001Welcome everyone. Uh tonight's meeting uh the next order of business is the approval of today's agenda and I'll look for a motion for that. >> So move. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Is there any discussion? All right, seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I and oppose the same sign. Motion carries 70. Well, tonight's um meeting is uh our um look at Superintendent Hile's transition. Uh we have Barb Dorne from Minnesota School Board Association to help lead the discussion. And uh so I will turn it over to Barb. >> Thank you very much. Is the audio okay for everyone? Can you hear me? Okay. All right. Well, it's good to see you again. Thank you. And uh appreciate the opportunity to visit with you about the transition for your
002superintendent in his first year with Albert Lee Area Schools. Uh this workshop is really intended to be a conversation about expectations. Uh we aren't going to walk out of here tonight with anything definitively decided about exactly what's going to be the standards you want to hold him to for um performance evaluation related, but we will have the conversation started and I want to talk a lot about how um Superintendent Hy can work with the board to move this district forward in the direction that you feel is appropriate. So um we got three parts. The first is going to be a PowerPoint which won't take very long. You're a veteran board. you know a lot about board governance already, but we're going to go through a workshop PowerPoint that will sort of lay out what traditionally
003we want boards and superintendents to strive for with their relationship. Uh we're also going to go through this booklet and do some of you already have this? I have extra copies for folks if you don't. I think we did this a couple years ago, but I'm going to give these out to everyone. Okay. So, we're going to walk through a few pieces from here, but it's a lot of reading, so we're not going to cover every single part of it, but these will be yours to keep. And then we're going to talk about uh performance expectations, particularly if you want some goals set or if you want to use the standards and elements from this booklet. What things would you like him to focus on for evaluation purposes over the next year? Now, at this
004point, I guess we have 10 months left or nine months left, something like that. So, we just want to look shortterm. It can be like drinking out of a fire hose the first year for a superintendent. So, we want to ensure that the board and the superintendent are on the same page about priorities. Everything's important. And that's one thing I have to remind folks about is everything matters in a school district. We simply want to look at your priorities, your higher priorities, and your highest priorities. And when it comes to performance evaluation, we want you to evaluate your superintendent on the highest priorities, not on everything that they do because there's just too much in the scope of a day's work to be able to do that. But the highest priorities will help you move
005the needle in the direction that you want the district to go. So that's the gist of it. I want it to be informal if possible. So please ask questions throughout. I don't want to do most of the talking. I do want to point out that you have eight members of the board here today. You have seven elected board members and your superintendent who is an exopicio member of the board. So when it comes time to talk about board goals and district priorities, I'm going to make sure to call on Dr. H to make sure his voice is included um along with all of the elected folks here. So that's what I'd like to cover. Does anyone have questions before we start or does that sound okay? Sounds okay. All right. Great. Thank you very very
006much. So with this slide, the very first thing I always tell folks is the most important word there is and um developing the first year goals and expectations for the school board and superintendent because you are in a partnership. This is something that you run the district together. Um the board makes a lot of governing decisions and the superintendent makes a lot of management decisions. So working in partnership as a team, you will be able to get the district where you want it to go. But that idea of partnership is something we're going to talk about a lot. Does it go forward? Okay. Should I just tell you to do it, Darcy, because it's not working for me? >> Click. I'm assuming the button is that there. >> We need to turn it on. >>
007Don't tell anybody. [laughter] Thanks, Darcy. So, cornerstone standards for school board leadership. You're all going to recognize this if you've been through the phase training for MSBA. You've got five areas as school board members that you need to develop competencies in, and they're listed right there. Now, as far as evaluating your leader, it's not required in statute. So, it's not something that is prescribed and you have to do it. However, it might be in your contract. So, does someone know offhand if it's in your contract that you be evaluated at least annually? It is great. Okay. Because um in the MSBA MASA model contract, both associations feel this conversation is so important that we recommend it be in the contract. So, it probably is something you should do. Also, within these though, there's some benchmarks.
008And when you look at benchmarks, it's going to be in these Whoops. It's going to be in these two areas. Under conduct and ethics for leadership for school board members. Again, this is for U7. It does say respect and advocate mutual understanding of the roles and responsibilities of board members and superintendent. So, that basic governance structure is important in the standards. Also in terms of accountability, we do say that board members should evaluate the superintendent on clear and focused expectations. So even though it's not in statute, it is in the contract and it is in something that we feel is important for board members to focus on as leaders of the district. Then you see the list for superintendent. These are the eight standards that superintendent have to exhibit competencies in. Specifically, if they don't
009show competencies in all of these areas, they don't get a superintendent license in Minnesota. It's a very stringent process to go through and be licensed as a superintendent and these are the areas that they need to demonstrate that in. When you look at this list, does anyone have a sense of the differences between the cornerstones or the standards for schoolboard leadership versus superintendent leadership? I know you know is there a difference in the list? Yes. Yes. So the the superintendent is very detailed actionorientated where ours is more overarching or structure. >> Absolutely correct. Thank you very much. So it's the boots on the ground superintendent and on the schoolboard side it's direction. It's where are we headed and then the superintendent's job is to drive you there. So those are the differences and they feed
010very nicely into the board governance model which you have seen hundreds of times I'm sure. Um in the center the student achievement for all is very very important. We're saying student success for all now is our new language in that area because everything that you do, that's the heartbeat. Everything your superintendent does, everything the board members do. It is for the success of your students in Albertly Area Schools. So that's in the middle, but we have that dashed line. You'll hear different MSBA staff call that the fence. We want you to understand that you can certainly look over the fence, but we don't want you leaping over it into the other's territory. that does create some dysfunction on boards fairly often when that occurs. So if you look at the top half the school board
011governs and then on the bottom half in blue the superintendent manages. So all of you you establish all those things as a board lots of parameters, expectations, your strategic plan and so on and so forth. You adopt things very often on a recommendation of a superintendent like your budget and your policies and all of those things. But you then hand it over the fence to uh Dr. and he will develop all of those things. He'll develop staff, plans, procedures. He'll implement them and as everybody knows, things don't always go according to plan. Um, reality versus what you thought was going to happen. So, as he's implementing them, he's going to be monitoring them. And when he monitors, everything isn't always going to go the way you thought it would, but he will at some point
012hand it back over the fence to the board because you will evaluate all of the outcomes that he's been seeing from the policies, the challenges that come with that. We also suggest that you al evaluate um yourself as a board. Remind me, have you done a school board self- evaluation with MSBA before school board self eval? >> Your first year? >> Well, first year. >> Okay. No, that's >> that would be Gail Gilman that does the schoolboard selfie mail. >> Okay. Okay, great. So, that's a tool you can continue to use if you want to measure progress as a board. Um, the online tool is no cost. You can go in and take it and you get a report back saying sort of where board members feel you are um on the same page and
013maybe where you have some disagreement about what you do well. And then Gail can come in and do an additional workshop if you want to, but there is a fee for an inservice to build on that. So, we want to encourage you to evaluate yourself. However, you'll also see that you evaluate the superintendent, which is the conversation point for tonight. And then you get back up there and you establish or you reestablish everything that you are working on. So, continuous improvement is the goal. Any questions on the board governance model? I know it's review for many many of you. Okay. Thank you. Then, um integration of goals toward a common plan. In here, there's a couple of key points. One is the great big red box is your strategic plan and that is three to
014five years out. That's a longer term goal. It's a longer term vision. Maybe there's three to five really large goals in that strategic plan and I know you've got one in process or had begun some work on it. So the strategic plan will drive everything else. The vertical alignment here is exceedingly important. So we want everyone pulling in the same direction and that strat plan is going to guide that for you. So again, student achievement, student achievement, success for all is important. Um, and then your plan, the two boxes right there, superintendent goals green, board goals blue. I'm only going to say two things about that. One is that those are both one year at a time. So I mentioned earlier, we're looking nine nine months out right now. So the goals or the standards
015and elements you discussed tonight for Dr. Hy, those are things that really by the end of June he should be able to accomplish. We don't want you evaluating his performance on something that's three years out or five years out. This needs to be an incremental achievable measures so that you can evaluate him on did we meet our goals. Okay? And only two to three. Um sometimes high achievers as superintendents or high achievers on the board want to set a lot of goals to achieve and like I said the job is enormous. We just want you to focus and prioritize. So two to three goals if you're going to use goals, maybe three to five if we're going to use elements. So not too much, but again those three words for performance expectations. Everything else he
016still needs to do on a daily daily basis. And then the board, if you could set some complimentary goals, that is a really nice touch. Again, not required, but often times whatever you're asking your superintendent to prioritize can be assisted by the board adopting their own goal in that same area to support and encourage him as he's trying to meet those expectations. Um, and we can talk a little bit more about that, but that's just again one year out and not too many. And then the uh buildings, staff, classroom, students, etc. Lots of goals could be set and those would be under the purview of the superintendent as the manager of the district. But that vertical alignment is really the main thing we want this this slide to show you. Okay, any questions on that.
017Okay, dos and don'ts. So, an evaluation process can be done hundreds of different ways. This is not the one perfect method. So, how many of you in your other life outside of the board have either evaluated someone or been evaluated by someone in terms of your performance? Has it been a part of your your Okay, everybody's been a part of that. There's so many different ways to do it. It's changed, I think, though, in the last 10 years. Um, there was a philosophy maybe 10 plus years ago that an evaluation was a gotcha opportunity to catch someone not doing something well or it was focused on weaknesses. Where do you need to get better? What do you need to work on to get better? And that was the primary focus. That's been turned upside down.
018Now, evaluations really truly are viewed to be more constructive, more about a conversation about moving forward. Obviously, building on strengths and in areas that you're already doing well, keep doing that and identify what those are. And it's still an opportunity to say, and in this area, we might want to focus more on this or here's an area we don't see as so much of a strength. But the focus is not to blindside someone or to have there be a surprise. Hey, you didn't know we were unhappy with you, but guess what? but we're unhappy. That's not the way to lead a district. So, there shouldn't be ever be a surprise. The board chair is probably in conversation regularly with your superintendent. If there's something the board wants focused on or improved, you have opportunities to
019go into close session and talk about it as an evaluation and or you route it through the board chair so that the superintendent's not caught off guard. There should never be a surprise. But whatever process you want to use, I'm going to talk about this one tonight. Feel free to tweak it. You know that local control is really important to MSBA. So if there's a different process that you like better as a board team, use that one. This is just one that both us and MASA who co-wrote it feel is a really good objective fair method. Uh work together. You can't do this alone. And using agreed upon ratings and written feedback. Know ahead of time what you're going to use. If you're going to use um a fourpoint liyker scale or a 10point scale
020or gold stars or blue ribbons, whatever you want to use, make sure it fits you and everyone knows what it's going to be. So when the time comes, you use that process when it comes. The one final combined evaluation summary. The only thing I'll say about that is that the superintendent works for one body, not seven individuals. Now, the strength of the board is in those seven individuals because you all have different life experiences. You have different viewpoints, different opinions. So diversity of thought makes you a better board. And yet in the end there will be one evaluation summary from the board, not seven individuals evaluating Dr. Hy. Does that make sense? It's just like everything else you do. It's board governance, not seven individuals. But it can be tricky if he's trying to read
021the minds of seven different people and trying to please seven different people with seven different set of expectations. He won't succeed. He will probably burn out. So trying to keep it as one combined summary would be very important. And that final combined summary is going to be written by the board chair. Um we have some information in the book about how how to do that. Finally, allow some time because this is this can get kicked down the road. There's fires burning every day that you need to address as a board and as a superintendent. Too often people say, "Yeah, we're going to do it next month. Yeah, we're going to talk about expectations next month." And all of a sudden it's June and you didn't have a chance to have that conversation. It is one
022of the only times you can go into close session relative to your superintendent. Everything else is done at the board table, but you can close a meeting in order to have a real frank conversation as a board and with Dr. Hy. So, we encourage you to do that maybe twice a year. If you want to do it more often, you can. Um, but you certainly don't have to. It'll be up to you. All the rest I'm not going to cover because they're the opposite of the dues. Other than this is a job for the full board. We really don't want a personnel committee evaluating your superintendent. We want every member of this board invite in involved in the conversation. Today we're going to focus on goals and standards, standards and elements actually. And then the
023midyear you could hold in maybe January if you want to. January, February, December is a little soon, but it's just a check-in sort of how are we doing? Are the conversations we had in early October still where we want to go? It's more informal, but it's a good chance to sit down for an hour or two and just talk about remember what we did on October 6th. Let's talk about it again. And then the final year-end evaluation, you have a three-year contract, right? You could do it in July if you wanted to. U but that's the summitative. That's where something's going to go in the personnel file on behalf of the whole board. Um if it is the third year of a three-year contract, don't wait until June to do the sumitive evaluation. Back it
024up and do it maybe in January or February because anytime in those last 365 days of that three-year contract, you can sign a new contract for July 1. And so we don't want you sort of stringing along a superintendent not signing a contract but having an evaluation right at the end of their term and suddenly we find out it's not going well and that person doesn't have a chance to find another job effective July 1. So back it up in the third year so that everyone agrees we do want another contract or we don't want another contract so people know and it gives the board time and it gives your superintendent time to find other people. Okay, any questions on the process? No. Great. Open meeting law. I did discuss that already. You can close
025it. The one caveat there is it's the prerogative of the superintendent to have it done in an open meeting. So, you may want to close the meeting for the conversation if your superintendent requests it and I would recommend it be in writing that you want to have his evaluation in an open session. You have to do that. You cannot meet in closed session. Make sense? So, it's their prerogative. And keep in mind, you're dealing with personnel information. So, there are HR things that are involved. You want to work with your HR team to get everything in the folder that's appropriate. Um, you can't just talk about all kinds of stuff personnel related. As board members, you do have areas you need to hold in confidence. Um, performance evaluations are one of those areas to be
026really careful with the data practices act. You're not violating the privacy of your employee. All right, that is all I had other than my C's, communication, collaboration, and clarity. Um, there's a fourth C that we have some folks that like to talk about competency. That you want to have a competent board and a competent superintendent in order to do all of these. They're really woven together. Be very clear about what you want done. Collaborate together to make sure it is getting done and communicate those expectations as often as you need to so that you're all on the same page. That concludes my presentation. Told you it would be reviews. Are there any questions um on the PowerPoint slides? And you've got a copy in front of you. Thank you, Darcy, by the way. Okay. All
027right. Then I am going to distribute these books and we'll talk a little bit. We'll talk a little bit about them. I know you're recording it. Okay. Okay. So, on the cover again, logos of both associations, the Minnesota Administrators Association, MASA, as well as MSBA, Minnesota School Boards Association. We actually started this about um I think it must have been seven eight years ago. Yeah, seven or eight years ago. We did some pilot programs with this and we have tweaked it since then. This is the most current version. Um we like it. We support it. However, again, I just want to remind you that this is your process and you adopt what's best for Albert Lee area. I'm not going to go through everything, but when you look at this, the very beginning is basically
028review starting on page two, a review of everything I just covered in that PowerPoint. Nothing new in there at all. It's important that this be objective and fair. And I know that fair is a very squishy word. That's people open to interpretation. What is most fair? Well, we want to recognize the inherent awkwardness of seven board members evaluating someone for whom you've never done that job. Unless I'm wrong. Is there anyone who's been a superintendent of schools on the board? Okay. I know two people in the whole state of Minnesota that are former superintendents serve on school boards, but otherwise you haven't been in that seat. So, it is difficult sometimes to objectively and fairly evaluate them because their day in and day out life is very different than yours as a board member. Every
029time I've evaluated someone, I've actually had that job before as you progress through your career. So, it's much easier to do it in that case, but it is challenging in this case. So, we want to recognize that and explain as we get into the elements why this tool might help you with some of those things. Um, timing. I just mentioned there's a sample timeline on pages five through six. Do what works for you. But again, typically in the summer, you would set out goals for the coming year. And now that you know what to do, you can have this conversation next July if you wanted to or August. Lay them out for the next 12 months. And then the summit of evaluation is usually at the end of that year unless it's the third year
030of the contract. But page seven is helpful for a lot of boards that haven't done evaluations regularly. Um first of all, how to close a meeting. Right in the middle there, it explains how to close a meeting for purposes of superintendent evaluation. And then you'll note that you have to return to open session to pick up where you left off or adjourn the meeting. Um, and then the summary is at the next open meeting. That's what the board chair needs to prepare for the next open meeting. Now, sometimes I get asked, what if right after the evaluation close session, we wrap up our open meeting. We had an open meeting, we closed it for the eval, we came back and then we closed that meeting, but we had a work session immediately after that is
031open. Well, technically that's your next open meeting, right? it doesn't give the board chair time to prepare it. So we always say the next next at least a day or two later open meeting not that same evening if you do happen to have a workshop or something immediately after that it'll be the one after that but there needs to be a summary and there's samples in the back here there is um an appendix starting after page 27 I think yeah page 28 would be appendix in here and there is a sample of what the board chair needs to share at the next open It's not too detailed because again the things that are said in the close session it's personnel data. So you don't want to have it be down to the minutia. It should
032however be specific enough so that a reasonable person can understand what happened in the close session. And Terry Mororrow's favorite word is reasonable. That's open to interpretation also. But if a reasonable person can understand did the evaluation go well or not so well and you specifically list what you evaluated him on, then you're good. But the public does have a right to know how that evaluation went. Okay. But remember, you can't talk about it as board members because you were in a closed session. Can anyone think of a reason why a board uh school board superintendent might ask for it to be in an open meeting? I've actually seen it happen one time in six and a half years. Why would someone want the chance to have their evaluation done in the open versus enclosed
033where it's easier? >> If there are crazy board members. >> That's one way of putting it. If there are crazy board members. Yes, sometimes there is a superintendent that wants to air all the dirty laundry because they are on such poor terms with their board that they want the public to see the board's behavior in an open meeting and to evaluate them and if they're giving them very low marks, people in the audience or people who watch the recording later might say, "Well, that's not my experience." He's great. So, it kind of calls them out on the carpet if you do it in an open session. But again, it's very rare once in almost seven years. So, thoughts? No. Okay, good. Um, all right. I'm going to skip over the job description and I want
034to talk for just a moment before I have you take a quiz because I do have a quiz for you. I want to talk a little bit about goals. Um, because that is something that we want to prioritize without words smithing them because that takes a long time. I'm just curious board members and I have talked to Superintendent Hal about this. If you could picture yourselves standing out next July, put yourself in July of 2026 and you are looking backward at this year, what would you have wanted Dr. Hy to accomplish in that year? So kind of put yourself out there and look back and if you have one or two things big areas what would be most important to you that he would have focused on? thing that comes to mind for me would
035be and he's working diligently on this is commu communication and community relations for a new superintendent new to the community that makes sense to me as a priority and I think the other thing that comes to mind I'm and I'm looking at standards here too on page 12 would be >> Dr. Kyle knows the gibbons about our enrollment and our financial picture, our challenges. >> To me, those are the two pressing things that by the time we hit June of 2026, I would want to sense as a board member, what what are what have we accomplished? How what is a remedy to our challenges when it comes to finances? That's those to me are paramount. And do you think there are things in enrollment and financial challenges that could be done in a year, a
036year's time? Are there progress that he could make toward that? >> I think as far as finances, yes. >> Okay. >> No. >> Got it. >> Thank you very much. >> Other areas and you don't have to use the book to think about it. Just sort of what matters to you right now. >> Just uh finances community. I mean the same things >> maybe different order >> but uh definitely working on both right now. >> Okay. Finance. Thank you. Who else? >> I would say finances, um, employee morale and student outcomes. >> Employee morale. And when you say student outcome outcomes, what kind of outcomes are you thinking? >> Uh, just successful learning, however we're measuring that. >> Okay. So, learning outcomes. Okay. Thank you. um clear leadership to our administrators so they can do
037their jobs effectively which then impacts a lot of things. >> Leadership >> and the community involvement as well or the community voice. >> Leadership of administrators and community voice. >> Great. Thank you. Who else? anything you Yep. K. >> Yeah. So, I I think the the operations piece is important because I think it ties in some of these pieces. So, it's it's the finances, it's communication plans, it's so the operations of the district are important. >> Okay. So, you include finances and communication under an operations umbrella because it is a big very big area. Okay. All right. Yes. >> Nobody's mentioned curriculum or instruction or um guidance in establishing ed educational programs as a former teacher. Pretty important. >> Okay. Curriculum instruction educational programs right that great. Thank you. Yeah, I uh agree with what's
038already been said, but I think that uh the communication and the community relations was a really big one that we were looking for when we were doing the search for the new superintendent. Um and like you said, doing great at it so far, but that was a big key that we wanted to see right away in within the first year. >> Great. Thank you. Okay, I'll come back to you later, Dr. Hy. Okay. Not yet. Um, so it sounds like within these areas there are going to be some priorities and there's some overlap, which is great. I see, you know, board members pointing to some of the same things. Um, what we're going to do is try and winnow this down. Now, one of the things some boards like to do at this point is
039word smith some goals. Um, generally speaking, I found that that can really slow things down because language is so open to interpretation. And it can take a long time to find the right words where everyone agrees what that means. So if we want to talk specifically about goals, we can do that after we go through the elements because maybe by then you'll have something just firing that you know is the right language. Or you could ask Dr. Hy to prepare a goal based on what he's heard from the board tonight. Um sometimes when you're in it every single day, the language around a goal comes pretty easily to superintendents but maybe not to board members. So we can talk about that. The biggest thing is if you're going to go with goals because when you
040look at this book, it says goals and standardsbased evaluation. Goals are one way and if you use goals, obviously you need to make them very specific and very measurable. Some people really are good at writing smart goals and understanding everything that that means. So if you're all in agreement about what goals mean, that can be one way of doing evaluations. And that's the more traditional way of doing it is goals. The other way is using standards and elements, which is what we're going to spend some time on now with this booklet because standards and elements tend to be a little bit more black and white, a little bit more this is what it means. This is what it means. This is what it means versus goals which sometimes can be aspirational and hard to understand
041what's meant. So standards and elements is another way or you can actually marry the two. We have some districts that are able to take goals or goal areas and right here I'm seeing lots of goal areas and under them they plug in um standards and elements because it provides a road map to the board about what to expect as well as the superintendent to know what they are expected to do. So goals just need to be very thoughtfully done and not necessarily just pretty words. um you got to measure him and he has to have some evidence that he met him because otherwise it's too open to interpretation and that idea of it being objective goes right out the window. So we're trying to make it as concrete as we can. So that's goals. The
042examples I give sometimes though that really frustrate me is if there's a board that is so excited about finance that they might make a goal something along the line of balance the budget this year. Well, in some districts, it's impossible to do that in a year's time, and it's also not entirely in the hands of the superintendent. The board has to make decisions about cuts. So, that's way too much out of their control. Um, another one that people sometimes like to use is pass the referendum, pass the levy. Also not in the superintendent's control. That's your voters. Um, now the superintendent could create a communications plan for a levy. um could create talking points, could create a communications plan, could implement things, those are within their control. But whenever someone wants to write a goal,
043um raising two student test scores is another one. Raise student test scores. Well, what do you mean by that? By how much and how will you measure it? And what other factors are at play in test scores? And can they do it in one year's time? Not for a new superintendent. That's too big for the first year. That's more like a three-year goal, right? But he can influence it. there's things within his control, but it's not something he can just, you know, wave a wand and raise scores this year. So, we want you to be fair and goals can be um problematic. Not that I'm discouraging you. I just want to make sure that you know if you're going to use goals, they better be really clear and really crisp. Okay. I am going to
044talk about standards and elements here, which is when I'm going to start asking for Dr. Hy's opinion. But thus far, have I said anything contrary to what you're thinking is the right direction to go? Did I miss anything? >> No. >> Are you doing okay? >> Okay. So then when you look at page 12, I actually have page 12 in hard copy. This is the quiz. I promise. All right. So, we're going to have all eight of you take this quiz. And what I'd like you to do is when you look at this list of the eight standards for superintendents and then all of the elements within those standards and there's anywhere from five to seven or eight within each standard. I'm going to ask you to look at it and just from your gut
045because I know you don't know what these all mean. There's a lot of information in the book. So this is just a temperature check based on what you see when you read these words. I'd like everyone to pick two standards that they think should be the priority for Dr. Hy this coming year. One through eight. Everyone gets to pick two of those. And then I want everyone to go through the elements, these bullet points. Pick two in each. So the top two for you as individuals in each of the standards. So we're going to have 16 total over here and two over here as individuals. And then I'm going to take a quick tally. Does that make sense? What's most important this coming year? Not five years from now. Right now Okay, I'll give you
046another minute or so. And these are not going to be written in stone because I know again you don't necessarily know what each of these means. You haven't had a chance to take a deep dive into the book yet. So, this is just to indicate where we're leaning, but it's not necessarily going to be the beall and endall of the results. Okay. Okay. Is everybody done? I'm going to do a quick tally. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to just have you raise your hands. So, I'm just going to do standards first. Everyone got two of those, right? So, you each got two choices. Um, how many had governance team in their top two? Raise your hand if so. Anyone have governance team in your top two? Zero. How about school district finances? One,
047two, three, four, five. Okay. Communication and community relationships. Are you voting as well, Dr. H? >> Okay. Well, did you vote for the first or second one? >> I will vote for this. >> Okay. So, communication, community relationships. So, we got one, two, three, four, five, and that one. Okay. School district operations, one two, human resources, one, teaching and learning, one, two. Student support zero. Ethical and inclusive leadership one. Okay, so that's helpful. Um, one thing I do want to remind folks is just because you didn't vote for it doesn't mean it's not important. Everything's important. And it's particularly difficult, I think, for boards not to vote for student support or ethical and inclusive leadership because those matter so much. The difference is you might already be doing a bang-up job on student support or
048you've got very ethical and inclusive leadership. So, it's not a priority for this year because you're looking for stuff where you need to move that needle. So again, don't feel bad if you don't vote for something that's really important to this district. It might be it's well in hand and it doesn't need to be a focus for an evaluation purpose if that makes sense. Okay. Same thing for all of the elements. Um and actually Dr. Hy, you had three and six for standards, correct? That you had chosen three and six on the left side. Okay. I'm going to keep track of his responses because when I pull this together tomorrow, I want to compare what the seven elected board members chose compared to how your superintendent chose to look for that alignment between the the
049governance and the management on the team. So, okay, for elements and this just takes a second. You got two in each. So, you got two in governance. How many chose roles and responsibilities in your top two roles and responsibilities? One, two. Goals andor strategic plan. One, two, three, four, five. Policy implementation one information for decision- making one two three four five six and schoolboard questions and development one two okay next budget development and maintenance was that in your top two for finance one two three four five [snorts] financial statements one financial controls. One, two, three, four. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. Okay. Bond and levy. One. Asset protection. One, two. Okay. All right. Under communication and community relationships, how many had relationship with the community in your
050top two? One, two, three, four, and Steve. Engagement in your top two. One, two, three, four, five. Informs the community as a whole. None. Advocacy. Two. One, two. Media, none. Visibility and approachability, one, two, three, four, five, six. Okay. On to operations. How many had facilities in your top two? 1, two, three, four, five, six. And transportation, none. Food service, none. Technology, none. Maintenance, one. And personnel, 1, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Winner winner chicken dinner. Five, six, seven, eight. Okay. Under human resources, internal communications. Did you have that in your top two? One, two, three. Okay. Personnel concerns. One, two, three. Delegate. Delegation of duties. One, two, three. I said to catch myself because someone thought that once said dereliction of duties and so I have to make sure I say delegation.
051All right. Under human resources, what about visibility and approachability? One, two, three, four, five. Hiring and staff development, one. Collective bargaining and the union relations, one. Evaluation, zero. Okay, getting down there. Teaching and learning. How many had staff development in your top two? One, two, two. School improvement. One, two, three, four, five. Curriculum and instruction. One, two, three, four. Professional knowledge of teaching and learning. One, two, three. Culture of cooperation. One, two. Okay. And finally, student support is our seventh. How many had student engagement feedback in your top two? One. Student attendance. One. Two. Support for students. One, two, three, four. Student discipline. One, two. Culture of cooperation. One, two, three. School safety and security. One, two, three, four. Emotional health and social needs. None. Okay, great. And lastly, standard eight. How many had ethics
052and professional behavior in your top two? One, two, three, four, five, six. Interactions with staff, students, and the community. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And uh, professional practice, one diverse communities, none. Cultural competency, one, two, two. and equity plan implementation. None. Okay, that was very helpful. Thank you. So, now we're going to say, first of all, thank you for doing that quiz, not knowing what those mean because too often someone says, well, I didn't know what that meant or I would have voted for it. Right? That's why I'm saying this is just a temperature taking of direction. Correct? Well, when you look at it, there were a couple of pretty big pretty big winners. So, for example, we had eight votes for personnel under school district operations. That's unanimous. That's really that's a
053priority. So, we might want to take a look at what that means. Uh, we had there were a couple of sevens. I thought there was a seven on interactions with staff, students, and community under ethical and inclusive leadership. So, seven um and that one aligned with the superintendent as well. So, a majority of the board as well as the superintendent. Let me see if there's another seven. I don't think so. Okay. And then there were a number that were six. So, for instance, um information for decision- making up on the top governance team information for decision- making had six. Financial controls under standard two had six. [snorts] Visibility and approachability under standard three, head six. Facilities under operations, head six. And then we're jumping down to ethics and professional behavior head six under the very
054end. So, if we're looking for six, seven, or eight of the eight of you, six, seven, or eight, that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven elements, which would be a lot to evaluate your superintendent on, and they're spread out across five of the eight standards are spread across. Now, interestingly enough, and there's no explanation necessarily, under teaching and learning, um, let's see, that was the superintendent's focus as well as communication, community relationships, but in teaching and learning, nothing had six votes or more. So, that's just one area where he might know more about what's needed in terms of teaching and learning than the rest of the board does. So, we can revisit that and see if that's something you might prioritize. So, we're going to try and winnow this down a little bit. So,
055let's just go to the one that had unanimous. All eight of you chose personnel under school district operations. So, in your booklets, if you turn to page four, this will start to be where things might make a little more sense and to get back to how does a school board who's never been a superintendent evaluate a superintendent. So, on page 16, school district operations, all eight of you voted for ABCDEF personnel. That's at the very bottom of that page. So if you look at school district operations standard 4 element F the personnel if you want if he wants to get this is a four-point scale a four-point liyker scale one through four. If he wants to be highly effective Dr. Hy must ensure that your sites are staffed appropriately and that staff receive ongoing professional
056development. Then you kind of slide down toward being less and less effective. If he's going to get a three, most sites are staffed appropriately. Staff receive ongoing professional development. So, it's most sites instead of ensuring all of the sites. A developing superintendent would ensure that multiple sites, oops, a developing superintendent would have multiple sites that lack appropriate number of staff. Professional development is offered but not very much used. And then an ineffective superintendent. staff level is inadequate across the district with no professional development offered or if offered it's not utilized. That's an ineffective superintendent right there. So, a couple of comments. The reason we have a four-point liyker scale is that neutrality doesn't do anyone any good. And lots of people want a five-point scale so they can pick three and you just ride the
057fence and say it's not good, it's not bad. I just I'm right in the middle. We don't want neutrality with evaluations. We want there to be movement. So, we force you to get off the fence and with a two or a three, even if you're in the middle. So, generally speaking, a four-point scale we find more effective. Now, we also recognize that some of these are similar enough where you might have the full board, including your superintendent, evaluating him as a three or a four or a two or a three or a one or a two. They're going to be shoulder partners kind of because there's still there's still some opened interpretation in here. However, if you find out that board members, the seven of you have given Dr. Hy an average of 1.9 on
058this and he's done a self-evaluation and gave himself a four, there's a very big disconnect of understanding what he's accomplished that year. So, if it's ones to threes or twos to fours, there's a conversation that needs to be had because you're not understanding things in the same way. and we want you to understand them the same way. I'm going to take another one here. Any questions on this for now? Because we're going to circle back to it. But okay, I'm going to take another question, please. So, when you know, you think personnel. So, to me, it's just um the four is professional development and staff appropriately. To me, it's more than that. It's effective leadership. It's your personnel of are the right people on the bus in the positions. And so when I we went
059back to what was my most important thing, do we have the right people leading and are they leading effectively? So are we able to as we get down to things add on more specifics? Yes. In fact, I have this document in a word form. So if you want to change language, as long as everyone agrees to it, you can certainly do that. And I'll give you one example of when that happens. So we just recently had a board where finance was really, really important. So if you look back at standard two, school district finances on page 14, this was interesting because when it came to school district financing, now in your case, financial controls got six votes. So 2C on page 14, six of the eight of you chose financial controls, including the superintendent. So
060in this case, a highly effective superintendent would promote appropriate financial controls, including third-party audits and reconciliation of accounts, and that they implement preventative measures to protect school district finances. And then you kind of slide down until an ineffective superintendent, the annual audit reveals areas in needs of improvement, and financial accounts are not in order. So there's that sliding scale of one through four. Six of you felt that was important and only one of you voted for ass no two two people voted for asset protection. Now in this district once people kind of read and I don't want you to read everything. I'd read just number four. I'd read the four all the way down here. When they read asset protection someone in this other district said that's what I meant. I would have voted for
061it if I knew that that's what it meant because to them protecting the school district's fiscal health by continually seeking efficiencies and identifying new sources of funding such as grants and investment opportunities. Also following your policies and procedures to ensure funds and property are secure and that the he um would base his recommendations and decisions on school district approved priorities and needs. it's a lot meteor. And so that board chose to switch votes around and go with asset protection because that's what they really really meant. They even changed it from asset protection to fiscal responsibility. That spoke to them. They thought that made a lot more sense. And now maybe if on the elements that it said fiscal responsibility, you would have voted for it instead of asset protection because who knows what that means.
062That's why we really want you to read through this um before making any final decisions on what elements you want to choose if you choose this route. Okay, I'll give you one last example and then I'm going to turn it back over to the board and let you just talk about this with one another. But I'm going to go to Okay, communication and community relationships really important to everybody. Page 15. So in that one, relationship with the community had four, engagement had five, and visibility and approachability had six of you choose visibility and approachability. At least your gut check, your first choice, right? Well, we don't want you have don't want you to have all three of those. That's three in one area and you're going to end up with way too much to evaluate,
063Dr. Hyon. So, if you read through the highly effective for A, B, C, DE, E, and F, is F the really really the one you'd want there, or is there another one that more accurately captures what you want when you're talking about communication and community relationships? Okay, >> Dr. Hyle has demonstrated that he's a natural at visibility and approachability. So I would I would shift my sentiment towards a a deeper level and that would be the engagement part is that he's he connects with people and I would say then that's a natural skill. You may disagree but I don't think we will disagree on that. that how do you tap into those connections with people to gain input on improving the school district? So, I I would advocate that engagement is more important. It's very
064interesting because a district I work with last month did the exact same thing that they felt that visibility and approachability was too low too low of a bar. They're already at everything. So, that's not a stretch. We wanted something that's going to move the needle. So, they ended up choosing one of the others because of that exact same reason. Correct. Correct. So, um before I turn it over to you, I would say if you have time tonight to read four on every single page, that will tell you how big the job is. I would say I know of one district and I tried to talk him out of it went through and they wanted to evaluate the superintendent on every single element and there's got to be 50 to 70 of them and that's because
065they read through the number fours and they realized how enormous the job was and they thought all of those were important and I couldn't prioritize it no matter what we tried. But that'll give you an idea of what a superintendent does. Read the fours and some of them you're going to go, "Oh yeah, got it. Already doing it. No problem. So, what do we want to focus on this year? It also takes emotion out of it, I think, because sometimes, believe it or not, schoolboard members do not get along with their superintendent very well. There are times that there's personality clash or there's grudges or there's disappointments. For whatever reason, people don't like each other very much. And that's okay. If your superintendent who you don't like, you've identified that they should um seek out
066and provide opportunities for input from external groups and individuals and they use that input in decision-m processes. If you chose 3B, even if you don't like them, but they are clearly doing that because they can prove evidence that they're doing it, you have to give them a four. Now, on the flip side, we sometimes have people who have great relationships. The superintendent is a friend of people on the board. They have coffee together, they who knows vacation together, you never know. If they're not doing their job, it doesn't matter how much you like that person, you have to give them in that case if they demonstrate a lack of regard for input and influence of external groups and individuals. I don't care if you like them. You just you can't give them anything higher than
067a one. So, it tries to make it objective. That's the whole goal of the elements being so specific. It's a road map for you to understand what he's got to do to be rated a four and it clarifies for the superintendent what he needs to do to be rated a three or a four. So I will now stop talking for a moment and I'm going to ask Dr. Hy first of all how are you feeling about some of the things that the board prioritized and then we'll toss it out to everybody have some conversation. [clears throat] >> Yeah, I mean it's good. It's again this is I'd like to be for four for in every area. So, it's a matter of, you know, what are some good stretch goals to improve myself as a person
068too and a superintendent. >> As uh Barb said too, we want to the nice thing with Dr. Hy is he's got the experience like you said, you've seen it. You know where you need to be. You see him engaged in the community and things all that immediately while he's handling everything here. But, you know, if it would be nice if we could just clarify and, you know, keep this to like you'd mentioned a couple of the standards and then maybe looking at the six, sevens, and eights and clarifying just like Gary did with that one because when I was looking at visibility and approachability, I was thinking that was a nice encompassing um area there that we could work with for an element, but spec specificity when we've got some uh a superintendent with some
069experience, I think, is even more helpful and so I think that's as we go through as Barbin mentioned read all of these pick the six sevens and eights and let's get a manageable number and make sure we are definitely in the areas we want to be I mean like even over here and we're talking facilities there might be a more appropriate thing facilities look pretty good I know we're talking about w and all that and doing some studies right now but maybe that's something that's in the process and so we can focus so that would be my takeaway way is to make it a manageable number because there was what did you say for six sevens and eights there must be for the elements there must be five or six. Yeah, that's quite a few
070especially if he wasn't experienced in the chair he is. So maybe that's not a bad number to look at just >> I'm just going to stop talking now and let you facilitate a conversation with the board. So, I'm just going to listen in unless you have questions for me. Thank you. >> Yeah. And I noticed that um Dr. Hyle asset protection under finance was important and when we looked at the at the different elements and the fours um as Barb indicated too there's a lot of meat there and it and in my opinion it affects a lot of the other you know areas and um I think there's some combination that can happen with in evaluating Dr. Hy on the [clears throat] things that he sees as opportunities or important and in evaluating him in
071those taking that into consideration because it's obviously something that is that there's passion there or he sees opportunity there. So, >> I would just add too that um an item perhaps not to include in this evaluation would be about facilities since we already have a facility audit in place with some timelines established for community input and a report out. Obviously, I'd want Dr. how to be obviously aware of it and ensure that it gets completed. But to me, that's a big initiative that doesn't necessarily have to be part of his evaluation that I just make the assumption as superintendent, he will support Paul and and lead that process through as it was laid out to us at our last meeting. So, I would put that on the table. you you'll send out a uh a
072summary evaluation with also because I wasn't watching on Dr. all of his comments and if I marked a couple in here but so we can see kind of things he's looking at things we're looking at to coord coordinate also. >> Yes, I will be able to put this together in a much prettier document where it'll have um everything the board as a whole prioritized in red and then it'll be in blue if it also is something Dr. Hy prioritized. So, where there's red and blue on the same line, it means that the majority of the board and the superintendent were aligned in that area. And I'll be able to get that done for you um tonight or tomorrow. So, for example, with the asset protection, as we were kind of talking about, that comes from
073conversations from Paul and I and um May and June about where the budget sits and what we're sitting and what we see as financially for the district, where our assets are, where our buildings are, and all of that. So, that's um Paul and I working together to get Wold in here because it's something we need to do. if we don't get a full look at the district, we're going to have some really, really hard questions at the end of this year to answer. Um, [clears throat] so we need to get all that information forward. So I that's a really big one. And then if you talk about uh the community input, um, we'd kind of talked about that engagement piece. That's why we needed to go to task force, right? We need the community to
074have the discussion to talk about it. It can't be Dr. house plan, right? It can't be the school board's plan. It's got to be the plan that the community agrees upon or the eight of us will get barbecued, right? So, I hate to use that term, but that's it. It's we've got to get the information out there and we've got to let the in a in a time frame where the community um can discuss it and have some conversation with us because Paul and I, we discuss this almost every day. We can't cut our way out of this, right? We have to do some we have to get the strategic plan in order to get the strategic goals set. Part of those strategic goals is really stewardship is what we're talking about. So how how
075do we work with our finances and our facilities so that we can move our students forward educationally but still represent our community, the facilities and the finances at their top. And so yeah, it's kind it's a big ball all jumbled together, right? >> We're kind of in a unique situation with a new superintendent. I think all of us had pretty much when we were looking for that candidate had kind of focused on communication and finances, you know, so we do have some strengths going on. And I think that's, you know, maybe in a year or two or three as you're looking down the road, maybe all of a sudden that comes to the forefront again. But I think we've got one. I'm not saying to change a thing. But what I am saying, what I
076do want to ask Dr. is where do you feel comfortable? I mean, because she said you can get into 50some standards, you can get into four. And I don't want to see four and I don't want to see 50. what what I mean again with the experiences you've had, the things you're working on, you know, so we want to we don't want to cut you a break too early, but we also don't want to overwhelm you when you know we're looking at the forest out there and we still got some trees we got to cut down. It that's it's just hard to answer because so many of them feed into each other, right? So that that's a hard way to answer to say well four is enough or seven's too many or because it just
077depends on on everything that we need to do. So [snorts] >> um I appreciate um and it shows who you are that teaching and learning was your first. I mean you truly are here for kids and that's coming across in everything you're already doing. um humorous that I didn't put that as first because being the former executive director here of teaching and learning I thought it falls more under operations. We need the effective leaders to work with the effective administrators who really deliver that. And so um that's why I was asking about words smithing and how do we word smith some things because but I sat here as you said teaching and learning like yep he's here for the kids and so appreciate that. >> Um I think finances has to be a focus. It
078just it just has to right now. Um, otherwise my top focus would be something I don't know which one would be the best pick, but something that addresses the employee morale and um dysfunction that staff members have struggled with and affects their ability to do a good job. Our goal is to be here for the students and I think we have to work with the staff first in order to be effective there. So, um, before we read the force, um, all of the team here, I was the lone person that didn't have element 8B interactions with staff, students, and community because I thought there was, you know, everything's important, right? But when you read that, I think that encompasses almost what Angie just said um to to to a piece, but it's so scaffolding on
079other areas that I think that should be I would change my vote. So, we'd be unanimous. So, It is good that when we go through the elements, we did pick out two in each of the areas, too. So, in a sense, we're going to address a little of everything and maybe not just focus, you know, on the financers, you know, under this two standards we picked out of there, too. that maybe that's just like I said, maybe we're in a unique situation that we've that's the person we cho chose to come in here to lead our district is good in the standard. So, we did a good job and we were searching. So, [clears throat] there are times where it [snorts] ends up being the elements are far more indicative of where the board wants
080the district to go than the standards. And so sometimes they don't even choose two standards. They just end up with six or seven elements in a whole bunch of different standard areas because those rose to the top. Um I think it is also easier if you do have an opportunity when you go through and read for instance on page 22 um and you read ethical and inclusive leadership and you read one two three four five six. You read those you're going to get a sense for oh yeah that's what we need to do this. That's that's this year. We need that this year. So, it's much easier than just asking you to pull it out of the sky with what you think these mean. So, one thing you could do is I'll send this back
081tomorrow. Um, I usually pull it together and send it to the superintendent and the board chair and just say, "Hey, here's the results of the preliminary one." And then when you come back in another, I don't know when your next meeting might be, you could have a little deeper conversation now that you've had a chance to go through and read it more thoughtfully and kind of revote if you want so you don't feel like tonight we're kind of pushing you in one direction because once you have a chance to read it, people always do say, "Well, this this isn't what I meant." And so you'll end up with five to maybe five to eight elements. If they're really high bars though, I would encourage you to keep them closer to the three or four kind
082of to Dr. Hy's point because it depends. And the one that people very often pick in the first year is that visibility and approachability. And there are boards that say they already doing that. That's like I said, that's not going to push us. And so they want something more difficult. If they were all easier, you could have eight, no problem. If there's some that are really like sometimes school safety and security comes up to the top, that's a heavy lift based on what the element describes it to be. Um that's on page 21 at the top 7F. That's a lot, especially if districts have no system systemwide plan in place yet. And so for districts that have not yet addressed school safety appropriately, you might only be wanting to look at two or three elements
083that year because they're going to spend all their time and energy trying to make sure they even get close to being a three or a four on that one because it's so big. So it's all in context with what you already know about your district, what you know about your strengths. Then you can come to what feels appropriate for this coming nine months. That's really all you have left is nine months. So, you can revisit this at your next meeting once you've had a chance to read through the book and you just circle the ones you like. I can leave a bunch of blank ones of this if you want to do it again or you could do it some other way, but I don't want to feel like you have to do tonight what
084you're leaning toward. But it does sound like finance and communication bubbled up at least to an outsers's ears that those areas feel because they all tie into trust. You Dr. Hy talking about the big ball. They're they're all so interconnected. So, where can you focus this year to move you in that area? And maybe goal areas will work better than actual goals. I mean, trying to craft language, unless someone loves to write and loves to write goals. Um, maybe [clears throat] instead of goals, you just have goal area, communication, community relationships, and you plug in a couple. Finance and you plug in a couple. Teaching and learning, you plug in a couple. And it's maybe the goal areas are kind of the standards and it's not you don't have to word smith three or four
085sentences. It's just the area and then the elements. That's the simplest way I think to do a review. But it's not my review. It's yours. So how are you feeling about this so far, Dr. Hy? Is it moving in a direction that makes sense based on what you've learned the last couple months here? >> Yeah. Yeah. [clears throat and cough] It's going in a good direction. I mean, it's hard to pick out some of these because I want to be four in every one. That's my problem. So, I mean, I'll admit that. So, it's just you some are big, some take time. School safety and security. We already dealt with that once this year. We found we found a few gaps that we're going to that need to be taken care of. So, it's, you
086know, um that one I can tell you for sure I'm working on. Do you feel we're off in any area of discussion? >> Actually, I kind of looked a lot of the ones were that's four and above. I'm one of them. So, I I think we're all very likeminded right now. I think I think with all of our conversations that we have or when I call an update or or if you call me with a question or anything, I I think it's nothing ever caught me off guard because I think it's something we're all thinking about right now and that we're worried about. I mean, finances, I mean, I don't think there's a superintendent anywhere that should we should always be worried about finances, right? Because it's really stewardship back to your community. Um, but
087it's also stewardship to our students, making sure that they get what they need and making sure that our curriculum and instruction is top tier and that we can afford to do it. So, like I said, it all strings together. The f I mean, for top tier curriculum instruction, we need finances. Like I said, at all school safety, we need finances. and you know uh it it does all come together you know in the end. So >> do you want to revote on anything tonight now that you've looked at a couple of things on here or is this a good place to start and to think about again? We're not going to walk away with the decision made tonight. However, it is something I'd encourage you to decide as soon as you can because the months
088are passing pretty quickly and you do want to do an evaluation with Dr. Hy midyear and end of year. based on something, right, >> Barb? Where do we end up with like under school district finances? How did our profile kind of look? >> Uh, budget development and maintenance had five votes, financial statements had one, financial controls had six, bond and levy had one, and asset protection had two. Sometimes people when they've read it switch their vote to asset protection as I mentioned. >> That's what I would advise my fellow school board members to take a look at because I feel like financial controls are in pretty decent shape for the district. And I think our need is more in asset protection. If you just take if you read those two, I think I would advocate
089a reassessment, >> you know, then we got to look at, you know, these the budget development and maintenance kind of does fall together. The controls like you said, too. It's um, you know, yeah, let's read through them. I I I think what we need to do is get specific in here. As far as changing a vote tonight, I think in order to change a vote tonight, we should spend an hour reading through all of them. But I'm I'm not really willing to do that right now. I think we should take our own time to look at those and then come with our own, you know, that doesn't mean, Gary, that we wouldn't change in there. And I think we will be flexible. Um I think you know my my order again would be to read
090through all of them and let's get if if we look at just six through eight that we picked out in the elements you know there's seven of those right there even if we stuck rigid to that standards that's a lot of things to already evaluate on the first year uh and you know are we focusing then on the finances then we come back maybe it is asset protection but I don't know that's that's What I'm thinking is let's let's have a chance to digest it a little bit and then say, you know what, I really do think assets maybe is a little more important than controls because we do have a full-time business manager. Not every school district has that as an example which helps develop the budget and all those things. Just my thought.
091I'd like the chance to read through these and put some thought into it. But I mean, I agree with your thoughts on asset protection. I'll probably be changing a couple of my votes. >> Well, and I'm not advocating that we do it now. I'm just saying as you ponder this, I >> protection might be more of a need. >> No, I I agree. I now that I can read through the definitions and have a little more understanding of what you each one states and what's all in there. Yeah, I'd definitely like to read through them all before revoting again. >> I do have Dave. I do have one question for Barb. Um, and this question was asked of Dr. Hy at our last meeting. We went through a strategic planning process about a year and
092a half ago. And probably a concern we have as a board is that the implementation didn't go as effectively as it probably could have prior to Dr. Hile's arrival. And I just would like your perspective on school districts that are in the spot that we're in a year and a half old strategic plan that did not fully get implemented. And Dr. Holl when we had the question posed to him last time he met was there may there may be good good ideas in that strategic plan and we don't start the process over again. But what would your guidance be with a year and a half old strategic plan and a new superintendent on board? >> Has there been much board turnover since a year and a half? >> No. >> Okay. So, I think it's
093still relevant then and I'm sure that it was not an inexpensive endeavor to gather all of that information. It's not that long. So, I would say that if it's a year and a half old, there's still a lot of really good data to be mined out of that. and now it's just a matter of turning it into some implementation steps and maybe some superintendents have more strength in the planning than the implementation and others vice versa. So if there is things in there that could be created and crafted um again you want a plan that's going to be three to five years out and it's a year and a half. So, I think you should still stay with it from what I understand unless the board has significantly changed over and there's new priorities which
094you're not or the district itself has had some significant changes in a year and a half. Major changes across the district might mean a change in direction but otherwise I think you should use what you've got and move forward with it. Just my two cents though. >> So, I thought a lot about that. [clears throat] So I think I'm next not our board meeting but next work session I think we'll go through a little strategy and we can use a little AI to generate some stuff for us and then we can have the conversation about what the strategic plan is and I think we can make it more hours. There's a lot of good parts in it and I don't want to take away there was a lot of community meetings. There was a lot
095of time. There's a lot of energy both by the board, community members, staff, students that was put into that. And I just I don't think it's I think how it's put together, there's pieces of it that people can't grab on to. So they don't know what that means. They know what this is, but they don't know what that is. So I think we can make it all jive and then move forward. So I think we'll just have some fun next next uh work session and yeah and see what we can come up with. >> So what I'm hearing is you'd all like some time to digest the booklet and as you read through this, let's just shoot high. Let's shoot for fours and use your booklet and just read all the number fours in every
096single element. Circle the ones that speak to you so that when the time comes to revote, and I can leave the hard copies if you want and someone else can tally, it'll be easier to plug them in because it'll be a more informed decision. This again was just to see where you're at with it. So, I think that's a good idea if everyone's okay with that. I'll still put together the who said what on this one based on tonight's information knowing that that could also change now that you've had a little bit more time to think about it. Do you see anything in any of the areas that you might be asking Dr. Hy to um prioritize [clears throat] where the board could adopt a goal of your own to support him in moving the
097district forward? The easiest one is bond and levy, which didn't rise to the top here. But if you had a referendum coming up next fall, maybe you could task him with creating the talking points for the referendum. And then the board goal would be our goal is to memorize each and every talking point and go with him to community meetings. You know, that would be a board goal to support the superintendent. Is there anything in communication right off the bat? Maybe in finance that you could see a board goal accompanying it. You don't have to. I just want to reinforce the idea of partnering with your superintendent so that he's accountable to you and you are accountable to him and you move things forward together. That's just the the idea behind the board having a
098goal or two of their own. Don't have to think about it tonight and decide, but is there a possibility there that you could revisit that? There's always possibility, right? It's just what is our role because we're governance and he's management. So, we don't want to overstep and do his job and we don't want him doing our job. And so, sometimes at the end of the conversation after your next meeting, it isn't even the end result that matters so much. It's the process you took to get there and the dialogue you had at the board table. That's what's most important. You learn a lot about each other when you start talking about this stuff. So that'll be the value of the journey as much as the destination with whatever you land on for the next nine
099months. Um, one other thing that I'll share before we start wrapping up is we get we do get asked about 360 degree reviews. Um, that is something that people have used quite a bit in the private sector especially to evaluate folks is to see what other folks think of their performance. And when it comes to a superintendent evaluation, we do see two instances that that is um, highly [clears throat] effective. Now, a 360 might mean that the the board sends out a survey to staff, administrators, and parents and students, and you ask for feedback from all of those different groups. We would suggest you survey them on culture and climate instead of the performance of the superintendent. So if you do a 360 as a board, you can invite feedback on culture and climate and
100you'll get a lot of great stuff because ultimately the superintendent leads the culture and climate of the district that he has an effect on that. So that's one survey I think that is um appropriate. The reason we don't think it's appropriate for the board to give away basically your authority to evaluate them, you're giving it away to people that might have an axe to grind or that don't understand what the superintendent does. And it's always an anonymous survey. So, can you imagine if you ask, you know, parents at large, staff at large, evaluate on a scale of one to four, how is Dr. Hy doing? You're going to get people on the opposite ends. People that love the work he's doing and people that really dislike the work he's doing. And it might be because
101he's implementing policies that they don't like and he's doing a good job. I have not yet met a leader who is beloved by 10,000% of the people that work for them. You just can't. You have hard decisions to make. So that that feedback is not constructive when that's all you're getting is anonymous pros and cons. And as I mentioned, it's your job. This is your only employee. So we don't want you giving away your power to stakeholders to evaluate him because it's your job. So culture and climate will feed it. The second time a 360 can be really useful is if they themselves do it. And many superintendents like to send out 360s to ask for feedback from staff and administrators or parents. How can I be a better leader? What what can I do
102that will make your job better? And it still might be anonymous, but that data belongs to the superintendent as a professional development tool. And he may choose or not to choose to bring it to the evaluation, but it's a different slant, you know, versus asking people to evaluate him. He's asking people to evaluate him for his own growth. Those two times are very, very good. Otherwise, generally speaking, we've seen it go sideways pretty quick where people use the opportunity to um critique him unfairly and then you might hear it, you might get a biased report and we don't want bias to enter your job as the evaluator of the superintendent. So, food for thought. Um you certainly may use 360s if they're productive and you think it's a tool that will work in Albertly area,
103then use it. I just in some guard rails so that people don't spam, you know, with a hundred responses that are from the same person because they figured out how to get around the system. They can also be very destructive. So, I don't have any more for you tonight other than I will report back tomorrow with something like this, but beyond that, I'm going to leave it in the board's hands to decide what you want to do next. So, what plan would you lay out, >> Chair CL? I think uh I'd like to get your um feedback and your summary tomorrow and then let everyone take a look at this and then we'll forward out the summary that you sent to Dr. myself and then uh put together uh see if there's anything maybe we'll
104make comments on if there's any changes we want to make and see if that comes out as a uh and then we need to probably before our next study session because it'd be of course you said by next year but I would like to we've talked before with Mary Joe and I about trying to get something done by early in the next year or late in this year to give some good little direction for the rest of the here and um then as you mentioned use a couple different uh tools in the next couple years and do some alternating I know is I discussions I would like to have as a group so it doesn't get a stale and it doesn't give away what we need to do so but but yeah as far as
105immediate I would say let's get that information let's comment on it let's settle in on what we decide is some elements to to evaluate and let's put together an evaluation what we decide when we should when we should have it before July for sure next year. So that's my thought anyway. >> Do you have a sense of what date you might be able to approve something then for this year's evaluation? Would you shoot for it at your next work session or next board meeting? When would you identify the four to eight elements that So, I'll put those in my my draft also. >> Much as I'd hate to say it, that's November already, isn't it? The next one. >> I know. end of the year. >> What if we did um since we've already done
106this worksheet, what if we sent out an electronic form worksheet and we all after we had a chance to look through it, filled it out and had it back to Darcy and she could populate it and then we could have that as a for our next board meeting. So, um the full the business meeting. Yeah, because we'll have the if we're working on the other deal in November for the study session, it would be a good >> a good item. >> Yeah. To have this before. >> Yep. >> When is your next business meeting then? >> It's the 20th. >> 20th. >> October 20th is the next one. Yep. >> So, at that at that meeting, could you potentially come to agreement and approve a set of expectations? So then you'd have eight months left
107to try to meet those things. >> That's great plan. H >> how much time, Darcy, would you need for us to have this back to you? Do you think >> end of the week? Probably >> end of the week. >> I'm out at the end of next week. >> Okay. >> Yeah, that's doable. Well, you have Barb, >> the only other thing I'll mention is sometimes board members want concrete examples of progress. And so in if you go to page 27 in the appendix, page 28 per se, it says A1. These are things that Dr. Hyle can use if he needs to support to prove that he's done the things. Even though the elements we think are pretty clear road map, he sometimes needs to prove he's done it with evidence. So there's some samples
108on page A1, A2, and A3 of what those might be because there are some boards, you know how we're leftrained or rightrained. There's some boards that are whatever side brain is, they want a checklist of I got this and this and this and that proves that he did these things. So this could be 10, 12 pages. I'm sure there's way more you could use as evidence, but that's something that's helpful for some boards is to look at the proof and what you expect that to be. Just trying to make sure there's no open to interpretation kind of stuff. I don't have anything else for you other than to say I feel like you're off to a really really great start. I'm excited to hear how things have been going. I did get a chance to
109talk to Dr. uh Hy in advance and also Chair Clott and it sounds like you're really doing some phenomenal things for only being a board team for three months. Congratulations on that and thank you very very much. Um I love it when things go well. Other than that, if you don't have any questions for me, that is all I had for the workshop today. I'm just thinking um so yes, we're going to put our data together, but whoever said it, whether it was Kim or Barb talked about Dr. Hy being here and just running already of I guess if there is input to say, you know, think about this too because this is something we're really working on or it's really the gap and I think I need to focus on that. I think that'd
110be great to be part of that discussion. So, [clears throat] kind of top of my head, it's, you know, Paul and I really had a lot of conversations about bringing Wald in about that study about getting the whole community. I don't, as far as I can tell in the history there, the community's been asked but never really involved like with that task force. That's going to be a heavy lift. We do have to have we by the end of this school year we're going to have to have some pretty serious questions answered. Um that's going to be a big lift but that's that's in that asset control that's in the um what was that other one? Uh fiscal controls. So that's kind of in that category. Um I think next uh work session we start
111talking strategic plan. That's a lot where that teaching and learning goals um a lot where the literacy goals are going to need to come out. But also those help a really strong strategic plan is that stewardship plan too. Those goals about the finances and about the direction that we need to go. So um that strategic plan is Gary and I have kind of talked about a few times um really helps all aspects of where we go in the district. So we need to make sure that's strong. It really helps. Um, you know, I kind of always look at our model was always learning. I mean, you know, when I looked at applying for this job, I caught that model right away and I was like that that is one of the coolest things a school
112district and I've looked at school districts all over the United States and that's a really really strong motto to build behind. Um, it's a it's a strong symbol yet we don't always feel that in our community. So, how can we make that strategic plan come alive? How do we make sure that our staff really feel the work they do is valued? And that's kind of what Angie's talking about. And so, that's when I say it's like a big ball that's wound together. It really is. It's hard to take one strand out and do that. Um, but I think a lot of the direction that we as a as a board and a superintendent team work together comes from that strategic plan. those strategic directions. How do we talk about our district and and can their
113can our senior class talk about that strategic plan? Right? I mean, that's when you're living it, you hear parents and you hear really high school kids talk about it. So, we're getting there. I met with a group of high school kids today and uh the visibility one, right? He said, "I saw this superintendent once. I saw that superintendent maybe three times." said, "I see you here weekly." So, and that tells me, "Yep, they're seeing me. They're talking." And so, we're having some conversations, but you know, we're talking a little bit about student morale. And and I can tell you that comment of community doesn't necessarily talk about how strong the school is. That's what they talked to me about today a little bit about, you know, we do really good things here, but you know,
114sometimes you get on adult Facebook and it's all negative. It was a really interesting comment, wasn't it, Darcy? So, really interesting comment. Um, and it's I think it's just about how do we package it and then how does everybody believe in it at that point and so um so that's a strong part. So kind of that's under that governance model strategic plan and goals. But but how do you get to the finances? about kind of strategic plan and goals and finances or stewardship is what I would say is part of that. So yeah, it'll be fun. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with that on in November. But in the meantime, look through here. But I do think that asset I I think the stuff we started with W I mean,
115you know, we we got that rolling before I even started July 1. But that's how important that was to myself and Paul. I got to bring him in there on that. um of what we knew we were going to have to do in a year. Um Paul and I, we don't want to see cuts every year. As a board, you don't want to see that either. So, there's some things that we have to look at strategically to get done. So, that does that help kind of answer something? Okay. Well, thank you very much, Barb. We'll look forward to your summary and everyone else's thoughts by Friday. Back to Darcy. So, >> do you want to do that? Do we need to do that as a survey monkey type deal, too, or does it probably didn't
116matter? We're all bored anyway. Okay. Yep. Sounds good. All right. That pretty much exhausts the agenda. Thank you so much for coming. Uh, Monday, October 20th will be our regular board meeting and then next the Monday, two Mondays after that'll be November 3rd will be our we're going to talk about our strategic plan and our next study session. Thank you for coming. Have a great day, evening.