where my people are because I like literally worry about them. So, I get a text like I don't care if your dog barfed on your shoe, you woke up late, like you got stuck in traffic. As long as I know, then I can like move on in my brain. So my pet peeve is that but not for the reason people think. So sometimes context matters. The other part of that was something people will notice about me. What's interesting is some of us go negative and some of us go positive and you can sometimes can't figure out which way people are going to go. Mine goes negative apparently or so I was

042told. Um my thing you'll notice about me is sometimes I talk over people. I don't mean to. I get so excited and the thoughts in my brain and as a former gifted kid they just blurt out of my mouth and even at my age I haven't figured out how to turn that off. So if I get really excited or passionate about something I will talk over and I've been trying to work on it and I'm still working on it and if I've done it to any of you I sincerely apologize but it's not something that I do. My team knowing that helped them to understand that I'm not trying to be rude. It's just part of kind of who I've been ingrained to be at this point in my life. And they can call me

043out on it and I'm like, "I did it again. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." And then we're no hard feelings on that one. So, with that, we are going to work on step two. I'm not going to make you say your pet peeves into the microphone, but you guys are going to have to talk about it at some point. So, it's an odd setup, so you might have to kind of move your chairs into a little more collaborative group or scream down the table, whichever, I guess, works best, right? We don't want to do that. So, step two, we can't do step two. You have to figure out how to share the norms. So, do we want to say them out loud in the microphone or would you guys prefer to huddle in a

044move your chairs because they have wheels on them to get in a group and share those out? I will leave that up to the group. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. If it's easier for you to talk in the microphone, that's fine. Okay. Then we will start with President Nelson and go down. Can you please just share your pet peeve? >> Pet peeves. >> Yes, sir. >> This is really hard because it makes you vulnerable. People find out who you are or what your pet peeve is without, you know, you appear one way and like you were saying, I think one of my pet peeves is going off topic. Okay. I come to a meeting with an agenda and try to follow the agenda and somebody's popping off here and popping off here and by the time

045the agenda's got a 40 minute or a 50-minute meeting, it's an hour and a half later and that kind of sets me off is okay, let's focus on what we're doing. What you've got to say is good, what you've got to say to good, but it has nothing to do with the topic on hand. So that's one of the things that set me off is is is that and then in that same thing if I do a second one there someone monopolizing it take up all the time to put my point across whatever it might be and that after so much longer it's not in line with the topic I'm sorry I shut it off I don't listen anymore and I doodle or whatever it might be. I used to know one of my bosses

046years ago used to carry a red pen and when it got off topic he would go through on his page and every type of an O he would color it in with a thing like that and then count at the end of how many O's there were on the page off topic and and uh monopolizing >> all right pet beef please. Um, well, I kind of did some thinking on this, but I think, you know, um, growing up, you know, being in a group with people, I just think, um, especially when we're making decisions, um, you know, we always have to make a decision. You know, we can't just continue to kick the can down the road. We have to just make a decision then and there, and we have to be brave with it.

047You know, I think, um, as elected officials, we were elected to make decisions. you know, we can't just continue to, you know, flip-flop or or go back and just continue to change things left and right. Um or say, you know, I don't know how I feel about about this now or um so I think that's kind of always been my pet peeve just in groups and working in student government when people just cannot make a decision, you know, when our job is to make a decision, you know. So, um that's something I've always had a pet peeve about and I've always made a decision whether people like it or not. Um, you know, so that's my pet peeve. >> I guess it's kind of similar. Um, I think one of my biggest pet peeves when

048people don't have strong convictions on anything, you know, when there's nothing that they stand on. Um, it's really hard for me to like engage with those type of people because, you know, it just doesn't seem like if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. So, I I don't like when people are just flighty and all things. They're lukewarm. You know, there's no yes or no. everything is a maybe or you know I just I don't like when people are indecisive. >> Um so one of my biggest pet peeves is meeting just to meet. If we're going to have a meeting, let's make a decision. Let's have a discussion. Which um leads to other pet peeves which are being talked at. I hate being in a meeting where I'm just being talked at and

049told what's happening. Um, and then leaving a meeting with nothing decided, which kind of goes back to that first one. >> So, I don't like it when we are supposed to collaborate and there's only one person that's trying to collaborate. Um, we're supposed to be all of us collaborating. Um, when people are in a meeting and they're not paying attention and then something comes up and they're like, "Oh, what are we doing? Well, pay attention. And one of my biggest pet peeves is on time is late and early is on time. That that is just huge for me. Thank you all for being open and vulnerable. You're right. This is a trust experience and it is powerful for you to go through that knowing that all teachers at some point have gone through this and

050some students I can speak for a couple campuses the classes have developed their own norms and they use those as well. So it is a powerful process. So I'm going to summarize and if I didn't get yours correct I guess you can glare at me or uh wave. So I this is kind of what I gathered from the group. So, off-topic, monopolizing conversations, being indecisive, not willing to accept alternative views or changing view based on new information. Um, on topic, agreeing to decision and sticking to the decision, and not being collaborative. Close. Okay. So, with that, now I'm going to ask you, we're going to go in reverse order to share the thing that people will notice about you when working with you on a group. In a group, not on a group. in a

051group. >> This is no surprise. I'm very opinionated. I'm I'm very I'm very aggressive. I I am a lot like you where I'm very passionate about what I do and what I believe in and sometimes words just spew out because I don't have a thought process. I just want to get my words out. Um but I'm also a team player. like I also want what's best and so I I do feel that I play nice with others. Um so I goodness I read a lot of these. Um I will have an opinion but I don't feel the need to debate my opinion. So, I'm going to say it and if it's not going the way I agree with the majority isn't or it's not being heard, I just shut down. Like, I'm not going to

052argue it with you. I'll just say, "Okay, done." And I just will doodle or whatever in a meeting. >> Um, I would say, um, that I tend to be more introspective than anything else, you know. So, I am very very fervent whatever convictions I have but it's because I have like thought about it like to the the 20th degree like to the point where it can't be thought about anymore. >> Um for me it's it's definitely going to be I'm a natural radical um by heart. Um I think growing up as somebody who was in um loved theater, loved arts, loved singing, and also had an IEP and um struggled a lot with was a slow learner, was um not good at writing, still not good at writing. Um you know, I think expressing myself

053through talking and through action is something that I always found more helpful rather than um sitting down and and writing how I think. I always felt I need to express it physically with my voice. So, um, that's something that I've always been and I guess that's that's led me to be very opinionated in my opinions whether people agree with them or not. But it's also helped me become comfortable with myself because I know that's who I am. Um, you know, >> and I think from my standpoint, I I like to keep quiet and not enter into a conflict if I don't have to. I like to my background is engineering of course so I like to see all the different points of view some of them might not sit with what I've learned or what

054I put together as an engineer or you know from that standpoint or whatever I'd like to do gather it all be a little bit more insightful and then take all of the things together and maybe see what we could do to come directed one way one way or the other trying to get all of them in there but certainly as much as we can in there so it's in making decisions I try to get you know that in there but then kind of quiet on myself just trying to listen to what's going on. >> Perfect. So, what I gathered from that is we have some overt extroverts and some extreme introverts and then you're all trying to figure out how to work together, right? You have people who talk to process as well as express

055themselves. some people who need quiet but more processing time and some people that when they're ready to speak pretty much that's the decision they've landed on which is why norms would probably be helpful to allow you guys to move forward and feel honored and respected in the work that you're doing together. So we are going to move on to step two. So there's a couple ways that we can go about this. Um, and I do want to kind of give you a few points of guidance before I turn you guys loose to work on some norms. We also have in front of us our computers, which is great because AI can help us with stuff. But I'm going to tell you the thing I tell my staff and pretty much anyone I've ever had the

056pleasure to present this to. You can write whatever you want. If you're not going to do it and if it isn't meaningful for you, then you just wrote down words. They have to be things that you're willing to commit to and hold each other to, which is why we're spending the time here today. So, there's a couple of kind of norms that you might want to be mindful of. So, behavior norms are things like the being on time, um, not monopolizing conversations, staying on task, following the agenda. Those are behavior norms. No, those are process norms. I'm sorry. Behavior norms are the ones where you would say something like assume positive intent and intention. We like to say that one a lot. Like assume that the words coming to you are from a positive space.

057Um on my campus we talk about being stu student centered, student focused. That would be more of a behavior, right? So whatever words are coming at me, I need to take from the filter of what's best for my kids. That would be more of a behavior, right? Um, so you can create both. It's best to have a balance of, you know, start on time, end on time, and be a good human ones, which are more the behavior ones, or be a positive human to be able to get to work done, right? We don't have to love each other, but at some point at the end of the day, we have to work together, right? And the best we can do that makes it easier for the group and much more pleasant. So with that, I

058would say the easiest way to do this is to get you guys to start collaborating with each other, which means our voices are going to come off. So I think maybe a minute or two, and I'm pitching it out there. If you have a way that you feel would work better, I'm all ears. Um, give you a minute or two to think of a norm in your head. Whether you find something online that speaks to you, something that you've had in a past life and a past job experience, that's fine. And then share them with the group because our goal here is for you to have about four to six norms at the end of the time today. We don't want to go more than that because nobody's going to remember that. You don't want

059this laundry list of, you know, you can't then it becomes rules and not necessarily norms. I can tell you my team, you saw ours. It's basically the two. They're wordy. I get you. But they kind of cover what we want them to have. Um, some of ours are longer, some of them are shorter. It depends on what the group needs to be successful. Um, you don't want to have it just be so vague that it doesn't mean anything. So, I am going to go ahead and that's my pitch. Do you guys want a couple of minutes to look for some things online, find some things that make sense to you or pull some from your experience and then share openly or do you guys just want to dig in? >> I'm fine with whatever. >>

060Can you give us just an example? >> Sure. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Are we writing these just today? Are we writing for the rest of the year? >> It's a great question. The purpose of today since we've taken so much of your valuable time is to have norms that the group is going to use in operating to move forward. So from today and beyond to again revisit right I'm going to tell you the first time we wrote ours we talked about them every day and then you go back okay that doesn't make sense or we don't need that one. So you're you engage with them a lot in the beginning. So the norms I have for my campus, be professional. That's the heading. Prepared on time, actively listening, participating with open and honest communication. Those

061are more like how I want you to process the meeting. Conversations will be student focused and solutionsoriented. Some of you talked about how you don't want to keep right. What is that? Beating a dead horse or whatever the euphemism is. And then accountability, we went ahead and put that on there, but that took us a little while. And that is to keep it. So I think it was members so snick that said one person going you're violating norms. We don't want that. We want it to be and oh Regan's pretty good at that with me. Miss Chica is also real good. She'll tap me and tell me when I'm talking over people because she knows I don't mean to do that and I'm not doing that. So even as a principal group we do hold

062each other accountable even though we're just peers. Did that help? And you do have slides and you're not. So I'm taking it. We're going to work quiet for a couple minutes and then we're going to share out and come up with that. I see some head nod. So I'm going to go with yes. I think it would be helpful too if if if you could read off um the norms that like admin has that you guys all have for yourself like as a collective the e team the directors you could read those to us too >> I will need to get my technology for that I don't have them >> memorized Sorry. >> Pretty wordy. This is what we have when we met with Miss Armstrong, myself, Mr. DeLisio, Miss Kaufman, and Dr. Hay. We

063will and uh Mr. Barl. We will act with positive intent, seek clarifications as needed, and keep an open mind. We will commit to assuming positive intent in all interactions. We will manage our emotions, and ensure our verbal and non-verbal communication reflects respect, professionalism, and support for one for one another. We will share and listen courageously and equitably. And we will hold ourselves accountable and fully commit to decisions made as a team. We will value our time together and commit to staying staying fully engaged during team activities. Personal use of technology is not permitted unless addressing an urgent safety issue. If such a situation arises, please step out of the room to handle it. And so like she said, those are rather wordy and in our circumstances, we felt like we needed that as we were

064establishing a new team under new leadership and we really needed to dive into our work. And so those are what we operate in when we re meet with academic services and we start with them. We hold the people accountable during the meeting as well as we close out with them. No, I think that I just wanted some examples like you know internally and then like Dr. Lee like if you know >> maybe there's like some norms that you know you create with your meetings that you have as well. >> Literally every team in the district office has in the district has norms. So every site, every leadership team. So if if we're going through we're literally going to read dozens of sets of norms. So, I can read through some additional norms, but I don't

065um it's if if if it's more for if it's more for accountability to know that we do it, that's fine. I'd rather that be the statement more so because um everyone it's a requirement that we all have in place that we've all put in place as we're moving towards becoming high functioning teams. uh E team. It's it's a it's a part of our work as becoming high functioning teams that we know we need to do and that we hold ourselves to. Uh April, ours are a little bit more simplistic. Begin begin and end our meetings on time. Keep our meetings purposeful by including only relevant agenda items. Approach all discussions with positive intent, curiosity, and openness. hold ourselves accountable and commit to the team's decisions. And so we went with those because what we wanted

066to do the the thing that I always try to communicate to every team that we have is when the decision is made whether you agree with it or not collectively as a team we walk out of that room on the same space just simply because we can't have cracks in the armor because when we don't agree and we share disagreement then what the community, what the public, what staff, what everyone sees is there's just this this issue of they're not even on in in in line with one another. So, how are they going to get us to be at that same place? So, I think once we did it um and we started it at our all admin meeting, the reason we did it there and that's where uh uh Miss Armstrong and Miss Chica

067first started, they led that conversation well started with Dr. A then um as some of the work that was leading up to that and then uh Miss Armstrong, Miss Chicus carried that over and they started to translate that across all teams. So they came in to support everyone with the work to make sure we had um a seasoned facilitator who could come in, keep us in line, keep us in target and move us forward. And so every team now knows and every department knows they have to have norms. They have to be accessible and they have to follow those. >> Some of us are verose. We like to use lots of words. Some of us are very. >> So, how about this? Thumbs up if you have a norm that you're interested in sharing with

068the group. I see two. So, we need more work time. Yes, we're good. You don't have one yet, Member Snosnik. Huh? Okay. So, then I need to give you guys another couple minutes to come up with a norm and we can honor and respect to make sure we have every voice heard. Is that acceptable with the rest of the group? Can we do that? Thank you. Ladies, do you have something in mind you can share here shortly? Yes, you do. Miss Osnik, are you okay? >> Okay. So, now we're going to share them and then figure out what makes sense for us. So, if I could have your attention real quick, I'm going to show you something. It's pretty simple. We use this a lot. It's called a fist of five. So sometimes we vote

069this way, right? And that's not very nuanced, right? Because sometimes you're not yes, you're not no. Get a lot of this. I'm guilty of this. So fist to five, what we use on campus, gives you kind of a range. So five means totally fine with it. Four means not my favorite, but I can live with it. Three means I'll live with it. Anything three or lower means that, and a zero means I can't live with that. the rule on our campus and I think in a couple other groups that anything two or lower we discuss. If you're three or higher, you've admitted you can live with it. You don't have to love it, right? But you can live with it and you move on. Are we okay with using fist of five once we get

070our norms out there to make sure that we can live live with those? Is that okay? Yeah. Oh, look. I got my first fist of five. Thank you. So, five. I have one person who's okay with it. Are the rest of you five, four, three? You can live with it. Three. Five. Okay. There we go. Good job. All right. Who wants to be brave and show theirs first? >> Yes, ma'am. >> With regard to the one um labeled handling disagreements, I said um we will strive to foster constructive, respectful, and open dialogue emphasizing task oriented rather than personal conflict. >> Okay, we're going to try to capture those. So can you read that again for Miss Kaufman? And I think Miss Adah is also trying to capture those. >> So we'll strive to foster constructive,

071respectful, and open dialogue. Will emphasize task oriented rather than personal conflict. >> Ada, you got it. Okay, one of us has it. As long as one of us has it written down. Miss, I believe you had your hand up. >> So I really liked and looked I looked it up, too. the whole unity and one voice. Like regardless of whether or not we like a decision that was made, if the majority, you know, the majority rules, we leave here united and we stand behind the decision that the majority made. Um yeah, and we stand we stand united. So no um I guess no bashing the decision. No. >> So you're talking more than a consensus. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Because like like do uh Dr. Lefit said, you know, if we don't stand united,

072then everybody sees it. like the district sees it, the community sees it, the staff sees it, the students end up seeing it, and then we look like we can't function as a board. >> Okay. >> Um I applaud those people who can write norms very verbose like Miss Bernett Hara. I'm not that way. My norms are always like one or two words. So mine, same thing here. Um student centric. We need to be centered around students, what they need for achievement and growth. >> So focused on student achievement or student centered because well >> if you want to go so small because wellbeing matters, right? You can't learn if you're not in a good headsp space. >> Student centered. Not trying to change your words. I'm just asking for clarification. >> Mine was actually similar

073to Amy's. It was like um make decisions that improve student outcomes. >> Student outcomes. Student outcomes. That's what the one I came up with. >> Was there anything else you wanted to add? Just that one as of right now. Yes sir. >> I think it's in line with that on the communication student focused for the achieve their achievement and success. >> Okay. >> You're doing great there Tina. I don't think you know what you signed up for when you said you were going to write them on the board. Huh. >> All right. So in looking at these now our job is to create them into something that we feel meets our needs, right? And honors. >> Are there any others that Are there any others that >> I I I heard from everybody. I'm sorry.

074Did I cut anybody off? >> I've got a couple others that >> Okay. >> Not that I want to monopolize, but >> No, don't be off topic. >> Yeah. Right. The one that you had mentioned I think was verbal and non-verbal communications focus on the benefit of the whole. >> Yeah. >> For us as a team. >> That's fine. And again, at the end of the day, I'm just trying to help you facilitate something that you guys feel comfortable with. I can't necessarily dictate your norms to you or this would have ended about an hour ago when I would have told you what your norms were. And that doesn't seem like it's going to meet your needs either. >> Yes, ma'am. Um, this is like walking a fine line, but in this, but I want

075to let the people we hired do what we hired them to do. Like, if we hired you to be a teacher, I want them, our goals or our focus is to like let them be teachers. Let them do their teacher job. If we hired you to be a director, then I want you to be a director and make those decisions that a director makes. And I don't know how to word that, but that was in my notes. So, are you saying something along the lines of >> honor and trust our employee groups or honor and trust our >> some other word? >> Employee groups works. That's fine. >> Because I think that's what you're saying, right? Whether it's a principal or a teacher or a custodian, we've hired them to do the best of their

076ability >> and honor and trust that they will meet those expect. I'm not trying to put words. I'm trying to summarize. >> No, you're you're doing a lot better job explaining what I'm thinking. And then I see you and then did you want to chime in also? >> Yeah. So basically just leave the um I guess day-to-day operations um not leave them but basically leave them out to the superintendent like to trust >> to the same thing that that Amy's saying. So, I hear what you're saying and my wonder is if we're going too far into the weeds because >> and and I'm not trying to cut anyone off or be disrespectful and I know Vice President Curaros, you wanted to chime in, but in looking at these, we need we need the point of

077today is to have some things that you guys can anchor to when you're having collaborative discussions to push those conversations forward more so than divide the conversations from the onset. Does that make sense? I got a lot of quiet. Okay. So, we need to make some decisions because we have plenty of things on there and if we are hyperfocused on every single nuance of the conversation, my thought would be that that is not productive for the group. That could be something that could be done in the accountability statements. Right? So, if you're feeling that not letting employee groups manage themselves or or have their autonomy that they need, again, defined autonomy, right? That could be viewed as not being student- centered because you're paying people to trust them. So, there could be things in there

078that are broad enough but contextualized for the work that the board does, which I'm hearing from some of you isn't in the weeds according to your opinion. I'm sorry. I know you had your hand up a while. >> Yeah. I wanted to add an accountability part in there. Um, but I think, you know, the board is elected from the public to, you know, steward taxpayer dollars in the budget, but also to hold the staff accountable that the board hires, um, you know, through the superintendent, which oversees daily. So I do like the trust employee to group but I do like think there has to be a section that comes to the board will hold staff accountable when >> and I know Miss Hedings is also doing a part about using the PLC philosophy and looking

079at the board's roles. Some of those might be accountability statements. And again, if the goal of today was to come up with ways that we can have interactions with each other, not necessarily don't do this, don't do this orient that it's more processoriented. So with what we have on there >> will repeat. We have a couple things out. I figured out based on student achievement achievement success our keep our focus centered centered focus on students. So, student We're going to say focus on. So now we have verbal and nonverbal communication. How do you go about necessarily verbal and nonverbal communication? There were a couple more words. cuz I have >> Yeah, >> so that could be different. Go ahead, Dr. Lee. >> So, so it sounds like are you tying that one to stand united?

080>> Yeah. Because you're talking about what you're during the meeting, right? We're all in this together, right? Respectful expressions. done this once or twice. Thank you. So, um we want to say I'm not talking with the microphone. I'm sorry. Is that okay? Can we live with that? Well, let's do our fist to five. >> So, for can we maintain positive verbal and non-verbal communication? Is that something that the group feels would be helpful for them when they're working together? >> We can wordsmith all we want. I think it Yeah, >> okay. >> I will maintain it all the time, but we're just saying Be aware. >> Be okay. >> Could we say be aware? Would we live with be aware? Cuz sometimes, as I shared, I don't realize when I'm talking over people and others

081who love me care enough about me to call me out and help me to work on that because I don't intend to. Would be aware be acceptable? >> So, this is um this is what I have from another school district. um board norms that communicate with one another together or separately, publicly or private in an honest, open and professional manner. Something like that covers basically everything. >> Yeah. repeat >> communicate with one another together or separately, publicly or privately in an honest, open and professional manner. Can we fistify on that? Okay, I've got a three. I got a four. I saw some fives. Well, rule is three or better. We move on. We'll group, right? All right. So, we have three. Do those three feel like a good jumping off point for the group to

082start having to orient themselves around collaborative times, whether they're here, whether they're I'm assuming you guys have other meetings. I know sometimes you have meetings with the superintendent where you have smaller meetings, right? I'm assuming you talk to each other at some point. Again, making assumptions. Would those three be a good jumping off point for the group to start organizing themselves around having working norms? >> Start I hear us to start. Do we want more or is this because sometimes starting where you're at is fine. Like if this is going to help us to have positive interactions or work on that, then three is plenty. And we can always again they're not carved in stone. They're written on the whiteboard. They can be erased. They can be changed. They can be revisited by the group

083if we need to add or massage any of them. So fist of five if we want to call the three good for now that a three. >> So this will just be which ones will we will be doing? >> Thank you. >> So we will strive to foster constructive open dialogue and um eliminating the personal conflict and Ada has the specific verbiage. The second one staying student focused and then the other one was the one that you read sir the communicate with one another with all those conditions and then has the verbiage >> to start with. >> Do you want to read it? Sure. Norm one, we will strive to foster constructive dialogue, respectful and open dialogue emphasizing task oriented discussion rather than personal conflict. And I'm sorry, I can delete the first dialogue. May

084I be may I make a suggestion on the we will strive? Can we just say we will because we need to do it. We don't need to just try doing it. Could we take out the word strive? So then we can just say we will do this. >> I fist of five. I got a five problem. >> Five. Fist of five. What are you? >> Yeah, that's fine. >> Three or better. What about the accountability? >> Yeah, that's I think kind of what Miss Armstrong is asking is do we want to start with these three or do we want to continue? >> That's not a me question. >> Three is a good start. You you've had three in in yours. I mean in the example you gave us and again you review that at the

085beginning of the year the end of the year I think one of the other topics we're going to be talking about later here is board goals so we could talk about this is a a beginner and then as we need to >> change alter whatever we can do that in the future >> absolutely as long as the board agrees like again these are jumping off points so I think to honor and respect everyone's time we had had a quick conversation about are these three enough to get us started with a process that is new for us and we did a fist of five and most of you were three or better. Is that still okay? >> Yeah, that's fine. You okay? >> Yeah. >> Yes. Okay. >> So, those will be the three. And again,

086you guys have your >> Do you want Ayah to read them back again? >> Okay. Second, do you would like to continue with the same uh language? We will be student focused five. All right, >> let's go. Last one. We will communicate with one another together or separately, publicly or privately, in an honest, open, and professional manner. >> And we just voted on that one a couple of times. Do we need to vote again? I'm >> already got fist of five on this one twice. >> I just wanted to read them. >> Okay. >> So, those are the three that we are going to get to you today. So, you can have those to begin maybe and revisit again this afternoon when you do the board goals. In the interest of time, because you know

087coming to norms and consensus takes a minute sometimes, I am going to just talk briefly through this next one. It's a funny video. I'll tell you the funny parts or and if you really want to watch it then let me know. I can make sure I get it to you. I think a couple of you brought this up. So norms are great, accountability is awesome, but they're words. They have to be practice and it can be very uncomfortable, especially if we don't have ways to do that. That's why the fist of five kind of takes some of that away, right? It allows for open conversation and it's not just blurting somebody's name out or calling them out. um norms without accountability don't really matter to anyone. That's not true. Some of us will always do

088the things that we're supposed to do and some of us have their own ways to go about it. One of the things that's in this video and we chose these videos intentionally to kind of show you guys what's being done on the campuses as well as at the administrative level. So, this talks about it's Lewis Cruz. He talks about um different scenarios that nobody waits for. He and Dr. Muhammad have a couple great lines in there. Uh Dr. Cruz says something along the lines of we all know what you know moral norms are, right? We have norms that we adhere to. So for example, if someone were to show up in the parking lot not dressed for their first day of work and exit the car and walk to the school, no one would say,

089"Wait till the principal sees you." Like they would be like, "No, you need to get in your car. There's something not right." Right? you wouldn't wait for that person to keep going. Um Dr. Muhammad also goes on and shares that as adults we don't like to have the interactions with adults but we ask our kids to do it. So if you think about that when we're doing peer mediations and things like that right we do ask our children to use their words. So as adults we should also model what the children are doing and what's the worst case scenario. Sometimes we don't like each other's words but we have to learn how to manage them and we're also modeling that. So that's a quick real quick summary. The video is way better than that. So

090I think I'm now turning it over to Tina or am I keeping talking? >> I was on that but I think that due to the interest of time and I think the work we can skip the fix. >> Okay. >> So I'm going to go through these next couple of slides and you do have them in your packet if you want to follow along so you don't feel super rushed. It's slide 14. So if you're looking at some paradigm shifts. So words matter. I think in being at the number of board meetings I've been at, I would um venture to say that you feel that words matter. How we say things, right? The words that we use, how we present, those matter, right? As we're sharing them. So if we're shifting from non-accountability to accountability,

091we want to first focus on the beliefs. So positive beliefs would be people are here to solve the problem, right? We want to make sure we work together. We have challenges but they bring us together instead of divide us. We want to also talk about that growth mindset. Not being kind of set in one thing and being willing to take on new information to see if it does change our mind. Doesn't have to, right? But open to the new information. And then blaming doesn't help anything. Ownership and it um one of the things I was going to share. So when I was blessed enough to take on the principal ship at Estraa Vista, the school's letter grade was not what it is today. I could have walked into the staff and said, "You were a

092C. I am not." Because I was at a school that got a higher grade. That wasn't going to get anyone anywhere. We were in this together. I was the leader of the school. So we were what we were. And moving forward helps us all to realize what we need to do. Roll up our sleeves. And there was no one of us, whether we were there before or not. that was who we were at that moment and who we tr strove to change to be. Um your focus, you want to think about being accountable, you know, focus on the problems, not the people, right? If we continue to hash the past, sometimes we never see moving forward. We get to that, well, we've always done this mentality and that doesn't make people feel super positive about

093interactions. Um, we want to focus on correction and restoration, looking at facts instead of blame. And then learning to do the job better. So everything is an exercise in what are our systems that failed? What happened here? It doesn't have to be a person thing. Clearly something didn't go right. Let's talk about it and figure out what we can do better. Those conversations are far more positive than how dare you let X happen. Generally whatever happened, nobody intended for that to happen, right? And we want to be solutionsoriented. We also want to look at those focus on results. And I know that word came up a couple of times. It can be outcomes, but how PLC generally defines it is that results. If we are ensuring things and we're not making assumptions, we're able to

094check into that. We want to empower. We want to make sure that we're having those higher levels of trust, being proactive, being clear. Clear is kind. Knowing what people want from you makes it a lot easier to be able to do that. Being able to take risks. Another um quick conversation from my campus when I first took over there was a lot of in the past we did this and past we did this now and then it was can we can we do this? Can we change this agenda and now it's hey we need to change this because it's not meeting our needs and this is what we need to do to be able to track student outcomes. So, it's shifted from them asking for my permission to coming to me with this is what

095we need and why and having a discussion. And isn't that what we want everyone to be able to do? Because that's truly focused on our students. We want to focus on that constant growth. We want to make sure that we are working on high levels of morale, lower turnover rates, and employee engagement. I can let you know that I am on a campus that does practice PLC. um I won't say strictly but we follow the tenants very well and our turnover has been pretty minimal. We do have people that enjoy the process and the structure that it brings and have seen it increase our student outcomes. So that makes it a viable process and system for us. So as a result I do I can tell you the campuses I I've been on that do

096that tend to have some lower um turnover. Now that's not to say somebody doesn't write get married go on the military move out of state but the choice ones. So there's things that are out of our control and there's things that are in our control. So being in a space where you feel you are able to take risks, things are clear, you have some autonomy and you have some trust. Think of yourself and as an employee. I know I would thrive in that more so than not. I talked over that's perfectly fine. We we're we're balancing really well back and forth. And so like I said, we did skip this activity. We were going to have you guys go through. We were going to read off some growth mindset statements and some fixed mindset statements

097so you guys had a a real understanding of what it is. But your guys's conversation today has been amazing. So we think that we're in a good spot and in the interest of time, we're going to talk about accountability. So now here's sometimes the big sticky piece is we have to hold ourselves and our teammates accountable. And that, like everybody has pretty much said here, can be a difficult thing when we have to hold our peer accountable. Some people have a hard time with that. Some people are like, "Oh no, I eat that for breakfast." And so we're going to watch a quick five minute video, right? >> Okay. Okay. I I don't know why I I'm I'm with that one thinking that's the video. And so we have to come to consensus then. So

098when we're in our meetings, when we're at the DS, what are we going to do to hold each other accountable? So you guys probably need to talk amongst you guys, the five of you to make that determination. But then also keeping in mind that executive team has a role in that as well because they're sitting at the DS with you. So, these are the norms that you guys are operating under. We just started with our three. Take a minute, write down how would we like to hold each other accountable when we're up there. Um, sometimes, and I'm going to give examples so you guys can start writing if you want to. We have one group that they sit kind of apart from each other so people can usually see and they stick a sticky note

099when somebody's violating the norms and everybody checks themselves. Okay. Yeah. And that works for them. I actually had one group that they wanted to say knock it off and that's they agreed after going through discussion they just wanted to say knock it off because they had a couple people who were just not doing what they were supposed to be doing and they weren't getting the clue so they just said it and then sometimes it's just a hey can we get back on track or hey that's a sidebar conversation can we take that later and just doing a gentle tap or a gentle reminder to someone. So take that minute and decide as a team, well first, you know, take a minute for yourself and look to see what would be a good accountability measure. And

100then again, we're going to have to go fist to five, something that everybody can live with for the accountability measure if by chance anybody is violating norms. I'll give you a minute and then we will do a similar share out and then come to a consensus on our accountability measure. And then the one that Miss Armstrong had shared earlier that her campus does as their big group is their accountability gentle reminders for peers. Tap a note or redirection. We'll give you about 30 more seconds to come up with what you would like to propose as your accountability measure and then we can vote on them. And then this time we'll start right in the middle with Rachel and then we'll go to her left and then we'll go to her right. Rachel, >> I would

101um suggest simply saying, you know, to each other, you're you being inappropriate right now or I'm going to hold you accountable. Like just, you know, blatantly tell them like, I'm going to hold you accountable right now or you're out of line right now or you're inappropriate. Okay, >> Marcus. Um, yeah, basically just what you know, Rachel said, I think, you know, a governing board is is elected by the public, you know, to oversee a school district. So, I think, you know, we are accountable, you know, to the taxpayers, to the students, to the to the staff. So, um, you know, I just agree with Rachel, you know. Okay. So I love holding each other accountable and I think you know telling someone or just saying hey you're doing it. I think my concern is is

102our interpretation of our norms is different amongst the five of us. Something that I think is student focused may not be something that another board member thinks student focused. So I would prefer that conversation not like publicly in a recorded YouTube, you know what I mean? Like I'm just saying I don't want in the middle of a board meeting one of my peers to hold me accountable publicly in front of everyone. So I would say maybe it's a post-it note or something like handed to me if it's during a meeting or something public instead of being at the Diaz spoken into a microphone. >> So may I use the word discreetly? >> Discreetly. That's fine. Spell it for me. D I S R just E. >> Why? >> I just think a conversation can be

103had on how I define it and how someone else defines it and good things can come from that conversation. I just may not want it to be public. >> Thank you for bringing that up, Amy. You don't want to battle of the board members on YouTube. >> Yeah, >> it's not quite the same as battle of the bands, Linda. So, I agree with um what Amy was saying, but also um Curtis is actually pretty good about redirecting us when we So, I guess the board president um about redirecting us when either a we say something we shouldn't or we get off topic or we are um inappropriate. But yeah, I I don't want someone to um publicly call me out cuz I don't have a good filter. >> Thought that just kind of came to

104me. Um another way to be accountable to the norms is to hold yourself accountable to the norms. So something the board could consider is you have your norms that we agreed upon. You can start the meeting with them, say them, and at the end you can self-reflect or reflect on others. And then it's not a public calling out but also can be addressed in that same time. So at the end of the meeting it could be so in our norms how did we do today or member snick I feel that you weren't maintaining positive eye contact. I don't know I'd make something up but um that could be something that might be easier as a starting off. And again this is your jumping off point. So whatever this wherever this takes you it takes you.

105So that could be food for thought in holding yourselves accountable and revisiting the norms at the end to go over where you feel they may have been violated. >> Could you give some uh just examples of how you all do it when it comes to like accountability internally like for admin? >> It's a gentle reminder. we have enough trust that we can call each other out and we all agree that we don't want to call each other out publicly because if it's something like that then we have a private discussion and I've I've had a few of them with people and they've had them with me but they're generally a me and them conversation and sometimes that setting isn't the time to go at our philosophical differences because it's not going to shift or change

106anything and we have different perspectives that we are passionate about as well. So for the majority of the meetings I'm in, it is that gentle reminder and it is more of those things. Now we are starting to find our way into a couple of conversations that are a little more what's the word I want to use? Um I'll say combative but charged. How's that? And those have been private conversations with that person that we've been able to agree to disagree and figure out how we are not going to keep our personal views from moving the group forward. Does that help? >> Yeah. >> So I just have a question with your with your group and whatever. It's different than our group. We're a public group and whatever and we have an agenda >> and we

107can't stray from the agenda. I'm sure you've got the agenda there, but we're held to whatever we've got on the thing right there. You can't talk about something that's not on the agenda. I can't even open the public. >> It's same with our admin team. I Okay. >> If I am to be seen bickering with my assistant principal in front of the staff, you can generally imagine how that's going to end for whatever topic we're discussing, right? >> Well, I've got these crazy things in front of me right now. >> Yeah, we had to skip over that because let me let me finish here just a second. If each one of those had I mean I I although I thought we don't want to do something public and say, "Okay, call somebody the thing." But

108if each one of us had one of these little things in our hands, we're all accountable for one another. And if that comes up that we're not accountable, rather than passing sticky notes around, sticky notes get tacky. I don't know if it's on the on the wall, you know, all of a sudden you see the board start passing these sticky notes around. Just something indiscreet or whatever. Just, you know, hold up. Are you being accountable? about at time or I know I keep handing it back is this something if we're unable to come up with a consensus right now is this something that we need to wrap our brains around and that kind of comes back during the board goals I'm asking >> so I think maybe so I think there's a level of professionalism

109and we I think for the most part um even comparatively there's a level of decorum on the DS like there's not going to be any um you know mudsling to a point there's going to be constructive ive disagreements because we are each elected um and or appointed and so the public enjoyed something about this person said I see something in them I want this person to represent my district. Now that being said um I I do think it's ideal the way that you said that you all have it but I think that takes time and there's a level of developing that relationship that rapport. I've been on the board now for I think three years. I've never spoken to anybody on the board except one person. You see what I'm saying? that that relationship is

110it's just not there. You know, there's there's there's no relationship there except once a month or twice a month I'll see you when we sit at the DAS and we are making these decisions or having meetings like this. So, it would not be realistic to think that I could have a conversation like you described at this point in time with someone, hey, let's meet and talk because that relationship is not there. There's no foundation. So I think like we have to find a way. This maybe can be something we like kind of put a pen in and we discuss it later because you know it's important to have that but I do think it really comes down to the fact that there's going to be a level of decorum and professionalism. No one's going to

111be s you know sitting up there you know calling people out like that. That's not that's not realistic. >> Yes. Well, yeah. And not only that, but we're live, so it makes it a little bit, you know, we can't like reach over and say, "Hey, you know, I'm going to be honest, and this is me not living up to that accountability. I more than likely am not going to address anyone publicly in a live board meeting if they're not meeting the norms." Like, and this goes back to what you know about me earlier. I'm going to say my piece and then I'm done. like I'm not going to argue my point of view. So if we are to be holding each other accountable, it is going to have to be something discreet >> or it's

112not going to come from me. So we could either go back to we review the norms at the beginning, we review the norms at the end and we self assess that that could be or we think about that, put a pin in it and decide to come back to it when we're talking about the board goals. And that is a decision that the five of you need to make because it's not for us to decide what works best for you. >> Yeah. And I think the biggest thing, you know, we were we're all individually elected. We have our, you know, certain reasons I ran for the board. And as long as I think we all agree that we're never going to, you know, publicly um shame or, you know, we can disagree. You know, I

113know this I think the the problem with a lot of systems is that a lot of elected officials don't think they can ever disagree with the system they were elected to uphold. But I think that's the that's democracy. That's why we became a country in the first place because people didn't think the system was serving them. So they have people who challenge the system to make it better. So I think you know but we do that in a way that obviously respects I'm never going to say that you know my colleagues are terrible people but I may disagree with their decisions you know as as board members but you know never comes to a personal level but um that's just kind of where I I think we have >> Thank you. Yeah, thank thank you

114for mentioning that because definitely is that >> it is extremely important that we're not calling the people out and that we have those relationships and we can disagree, but those norms are going to help us for how we disagree. And so it sounds to me like we're not quite sure on the accountability measure yet. So what we're going to do is we're going to start with our norms and then at the end we're going to start with holding ourselves accountable until we have developed a better routine and procedure and comfort comfort level. Is that what I'm hearing? Rather than creating okay I am doing a popsicle stick or I'm passing a note. >> I think yeah we're just going to have to develop you know a letter. This is not going to be something we

115have now in this moment. we're not going to be able to establish those norms right now because that rapport is not here, that relationship is not there. I think when we get to a point where those relationships are developed, then we can come to a place where we're able to have those discrete conversations or find a way in which we trust each other. So if someone who I'm familiar with and I'm comfortable with gives me criticism, say, hey, you know, listen, I don't agree with what you said. I'm going to receive it a lot softer than someone who I don't have that relationship with. You see? And so I think like also that you make reference to us having a level of self-reflection and a self a level of self-acountability. A lot of times when

116you are in a a stance on something, you don't see that you're maybe not conveying it the right way. So to say like, I'm just going to I'm just going to hold myself accountable, that's not really realistic because if you are not able to hold yourself accountable because you think that you're right about something, nothing's ever going to change. You're just going to next meet me and did I hold myself accountable? I did great. next, you know, you just got to cussing everybody out the next week. I did phenomenal, you know, so you just have to it's about having relationships and we'll get there. Okay. So, I think I heard two different things in that one. So, I heard yes, we wanted to move forward with the end accountability, but then also we have to

117truly be a self-reflective piece. And you may say on yours, oh yeah, I did great. Everything's perfect. But in the same token, others are saying reflection at the end. Where would we like to go? >> Yeah, let's put a pen in it. >> Okay. And I think too, yeah, I've put a pen in it, but you know, also finding out like, you know, what this is on the agenda, you know, so I just want to know like did we feel that there's urgency for the board to address this, you know, that's kind of what I like if there's a dire need, you know, because I I look to other boards and they don't really have norms. So, you know, our accountability protocols, you know, so I think that does the administration really think that the

118board needs to have this, you know, in place. So again, as I as I started the meeting, the the rationale for all of the items on here have a specific purpose to this point of it. I spoke to us just making sure we have a common language and and and just my perspective seeing it and take it how how you choose, there's not common language and um there's not a common understanding of how we're moving in certain areas. Uh I think even the three norms that we've come up with, it was even stated that I think we may see these three differently. And so that's that for me is where we need to figure out how to build our understanding, our rapport, our trust of one another is when we can begin to understand where

119everyone is coming from and know that as we're making these decisions, I truly understand why my colleagues made the decisions they made. um not for the purpose of antagonizing me but for the purpose of their belief system their experiences their understanding led them to this and I respect that understanding. So um you know I'm as a board if the decision is to say we've come up with three we'll hold on accountability is fine I am going to bring these things up again and again and again until we get to a place where at the very beginning the third slide I believe said to become a highly functioning team and that's the ultimate goal if we want if as a board you want my executive team to be highly functioning if as superintendent I want our

120leadership and our staff and all other teams to be highly functioning. I have to expect it of all. I can't expect it of some. I can't expect it of partial. I can't expect it of a piece. And and that's the only way to begin to move an organization forward to accomplish the outcomes that we want. We say we want high levels of student achievement. We say we want these things, but we all have to be a part of that process and that conversation. I agree with some of the comments of of the self-acountability piece. And from everyone's perspective, they're holding themselves accountable. Um, but I'll be honest, from my lens, that's not the case. That's not the case because remember, I'm in this I'm in this land of governance and operations. I engage with community.

121I engage with staff. I engage with folks all around and and I kind of see where some of the gaps are. And so as I bring things forward to the board is for the perspective of how do we move us forward? How do we take educated risk so that we can get the outcomes that we wanted? Um, when I came in, when I was hired as the board's employee, as I'm the sole employee of the board, as I was hired, it was help us to accomplish these things. And so my steps moving forward are to help us accomplish these things. And and I believe we can get there as long as as as what I believe. And and I always take I I always tell everyone, we're a team. And the approach that I take

122with everyone is as a team is um we have to look for the collective good of all. Um whether I whether I hang out with Miss Sillis or not, we both know that we have each other's best interest at heart. So everything when I walk in in the morning when till the point at which we meet, we meet regularly. Miss Ellis and I meet daily to go over where we at in this, where we at in the planning, where we at in the structure. Even if it's a phone call or a virtual uh because I'm at another meeting, we touch base because we want to make sure that we're building the relationship, that we're getting to the place where the outcomes exist that we want. She knows exactly what I want and what I'm looking

123for. And I know that she's going to keep me in line to get those things. And I I always give her the autonomy to just I always say just say what it is you need to say. Um because she'll tell me, hey, you know, this is on the plan. Did you consider this? Did you think about that? Doesn't hurt my feelings because I know she wants me to look good. It makes her look good. It makes us all look good. So all of these items are here for a very specific purpose. I tried to tie them all together so that they can help lead us as a group and as a team to the outcomes that we say we want. I'm I'm I'm an individual who um if we say we want it, we have

124to do the actions to get there. Don't just tell me you want it. If you're going to tell me you want it now, let's let's put in the work and let's do what we need to. And that's the reason why I asked these leaders because one of the slides that Miss Armstrong shared was about belief. And when we talk about culture of accountability and belief, the key thing to me was people are the solution. That's why I had them do this because everything we've been doing has been based on the work that they had done and the successes they had seen. They are the solution. And so I said, "How do we now put you in front of people so that everyone knows the things that seem like the most um nonmeful pieces really are

125those hidden foundational things that drive us and move us forward because if we don't do these little things well, we'll never do anything well." So I know that was a long way to answer that question of there's a reason for all of this. I'll be honest, and it was even stated here, the relationships don't exist. The connections aren't there. How do we begin to put those in place? And this is one of the steps. The next presentation is another part of that step. When we get to the strategic plan, and I know we're way off time now, but I do appreciate your work. I do appreciate it. When we get to the strategic plan, there's some components there that lead to the next piece because those all are going to circle back to this. And

126then when we get to the bond discussion, it's going to go right back to those same things. We say we want student achievement, this this this. So now the request that um once um once Miss Pena and her group of presenters come up talk about it's going to tie back into all of this. So for me, I try to connect it. If it doesn't connect, learning point for me, growing point, people can always come to me later and say, "Hey, help me connect the dots." I'm fine with those conversations. I am completely fine with them. I always offer to have a meeting and conversation with everyone. But I also think this too, we have to individually make efforts to make to build relationships with each other. Um uh we have to we have to as

127individuals say I'm going to step out on on on a on a level of faith take this risk that I'm going to um whether there's a certain belief or something I don't buy into this person for the greater good for the greater good. And how do I do that? So that's it for me. >> You guys wrapped up. >> Y >> appreciate you. You can chime in. Next present. Oops. Next presentation. Let's take a five minute recess or a potty break or whatever you need to do and be back in five minutes. Yes, she's going to hand them out. I wanted to have them ready with them. So, they Oh, I'm gonna hand these. Everybody has a folder and then we won't have to dig and I'll explain all that. I'm used to a microphone

128that goes here. We all have them, even our teachers. And so this is going to be a little tricky. I know. She was a >> You were so patient. I love that you said that. >> Do you remember? Do you remember? I know. Me, too. She's wonderful. I left her this morning. She's on my bed. I love that girl. We almost got a new one. But my daughter can't handle it. She's still not over Jesse. It's an hour and a half, but I'm going to try to cut down. on some stuff. Let's try to get started here in about one minute. See you guys holding each other accountable already. >> All right, I believe we're all back here. Let's go ahead and reconvene. Okay, for our next item, um the next step in this process

129is the governing board's role in the PLC process. And so again, wanted to take some of our leaders on campuses that are actively engaged in the PLC process and have them present. We've also, if you notice when you came in, board members, there were some books there as well that kind of support the work that's going to um work uh right now that we're going to engage in right now. So, we have Miss Heddings who is the principal over at Cal Your Business Academy, and then Dr. Liddette, who is our director for curriculum instruction, who will now present. >> Good morning. Um I wanted to start out by thanking you guys. um you're doing the work and I know that that was a little bit of a struggle this morning, but I just want to

130tell you that norms are the foundation and you guys are asking the right questions and you're doing the right work. Um thank you for being here. I know you volunteered your time and it's important for us to know that you value this work. So, thank you. I also want to thank um our almighty leader here, Dr. Leit. Sorry, he's like, don't say that. Um, but he really is and and I want to thank him for the vision, the vision to see that the this PLC process is a system and it's a system to ensure all students and staff are aligned like a lot of your conversations were about this morning. But most of all that we are instructing students, all students are learning at a high level. And he has that vision. He sees that

131and he wants to ensure that our whole organization including you guys are aligned with that. So with that being said, I just have a few housekeeping. You guys have to move on um and be in your next event by 12:20. This was about an hour and a half. So we're just going to do some things to kind of keep us going. We're going to use a parking lot and Dr. Leette will take your sticky notes. If you have a question, anything burning, just write it on a sticky note. She'll take them, she'll put it in the parking lot and then we'll be able to answer those questions for you because this is new learning for all of you. So, you are going to have a multitude of questions, but that's one way we can keep

132going. Also, I provided a notetaker for you. I use this in my presentations with my staff. Do you guys know how much information you retain if you do not take notes? 5% of the information in the entire presentation. So if you actually follow along and use notes, do you know what that goes to? Thank you Google for this information. 35%. So I just encourage you use the notes. We have the slide with the notes next to it. We are also going to use what we call in the PLC system um protocols. And the protocols are designed to give you time to think about the concepts. I'm one that it takes me a little while to process. I get in the car later and then all my ideas pop off. These protocols kind of help us

133with our thinking as we move through this. So, you're going to hear that word that you we use in PLC's called protocols. and I'll be walking you through that. We'll get pretty good at that throughout this session. Lastly, I'm going to have you get out of your seats. You're going to do your own thinking on your own in your notes and then I'm going to have you intermingling with each other because part of learning is sharing and learning from one another. So, that's a piece of this. You think it through, you kind of process. You share with the colleagues. Sometimes they enlighten you. then you come back and we'll share out as a group um our new learning. Are we good with that? We did our fist to five. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Okay, wonderful.

134Okay, those are just our housekeeping issues uh or our housekeeping as we move forward just to keep us on task and keep us moving. In a PLC, they talked about um this earlier. Typically, you start with your norms. And so, we were hoping that you would have your norms done, but it's okay because you're thinking about it, which is even better. Um, in in any meeting, professional learning, um, our CTT meetings, which are team collaboration time, you go through the norms to start out. So, um, our vice president had a wonderful question and it was, "How do we fit into this?" Well, that's how you fit into it. It's part of a PLC. It's just part of the work we do. Every team does it before a meeting or before professional learning. I found as

135a principal that that is the most helpful tool in this system because anytime you hit a roadblock, it's usually a norm issue. And you guys said a lot of really great things. You have to have trust. And you're right. And hopefully throughout this presentation, you'll be able to see and put some of those pieces together. The second thing you typically do in um with your PLC time or within a PLC is affirmations. This is where you celebrate your small wins. This work we do, is it easy? It's very difficult. The work you do is very difficult. And so affirmations is just a time that you go back and you celebrate those small wins as a team. We work collaboratively. We're in it together. We have a common goal. And so we affirm each other. So

136what we're going to do today is each of you have a piece of paper that looks like this for each of your fellow board members. What I'm going to ask you to do is put one word that describes them, a quality or an attribute that makes them shine. Okay? I did a little model for you. This one's passionate. I did this for our vice president. And when I think about him, I think about passion. I often tell my staff that you either have this or you don't, right? And I see our vice president have passion for our students, for our staff to make sure that all students are learning and you bring us back to that every time. So my word is passionate. I'm asking you guys to write one word for each of your

137board members to affirm them um for an attribute that they carry that's positive. You have markers right here. About 60 more seconds. We get the intent. You're good. So, for the sake of time, just as you're thinking through these, I'm going to have President Nelson. He is going to do a shout out for you. You're going to do a shout out for member Barnett. You're going to do a shout out for Senic. You're going to do a shout out for Linda. And Linda will do a shout out for President Nelson. Smile. Makes the life go. >> I left that at home today. >> It makes the world go round. >> Knowledgeable. >> Okay, we're sharing out >> knowledge of what's going on around us. >> So he's knowledgeable. >> No, no, just >> no. Just

138one. Just one, but give the why. He's knowledgeable. >> Yeah. Just the mere fact that he knows what's going on in the community and the in the other school districts and everything else. I mean, if I had a question, what's going on here there, or any place else, I could go to him and he would have that knowledge available and be able to share that with him. >> Excellent. So, you want to give all of yours to Dr. Ledette? Thank you. She'll post them all. your turn. >> Well, I mean, I could say a lot about um member Barnett. Um but one thing I'll say is she is um she's very passionate. I'll say passionate. Um and I do say I reuse passionate because um when it comes to fighting for anything she believes in,

139whether it's her family, the community she serves, she will not back down and she's very passionate about it. Excellent. Member Barnett, >> I would say is consistent. >> Consistent. >> Excellent. Consistency is important. >> I would say that is very >> No, it's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Um, you do affirmations in all different ways. This is just one way to affirm each other. Can you see Why affirmations lead to trust? How and why? You feel seen. You feel valued. Excellent. You're celebrating the wins. We all have attributes that lead to a team. And one of the things we're going to discover today is the difference between a group and a team. And I think that is very important. Moving on to our learning goals. Could we popcorn read these just for the

140sake of time? Um starting with um President Nelson, if you want to read our content goal, please. >> Want me to just read one or all of them there? >> If you want to read all of them, go for it. >> Our learning goals. Our content goal is understand the board's role in the PLC process. The language goal is use PLC language to discuss student outcomes and the social goal is to work together to support student success. >> Thank you very much. Going back to the language goal in your binders, and you do not have to look now, I actually have folders for you so you can access your material quickly. Um, but you do have a list of definitions because doc Dr. Lefit hit on this earlier. It's really important to have a shared

141language that we're talking about the same thing. So, our agenda today is we're really going to do the what, the why, and how. So, we're going to start out with what is the professional learning community? What is it? Some of you have that knowledge, but we're going to jump in a little bit more. um why are PLC's important? And then lastly, the part that impacts you is how does the board set the scene for the PLC. Okay, those are the three what, why, how that we're really going to hit today. Okay, and build our understanding. Now, my hope for today is that we're just laying that foundation. It's just like your work in the norms. we had to kind of put put it on the shelf and revisit it because it takes time learning about

142the PLC process. It takes time. So, this is kind of the surface level and my hope is that you get that surface level and then you can really dig in deeper through your questions and your work with Dr. Lefi. So, what is a PLC? to have a shared definition of what a PLC is is super important if this is the work we're doing, if this is the system we live and breathe. So, can you just take a minute and read that definition silently? team. What stands out to you in that definition? process program. >> Thank you for seeing that. It is a system. It is not a program we use. And that's what we're going to talk about today. That is super important. Is there anything else that resonated with you? >> All levels from

143the boardroom to the classroom collaborate. And that alignment we're going to learn today is super important. That's really what we were talking about. I have been so excited by your conversations through the norms. I was just laser focused. But also in the board meetings because you're asking really good questions and that's your role and I love to see that and I think you're going to kind of that's going to resonate with you like we're already doing this work. Um, another thing that I really wanted to point out is the collective responsibility. We're going to learn a little bit today. What does that mean? The collective responsibility. So, in a PLC, there's three main ideas. We have a focus on learning. This is ensuring that students learn that it's not just the instruction that's delivered. Whoa.

144That's a mind shift, isn't it? Focused on student learning. That's why we go into classrooms. What are you learning? Why is it important? You're focused on the student learning, not necessarily the instruction delivered. A collaborative culture. That's the collective piece. I was asking you to focus on educators working in teams to improve student outcomes. You're hearing that word a lot, teams. teams and we're going to dig into that a little bit. Resultsoriented. This is what our vice president was talking about in our last board meeting. Using data to drive that continuous improvement cycle, right? Those are the three big ideas. I want you to look at this as like a PLC road trip. Okay? The focus on learning is the desk destination. That's where you're trying to go on your road trip, right? Student learning.

145It could be our smart goals. We have smart goals at the district level, the site level, the classroom level, and at the student level, right? And all of those have to be in alignment. So, focus on learning is like your destination where you're trying to go. The collaborative culture is your car, your vehicle. It's how you're going to get there without collaborating and working together as a team, highlighting all of these different characteristics we all have to share and don't necessarily have the same. We use our car to kind of get there. Results oriented. Look at that as your GPS. The data shows us where are we right now? Isn't that where a GPS tells you? I'm in front of circle K. I have to turn right. It also tells us when we're off track,

146going the wrong way. Okay. Then we can go in and fix it because guess what? Are you ever going to get to the destination if you don't have a GPS? No, you're not. It helps us to be more effective and efficient to get there. Okay, we're going to do the first protocol. It's called capture your learning one, two, three. So, we are going to watch a short video by Becky Defor. Um, it's about 3 minutes long. You're going to use your notes and in your notes, you're going to answer number one, what stood out to you? Number two, what is your new learning? What did you not know before? And then number three, what connects to the work that you're doing in Littleton? You're just going to jot it right down in your notes. You're

147going to have about a minute to kind of process and get your questions together and then I'm going to have you share out together and then we'll share out as a team. Are you ready? The very first and the most important again of the big ideas is we have to embrace learning as our fundamental purpose. So we make a shift away from our traditional focused on teaching to a focus on learning. One of our great friends and associates uh Mark Johnson he's a superintendent in Sanger California puts it this way. He says teaching without learning isn't teaching at all. It's just presenting. So is our focus on teaching or is our focus on learning in the classrooms? If we meant it that learning is our fundamental purpose, then the conversations within our school would be

148very specific and they would shift away from that traditional focus of a teacher sitting in a classroom looking at the lesson planning document trying to decide what am I going to teach, how will I teach it, how much time will I spend, what materials will I use to teach it. That conversation shifts away from the individual teacher grappling with it to a team of teachers who teach the same course, the same content, who share students across a grade level. And they're working together and they're delving not into the questions of teaching, but rather into the questions of learning. questions like, "What is it we want our students to know and be able to do in this English class, in this art one class, in this music class, in this third grade math class? What do

149we want our students to know and be able to do? What are the very specific skills and concepts and dispositions that every student must acquire in order to be successful, not only this year, but when we send them up to the next level? What do we want them to learn? and how will we know if they've learned it? How will we work together to frequently monitor each and every student's attainment of those essential skills? And what if I've taught it the best way I know how and some kids still didn't learn it? What are we going to do collectively and collaboratively to give those students more time and more support? What interventions will we have in place to give the kids who need it extra time and support? And what about the kids that already

150know it? Are we extending and enriching their learning to help them move to the next level as well? These are the questions that drive the work of members of professional learning community. >> Okay, take a minute in your notes. What stood out to you? What is your new learning and what connects to your work in Littleton? So, how does it apply to you directly? We talked about that this morning. Well, we look a little different. We're a different team. So, how does this message connect to you directly? >> You already want to share. >> I think the one thing that uh stands out to me is the difference between teaching and learning. The focus on teaching and learning. >> Yeah. >> It's the same as listening and hearing. Do you listen or do you hear?

151>> Yeah. >> They're both where they need to be, but one has an outcome different than the other one. >> Excellent. Excellent. That's a shift, isn't it? A shift from teaching to student learning. >> Um, I think what stood out was understanding why they need to learn it and then when they've acting when they've actually learned it and understand it. >> How do we get there? Everybody doesn't have to share. Sorry I'm weird staring at you. Member Barnett. >> So I have been in the solution tree PLC network for two years now. Like it's my job. So the core question, >> but I will say what connects to my work in Littleton is now more of a bigger picture focus of where's the money going for when the students don't know it or when they

152do know it. What curriculum are we providing our staff? Excellent. I love that you know the four questions. So not only that intervention and remedial part, but question four, what do they do do when they know it? What do we do? And how do we allocate those resources, which is a huge role you have? >> Oh, I thought when they talked about um what do we do with those students that do know it, you know, I I know about, you know, our programs, our resource programs and stuff like that. to help those kids that don't know it. But what are we doing for those kids that are in the gened class that already do know it? You know, what are we doing to enrich them so that they don't become bored in class? >> Yes.

153Very good. That's usually when we see some of the behaviors. >> Excellent. So, do you think, give me a fist of five, that we have a pretty clear understanding on what a PLC is and what it entails? Excellent. We're going to go on to why why PLC's matter. This is proven. Studies show higher achievement, stronger instruction, and just what member Solsson was talking about, better intervention and enrichment. Okay, those are the wise. What we're going to do now, oh, before I do that, I just want you to look at this quote. It's kind of jumping backwards a little bit, but until it's learned, it hasn't been taught. Isn't that a great quote to kind of signify what we're talking about? Until it's learned, it hasn't been taught. Is that a good justification for why we

154need to focus on the student outcomes and not the teaching? Excellent. We are going to do a little bit of reading. Okay. Now, what I've done is I've so that you don't have to dig through your binder. Okay? I love your binder. You have a lot of resources in there, but I've actually put it into a folder that Dr. Ledette is going to pass out. Or did she already pass out? Do you have your folders? Okay, she's passing them out. And you have the first article that we're going to read. It's right there at the top. It's called Why Professional Learning Communities Matter. The Why. We are going to go through a protocol. So, I'm going to have you read it silently to yourself. Member Solsson, you thought you were getting out of um school,

155didn't you? Um we're going to use capture your learning, why, what, how, as you're reading. So you can read, highlight your answers, things that stand out. But what's driving your thinking are these three three questions. Why are we doing this together? What are we aiming to approve improve? And how will you know our actions worked? Okay, so I want you to read this. Do your highlighting and your annotating. I'm going to stop you. I'm going to give you a couple of minutes. When I start seeing your eyeballs, you know, when I have 80% of you, I'll move on. Then we're going to take about a minute to wrap up our thinking and then we are going to share together before we share out on this activity. Also, when we do the share out part, I'm

156going to play some music and that's how we know we come back together as a group. Okay, go ahead and do your reading. I'm going to leave the questions up so you can reference them as you read. No, just the first page. We're going to do those later. About 30 second wrap up. Take about a minute to answer the three questions. Why? What? How? Okay, I get that this is kind of weird because there's only five of us. Usually there's a full staff of people or a full classroom if you're a teacher. So, what I'm going to have you do is I'm going to have you stand up with your notes. You are going to find someone that you do not normally collaborate with, someone outside, okay? That you normally out of the five of

157you based on your conversations this morning that you don't normally collaborate with. Now, here's the there's five of us, so it's going to be two of you and then three of you. So, it may not be perfect. So, you're going to stand up when you you're going to talk about these three questions. Share together. Solidify that learning. And then when you hear the music, we're going to come back and I'm going to have you share out your answers. Okay? Do we understand? Yes. I hate when people ask me that question. Sorry. I apologize. And Mr. Nielson, not Nelson. Sorry about that, too. Okay. Go ahead and collaborate. You're going to choose someone you do not normally work with and you're going to talk about these three questions. Ready, set, go. You guys are collaborators. >>

158Oh, no, no, no, no. This is like students in my class. You have to go over here. Nice, nice try. You two are collaborators. >> I don't want to talk to you anymore. >> Come on. moved to this group. >> This is a form of nonaccountability >> and I'm calling you out in the meeting too. Sorry, it broke the norm. Accountability. >> What did you get? What are we doing? >> I was the teacher for way too long. Can you tell? Effect on student learning. this together. >> The students have taught to There's a guaranteed >> Okay. Do you remember what this means? >> Stop talking and then >> research based. It's not it's it's >> it's music. >> Thank you. >> I'll just sing then. He he just gave me the nogo on the

159music. But that was Hotel California. >> Do you remember your share out? Isn't that one of your favorites? Okay. Okay. Does someone want to share? First question. Why are we doing this together based on our reading and our new learning? >> Well, we're doing it together because um when educators work collaboratively um they directly implement the practices, they have the greatest effect on student learning when they're collaborative. >> Excellent. A+ >> the biggest impact on student learning when we collaborate together. Why? >> I think everybody has something to lend to it. They come from different backgrounds and they're able to like add that to it. And they're going to be students who are able to connect like that. So maybe you're the direct you're teaching a student and they can grasp the concepts through you.

160But then you have someone who's with you and they're like, "Wait a minute, what about this?" And then that like turns the light on for them. >> Shared expertise. Hm. Sounds familiar, right? You all have different sets of gifts and strengths. Sharing them together is going to make you a stronger team. That's the same with our collaborative teams at the teacher level. What are we aiming to improve? This one's kind of I think you guys can all answer this. Amy's like, "Nice question." >> I don't want to say data. I just want to say student success. >> Yeah. >> You know, data is nice, but student success and students feeling better about themselves and saying, "Hey, I got that." >> Yeah. >> I I I I understand that that light bulb. >> Improved culture. >>

161Yes. >> Amongst staff and students. Excellent. That was something I didn't think about when I put this together. Great. How will you know our actions worked? >> Data. >> Remember, we're re resultsoriented. That GPS that's gauging where we go and where we're at that drives what we do next, right? If we're not constantly looking at that GPS, where are we going to end up? In circles. We don't know, right? And that's the worst thing to become a surprise. Will you read this quote silently to yourselves, please? resonates to you. Do you remember the old traditional teaching where you taught in silos? You think that was the most effective or efficient way? I like the word every. >> Every every student learns >> and every adult. Pretty impactful, right? This commitment is us together. Part of

162what I want you to see is that every piece, but most importantly that the work is aligned from boardroom to classroom. You have to see that alignment, right? We have to have that same destination which is our student learning. If we are all over the place, are we ever going to get there? No. So, part of what we're going to do as an activity today, because I really think this is at the core of what of our work in a PLC. So, we've talked about a group versus a team, right? When I first met Dr. Lefy, he used an analogy with us >> and I carried that analogy to my staff and my staff really grabbed on to it and he used the analogy of a rowboat. So, if everybody jumps into a boat, you

163don't know what destination you're going, you don't know what your shared goal is. What are you going to do? Someone said it early, possibly circle in the boat. Are you working against each other? So it might be harder. You might be tired by the time you get if you even get to the destination, right? A team is focused focused on results. Okay? So you have that destination. You know exactly where you're going with student learning. You do that collaboratively. Do you think the the team in the rowboat rowing are going to win the race if they haven't had that collaboration, that teamwork? No. You're doing one, two, three, right? You have a plan to propel you forward. Um, and so that's the vehicle to get there, right? And then you know exactly where you're going.

164So you're efficient, you're effective, you're not circling and lost. That is what a team does. So, one thing when I first jumped into my learning and you two might have done this, you might have done this with me, member Stalard, so you can't tell, but we're going to do an activity to solid Oh, sorry. Before the activity, we're doing another protocol. So, um, what I'm going to have you do is you're going to listen to Rick Defor. He's a pioneer in this work. He's going to explain the difference between a team and a group. That's first and foremost. That's important. Then we're going to jump into the activity and it's a really cool activity. You could tell I was just wanting to jump right there. Okay. So, listen to him. I'm just going to have

165you take notes because the solidifying our learning is the activity we're going to do. So, just listen and take good notes on the difference between a group and a team. There is a difference between a group and a team. We ask people to define team and inevitably they say, "Well, a team is a group of people who work together to achieve a common goal." And if that were true, then a four 40,000 marathon runners would be a team. They're people who are working together in close proximity. They're all pursuing the same goal. I want to finish this race. And we could say that they're a team. But I don't think anybody would argue that a group of marathon runners are a team. something is missing. Here are the elements, the three elements that you must

166have if you're really going to be a team as opposed to a group. You must be working interdependently. We must create interdependent relationships. I can run my marathon and I can achieve my goal regardless of what happens to anybody else in the race. But if I were a member of a team, I would have to rely on other people in order to achieve the goal. and they would need to rely on me. So we would have an interdependent relationship. We would have a goal. You can't be a team without a goal. And it would be a goal for which we are mutually accountable. That would make us a team. And unfortunately in schools all across America, we have settled for working in groups as opposed to truly creating collaborative teams. Now, here's an analogy that

167I think makes the point. Here are two of the greatest athletes ever to play in their respective sports. And I don't think anybody would disagree with that. Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. Clearly, two of the best who ever played their sports. And when they turned professional, ironically, both of them announced when they turned professional that they shared the same goal. And the goal was, I'm turning pro because I want to win championships. That's how I'm going to define myself. I want to win championships. Now, when Tiger Wood steps onto a golf course to compete in a tournament, he's never working in isolation. He's always part of a group, a collegial, congenial group that forsome on the golf course. Those other golfers that are out there, they can get along just great. But he can accomplish

168his goal of winning the championship regardless of what happens to any other golfer on that golf course. He can do it all by himself. Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player ever to play in the NBA. And in 1988, he did something that's never been done before or since. Not only was he the most valuable player of the year, not only was he the leading scorer of the year, the best offensive player of the year, he was also named as the best defensive player of the year. So that one man was the strongest force on both offense and defense in the entire NBA. And yet he did not accomplish his goal. Nor did he accomplish his goal for any of the first six years that he was in the league. Now, why not? He was

169just as skilled and gifted in basketball as Tiger Woods was in golf. Why wasn't he able to accomplish his goal? Because Michael Jordan was a member of a team. Tiger Woods is a member of a group. There is a enormous distinction. Jordan had to rely on other people to accomplish his goal. And until that that team could gel, they couldn't accomplish his goal. No matter how brilliant he was. Now, you may be the Michael Jordan of teaching. I doubt it, but you may be. My point is, no matter how brilliant you are as an individual, that does not mean you have a good team or even a good school. It's going to require a collective effort. So here, >> okay, we're going to put this into practice. So I want you to put everything else

170to the side. You're going to get out two sticky notes. You're going to have the first sticky note in front of you and I'm going to give you some directions and then I'm going to reiterate a little bit so that we understand. I'm going to show you a triangle graphic comprised of 25 randomly placed capital letters. You have 10 seconds to study the triangle. And you may not write it down. So, you're not writing it handsree. Okay? Then I'm going to pull the picture away. And then from memory, you're going to have to write down in order as many of the letters as you can. Got it? So, I'm going to throw it up there. You're not writing. You're just going to look at it, study it. I'm going to pull it away. You're going

171to write down as much as you can remember. Then, we're going to go back to it. You're going to count how many you got right. And Vanna is going to write our data down for our first attempt. Okay. Got it? Okay. Get ready. You guys look serious. Are you ready? Okay, record your answers. Think I got three. Okay, I'm going to put it back up. You're just counting how many you got. All right. So, you can't write any more letters, okay? I promise there's a purpose, okay? And you're going to see it, okay? So, you're just counting how many and then we're going to shout them out. So, go ahead, check your triangles. How many did you get correct? Write in the bottom of your sticky and circle it. Okay, quick shout out. Starting with

172President Neielson. >> Four >> zero seven >> seven. >> Um I didn't do it because I'm actually on this side on my computer. SO WHEN I LOOK DOWN YOUR COMPUTER so I was like >> okay >> five. Okay. So you're gonna do it this time. Okay. >> So now Okay. Second attempt. Here's the deal. >> Okay. >> You're only doing one sticky note and you're doing this as a team. You're going to have one minute to plan how you're doing it. So, I'm going to have you stand up in the back because you have to as a team because you're a team come up with a strategy in one minute. Then, as a team, one person has one sticky note and we're going to follow the same practice we just did. Okay? So, get together

173in the back as a team and then I'll start your your minute. And sorry, I even blacked it out on your notes. I I want you to know so you couldn't cheat. Okay, there you go. One minute planning. Okay, you're staying as a team. get one sticky note. You guys decide how you do it and we're going to do this again. So, you're staying with your team because you're a team. You have to interdependently work together. So, stay together. Are are you ready? >> We are one team. >> Uh only one sticky notes being completed. >> But don't we get to relook at it? >> Yeah. >> So, you're not writing now. No, you're not writing now. You're deciding. You're just implementing your plan. Okay, there we go. Okay, now record your answers. One sticky

174note. Let me know when you're ready. Your last letter is M. Your last M. U R Y N H X S. >> Okay, I'm going to put it back up there and then you are going to check your answers and you're going to circle how many you got correct this time. >> So count how many you got correct and circle your answer at the bottom. NHS. >> Okay, one share out. How many did you guys get? >> And is going to record for us. 10 11 12 13 14. So it was 18, right? The only thing we got wrong is the line I was supposed to remember because I was writing everybody else as I try to remember my third line. >> That's okay. That's okay. We're still making the point here. Okay. So I

175want you to look at the first attempt. What was the average here? How'd we do? >> A total of 16. But if you just look at the average of working alone, I don't know who's the who's the math person. Oh, >> Vanna got it. 3.1 average. Look over here. Is that better? Do you see why it's important to operate as a team? How does this align with the discussions we were having this morning? I want you to rethink. We said one thing that kind of hit me hard because I believe it. We need trust. But can you still operate as a team until you get there? You just did. What does the data show us? 3.1 average substantially went up working as a team. Did you work interdependently? I saw it in action. Yes. Dependently

176would mean someone just telling you. You had your own ideas. You brought your own thoughts to the team. I heard. Oh, stop it. What's the face? Share. >> I'm not saying anything. We are a team. >> You are a team. Thank you for getting that point. Did you have mutual accountability? It's okay if one of these pieces fell. Rick Defor just shares with us these are the the three things we need to have for an effective team. We've got some work to do. We'll get there. By the way, guys, all teams do. On my campus, we have a team at every grade level and I have my admin team. We're all at different places in the journey, right? So, the thing is we know where that destination is and someone that is a pioneer that

177has so much evidence to back him says these are the three things we need to have to be an effective team. Did you have a shared goal? Are you getting the analogy? Okay, good. Do we understand why PLC's are important? Just give me a quick thumbs up, thumbs down. The why. Okay. Our next step is your piece. How can the board support in the PLC process? So, Dr. feet spoke to this and I just want to be very transparent that for years I have done the work at the site level. This is my first experience to do anything at the district level. So I read this and I go back and I read it again and again and again even as I did this this presentation but I'm learning with you all. Okay. So I

178took this next part directly from this book and you're going to see that from the reading. You all have copies of that book that Dr. Lef gave you. I encourage you to do a deep dive after this to kind of solidify some of this learning we did today. Okay, just to make it like pretty simple, it breaks it down. Governance versus management. Governance, you set the vision. You monitor the results. Talked about all these things this morning. You hold systems accountable. Who said that this morning? I was so excited was you. That's so important in the PLC process system that you hold the systems accountable. Then the in administration their role is the implementation piece. They give the they they monitor the instructional piece and they support schools in that through a strong vision and

179lots and lots of clarity. I want you just to take a minute and I want you to look at this cycle. What stands out to you just from the the picture? >> It just circles around students. >> I look around. >> Someone said that this morning too. >> Everything revolves around student learning. Every choice we make, every decision we make circles around our students. But what else do you see? Do you see you up there? And this is like a cycle. the district, the schools, the teachers. Do we all have an equal part? Alignment equals results. If we're not aligned throughout our entire system, we won't see those results. That's Dr. Lefit's vision. Okay, we're going to do some more reading, just a deeper dive into this. Okay. Um, we're going to do this is

180my favorite. It's called what's the big idea? You can use this protocol with almost anything and everything you do. You're going to identify the main concept. You're going to be prepared to explain and you're going to connect the concepts to your reality. Okay. So, what you're going to have now is you have two. This comes directly from our book. I want you to start with this and then you're going to take a peek at this. Okay? And as you do that, you're going to highlight, you're going to annotate, but you're looking at what is the main concept of what you're reading. You're going to be prepared to explain your thinking. And then how do the concepts connect to reality? You guys did a lot of talking about that. So I think this piece is super

181important. So go ahead and take out the reading, use your highlighters, and let what's the big idea kind of direct your thinking through this reading. When I see your eyeballs, the majority of you, I I'll know that we're ready to move on. What's the big idea? Okay, if you haven't yet, definitely take a peek at the cycle, the second page. Okay, in your notes, if you just want to jot down the answers to these three questions, I'm going to have you stand up again. You're going to share with someone different. So, you're going to jot down in your notes the main concepts. You're going to be ready to explain and then you're going to talk a little bit about how they connect to your reality. So, take about a minute to wrap up your thoughts.

182Okay, let's have you get up. Just find a new partner to collaborate with. So, you're going to stand up, find a new group of people. I know that's going to be difficult. and you're going to share the your answers or your thinking to these three questions. You guys do not look thrilled about this. Was this a a heavy cognitive load? Do you just want to share out consensus five? If you just want if you're just ready to share out if you want to talk. I like solidifying my thinking with someone else. I like to partner, share, develop my thinking. Usually they'll think of things that I didn't think about, but if you're good just sharing out, we'll share out. You guys, it's been a long morning. I'm feeling it from you. You're like my staff

183at PD after a full day with students. Okay. you want to share out? >> I turned it off. The biggest thing I took away was um was um how the visual how the vision reinforces um the understanding at the top for everybody, you know, collectively. >> Um >> and how are we doing that? Now, you're going to be doing some of the work coming up here at 12:20 or you're going to have a little bit of a break. But is that the five-year strategic plan? >> Mhm. >> Yeah. We're getting crystal clear around our work. So exciting. Anyone else? It's a lot, guys. I understand. Remember I started out letting you guys know that today we're just kind of laying the foundation and that you're going to deep dive in this work with Dr. Lefit

184and his team. So this is just kind of your entry point. Okay. Um but could we just get the third question answered? How does this reality connect to your work? I think that just the concept of it being just multifaceted, you know, that that has to do with our work like there are not there's no one solution to a problem and then having that understanding in our work as board members to be able to implement strategies and to implement um things that are going to be beneficial to the collective and not just one student, one group of students. you know, being mindful that, you know, we need many solutions for maybe one one concern. >> All means all. >> Yeah. >> Not some. >> Yeah. >> We're teaching all students at high levels. Does this

185system ensure that's happening? How? Remember our GPS? Through data. What's your role with data >> to examine the data and >> um yeah our job is to go into it and deep dive into it and make sure that we are following or that the schools are following it. It's not coming out right. No, you're right. You're you're looking at the data to ensure the things are happening. Right. >> Right. And to ask the questions and make sure that all of the students are learning. >> You guys are already doing this. You challenged us on our attendance goal. Do you remember that? In a board meeting, you looked at the data and you said, "Guys, this is happening too easily. We need some some higher goals. We need to set that bar higher. You're already doing

186this work and that's what I wanted you to kind of see through this reading. I'm going to jump to the next. Do you monitor results? You're looking at our AP goals. You're looking at those results. You're asking those questions. That's your role. You're tracking consistently the outcomes. You're aligning resources. Guys, you did this for our coaches. You approved them going to Amplify the Impact in Pasadena. How do you think that played a part in this system? It brought clarity to another group, another instructional group. So, you are approving these things, thus making it possible to do the work. And then you're protecting collaborative time. How have you guys done that? We have Wednesdays protected PD, >> right? During that time, we have one hour of protected collaborative time. So, you're already protecting the time. So,

187I just really wanted you to to learn and to see and affirm yourself for the fact that you are doing the work. Okay. Any questions? I know this has been a lot. I can see it in your face. I was going to have you as a reflection write a sticky note. One what, one, one how? I can see you guys are taxed and we're almost there. So, we're not going to do that part. Do we just want to give a fist to five since we learned? Do we know what a PLC is? One meaning no. Five meaning okay, we're pretty solid. Four maybe we can work on it. A five. Okay. Excellent. Do we know why it's important? Just a five. Everybody four. I love your honesty. I'm probably right there in the work too.

188Especially at the district and the board level. How can the board are we solid yet on how the board can support this pro process? We're getting force. That's okay for an initial foundation. So, I just ask you that you read the book um that you received today. Um try to bring clarity to your questions. Did anybody write a question down on a sticky note that you would like answered? No, you're good. Okay, perfect. So, we're going to wrap this up. I have a little analogy. I collected sticks from my yard. And by the way, my sprinkler systems broke, so they're kind of dry, but they're still going to they're still going to do it for us. So, each of these sticks represent you and all your strengths. Okay. So, we've got Oh, they went away.

189Can you turn that? We're knowledgeable. We're passionate. We are committed to our family and community. We're devoted. We're zealous. We're honest. We're driven. If we had driven alone, look how easy that is to break. In isolation, we're breakable. If we put all these together, where's my little ribbon up here? If we put all these together, everything that you are, and we're results driven, we're collaborative, right? We're focused, laser focused on student learning. You're going to have to hold this for me. We're unbreakable, right? >> You can break it. >> So, we have sh No, I I don't. Thanks. Like, try a little harder. They're dry. Okay, so we have shirts for each of you. They actually say this Littleton board sticks together for students. And we have them for the leadership team as well. So,

190thank you. I saw your faces. I know this was heavy lifting today. Again, we appreciate everything you do for us. I knew you would love it, Linda. You're usually the one coming up with those little touches. So, we appreciate you. Continue the work. It's hard work. It's not easy. Your jobs are hard, okay? But if you stay focused on students and student learning and the results we're producing, you can do it together. Okay? As a team, I'm challenging you. The foundation of this work is through your norms. You've got some work to do there and that's okay because that's what this is about. But get solid norms, okay? And get some accountability measures. My staff doesn't like the public humiliation either. We just do private notes to each other or wraparound conversation. Doesn't have to

191be complicated, okay? But it's a way to hold you accountable. And I know you believe it because I heard it in your words. Okay. Um, one more slide. And this is just um, some books. I just wanted to make sure in reference here. I'll go back. The books that drove this work that we're doing today. Learning by doing is absolutely a necessity. Um, then we have PLC at work. That's just a foundational book. Leading PLC's districtwide. You have that book. And then I would also ask one of our readings had Hadtie's work in it. A lot of you are familiar, but that's that's the backup. That's the evidence that tells us what we're doing is working or not. Okay. Thank you for all you do. I appreciate you letting me spend time. You can tell

192I'm passionate about this. It's it's the work we need to be doing. It's the important work so that we're meeting our students, all students, and we're teaching them at high levels. Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you so much for your presentation and all you've done today. >> Perfect. So, what we're going to do now is I I just want to thank our two morning presenters um as as you can see our our staff um around the district, but especially those sites that that have these leaders and the departments that have these leaders are are um they're tr tremendously um blessed from the perspective of they have some great leaders who are passionate about the work that we're doing. So I want to thank again uh from earlier Miss Armstrong, Miss Kaufman, and then from the most

193recent Miss Hedings, Dr. Liddette for that work. What we're going to do now is take our lunch break. So after I explain some things, you can call for a break. Yep. Then we'll go to lunch. Um after lunch, what we will do is return. Then we will have we'll follow the rest of the agenda with the strategic plan consultants. They'll come in and provide an update with some data in their information. Then we'll have uh a lot of information regarding the bond. That's going to be a really really heavy lift. So just make sure for that um you're prepared because there's a lot of information from the presenters and then we'll wrap up with just the review of the goals. So that's it for me. You got it. >> All right. The present >> 30

194minutes. Presently the time is 12:21. The board will stand in a recess for approximately 30 minutes. Please note that while a quorum of the governing board will remain present, no public business or discussion of district matters will take place during this time. We will continue the meeting at approximately 12:50 uh 30 minutes from now. Thank you. >> Make sure your mics everybody Just make sure your mics are off. Thank you. All right, we're back from lunch and would like to reconvene our meeting here. This a special meeting of the governing board is now reconvened at 12:52. Let the record show that we are returning from recess and we'll now proceed with the remaining items on our agenda. Okay. Uh, President Nelson, governing board, as you're aware, we've been working through strategic planning over the past

195several months with our consultants from the K12 coalition. So, they're here today to provide an update. I'll go ahead and have Dr. Reynolds Thomas going up. Thank you. Uh good afternoon everyone. It's our pleasure again to be with you today. Uh we would like to express our gratitude for the work uh that we've been able to do thus far uh with the help of the district leadership as well as the steering committee team and board. Uh what we will hope to do today is to provide you with some updates on uh where we in the process. We would like to share some insights with you from the data survey that we've done. Uh we also would like to begin to express what uh types of strategic initiatives this is kind of leaning towards and then

196more importantly share with you the next steps in the process. Overall, we are in a very good place. We're tracking according to plan. and we'll dive a little bit now into the uh district survey results and then I'll come up and talk a little bit about some of the data reviews and the strategic implications. >> Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. I'm going to spend some time talking through some of the survey results from essentially uh three weeks during the month of April and I'm going to break down um the different groups that we heard from and and what's um they're saying in terms of uh priorities for the district. So overall um in this approximately 3-week survey we had um 823 different respondents. So people who responded to uh what I'll say like one or

197more questions on the survey. You'll see as I go through some of the different um questions that were on there. There won't be necessarily this many respondents, but overall we had at least 823 people respond. U the overwhelming majority of people represented uh your parents or guardians. So um you know about 62% of all the respondents were from um the parent or guardian group and then we had um 182 responses from from staff uh 63 responses that were staff and parents and then we had students and community members uh respond as well. Um but the feedback is you know primarily from from your community and from your families. Okay. So, what matters most? And this was one of the most important questions that we had on the survey. Um, of all those respondents, 812 responded

198to this question, which is great. And here are their rankings in terms of what they uh valued most and what they felt was most important. And that top one that got almost 64 uh% of respondents prioritizing this was just highquality teaching and learning. So, really focusing on, you know, the core aspects of of a school district. how how well um are we focusing on that quality teaching and learning. Um and then we did highlight a couple different things that are very closely related in terms of a focus on on strong reading and math skills and the impact that that can have on on number six there as well as in terms of improving student achievement and closing achievement gaps. Those are obviously all related in terms of really focusing on um academics and how that

199can close gaps over time, but these were the ones that we really wanted to highlight and really all in that space of academic success, staff quality, and student well-being are equally critical. When you look at these are some of the top ones, but if you look at the next slide, this is really everything um that was on there. So beyond just what we highlighted on the previous slide and you see very clearly at the top by by quite a wide margin was that high quality teaching and learning that was um called out. Um but then several others like I mentioned on the last slide in terms of um strong reading uh strong focus on reading and math um recruiting and retaining um excellent teaching staff um student staff and mental health. Those were some of

200the ones that were very clearly out ahead of some of the other categories. And then you have some of the ones that weren't mentioned quite as much in terms of professional learning, strong family community, not like they're less important, but um just didn't receive as much attention from the respondents on the survey. Um, in terms of the the people who were responding, I think the question was specifically, um, if you are a parent in the district, what services does your child receive? And so, of all the respondents, um, 467 uh, respondents called out these specific areas um, you know, which in terms of thinking about how well this represents the district. So, 342 respondents said that their children were eligible for free or reduced price lunch. um a significant focus on special education, IEP 504.

201Uh 54 of the respondents uh focused on multilingual learners and then we had some respondents on um gifted and talented and title one services as well. Um but really thinking about all of the responses and how they inform uh priority on on equity and and targeted supports for students who need it the most. Okay. In terms of um communication, uh overall it seems like the district's in a good place as far as 50% or half of the respondents felt like um there was a great deal of communication, fair amount and feel like the district listens. Um 30 about a third of the respondents said um said some. And then current communication effectiveness is, you know, 40% were saying very effective and an additional 46% were saying somewhat effective. Um, so certainly the district is is

202in a good place with communication, but obviously always opportunity to look at how to continue doing it in the most effective way. And I'll I'll talk about that in in one of the upcoming slides as well. Uh, preferred methods of communication. So when you think about all of the parents or family members that responded to the survey, over half of them p uh prefer communications through email. Um about half of them also um appreciate being um informed through the parent portal or an app. And then about 43% also said they prefer text message as well. So a really kind of um direct timely communication in a in a push type form um of of sending communications out to families. Um again, how do you prefer uh to receive updates from the district? This just gives

203you a little bit more of a breakdown in terms of how people would like to see um information shared. And like I said, email, text, and then putting information available in a parent portal or app is is by far the most popular. Um but just wanted to make sure you had some of the underlying data um behind the question in terms of um you know, things on a website or social media, phone calls, community meetings. uh people really do prefer phone I'm sorry email uh text and uh parent portal app as well for the the primary means of communications. Okay, thinking about what is going to be one of the core components of the strategic plan uh focusing on things like um you know vision, mission, values but also what's that that portrait of a

204learner. In in other districts, we frame this as the portrait of a graduate, but but given the grade level served, we're framing this as a a portrait of a learner here in Littleton. And these were some of the um really top competencies that the respondents were calling out again primarily from uh parents and family members. So thinking about how important it is for the district to equip students uh with new skills to think about how um the district is preparing them to engage in teamwork and collaborative type approaches to the work um again strong reading and math skills and then critical thinking as well. So really thinking about not just, you know, the facts on a daily basis, but what does it look like to really strive in today's world with being able to take

205on new information, being able to work in teams and collaborate um with other individuals to be as effective as possible, but continue to adapt um to today's world. So really thinking about not just academic mastery, but you know, future skills. And again, this is just a a more detailed breakdown of the highlights that I just called out. What characteristics, skills, or competencies do you believe are essential to the future success of of Littleton learners? And so I I mentioned some of the ones that we uh we heard were clearly at the top of that list of competencies or skills that um parents in the community would want to see kids acquire while they're here, but just wanted to put out some other things as well. So you see other categories like flexibility, adapt adaptability, not

206necessarily as high a ranking. They're obviously incredibly important um but really felt, you know, what we're hearing from parents are that ability to um acquire new skills and continue to work with others and and stay up to speed on on an everchanging environment as we're all we're dealing with on a on an annual basis. And with that, we're going to pivot over to a data review and starting to talk about um some of the priorities as well. Okay. So, we'll start with um what were some of the big priorities um thinking about the key takeaways that were just shared. Uh the first was really with academic achievement. Um and I don't know if the sub okay so no worries. So with academic achievement there were a few parts that were noted in this. Uh the

207first is that closing the achievement gap remains paramount um for the district as well as students doing well on the state assessment. So that was something that was uh specifically noted. Um, also to noting the special education as well as ELELLL students and understanding that we need to focus on all of the students from an instructional focus area. Specifically, there was um emphasis on literacy and math but more so math in the grades of three through eight. Um, there was a strength that was noted with early literacy and that that should continue on. So was a strength in starting but then wanting that aspect to continue. Uh from a staff retention um perspective staffing and retention of course we know the challenge that vacancies create uh within schools. This again remains paramount uh for the

208district. Um also too it was noted that there is perhaps excessive cost that may also be associated when we have uh temporary hires or bringing other people in. So really taking the pressures off of teachers that are remaining when there are those vacancies and understanding uh what teachers are really having to navigate that might be impacting their ability to stay. So that is something that's also of a concern. Um and then uh the the next one is really looking at attendance and student behavior. Uh this was most notably at the middle school level. I think we had a couple of comments that were associated with uh students who may have gone through some suspensions and then noting that when they're not in school they're also not getting learning and so that could also have I

209know imagine that right uh but that can also have um an impact uh as well so that is something to think about and it it does have implications on other things um and then finally the big one was also enrollment right and um maintaining that engagement with families and understanding that um just in general with the climate, the different things that the schools as well as the district are needing to do to keep enrollment consistent, which comes when families feel that they're getting the most and the best for their children. So, that's kind of like the combination of the five emerging um priorities that we're seeing. Now, what are the early strategic implications for this? Well, and I kind of talked about it a little bit, but there's a need to focus on the instructional

210quality as well as on staff development and staff uh performance and support. Um teachers, I think as noted, they're uh actually going through a lot and having to navigate a lot. So, looking at those support structures that are there for them is just as important in that retention aspect. Strengthening the systems for both students and staff well-being. Um again, these are themes that um we've discussed before, but they also came about in the survey. So, you're beginning to see some alignment with that between those who participated in the survey, steering committee, as well as those things that were expressed by the board. Um consistent two-way communication. So, we notice that there is positive feedback in the way in which the district is communicating, but we also want to um just pay attention to ways in

211which parents can also communicate to the school. So that two-way ongoing communication and then again strategic initiatives for both the academics and their future uh readiness and readiness for a high school. Um, I think even in uh some of the things that we've just experienced today in some of the student focus groups, we could tell that collaboration, you know, communication, critical thinking, all of those types of skills, those are the same things that um as you're thinking about the priorities, the strategies that we'll be working through on the next uh segment of this uh strategic plan. Um those components are things that we see. Um, I did want to open it up for a moment um to see is there anything else that based off of the data that we provided that you may be

212thinking about as well that did not make this board yet. Okay. All right. So then the the next steps are kind of like well what are we doing next? Well um we are here today and tomorrow. Uh today we did have an opportunity to meet with the student focus groups from three of the schools. Um tomorrow we will be meeting with the steering committee and tomorrow evening we will have a focus group with teachers as well as your non-certificated staff. So we're trying to just be uh as broad as possible with talking to the teams. Um, from a process perspective, we'll begin tomorrow to start diving into these priorities and identifying strategies and initiatives that the district is currently doing, how would they fit in those priorities, identifying priority leads and teams and then diving

213into the big component which is the KPI. So, the key performance indicators that we're going to be able to see on a regular basis and we'll be talking about that tomorrow. um how are you how are you progressing towards your goals either monthly, quarterly, annual basis and all of this will go into shaping your five-year goals. Um I think I mentioned the student focus groups. Um I I do have to say um both Mr. Guy and I were extremely um impressed with the students at the schools that we were able to visit today. Um they it is it brings a smile to my face because they were extremely um articulate, very forthcoming. Um they expressed that there is a good rapport and uh they feel safe in their schools. Uh they also felt like the

214quality of their learning is challenging. Um, and I I think I spoke a lot more to some of our younger students, but um, it was just something that made you proud uh, within the district and to see the quality of students that you're creating. So, I think this is just a natural progression uh, in that step to continue this and to make it even stronger. So, thank you. Um, and I think I'm going to uh, also share uh, our district project plan so you can see where we are. We're tracking according to schedule. Um again we are in now in the board work session for April. Uh we'll begin to tomorrow going into the leadership sessions. These are going to be the priority building components. Following the meeting tomorrow, we'll have some time with the

215uh priority leads or lead teams. So we can dive into those a little bit. And when we come back again, which will be a fairly quick turnaround time on May 11th, we'll be looking collectively at all of the priorities and the beginning shapings of what the goals will be in those areas. There'll still be a little bit more work to do thereafter and we'll be doing that. Um and then in the latter part of May, we'll have a subsequent meeting with these priority teams, again individually by teams, so that when we come back together in June, we're now looking as a steering committee at the proposed draft um goals and so forth. Um and then we'll be bringing that forward to the board for your consideration. Any questions with the timeline? >> Yes, ma'am. >>

216Oh, not about the timeline. I was just first of all, I want to thank you for the information. Um, I'm really excited that so many people did the survey. Um, what three schools are you guys meeting with? And are you meeting with all grade levels or just certain ones? >> We met with students in grades four through eight. I think we went to Littleton Elementary STEM uh, Academy. We went to Quinton and the second school. I'm sorry. >> I can't quite hear you. >> Estraas, I'm sorry. Yes. Mhm. So, um, and I think in the first school, that was probably our largest group. Um, we had, um, Grant, I'm going to guess maybe 9 to 10 in the middle school. Um, and then we had about four to five in the elementary, kind of the

217four through five. Um, at the second school, um, it was a smaller group. Um, but it was maybe about four and four, three and four. Um, so we had about seven to eight. And then in the last group we had um third uh fifth and a second grader okay who gave us his um input. Uh and then also um we had a some middle school students as well. >> Thank you. >> And I I have to honestly say I did not see one student in the group that was either reserved. Um they were very expressive which is again the comfortability that they feel uh in being able to express themselves. >> Any other questions you might have for >> Oh yeah. I was just going to wait till we got to the Q&A slide, but

218I guess I'll just go now. >> I think she's there. >> They're basically there. Um no, thank you so much. Um, you know, I continue to be um impressed of the work that you all are doing with our community and our district and just kind of bringing us all together to get a um, you know, strategic plan, which is something that I've been wanting our district to have for a very long time instead of a huge big binder that we just throw up on the wall and then forget about it later. Um, it was very overwhelming for the board to uh, read that monitor and report. Very happy it's gone. So um I am very very excited but I know for a lot of the um questions did we for the communication part did was

219did you guys like um you have the data for like were the questions like ineffective or was not feel like it's effective did like for all the questioning those are question >> so I'm I'm I'm having a little difficulty hearing you so let me make sure I'm translating it. Are you asking whether the question is effective or ineffective or >> Yeah. Did you find that like the wording that you put for the questions were effective that you put out to the community? Like did they understand then like >> Yeah, I I think so. One of the things that we do when we're providing questions, particularly multiple choice questions for them, um we don't limit what they can respond to, particularly if they think that it may be multiple areas, we often ask, well, these are

220some considerations, but is there something else that we're missing? Right? Is there something that's not on these choices? And we'll have a few people to add a little bit more context. But in our experience in working with districts, you tend to see some of the same categories come up. It's just what's interesting um for Littleton is when you go back and look at this particular chart here, I think >> where where you're beginning to see where things are falling, right? And so you may have some of the same mix, but for your district, the focus is really on instructional achievement um from the uh parents perspective and even the in responses from your your educators here. And I think addressing that will actually probably lend to supporting itself with your teachers. It it's it's kind

221of like the foundational piece. >> No, thank you. And I know for the um for the communication question, was there um do you guys have the responses on like if it was ineffective or they felt like it's not effective? Were those questions in there? >> So, no, I I now understand. No, we didn't necessarily say if it's effective or ineffective. We just asked them what's the mode of communication that they would like. Um what are the um the ways in which they feel that they're getting the information that's most comfortable for them. um and whether or not just do they feel like the district is listening um to them or kind of take their feedback. And so what we've noticed with this too is that sometimes there's an emphasis on you know social media. Everybody

222wants social media. This particular district your parents really want to or largely communicate through the app that's there. And so that has implications and um possibilities for the district to do more via the app. I know schools may be doing it from a homework perspective but there are other ways in which you can get further communication to parents where they would see it. Um they also um emphasize I want to say email as well as text which would be some of the traditional kind of modes of communications but it it felt like the the parents and the participants were saying um when you communicate in these forms it feels like you're talking directly to us. Um, my question kind of builds right on that. I know speaking as a parent, we have one app that

223emails me daily and comes through as a text message and then it's an app. So, I feel fully communicated with. My question becomes email and this may not be a question for you. It might be for the district admin. Do we have schools that are emailing outside of Parent Square or is the email that our community is talking about right now the Daily Digest that comes from Parent Square? >> That's a good question. >> So, I'll call uh Mr. Bosman to respond to that. >> Um, at this point, we are just be able to evaluate our parent square. So, I would probably have to consult with technology to identify if they're seeing any of those. But, um, we want families and and staff for many reasons to interact via parent square because it's a safe

224communication tool. And then that's that's going to be the most effective one. So, we actually request that they don't utilize the email because again there's it's there's a safety issue that we want to make sure that families as well as staff understand. >> And I understand I was just trying to get sorry unmute myself. I'm I understand that. I was just trying to understand when they're responding saying they prefer email. Is it an email that's coming from the administration of their school or is it the daily digest that comes from the app? So there is there is one um big thing that's really important to understand with uh parent square as well. If the families do not choose to utilize the app, they still get emails from the parent square um platform. So there is

225it's very possible again without really diving really further into it. It's very possible that some of those families are actually receiving those um email communications directly from the Parent Square app, but they're choosing not to download the app because as as we know within today's world, some people are not wanting to have another app added to their phone and so that tends to be their communication. But if they email back on that email they received from Parent Square, it's almost like using the app, but instead they're choosing to use the email form as well. >> Thank you. >> Y I I wanted to ask the same direct question. So basically because I try to understand it. So basically they can communicate all three ways. Indirectly, text, email, and Okay. And indirectly that. Okay. So that's

226probably what parents were thinking when they were responding to it. So that makes that makes complete sense. And then I know that you mentioned the part about um the middle school with the discipline. >> Um and so I know this is maybe Dr. Lee can can speak to this but I know we requested you know in the future to have a conversation about our discipline system to see how you know in school suspension or out of school suspension. I don't think we do in in school suspension, but out of school suspension relates to, you know, student achievement, how that affects our letter grades and everything in between. Um because I know one of our schools doesn't do Make Your Day, but all of our other schools do make your day. So, um to kind of

227see how that correlates to preparing our students for high school because I know we're moving away from school uniforms next school year. So, kind of seeing, you know, how that can prepare students for the high school and how they maybe feel about that. Yeah, >> not sure what response, but um as mentioned before, it is something that we plan on communicating to the board at a future meeting as we collect more data. Sometimes there is a correlation, sometimes there isn't because there are variety of variables, but um as mentioned before, I think I think as was brought up before mentioned that uh we will provide that information as we go a little bit further through the year. >> Okay. Any other questions? Not. Thank you so much for >> Thank you very much your time

228and effort. >> This is our fastest presentation of the day. >> Thank you Dr. Thomas Reynolds and Mr. Guyer. Appreciate you. So, uh, next item on the agenda is our bond exploration. So, I'll turn that over to Miss Courtney Pena who'll lead that who has a variety of of presenters here to tag team along with this presentation. Good afternoon, uh, Mr. Nielson, members of the board. Today, I'm going to give you This is Okay, feels a little low. Uh, today I'm going to give you an overview of um what we might be uh looking for for the November election. um and possibly our district going out for bond. I will bring you up to date on what the district um has been working on and also some other um valuable information um in hopes to

229uh for you guys to have informative information uh to make uh the best decision possible um moving forward. So for today's objective, we are wanting to provide clear, transparent um accurate information um on the bond to uh like I mentioned uh to be able to enhance your knowledge of what that means if we go out um in the November election um in order for you guys to make that informed decision um as we move forward. So talking a little bit about our timeline. Um this is a progression that we have made and the timeline that we are currently uh looking at. Um the bond committee met three times. We met March 25th, April 13th and yesterday, April 27th. The goal of that committee was um first it was comprised of parents, community members, classified and

230certified employees. Um we at our first meeting we did an overview of how bonds work. Um we partnered with our financing um third party steeple. They were able to come in and assist uh with providing informative information to the group and give them an idea as to how this would work um when it comes to being a taxpayer. Then we also um had another meeting and we did somewhat of what we call a finance 101. we were able to go through some funding sources and be able to discuss uh how those funding sources work and the limited capacity that we have um with those as well. Uh we reviewed election statistics from uh Mr. um Paul Yuland who is with primary consultants. he was able to provide statistics on history of um of voting within

231our community and then also in general with other districts and what those uh numbers look like. We're also um through the last meeting, we also identified the uh essential needs of the district. Um providing data so we're able to uh be able to make decisions based off of the data that we're providing. Um we want to make informed decisions and we want to make long-term decisions for the district. Um so those were the goals of the uh committee meetings. So next um it brings us to today. Um today we're here for our study session. We're going to give you um take you through the update and then we're also going to explore the options for potential uh potential of calling for the bond election. On May 12th, we'll follow up with a presentation of a

232recommendation to the governing board and possibility calling for election. um at that meeting after May 12th um if the board so do um so chooses to do so um and approves the recommendation and that's the point in time where the district um has called for election. So there's going to be um a lot of uh legalities that we will have to follow as a district. And so, um, really what we will be doing, um, if the future holds that we're going out for a bond, what we will be doing is really just informing and campaigning to, uh, inform our community with factual information. Um, as you know or may have heard, um, the district cannot campaign for a yes vote. um we can only campaign based off of factual information of what it means um

233for the district to have the bond or not have the bond. And so we'll have some guidance um on that as well. And then the big day is going to be November 3rd is election day. And so that um will tell a lot of districts on the future of what we um it may hold. So I want to take uh everyone through a little bit of our funding resources. If you recall, these funding resources were also presented at the last study session in in the fall. And so we went through um several of them. And so I'll I'll dive into them again and just explain uh what they are used for. So your revenue control limit uh fund. This is what we refer to as our maintenance and operation budget. It is a state formula

234budget based off of the state budget that is approved every year um hopefully sometime before July. Uh it sets our formula to be able to um allocate what we have um what we're able to um operate with. And so that is devised by local property taxes um state aid. What is that? that's mainly used for salaries and benefits, utilities, special education, and transportation. And so that is what we call our operating budget. 90% of our um budget in maintenance and operation is uh going towards salaries and benefits because that is our largest cost. The second largest cost in u maintenance and operations is utilities. So that's the second largest cost on there. So you can imagine that uh the budget gets eaten up pretty quickly um when we're operating uh the district. The second fund

235here is district additional assistance referred to as DAA or capital. This is also a formulabased fund um from the state. And so this is a local property taxes and state aid. This is used for textbooks, furniture and equipment, library books, technology equipment. Anytime you're uh replacing a roof, this is also a fund that you may be using. If you're purchasing furniture for the classroom, this is a fund you would be using. If we had to do a replacement of asphalt um at our school sites, this is a fund that you would also be using. So uh many times we refer to it as DAA or capital. The next fund we have is building renewal grant. Building renewal grant is um a grant that is allocated out of the state budget. It is a grant application.

236It is overseen by the school facilities board. Um this past year uh it was allocated at uh 200 million and um through the grant process and the system that they have there was about 700 grants that uh school districts across Arizona applied for. Um and that was the number in 2025. Um of those 700 grants that they applied for, they estimated the amount at 338 million. So you can see there where the 200 million that the state allocated for um building maintenance, building uh renewal roofing, um replacement of HVAC uh units, weatherization, um things like that. Not all school districts were approved through that. And so there's always a shortfall of that. And that's somewhat of what I'll get into a little in um here shortly. Debt service fund. Debt service fund is a debt

237payment fund. And what that means is that anytime the district finances anything off of our property taxes, um, so if we were to uh, currently we have old bonds that we're paying down right now. All this is a restricted fund that is managed by the treasur's office. We don't have access to it. What we do is review the payments that um, are paid out to our third-party financing companies. So what happens with this is that the money collected from property owners is all collected in this fund and those payments are directly going to um our bank that may have find financed us for um a bond. So adjacent ways adjacent ways is um anytime you use more than 50,000 out of this fund it does have to go through the school facilities oversight board. they

238have to approve your project. And mainly what this is used is to improve infrastructure around your school sites. That can mean that you're um putting in a road, you're replacing a road, you're adding um sidewalks, curbing um bus bays, things like that. So um there's a lot of uh potential there, but it is limited on how you can use this fund. Um last um adoption we went out and uh there's a property that we own on Miami. We are going um jointly uh with the developer there. Uh the board approved for us to uh be able to use adjacent ways. And so um that expenditure is uh the road that is getting put in there. We're going to split that 5050 with the developer on there. So then that way we have an accessible road

239on Miami. federal and state grants. Those are uh formula applications that we must apply for. They may come from the federal level or from the state uh government. Those um grants are primarily used to supplement the educational program. So, I wanted to focus on some of the main funds that the district utilizes. And I just wanted to give you a visual of the different funding sources that we have. So I did mention maintenance and um operation. Um if I was to put all of those um all of the budgets together in one pot, maintenance and operation takes up 76% of that. Um in addition um district additional assistance is only about 13% of those um of that uh total funding source. And then the other funding sources is what state grants um would look like.

240So they're at about 11% there. So this is a fun one. We have basic um funding formula for district additional assistance. Um this is the formula I wanted to uh inform the board of the district additional assistance. What it is is for every district um for K8 students they take your enrollment and they multiply that um in the most simplest form by the amount that is allocated there. So you have $54945 there. And they at the simplest form, you're multiplying that by your um ADM for high school districts, they get allocated a little bit more at $686. And so they're also able to get um additional um uh monies for textbook component as well if you're in a high school district. Um, so just to put it in perspective, $549 um45 multiplied by let's say

2416,000 students in our district. We're roughly under that, but about 6,000 uh students, that gives us an allocation of 3.2 million roughly. If you take if you think about that, not too long ago, we updated the board that each astray Vista was receiving a new roof and they were approved through the school facilities board. That roof at the time when I presented that to uh to you, it was 3.4 million is what the roof cost us at that time. That was a three-year-old three-year-old quote that was given to us. the vendor um honored that quote. So, he did not uh adjust it for or they didn't adjust it for inflation um or any additional costs. They honored that from three years ago of the 3.4. So, just comparing the two of one roof for one

242school site, an an entire replacement cost us or we received 3.4. When you take a look at district additional assistance, we're only receiving 3.2. 2 um there. So, you know, there's um when you're having to use your district additional assistance for almost everything, um it it can be very very challenging. Uh district additional assistant amounts may be budgeted between your M um your maintenance and operation budget and your um unrestricted capital. So, of that 3.2 2 that I mentioned, the district is allowed to move some of that um budget capacity over to maintenance and operation um maintenance and operation fund. Uh traditionally, uh Littleton um has not not done that in the past. Um but it is completely acceptable. Some districts do have to do that at times and for different reasons. Um just adding

243some notes here. uh charter additional assistance uh CAA they uh get a higher allocation. So 2,131.90 is what they receive. If we were to multiply that by that same number of 6,000 students, we would be looking at 12.7 million um of that. So you can see that there's just a big uh disparity uh there unfortunately. So, um, district additional assistance, as a reminder, we use this for textbooks, curriculum adoptions, repairing of our buses, purchasing new buses, vehicles, um, new HVAC units, um, asphalt replacement, building improvements, new roof, roofing repairs, playground equipment, and classroom um, furniture as well. And so those uh I also um technology uh is also included in there. Um that's just uh off the top of our head that of what we use capital funding for. And so it can be very

244difficult um to maintain buildings and go above and beyond of what all has to be um taken care of. So this brings me to our next slide. So, you are aware or may be aware of a capital lawsuit um that was filed um a number of school districts filed jointly in 2017 against the state of Arizona. They argued um that the state failed to meet its constitutional duty under Arizona general under Arizona's general and uniform education clause stating that the the current state formula system is inadequate and unequal putting school districts in heavy reliance of local bonds and overrides which creates disparity with other school districts throughout the state who may have property wealth. Well, that lasted about seven years. Um, so in August of 2025, the judge ruled in um favor of the school

245districts. Um, and they indicated that the the current state funding system is unconstitutional. It fails to provide a uniform adequate school facilities um funding statewide. So what this meant is that um this ruling um of the court um they um they uh indicated with the state that they were to um bring facilities up to adequacy, maintain them over time, overhaul the current funding um formula system uh in order to support growing districts and reduce a disparity between wealthy and poor districts. Um, so that was part of um the litigation. Uh, we knew at the time when this came out in August of 2025 that it would be appealed and it it did try to get appealed. Um, if you if I take you back just a little bit um before this lawsuit back in uh

246this is not the first lawsuit. back in um if you recall uh Roosevelt Elementary School District versus Bishop um was a lawsuit against um the state as well. And so in 1998 um as it took many years uh 1998 legislators um did not uh immediately fix the system. After continued pressure and follow-up ruling, it enacted a major reform in 1998 to refer to the what we call now is the Student First Act. And so what the Students First Act did is create um the Arizona School Facilities Board um to be able to oversee uh school facilities. They establish what we refer to as MAG, which is the minimum adequacy guidelines. And so what they indicated there is that that the state created these guidelines and they were to follow these guidelines and ensure that districts

247were meeting those guidelines that the state was funding them to uh those level levels. uh they shifted the responsibility to the state to ensure adequacy um eventually what happened is the legislator shifted that more to the state's responsibility um to adequately um fund those uh facilities. So the current lawsuit is a followup to this um and indicating that the state has failed to live up to the student fir um students first framework over the time. The ruling um was historic for school districts that um they won this for all. It was a victory for all of our Arizona students. Um however, it is a long haul. Um we knew that um we would not get the even though the judge ruled in favor of the school districts, they there was no there was not going

248to be um a retroactive to what the state owed uh districts. And so now what that means is that the state um is uh fighting this. Obviously uh they want to uh appeal this. And so last month the judge issued a final order uh giving the Arizona state legislature eight months to overhaul and fix the unconstitutional funding system. So right now we're still on hold and it's um still to be continued at the moment. So um we're hopeful for it. Um unfortunately our facilities still lack until there is a true fix into the state funding formula. Okay. So moving um channels here. This is our building uh assessment of facility conditions. Um about a year ago Mckinstry is a third party c um company. They are nationally firmed that supports and guides school districts with

249facility assessments, capital planning, maintenance, priorit prioritization, and energy efficient solutions to maintain safe schools and optimize long-term taxpayer investments. This is a third-party company that the district went into contract with. Um, what they did is they came out and assessed our buildings. They did a partial assessment. And so the goal really was to proide provide the district with a partial plan, a schedule, maintenance schedule, and a cost that to make datadriven decisions. Um because what we really want to do is make smart decisions, right? Um we know that there's a lack of funding. So what we want with that is that um with the minimum funding that we do have, we want to be able to make smart decisions um and have a plan for for those funding sources. So the scope of work um

250they take took a look at nine of our district buildings. So our eight school sites including the district office and then they focused on seven different areas. The seven different areas roofing, plumbing, HVAC units, fire protection, electrical equipment and site improvements. So these are the seven. This is a partial um comprehens this is a partial plan. Um, so I just want to make sure that the scope of work that we point that out because it is not comprehensive to everything that the district um is in need of. Um, and so um just focusing that this was not a full assessment um of the district. So so then they provided us with the data. So the cost over the next 10 years we are ranking them um from highest to lowest here. And so this is

251a cost for every school site. You can tell that at the top Lake Prep Academy um appropriately so will not have um will have very minimal cost. That is a a brand new school and so we don't anticipate that there is a large cost on there. Um you can see here that Littleton Elementary is our biggest um is our biggest site that's going to cost us the most. And so we are at um a little under 14 million for Littleton. If we were to take out our checkbook today and we were to say let us take care of these seven areas that they assessed and let's take care of Littleton Littleton today, we would have to come up with um a little over 13 million for Littleton. So here is um some data for the

252um for for you uh just showing here and ranking them from the highest to the lowest. Uh Littleton Elementary uh 13 million. Estraa Vista um is at 10 million. But I also want to note there that their um roof was included in this assessment. So now that the roof was repaired through the school facilities board, we will remove that um that cost will be um reduced on there. So, the total amount uh over the cost over 10 years, again, if we were to take out our checkbook today and take care of all of our school sites and all of the needs uh that they addressed in their assessment, it would cost the district about 70 million. So, here is our facility condition index. This is uh an index that they were uh that Mckinstry provided

253for us. And so uh just taking a look at the colors, red being um being uh critical. The next area is um orange and so orange is poor and yellow is uh fair, green being good. And so for the district here, this is a map of all of our school sites, uh, including the district office. You can see in red is Littleton. Um, but what really what we want to focus in on is that even though Littleton is red, not much of our other all of our sites um other with the exception of Lincoln, all of our sites are sitting at um poor. So uh we have a lot of work ahead of us um to take care of our facilities. So this gives you an idea if you have this uh slide in front

254of you because I know it's really small on these screens. Um this is what we call um and this is just for number purposes. uh the facility condition condition uh index um are the scores that each school site scored on here. So you can see the individual they're all ranked um from highest to lowest. And so you can see here that the index score um the recommendation is that you're to be below 0.25. The the outlier here is Littleton. They had a they are at a 38. that is um definitely as we know the site that needs the most um TLC. So, we're not going to dive into this. This is primarily for visual purposes. So, what Mckenry did is they were able to connect us with a dashboard that we're now able to keep

255track of all of the needs um that they assess the the seven areas that they assess. We're able to keep track of those areas and see see this. You can refer to this visual as a checklist. So, if I just drill down to any one of these boxes, it's going to tell me exactly what needs to be done. It is starts from red uh to green. If I focus in in the uh critical poor fair areas, 70% of this screen, that's where our our um school sites are sitting at. Those green areas are primarily m uh lakeen. And so I just wanted to give a visual of um and put it in perspective of what our critical needs are. So, we're going to go a little bit through um pictures because um with Mckenry's work,

256they also kept an inventory of all of our facilities and the conditions that they are in. So, we're going to go through each school site and just take a look at um some of the the needs that that need to um happen. So, this is currently uh Littleton Elementary. You can see the HVAC unit. Um some building repairs uh that need to happen, foundational issues at Littleton. Uh this is uh roofing issues. Um weatherization issues. Uh and then this is the gymnasium, the cafeteria. If you put it, it's a little dark, but if you put it look at the bottom of that screen, that's the basketball court. And you can see how close relatively that basketball court is to that ceiling. Um this is our original school. So it's um our oldest school site. Um

257Collier Elementary roofing at Collier. Estraa Vista plumbing HVAC. The story of Vista, the rest country place. Quinton, fine arts. district office and in Lincoln we know that um their conditions are not critical. So there uh no critical needs were found. So, a lot of pictures in there. So, next we're going to go into um school transportation needs. Um I wanted to uh provide informative information regarding our um school transportation fleet. Our current bus fleet is at 34. We have 24 general um general ed education buses uh that hold 72 to 84 um students depending on um the capacity of the bus and depending on the size of the students. We also have nine um special ed buses and one white fleet. The white fleet is a bus that holds uh roughly 15 uh individuals that

258does not require a um CDL um to drive. So often that can be used by other district personnel to uh transport students at times. Of those 15 um out of the 33 buses um 15 of our buses are 10 years or older. So the guideline for the life expectancy is at 12 is at 10 to 12 years at the most and that depends on your mileage and it also depends on the areas that um you're driving um if whether you're in urban or rural areas. Um the recommendation is to have at max about 250,000 miles. So if we were to replace uh 15 buses, these are ranked here um in order. Our order, our oldest bus is 23 years old. Um and you can see here that every bus identified is 10 years or older.

259Um so we have quite a few buses. If if we were to take a look at the 15 buses that need to be replaced for a general education bus, 72 to 84 passengers, they're about 250,000 each roughly. Um special education buses cost us about 150,000. And so if we take a look at those numbers, it would cost us roughly 3.1 million to replace all 15 today. So this is the current situation of our school bus age. We have 15 ranging from um 10 to 23 years. We have 11 buses ranging from 5 years to 9 years. And we have eight buses ranging from one year to uh four years. So you can see here that the majority of our fleet has aged and as time goes on it will um age a little bit longer.

260are in Arizona. Traditionally, uh the heat is pretty bad and so it can be pretty brutal on our buses, but miraculously we um have some really great mechanics that are keeping them on the road. So, we're grateful for those individuals. So, moving on, we have technology and sec um security needs. And so, uh just taking a look at a seven-year plan with our technology and security needs. um to do a computer refresh um classroom displays like the displays here uh to have those in rotation to do server um upgrades so we don't lose um our you know all the things um that are critical on our network intercom upgrade intercom systems uh replacement of copers security upgrades uh wireless um upgrades fire panels and operational additional um equipment. Um all of that would be about

2618.7 million roughly. So I talked about a lot of numbers today and um through a lot of throughout the presentation I was able to provide you with facility numbers, transportation numbers, technology numbers. What I wanted to do here is be able to wrap that all up for you and just taking a look at a high level of just the estimated cost that um I um went into today. Um realizing that the Littleton is our um highest concern right now. Uh they are going to uh need quite a bit to get that facility up and going. there's some things that are challenging because of the age of the building. And so, uh, just taking a look at that, um, the total amounts of what we discussed today, um, we would be looking at 125 million roughly

262there. That is the end of um, my presentation. I would like to ask the board, do you have any questions before our next presenter? >> Thank you so much. Um, amazing presentation um to the person who came out and put this all together. Um, it's a lot to take in at the current moment, but um, I think as a board and as a a community, it makes us really sit back and just reflect on how much our community needs us at the moment to deliver highquality public schools in our community. I think Thank you for providing that information about the charter um, information. I was not aware of that. I did not know they got almost 80% more than what we get as public schools. So, um, for this part, I don't have any questions.

263I think we know there's a lot that needs to be replaced and needs to be fixed. But, um, I guess my next initial question with the 3.2 2 million we get allocated each year over the lifespan of 70 million. We know that that's not enough over the 10 years to fix what we need at all of our schools. And a lot of those schools need those repairs within within five years. So, um I know in 2024 the board um you know we did authorize the administration to go out to do a ballot initiative to get that increase because it used to be 2.3 million for the district additional assistance. So, um I guess my next initial question will kind of be how I know you mentioned from the capital funds we're paying for the solar

264loan that we did annually. How much are we paying? Um because I think we made the first payment recently. Did we? >> We did. Do you Is that coming out of capital? >> Thank you, Mr. Cena. Um for the question. Um it is coming out of capital. Um we entered uh are trying to get the subsidized from um at the federal level. The subsidizing of that is roughly 30% of what we finance. So, it's not going to finance completely or it's not going to take care of everything that we finance. So, the district is on the hook to make that payment and be diverse in how we make that payment. And so, the capital fund is being used currently for that. Um the process is lengthy to get the subsidi sub subsidi sub subsidization because

265you have to be um in uh in working standard with the solar before you can even start your application process. The application process starts uh it roughly takes about nine months to actually receive the subsidized funding for that. Our payment was due January 1st. Our second payment is going to be due July 1. And so because we don't have that subsidized um funding um from the federal level currently the district is taking care of it out of capital funds. >> Okay. And um I know when we voted on I don't think we actually voted on the actual lifpan of the loan. Do you know how long the loan is on that? >> Thank you for the question Mr. Senettles. Um we definitely can give you that information. Um we do have Stiffel uh with us

266today. they are the ones that also assisted um with that financing. Not to put them on the spot, but we can certainly provide that information. Um we have it on a schedule uh that tells us and so we will be taking a look at things. There is a prepayment penalty. Um so what the good um we are lucky to be in partnership with steeple. They take us through all of those different scenarios to save the district money ultimately and be able to find other funding sources to maximize um what we're doing. >> Okay. >> So, we can um maybe by the end of the presentation we we may or um hopefully we'll have the information and if we don't we'll provide it to Dr. Lefy. >> Okay. No, thank you. And then I know following

267up on um that in 2024 um we had an opportunity to add an extra five I think was $600,000 in our capital projects. Um you know I think I as a board member at the time did not realize that that extra money would have been paying for the solar loan at the moment. Um I don't think that was they tried to communicate with that with us but I don't think we received it in the right way. Um, so has there been conversations to see if there is a way we could go out for an additional increase in the district additional assistance because bonds have become so politicized at the local level in our community? Has there been a conversation of possibly we could go back out because we know that solar interest is going to

268eat up at our capital funds and that's going to prevent us long term from being able to actually fix a lot of these things. Thank you for the question, Mrs. Senos Settles. Um, November of 2024, the district went out for a capital override that is seven um seven years long. And so you are capped at that seven years um before you go out again. Uh we could go out uh probably about the five six year mark um just to get within the cycle of the election of that. Um really is dependent on your property value. I don't know of a district that has a current I don't know that that's allowable if we currently have a voter approved election. It is for seven years. >> Okay. But phenomenal job, Courtney. Thank you. >> Thank you.

269Thank you very much. Next I have um Steifle and Miss Megan Burke and Mr. Brian Lumbberg. Uh they represent the district. They have a longstanding relationship with us. Um probably over 15 years. They handle our financing. It's a third party that we look at for financial guidance and then they uh talk out different scenarios with the district of what's the best advantageous way to be able to um do different financing on behalf of the district. So, um without further ado, I'll turn it over to Miss Megan Burke. I need to speak. I'm going to give you this. All right. Thank you, Courtney. Um, good afternoon. Um, Dr. Lefit, members of the board, happy to be here today. I'm Megan Burke with Stiffl. My colleague, Brian Lindberg. Um, we're happy to share information with you. If

270you need me to speak up, just say so. Um, I'll answer a couple of your questions just real quick. Um before I dive into the presentation, another thing to point on to um which Courtney was discussing um Miss Pina was discussing about the DAA. The way the DAA works for um uh for funding of it, it's the lesser of 10% of your RCL. So you're also limited there in the amount that you can ask voters for. So it's the lesser of a dollar amount that you've asked for in the um during the election process or 10% of your RCL. So it's capped too and it's the that solar lease goes out to 2044 44. Yeah. So we can figure out how to deal with that later. But yeah. Okay. All right. Let me start. I'm

271going to start with um so Miss Pena summarized kind of where the district is in relation to um your comm uh committee and the assessments the facility assessments that you've done. Um Dr. uh Paul Yulan is going to come up once I'm done and kind of talk about the community survey that's happened. I'm going to talk about the bond election process and kind of um parameters and um just specifics around the election. you were looking right there. Okay. All right. This is the first page here is just your general election calendar. Um, Maricopa County, all the counties have an election calendar. Maricop Maricopa counties is the most stringent. I guess I would say they um they drive the process and they're um their first requirement to meet any of their deadlines is as early as

272May, even though the election does not happen until November. So we are really um that's why we're kind of having these conversations now. Uh the concept of putting a resolution in front of the board would need to um to move forward with an election would need to happen in the May to June time frame. The first um item that you see there is uh first week of May intent notification of intent to move forward with an election. That date is actually May 8th. Uh the district has informed the county of its intent. that that doesn't mean there you are moving forward. Obviously, the board has to act on that. Um there is just a process where you have to notify them if if that is um if that is your intent, but there's if the

273board chooses or the district chooses after they've been formed there there's you that you can take that back. Um the next is early July. uh that is your signed election resolution to the county that needs to happen um in order for them to they're they're processing between Maricopa County is processing between 40 and 50 on average elections every single year. So that's why they have such a um regimented um timeline. The we're our discussions with you are to do that at the May 12th meeting if you should so choose to move forward um and do that. Next timeline um is you know the thing that takes up most of the time is down a few line items in July August. That is when we're going through the voter information pamphlet process with the district and

274your election council and the county. So that happens throughout the course of July and August. The um voter information pamphlet has to get translated into Spanish as well um and then has to get you know printed and mailed out. So that's kind of another um big portion of the of the calendar. Then in early October um voter uh mailing pamphlets are sent out. So it has to go out at least 35 days before the election. Uh with then the election happening November 3rd. Miss Pena kind of walked through this. This is just an election um timeline. This process is an election is always ongoing um because there's so much involved with it. So, a lot of this has already occurred or is in the process. Um, January um to March based on our experience is

275when staff should be talking about the capital needs and um election requirements. If you aren't beginning this um process until May of an election cycle, you're kind of beginning it way too soon. So that those discussions as Miss Pñena laid out um and the meetings that the district has previously had is you know kind of setting you up to get to a point where you would be um calling for a resolution in May. Um the May June time frame is you get the report from the election advisory committee. Paul Yulan's going to talk a little bit about the community um outreach that that the district has had and and what the support there is there. Um then in May to July the governing board, as I mentioned, would call for the election. uh June through

276August, they we are working we are what is considered the investment banker. We're working with council which is election council to prepare as we already mentioned and then we get to your election day. This has also been ongoing. These are the timing considerations from within the district. Again, this all kind of cycles through to where you are. Um right now you're getting input for from your committee notification has already occurred. So that's down on the bottom right. um governing board process education and deliberations that would happen um throughout the course of this um uh this meeting and and the meeting in May. You need to have a governing board quorum in order to vote on a resolution to move forward. And then there are election call triggers. Um these are dos and don'ts, advocacy um

277um uh allowances, I guess, if you will. Um these are things that the district and the staff and the governing board is allowed to or not allowed to do once an election is called. There will be some training for um board and staff um should you move forward with the call of an election at a later point in time. Here are capital project spendings with bond proceeds. So up in the top left, this is uh your statutory list of uses of bond proceeds. Um these are allowable proceeds or dollars that can be spent on proceeds under statute. So you cannot spend bond dollars on things like M textbooks things things like that they need to be spent on capital related projects. So statute drives that um for purchasing um uh for instance for purchasing or

278leasing of school buildings. So there's a list that is allowed and um they are purchasing uh sorry purchasing or I wrote notes and I'm trying to catch up. purchasing or leasing of school buildings, building um or renovating FT& furniture uh technology and equipment, improving school grounds, transportation vehicles, liquidating dbeness. So that gives you a sense of what statutory um uh allowances are. District bond ballot language may not expand that list. So you might you may not ask for things outside of that statutory list, but it may restrict that list. In certain circumstances, we wouldn't recommend that you do that, but you you are allowed to kind of reduce what the statutory list is. And an example of that is, and this is why I wrote the the note, is one of the items is purchase

279allows for purchasing or leasing of school lots. So, while the district might not intend to do um purchase or lease of a school lot right now, 10 years down the road, these bonds are for 10 years. if you remove that from your um where the green is from your bond ballot language, you will not be allowed to do that even though you're allowed under statute to do that during this 10-year period. So, we really recommend keeping the district bond ballot language to match the statutory list. Then there's another list which I'm going to show an example of um the capital projects table that will um show up in your voter information pamphlet. Miss P showed you um the list of all the facilities assessments that are within the district. um you know and so we

280will work to once the it's um decided what the amount of the election that you um are going to move forward with if you do so we will work to um build out this capital projects table that will show up in the voter pamphlet and then again as I mentioned these are 10-year bonds um you're allowed to once approved by voters you are allowed to um uh it it could take up to 10 years to sell these bonds you can do it in shorter but you need to sell within the 10-year time period and things lots of things change over 10 years. So there is a mechanism for submitting capital project changes to voters if you know things change and and what we decide now from a capital projects table perspective changes five years from

281now but we we don't need to touch on that right you know get too in the weeds on that voter information pamphlet. So, we will work should the district decide to move forward with an election, uh we will work with um Miss Pina staff to um um election council and um the county to she will, you know, she will be the point person to work through with the county and get all the information that is needed from a tax rate perspective to the county. The governing board's role is um pro or con statements for overrides. We're not discussing an override here, but um there will be language um as to a statement as to why the the district is moving forward um with the uh with an election. So there will be involvement from you

282on that. The timing again dictated by the county election council role. Again, that is your um bond council or election council. They work to draft the voter pamphlet. they will be the one that will correspond directly with the county um and work to get it translated and um they also work with legislative council for all um all those requirements um and then proof proof um pamphlet proofs that that process happens in the July August time frame. So we're really you know refining the pamphlet and making sure everything is included in it. there is a um procon statement period that happens um in August as well. So those statements that get submitted through the county um there are requirements there but those would get submitted in August. Okay. This next table is an example. This is

283not by any means the dollar amount that that is being discussed right now. Um that's a process that you that the district is working forward um working through. This is just an example that we use in a lot of our um in our presentations. But in this particular example, um, this district asked for was asking for $90 million. The capital projects list is what I was referring to back here on this um chart and in the um in the orange or or bronze um, you know, orange box. You are required in your voter information pamphlet to break out projects from an administrative purpose as well as a non-administrative purpose. So, anything that would be for district um office space would be in the administrative purposes section. Anything in non-administrative purposes section would be in in

284the above. then it is it's recommended to break it down further into subcategories. Um we don't want to break it down into 20 subcategories because you're getting too many you know in in the weeds. Um and then you're also pres um you know prohibiting yourself from making changes in the future. But we recommend a few highle um categories to give you flexibility um and um with your projects in the future. So in this particular case, new schools construction renovations and improvements and they had 67 million. You'll see that they also did construction of a new K through six school in North District and that was a separate line item in this particular district. that was probably a really um it had probably great voter appeal. And so they probably called out that particular campus in

285um specifically in order to show that they were going to not only spend $67 million on new construction and renovations, but new construction of a new of construction of a new school. So if that is something that would be important in Littleton's case here um because of you know all the the needs it sounds like that have to occur that you know that might be you know something that you choose to move forward with um FT&E call out separately and then you know also if you're going to have buses or pup pup pupil transportation vehicles we'd recommend those as separate line items but this is just to show you of you know major category um you want to kind of lump them into categories and then there will be a tax rate calcul population per

286category based on $100,000 home. I'm going to go real quick here. Capital projects list takeaway. Again, we've talked about the statutory language as well as your bond ballot language. We kind of recommend those be the same. Um, and down all the way on the bottom on the green on the left, specific categories and project tables may may have greater vote over approval. So, we've already talked about that. Um, i.e. In Littleton's case, project category wording may identify specific concerns without limiting flexibility. Um, and that that might mean safety and security. So, safety and security might be a big issue for you guys. You might want to um make that a separate line item or a separate category. Um, there is danger, I'm up now, danger in skirting too close to the spirit of the law

287of capital projects. So, there is nothing that says in statute that you have to separate these into categories. you have to do non-administrative and you have to do administrative, but you don't have to break them out into separate. We recommend it though. Um there have been some districts of late that have just thrown it all into one pot and there's been a lot of criticism around that lately. So trying to um you know get more specificity there from a voters's perspective so they understand what the district is doing is very helpful. Um then their projects uh may fall into more than one category. And then you as I mentioned again these are 10-year bonds. So there is a 10% leeway. Um so if if projects change and things change, you can there is some flexibility

288down the road to move to move money from pot to pot um up to 10%. Voter pamphlet pros and cons statements district narrative in the body of the voter information pamphlet. So there will be a statement as to why an election has been called. um and is you can do it either in the form of a statement or in the form of frequently asked questions that will be in the body. There are procon statements um in the voter information pamphlet. Uh these are submitted by individuals or group. They're required to be sworn statements. Um and the city of residents must be included uh in the pamphlet. For governing boards, a bond statement is prohibited. they're required for overrides, but a bond statement for a bond election is prohibited from the governing board. Um, so there's

289that. Um, and then bond issuance boundaries. So, this is just kind of talking about what is binding and what isn't binding when you move forward with the bond election, um, or any election, but this is specific to bonds. So, included in your voter information pamphlet will be a payment and tax rate table that is not binding. um the AV, the timing, the size of it, the bond issues may change. So, we are making a bestcase scenario at the time the voter information pamphlet is drafted. Um you are making an estimate of what your tax rate is going to be. But if you project a tax rate and you fall below or you exceeded in any given year, that is not binding. Um the only thing that is binding is that your debt cannot be repaid

290for a a period longer than 20 years. So any debt that is issued under the bonds um you can you can if you sell these bonds in three separate series or four separate series each separate series of bonds cannot be longer than 20 years. Total bond authorization that is binding. So the amount that a board were to approve to move forward with at an election if that if that amount was 50 million 100 million whatever that amount is that is the binding amount. that is the amount that you would ask voters for and that cannot be exceeded. The max interest rate, we will put a maximum interest rate in the resolution. It'll be high um 10 to 12% but that's because these again are long-term bonds. They're you know for a period of of um

291uh you know exceeding a few years and we don't know what interest rates are going to do. So we want to make sure that you have flexibility in the future. We talked about the 10-way le 10% leeway. Um that is binding, but you do have the ability to move money around 10% from category to category. Um FT& that is binding. So if money is to be spent on shortterm type eligible projects, furniture, equipment, technology, those things need to they have a shorter life um expectancy. So those need to be paid back within 5 years of each bond sale that they are financed out of. And then um on your projects again we've talked about this statute that's binding um ballot language uh again binding and then the BI table you list specific projects um but

292you have flexibility in that 10% range. So with that there's a lot of information on a bond uh voter pamphlet. I I'll just pause real quick before we jump into the next section >> about questions for me. But no, Megan, I thought I'd point out though that the individual board members can submit a pro statement. That's >> it's just simply as a board, you can't submit it. >> Correct. Thanks, Brian. That's true. there. Uh when you're doing an override, the board is required to pull together a statement that you adopted at a meeting and that is the statement that goes in your voter information pamphlet. That is you're not you you are not allowed to do that with the bond. But as a as a board member, you on your own behalf may enter a

293a pro hopefully not a con statement and submit that into your voter information pamphlet. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions? All right. So, I'll just give you a little information on um current AVs, tax rates, uh and your current debt outstanding from a bond perspective that is repaid for through property taxes. Here is the district's assessed value over a 10-year period. The um maroon bars are your net limited assessed property value. That is the base for calculating property taxes. The blue is your f full cash value and that is the base for calculating your debt capacity. So you'll see you've had healthy growth. Um you know especially in the in the last three or four years you had double digit growth. Um it's slowed down a little bit. We've seen a slowdown in Maricopa

294County. I think there was um um with such a boom in the real estate market. I think they've, you know, they've um just there's been a slow or a catch-up, if you will. So, we did notice some slowing last year. You still had growth. We did see um in fiscal 2526, we did see some districts that had um either zero growth or or negative growth. Um but you've continued to see increases. Here's a breakdown of your property tax base. So, heavily residential, 62% of your property tax base is residential or um and that's either owner or rental occupied. Uh commercial making up the the other largest portion 34%. So, that that's largely where your property taxes get paid from um for the repayment of your debt and your overrides, your bonds and your overrides. Here

295you have a breakout of your tax rates. So this is again a 10-year um period. You'll see you have an overall declining tax rate. This is combined tax rate. So this is primary and secondary. Primary is your M and that is your gold or copper bar. Um and that is um set not by you. Um that's set by um the state every year. That has been declining over time slightly. Um and then the other the other three portions there um are your overrides and your bonds. So all on the secondary side, your DAA override, your M override, and then your bonds in the blue. So again those have been as your assessed value grows because that assessment um has the base has continued to grow um you have continued to see decline in your tax

296rate as well. So currently your bond tax rate in fiscal 2526 is about 79 cents. And then below just so you have this as a history is the history of your bonds and your overrides. So when the when the election occurred, M stands for your M election, what the percentage was, what you asked for. Some we put that there because some districts do ask for a lesser than 15%, some do 10, some do five, some do just a random number. Um, and then the last year that that election would have been effective or good for. Um, and then also your passage rate. So you can see you have a very high passage rate. There are some districts that um you know obviously don't pass or you know need at least 50.9% 50 so you you

297have a very um successful passage rate but we include that there so you have that here's a summary of the debt that the current that the district currently has outstanding. So bonds from your um 2009 and 2017 and 2021 elections. So those are your elections. Um and then these are the principal amounts that just these are just principal amounts that remain outstanding for each of the individual series of bonds. You have roughly $40 million. So if you look all the way over to the right, you have $40 million in bonds outstanding. This is just a graph of your principal and interest. So, this factors in the interest and again declining over time. That's done so that should you um be looking to go out for future bond elections as we're talking about now, you can

298layer in future debt without having to increase your tax rate um and or your debt service too much. And then this last slide here is um your peer district comparison debt. So as I mentioned two slides prior, the district's um debt outstanding is currently at 40 million. And these are peer districts and the dollar amount of debt that they currently have outstanding for bonds. And um for questions, we have our contact information if anything were to come up after the fact. That's all I had prepared for today, but I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Any questions? >> So over the um well thank you thank you so much for this presentation. >> Um so for the 40 million in the outstanding um how much is outstanding? That's from the last two to

299three bonds combined assuming if I look at the numbers together. >> So this you have one two three four five six seven bond issues outstanding. >> That does not include the lease solar that you were referring to earlier. Um, and these will totally pay off by 2041, but these are on this page. I know it's really small, but hopefully you can see it better in front of you. Um, this is the maturity schedule for each of those individual bond issues. So, all the way over on the far right, the last bond sale that was done was a 14 million. I'll just I'll zero in on this one. It was a 14,140,000 bond. The it was from the 2021 election. So project of 2021 is from the 2021 election. It was sold in 2022 and they

300sold all $14 million at that time. So they sold whatever the amount that you requested for at the election, they just sold that in one sale. Currently outstanding from that $14 million is it's 13,840,000. >> Okay. And then over time when we pay back those bonds that comes from >> the levy >> that comes right from >> debt service fund >> you this existing debt service it's already been sold. You already required to pay it back to investors. And so we we look at this repayment schedule every single year. We assist the district. We look at your repayment schedule of what is owed from principal and interest. And when the levy is set, we include that dollar amount for principal and interest in order to generate enough property taxes to cover to cover that debt

301service payment. >> Okay, >> that's all I had for >> Thank you. >> I think >> Well, thank you um Miss Megan Burke and uh Brian Lumbberg. Thank you for being here today. Um would you like to include anything? Okay. >> All right. next. And I do I asked Randy, so if you want me to give you a couple of updates on the capital funding. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, the budget that came out, you saw I don't know if people saw on the news last night, the Republicans did put forth a budget. It did not include any proposals from um you know, the the governor put out a budget in January. It did not include any proposals that she wanted to see on Prop 123 or the capital funding lawsuit. So, I know there's

302going to be a lot of work to go there. Um, per Randy, um, it does include 183 million million for building renewal. It included poverty weight and additional assistance. So, the building renewal grant money is there. Um, but they're not doing anything to at this point. Um, they're not doing anything to deal with 123 or the capital funding lawsuit. >> It's going to be a long budget season. >> Very long. Yes. Thank you for that uh information. Miss Randy Stein is part of uh Steifle and she >> my colleague who sorry >> yes uh she was unavailable and so she is really um informative with what is happening down at the state capital. Um moving forward we have primary consultants here Mr. Paul Yuland. He's going to give us election data and um information on

303how he will be conducting a survey of our community um and inform us uh of what that process looks like. Mr. Paul, >> good good afternoon, Dr. Lee, members of the board. Um for the record, my name is Paul Yubin. It is a pleasure to be here. I've been here for the district many many times and I'll talk about that in a little bit. Um, I just wanted to give a little brief information. Some of you know me, some of you don't. I've been involved in marketing, elections, uh, polling for the last 33 years. I've done more bond and override elections than anyone else in the state over that time. And not only am I active um supporting schools on on the election side, I'm past chair of uh Abeck uh Arizona Business Education Coalition

304and um like you, I serve on the governing board as well. I'm on the Glendale Union High School District. So, I know I appreciate your time today. It's tough uh you know it's it's a lot of work and tough work to do and appreciate you appreciate you donating your time for for students and uh and and the community. I've had extensive experience working uh throughout the entire you know throughout the state but especially in the west valley and as I said I've worked uh uh awafria Aenddale Fowler Lichfield Littleton Pendagas Riverside Talison Elementary and Talison Union for bond and override uh and DAA elections and part of you know those last four cycles um you know it's not what you've done it's what have you done for me lately completely. So, I I look at

305that uh a high success rate, 33 bonds, 49 overrides, three land sales, and those are relatively easy. And and a couple Jed election questions. So, I've been across the across the board on on school finance elections. And so, I'm, you know, helping the district in in a couple ways. were have met with the needs assessment blue ribbon committee and going to talk a little bit about the district demographics. So understanding who votes and what those voters look like. Uh we're in the process of polling. I'll talk a little bit about that. And then just understanding the communication of what you can and can't do once you once you call for call for the election. And as Megan uh took my thunder, uh I I went I only went back to 2013. I've been involved in

306those elections. Um the district has a very very strong track record of uh the community of supporting its schools. Um there aren't a lot of districts that have this. you are very blessed and very fortunate that your community um understands the value and investment of what a quality education, what good schools mean to their community. So, just going back and and Megan went back even further, but your community has just been very very supportive. The last election 2024, which was the capital override, passed mid60s, which is unheard of. Um, and just, you know, those bond elections every several years just shows your community is willing to support that investment in in facilities, not just people. So, now I'm just going to walk through just a few demographics of the district. So, you have roughly just

307under 29,000 registered voters. And remember that that is a living, breathing number. It changes every single day. Um people move in, people move out, people become eligible to be registered to vote, they vote, they they register um people pass away that were on the voter roles. And just to give you an idea, so just under 18,000 voted in the 2024 election. And if you if you recall, that was a presidential election, which means people were really excited to come out to vote or more energized to vote. You look at the 2022 election which was a gubernatorial election and we had just under 10,000 voters in 9654. Why is that important? Just recognizing uh voter you know there are habits people that vote in every single election people that like to vote or get excited about

308a presidential election and that people that tend to pay attention in ginatorial elections. It's a much smaller number. Um, and that's why I think there's some opportunities for some maybe picking up some seats is that your win number is num is lower because you have a lower lower turnout. We got the uh parent list from the district and actually match that to the voter file. Again, not 100%, you know, it's not quite apples to oranges, but close. And so we have the district has just under parents that we know are registered to vote. And why is that important? will go through. So when you look at all these voters, we broke broke it out by party and you can see not a not a surprise. Um 37% Democrat, 19% Republican, 44% other. You might ask

309what is other? That's all part that is uses. It really would be independent or PND which means party not designated on your voter registration form. For our purpose, it's everybody but a Republican or Democrat. But you have some Green Party, some Libertarian. Those are very very small percentages in some other categories. Uh we now what is the new Marcus you um uh Arizona Independent? Yeah. And I guess there's a dispute whether that will be a name a legal name as well, but um that just gives you gives you an idea. And we, you know, we broke that out um by age. So you can see a nice mix mix. 30 a third under um uh a third 50 plus of 42% 30 to 50 and then 25% is 19%. And your parents represent 9% of

310the total voters in your district. And so when you look at and say uh we can win an election by getting our parents and staff out, that's very difficult when you look at how many people are going to come out to vote. So then we break out the 2024 voters. Again, higher number um a little bit more uh diverse in in who comes out to vote. 43% Democratic, 22% Republican, 30 35% other, and only 39% were 50 plus, 42% 30 to 30 to 50, and 19% under under uh under 30, 16, 13. So about 63% of your parents actually voted in that election, which isn't a bad turnout when you look at all things And our 22 voters uh again a little shift 48% Democratic, 23% Republican, 29% other. And the age breakdown again uh

311fewer voters, so a higher percentage of 50 plus, which is not to be not a surprise. 39% are 30 to 50. And lo and behold, our young voters didn't want to come out to vote. Just 11%. and our parent turnout dropped substantially to uh just under 30%. Again, not a not a surprise. And why is all this important when we go through um we're in the process of polling to our community um of talking to likely voters, not our parents, not our staff. It will be some of that, but our parents that our community members that are come out to vote to get their opinions on uh perceptions of the district, perceptions of public education in the community um and the state to some degree and then specifics on the bond bond amount and and

312bond projects uh specific bond projects. So, we'll be able to present that information to you hopefully by the end of the week. So you'll have a little bit more information before you make a decision whether to call for the election or not. And with that, I can answer any questions that you might have about about it. >> Any questions for Paul? >> Thank you, Paul. Um, my question really isn't for you. It's just more or less of a general statement. But, um, I know you've been, you know, doing all of our, you know, ballot measures for, you know, good time now. And we've, we've historically seen that the community, you know, trust our district to do what's best with the taxpayer dollars and to make decisions that are best for the kids and our community.

313Um, you know, so I am I am in the middle um about us doing this honestly. Um, you know, I think the last election cycle um it was really bad on bonds, you know, overall throughout the community. Um, and I think there was a lot of, you know, information and it was very political. um you know with Tulsen Union and I think that that we've seen that that trickle down to other districts and to the city of Aendale and so you know for the first time last year ballot measures didn't pass in our community and that was a first time ever you know um so I'm I'm very concerned about just the ability of putting in the money and putting out all this energy into a ballot measure um you know we do have something

314going for us you know is it's a midterm year, >> right? >> It's a guminatorial race. Um, you know, we're hoping that our community shows out and that we can get the proper information in front, but I think we have our work cut out for us because, you know, I think we'll probably won't get a high 50%, you know, just realistically. You know, there's a lot of people that I have spoken to personally who historically voted for bonds and overrides and didn't vote for them last year, you know, because they think that there is misspending in public schools within our own community now, you know, um, you know, and I think a lot of that was focused to Tulsen Union, but if I'm an average voter and I see that there's reckless spending happening towards

315public schools, I'm not going to support any ballot measure, you know, because why? If it's corrupt at the high school, it's probably corrupt at the elementary. You know, that that message trickles down both ways. You can't have it both ways on the average voter. So, I am I'm conflicted and I'm also I'm in the middle because I know our kids need this money and our schools need this money, but also at the harsh reality point of what is the realistic chances of us going out there putting this energy in, you know, having staff support it, having the community have you do it, um, and us pass, you know, and I think, um, it's a hard it's a hard conversation for me to have. But um this kind of just where my initial thoughts are um

316on the bond. >> So thank you for the presentation. At this point really we're just feeding present feeding information. So right now it's not not the discussion of do we go or not. That'll be a part of our May 12th meeting. Right now, we wanted to just feed any uh pending questions that anyone may have had specifically on what is a bond, how does it function, what does our voter history turn out, what are some other points of information. We tried to identify the needs so that there was an awareness of and and this is the thing hopefully you guys are learning about me. I'm a needsbased person. So when um Miss Ping and I went through these processes, it's really we want to identify those components. And so I want to make sure we

317we understand that this isn't a discussion on what we're going to do next, but really more of this is the information to give us foundation, no understanding. Let's see what we want to how we respond. Yes. >> Um I'm asking so that I have this information for our next board meeting. Um, I know that it's not definite, but could we find out if some of our neighboring districts are planning to go out for a bond? I know they may have made decisions before our meetings or after our meetings, but just a general idea. >> I think that it's always good to kind of know. So, that's just my request. Yes, we can we can provide that because what we'll also communicate is our bond capacity uh where that aligns with the needs and then uh

318what some of those next steps are and our our hope is that several members of the committee will be able to be a part of that presentation because we'll share it with all the other information so that it truly is an informed decision. >> Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Well, I just wanted to thank all of you guys for coming and um sharing all this information, like putting all this information together and sharing it with all of us. Um I apparently have a lot of reading to do cuz my brain is just so swimming right now, but I really do appreciate it. >> All right, >> Curtis. >> Oh, yeah. Uh and I think you know there it's a it's a lot to think about but I think now we know you know we have the

319information um you know and Dr. Leaf, you know, thank you for all the work that you you and the E team and all you guys put together to present to us today um to really just show that um there's a lot to do. There's a lot of work to do. Um and I think that now we are moving in a direction where we know what our uh needs are for facilities. We know what our students need for academic achievement. We know what we need to do as a districtwide. Now it's a matter of um doing it and implementing it. But um you know in terms of the bond you know um I think I I do want to note Amy and I think from what I've heard it's just going to be Tulsson Union and

320possibly Aenddale. Um from what I've heard of other districts and entities within our district boundaries that are going to do ballot initiative. And so, um, I guess my message for, uh, question would be for Paul, Paul's just Vincent. Paul, um, if, you know, if, if Tulsen Union was to run a bond and, you know, that no messaging campaign was to go against, you know, that bond, how would we, what do you think is our best position as a district to combat that misinformation? >> We're asking in a So, I think that's a great question. We're asking that in the survey to see what kind of gap we have or what what potential impact. But, you know, I think there there are pros and cons to that. But it it clearly, you know, I think the

321big picture, you know, you have your you have your needs and you have the opportunity to go out and educate and communicate those needs. >> You know, what the state and other and you know, the high school district and your feeders around you, you have no control over. So whether they go or not go doesn't really doesn't change your needs and it doesn't change you know your ability to go out and communicate and demonstrate those needs. It just it becomes part of the the the chatter rather than hey this is us and what we're doing what and why we're doing this. And I think that's really the um the sort of the important thing to focus on because we're you know they're going to be um and I would defer to Randy, but I mean

322you know there's you have potentially a couple ESA U initiatives on the ballot that will bring in outside money that have no I mean they do impact Littleton as kids coming in or not or not going elsewhere or coming to the district but they don't impact the bond, but it will it could potentially impact Littleton and you have no control over that. None whatsoever. And some of that is wasted time and energy. So, let's focus on what our needs are, what we can financially afford, what is our community willing to support, and how do we go out and communicate and educate that. >> No, thank you for that. Um, and I think next to like we've seen, you know, a lot of our um, you know, people are struggling financially. We've seen economic costs going

323up. Everything's extremely um you know expensive. How have you seen like that in the past like affect voters ability to want to like they want to vote for a bond and override but just because they think it's another potential increase in their property taxes they you know decide to vote no. >> That that is a good question. I I think you you've seen probably the last three four years we've had more opposition. And when I say opposition, actually organized opposition >> than there has been in the last 20 25 years combined. I mean, would you both of you have been out there? >> U and so I think most of that is not I mean I think almost virtually all of that opposition is anti-ax. >> And so you know there's a frustration of that.

324Again, you you know, we build a a fire station, we build a library, we build a community pool. That's most cases that's a bond or CIP funds that are generated through tax revenue. Somehow it's different than, you know, fixing roofs or or building new schools or, you know, doing the improvements that need to be done. You know, part of that is just education. And I think part of that is your community and you have a history of your community supporting. Hey, we we value education and so you have to you know you can't take that for granted. You just have to build on that. >> No, thank you for that. >> Any other questions? >> If we can go to the next slide, please. >> Uh first off, I would like to thank uh Miss

325Burke, Mr. Lungberg, and Mr. Yulan for their time and information today. Uh it was very informative. I wanted to take a moment to inform the board of our next steps. On May 12th, we will provide survey data um from primary consultants. We will provide the bond committee um input. We will also provide um the bond amount. We will be working with steeple and determine the amount um that we are recommending and then um present it all to the board on May 12th. Um we want to be um very strategic um and methodical in this process and so uh we're to thank you for your time today. Um we hope that this information was uh informative uh for you. >> Well, thank you. It's a question for Dr. Lee. Um, so I know I think you

326mentioned it was 70 million was our max capacity to do a bond. >> 70 million was the assessment, the facility assessment of the of the partial needs of the district. Um the max amount that um the district can go out for is 90 million. We're working with um steeple on what that looks like for the district to determine it. Okay. Yeah. And I think if Oh, go ahead. >> Got the mic there. >> There's a mic right next to Brian. There you go. >> If it's helpful, at the May 12th meeting, I can walk through how capacity works and um what the current capacity is and what the capacity would be over a 10-year period. Obviously, over a 10-year period, we have to assume growth projections that we don't know what they will be. Um

327the district's current capacity is 70 million, but like I think if I calculated out 10 years, it's north of 125 million. So there's the capacity there. >> Yeah, because I know um you know Dr. Lefi had the demographic study and so I know that we are supposed to get a lot of new a lot of new development um that's going to be you know happening in our community. So, I will think that that debt limit will continue to rise up for us to potentially go out for more bonds in the future as well. Um, but I think if at the next maybe this could be in the future because I forgot to ask it earlier on, but how does us doing a bond right now for school improvement go into us having to set monies

328aside to build our next school, you know, over the next 10 years? >> Excuse me. Can I vote that we table this until we have more information? like I just don't feel like we have enough. >> So, so right right now it's actually not an action item. It was just information being presented. Uh it won't come for a vote vote until May 12th at the board meeting. So I guess the ask was for some information that'll come forward. >> Right. Right. No, I'm just asking questions. So, at the next board meeting, we can have clear answers on, you know, if we do have that max capacity. We just had the demographic study that says how much students we're going to have the long-term capacity. So, to not make sure that we don't go out for

329an amount that overlaps with us being able to be not be able to build a school long term, if that was my summary, but thank you. >> All right. Anything else on that one? If >> not, Dr. Okay, we got one more item to go through here. >> Thank you all to all our presenters. Thank you, Miss Pena, for your uh presentation there. So, our final item actually is a board-led item. Uh there are the board goals that um annually that the board reviews to determine just progress towards meeting those goals. One thing I'd like to do is not necessarily look at um um creating the next set of goals, but just self- evvaluation and discussion of where you are on these goals. And I'm saying that because the strategic plan will be done in

330the next couple of months. And for alignment purposes, it would make sense to create that next set of goals based on that. So for me it would be how are you guys doing on these current goals that were last reviewed um January twed the conversation and tabled it I think until this meeting. So I'll hand that over to President Nelson. >> So we just want to go over and just review how we stand on these particular ones right now and not talk about additional ones or new ones until we get the strategic goal. I mean strategic yeah strategic goals. >> Correct. And and the one thing that you'll notice from this is based on that um what you just stated, a lot of this aligns back with our norms because some of these things will

331go back to are we doing these things and if we're not doing them, how are we holding ourselves and each other accountable. So that becomes a critical piece for this. So I'll hand that over. >> Okay. Okay. So, just kind of a review on these number of the first goal right there is a bianual um board self- evaluation. >> How are we doing on that one? I think we did a board evaluation within the last binder after the last >> in the binder. >> Oh, piece. What's up on the screen there? >> Oh, okay. >> So, all right. So, so the information that was provided that uh Missile provided me on goal one. Yes, goal one was met. >> Is that in our binder? So, you got that? >> No. So, I can I can

332because you have each each of the items in here whether it was or wasn't. >> Okay. So in line with that goal number one and then that one was met in October last year was reviewed those. The next one is on an annual basis each board member shall pursue professional development collaboration opportunities and attending the different meetings there. So that one has not met Mr. Sincerero was there. Miss Barnett, it looks like Mr. Nilton and Miss Stallard. I think we went to Boltz and some other things. We just probably needed to report that back to you. >> Yeah, President Inson and board members, the information that I upload into our charts to keep track of your goals is the information reported. So, if there are any um missing items, we can definitely add those. just

333let me know and u we can share that information you would like. >> Linda did we went to Bolts together last >> early last year. >> Okay. Can you get that? >> Would you report that to Aydah that she gets that information? Okay. Item number three, the study sessions, which was a great one today. We appreciate that. That those items were met. And the fourth >> going to other campuses, >> the schools, >> which is a lot >> every quarter. >> So there's what, four, five, six pages of that. We do pretty good on that one. Amy, thank you for doing most of that for us. Okay. Not not all of it. >> You know, next year my kids are two different schools, so expect it to double. >> So, other than just the reporting

334in, it looks like those goals were met and taken care of. >> I think my conversation where this came from >> and I'm not I know we're short on time. So, I think if we're making meeting all of our goals, then is it time to ramp it up. We always expect more from our staff than our students. >> And so I feel like we're not being we're being hypocritical a little bit if we're not if we're meeting our goals every year and we're not >> your mic's not on. Is it >> Linda's? So I and that was why I made the statement earlier. Once the strategic plan gets done, I think that's a great opportunity to look at what those priorities are and then align those with the goals. Um typically typically what would begin

335to happen is those become the board goals and those become my goals and all of the actions and activities that come out of that align with moving us towards accomplishing those goals. So I think that becomes the next opportunity for us to have that conversation. So if the if the strategic plan is presented in July, um what I would recommend is that we plan for an in August having the conversation and how does that translate into um viable goals for the board because then I have to have my goals as well for the upcoming year. >> Thank you. That's a fair statement. >> Any other thoughts or comments? Go ahead. >> Okay. So, whenever we have the the strategic plan which will be after July based on the schedule, right? After July, then we come

336back in August. Um, and then we basically just do this all over again. And so >> like we were like we were talking about this morning update those ones or readjust the norms if we need to or incorporate what we did and talked about this morning. >> Well I guess I guess for goal number four I mean looking at the binder do board members on average attend four to four to six events typically like so if we are attending more the way more than two maybe just bump it up to four or six just so if we're already doing it might as well just just bump it up. >> My personal goal is to every campus twice a quarter. >> Yeah, >> but that is why there's pages there because that is my goal as

337a person is to be at every campus twice a quarter. >> I think we've got those. And if we want to keep that one, that's fine. But I think like once we get the strategic goal in there and a couple others in here, we need to update what would be appropriate and use that for us. No, no, no. I'm saying because we always have like after school events like it's like six pages. So I'm like if we're already going to two, you know, over >> that was my goal this year starting out was to be at each campus at least once >> because between like the after school stuff like at my school >> and then like the stuff that my grandkids are doing here >> like Yeah. Okay. Well then we'll just keep it

338at >> I'm okay. I'm not. >> Well, if she's turning every school every quarter, >> yeah, >> the goal right now is >> it's just is just to go to two schools. Just go to two events or things every quarter. >> Doesn't matter what it is, excluding board meetings. >> If you're doing one school a quarter, that's six, seven schools a quarter. >> So, it's a matter of attending attending those, but then getting that information to Ada so she can record them. >> I mean, that's part of us as a board. being considerate and courageous enough that yes, we've done this. It's great. We set our own personal goals. We've got these here, but that information needs to be communicated back here so she can help keep help us keep track of what we we

339we've committed to do. So, >> so I'm not the only one. >> Okay. So, this is something we want to continue to look at. We'll look at again when we get the strategic goals and adjust as we need to. I think I think um for the goal one I think if we are going to do a strategic plan I think it's going to be presented if we're going to be monitoring that yearly um like if we're going to be monitoring how we're doing yearly then maybe we should move our evaluation to every year you know um >> that's a good point that's >> do we pay for that >> I think it's free right the evaluation tool >> yeah President Nen and board members I was trying to remember and I believe I'm accurate in

340saying it is part of your ASBA membership, you pay it only if you go more in depth into the results, but you are getting the standard um assessment results. Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Because I think if we're going to have this big strategic plan and we're doing all these great things and we want to see more student achievement, maybe we maybe we add a goal in there, you know, that where we say we monitor student outcomes data, you know, once a year as a board, you know, or something like that just so move our evaluations to once a year. >> Keep those thoughts in mind and let's bring those for us when we meet again to incorporate all of this. >> Thank you. We appreciate you all being here today and your input and

341your participation and knowing what letters are where at what time. >> Um, oh, what's the last one on there? I closed my book. >> Adjournment. >> I move that we adjourn at 3:04. >> A second. >> Wait a minute. That was too quick. Thank you. We are adjourned. >> No signatures. >> Okay. I I I