001okay we are ready to go call a meeting to order and uh begin with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to individual with liberty and justice for all do i have a motion to approve the evening's agenda moved by kim nelson second seconded by dave klott all those in favor i post motion carries okay um update meeting overview i think i'll turn it over to uh so are we using them are they they are working then um i have never figured out that system uh ashley is our recording system working and are we broadcasting this okay perfect thank you okay thank you i think i'll just jump into that question right now if that's okay i mean so so one of the things that you want to try to make sure that happens is
002that all of the candidates are on a level playing field so um there may be some savvy candidates in fact savvy candidates will be searching your website and looking for information so if you know if there's discussion which there will be tonight about questions that would be involved in the interview process um you know you may want to hold off posting a meeting or posting that portion of the meeting until such time as you know as the candidates are selected but again that's up to you that's i'd say what most districts do but some post it and and they they find out if there are savvy candidates well good evening thank you again for engaging and having msba as a part of this process we appreciate the opportunity to work with the albert lee school
003board the albert lead district and the albert league community and selecting your next superintendent i there are three key items that we're going to review too kind of thematically tonight the first one would be the stakeholder survey results the second will be information that would be considered interview training and preparation that's really the primary focus of tonight's meeting the third would be we'll do some discussion of round one questions and the round one schedule and we will want to talk that through a little bit uh in terms of the potential number of candidates who you might select to interview in the first round and how that can impact or affect the schedule and then we'll briefly talk about the round two process we'll have an opportunity to do that in more depth in detail when
004we have the candidate selection meeting which i believe is on the 17th of may so i'm going to refer to obviously the agenda that's out in front of you we're going to talk through the survey vacancy brochure review the timeline i'll reference some things in the training manual you'll see that that training manual is quite extensive i will not read through the training manual line by line but i will reference some of the key points there that we think are important to talk about and then we'll talk about round one questions round one schedule and some possible around two information as i mentioned so let's start with the stakeholder engagement superintendent search survey results the first thing i want to mention is you should feel really good about the fact there were 616 individuals or
005respondents on the survey i think that's really an outstanding response we it typically and it's kind of a wonky statistic about 12 percent of the student population of a school district is what we see on an on the average in responses that's i'm not that statistically wonky but we do have people in the msba office who are and they look at that information and that's so 12 would be around 425 that would have been an average response for your district you have 616. and you have quite a mix of parents staff members community members uh business members etc i think the another key point is that the survey results uh reflect the kinds of things that you talked about in your vacancy brochure so collaborative leadership honesty and ethics being able to develop and direct
006an effective leadership team being a problem solver an effective communicator those are all key things that showed up in the survey alright excuse me in your in the survey and your vacancy brochure some of the other pieces that were i think important themes that showed up out of that survey information and expertise in budget and finance public relations curriculum development and evaluation the the whole idea of strategic planning or school reform diversity equity and inclusion having that as a an area and as i'll indicate to you when we talk about the round one questions the round one questions are designed to reflect any number of those items from both the vacancy brochure and from the survey so i think that's important when you move through the survey there are some themes that came out of
007the comments that were made in the survey and this these comments are uh the comments that you see listed are those that are representative of those themes so that they were recurring uh and they weren't just an isolated one or two kind of responses they were more representative of multiple responses so some of the good things taking place in the albert lee area schools albert lee area schools has caring capable collaborative staff that goes above and beyond for each student so a lot about staff the community is excited about the advancement the district is making to facilities professional development student academic success and student access to technology the albert lee school district does everything it can to meet student needs through a variety of curricular co-curricular and extracurricular programs a lot of positive comments there
008in terms of some of the challenges the community has divergent visions for the district moving forward they want the next superintendent to bridge the gap between the differing opinions and rebuild the trust in the community the elbert lee community understands the district is having trouble recruiting and retaining staff they would like the district to address the dwindling staff morale and mistrust between staff and administrations that's a theme the albert league community would like the district to focus on improving student engagement and academic achievement they're concerned about the impact the pandemic has had on student learning and motivation the community wants the district to implement programs to address student mental health and discipline the community wants the next superintendent to be visible collaborative strong communicator both in the district and the community the community wants next
009superintendent to be personable strong-willed transparent supportive and have strong leadership skills albert lee wants the next superintendent to help rebuild trust between the community the district the staff the administration the albert lee community wants the next superintendent to understand the history and demographics of the community and then additional comments uh the albert league community wants the next superintendent to be collaborative and have strong leadership skills so again as we've done a number of surveys like this with other districts these are not uncommon kinds of things that you see i think particularly with some of the tough times that districts have gone through with the pandemic and issues surrounding the pandemic and you know all of those kinds of things so any questions on the brief recap of those survey results yeah that's corrected okay all
010right i think that's a question um you know if there's something you could certainly you could you could post on your website if you chose to uh it is a public document so you can elect to do that that's i think up to the board to decide is in terms of what you want to do with it correct yeah that's i believe you are i don't have access to those full list of responses but that's something that we could check with the msba staff on yes yeah we we we apologize for that that's been corrected and it's is just up on the board it is corrected yes any other questions sir all right so one of the things that's important is uh there are really a couple of different input opportunities for the stakeholders in
011the district this is really the big one so as as you start thinking about the candidates that you're going to want to move forward to interview for the position of superintendent of the albert lee public schools keeping in mind the kind of input that you're receiving here is important we'd also encourage you to take a look at the q a session uh and we we have talked about maybe trying to boost that a little bit i think as of three o'clock today there were 31 people who had observed or watched that q and a session so if those numbers can increase that's helpful as well i think just in terms of getting a flavor for the process how the process works and and the data behind that process any other questions on this item so
012the next thing i want to do is uh talk about the review that vacancy brochure and that's something that we talked about in the in the planning meeting in specific i'm going to refer to the second page and the the leadership profile in the upper left hand corner again these are the kinds of things that came out of the input that we received from the school board as a part of that planning process so you're seeking a superintendent with proven leadership experience and some of the keys there are acting with honesty in an ethical manner with the board the staff and the community developing and directing an effective leadership team working cooperatively with the school board in providing options and recommendations being a visionary and creative thinker having experience in school district management practices and
013i know that during that meeting that planning meeting you talked about budget and finance as being one of those management practices that you were certainly interested in following the school board's chosen educational philosophy which reflect the community's values having knowledge of an expertise with negotiations in the collective bargaining process now it's kind of interesting when you look back on the survey there was almost a 50 50 split in terms of should the person have previous superintendent experience so i think your statement previous superintendent experiences preferred but not required really does reflect about that 50 50 split that you saw in those survey results and just again to point out from both the survey and these leadership profile points these are the points that we're helping to inform the draft set of round one questions that
014we're going to talk about a little bit later on in the meeting this evening i also want to mention you've talked about a comprehensive compensation package will be negotiated commensurate with experience and qualifications and that contract length is negotiable is provided by minnesota statute and the maximum length of a contract under minnesota statute is three years and oftentimes that's a typical contract that would be negotiated with a candidate but it doesn't have to be again that's a board decision we talked about in the planning meeting the process for the negotiations of the contract and i think you've laid that out you've got that clear any questions about about that at all from anybody correct yes and if you you know oftentimes uh you if you have whether it's a full committee or a board at
015a meeting or a study session to talk about some contract parameters in advance oftentimes that's the case as well yes in most situations when a new superintendent comes in do you use like the first year as a probationary year or is the norm to go in three years i think most i think most most candidates would probably be looking for a multi-year contract probably a three-year in most cases especially if they're experienced and they're they're sitting in another position they're going to want that but again and you have the the evaluation process on an annual basis to provide that input into terms of how they're doing other questions on on that well let's take a look at the timeline uh the couple of things i want to highlight there may 10 is the application deadline
016and one of the things that's been interesting in the last month or so in terms of a couple of other superintendent searches that i've been involved with and then we do a regular meeting call with all of the people like myself where a project leads and superintendent searches around minnesota and i think we mentioned msba's been involved with about 33 searches this year so one of the things that's something that we haven't seen in the past is that there's like a late flurry of applicants so just a couple of applicants right now and it's like that last weekend it seems like boom they pop but we're not seeing the 15 to 20 applicants or the 20 to 25 applicants that we saw 10 years ago or even five years ago it's more in that six
017to ten kind of range and again a little bit late in the in the process right now you're probably that's that would be a good number of applicants to get so we don't know what's going to happen for sure that would be in a i think in a good setting what we'd hope to see with those applicants two that was as of uh 10 30 this morning so most often people aren't filling out applicants during the day it's that weekend where you typically see the applicants filling things out um so between may 11th and 17th msba will conduct screening and preliminary verification of references and we do some pre-interviews so we'll talk to the candidates we'll talk to references we'll review their papers their applications etc you also will have an opportunity between may 12th
018and 17th to review applications and there'll be a process of being able to receive those applications electronically the one thing that we want to make sure that we really stress is that the applications are private until such time as you name a candidate to be interviewed and it's not the final candidate to be interviewed it's a candidate to be interviewed so when you name your candidates for the first round interview generally that night after you've been referring to candidates as candidate a candidate b candidate e etc then you'll indicate john dill mary smith etc etc are the individuals and then information will be you know available about you know those candidates work history and where they're currently employed and etc etc so just as a reminder you will get those electronically they do need all
019of that information needs to remain private and confidential until such time as those candidates are named to be interviewed if you choose not to review them on the electronic format then we'd suggest you come into the board district office and however whatever kind of process you have to review papers at that point in time would be appropriate those application materials then also need to be kept on file in the district office and i'm fairly confident of these years i think it's two years for candidates who are named to be interviewed in six years for the candidate who's actually selected so for multiple years those those papers will need to be kept in place in private conflict yes yes we will email you a list of recommended candidates for round one interviews and you may agree
020that those are the candidates that you would want to interview but you also may have other candidates you want to interview it isn't totally uncommon for a board to say you know i like candidate c and there may be a question from uh you to me as we're going through that process that evening uh on may 17th um about was there a specific reason that you didn't recommend candidate c generally the reason is we have a team of four people who review all of those applicants and do some of those reference checks and we don't reach consensus that candidate c is at the top of the heap to match your vacancy profile um but again there may be some things that that you see in a particular candidate that's one of the things that we
021want to stress is this really is a school board driven process so if you elect to interview somebody else then that candidate will be contacted and interviews will be set up with them as well we also will make sure that we finalize those round one questions and the schedule and we'll talk about that a little bit more as we move along for that may 17th meeting where you determined that you're going to select the finalists and one of the things that we stress both in in that meeting and when you get to deliberations is that you know you're really focusing on the positive attributes of the candidates and sometimes what we've seen happen in in fact a couple of years ago i was involved in a search like this where the first candidate that ended
022up making it through the process and being offered the position after accepting it initially turned it down and then that the board went back to a second candidate who was a close second and the first question i was asked is was the board positive did were they were they negative about me at all and i was like no they were very positive about you and and the person was more than happy to accept the position so i think it's important to to stay on those positive attributes when you're discussing candidates and if there aren't a lot of positive attributes in in your minds or in the discussion of deliberations or of candidate selection then that's telling as well i think so then may 23rd and 24th are set to be the first round of interviews
023one of the things that that has changed there is that may 24th meeting as you'll note has been shifted to start at 1pm and it will need to be concluded no later than and you'll see this on the schedule we're putting 5 55 pm or earlier because that is a primary election day and there cannot be board meetings between 6 and eight pm on that date now if you elect to move fewer than five or six candidates forward you could potentially and we've had districts that do this interview four candidates on that first night on may 24th but again that's something we can talk about as you get into that candidate selection process but where we're sit right setting right now is you've got six slots for interviews on that round one process may 26
024then is the round two meeting date and then following that there are reference checks and i think at that planning meeting we talked and neil that's uh that you who will be conducting those reference checks of those candidates and um that's between may 24th and may 26th so when you get to your deliberation on the may 26th candidates one of the pieces of data you'll have is your information on the reference checks that you've done to share with the board before you start those actual deliberations about who you are going to determine to offer that position to to be the next superintendent of the albert lee public schools and then the negotiations process starts and you've got a a meeting set for june 6 at 5 00 pm your regular meeting where you would be
025in a position we hope to approve an employment contract for the next superintendent of elbert lee questions on the timeline or anything i've mentioned yeah um one uh some community members uh there are districts who have done something like that on um as they move into the second round typically typically not the first round um but that's something you could discuss and talk about typically what happened before the second round interviews start very very good questions so that the uh msb would help you identify individual or individuals who you might interview the interview is really almost sometimes more of a conversation at a public meeting with a particular interim candidate and there are some you know some questions that we could uh help you with or some probes that you might want to be talking
026about with an interim it kind of in an ideal world you'd really start that process of opening up the application window maybe mid-december or early january so you're really set to start that interview process in late january early february conclude it no later than maybe mid february at the latest probably march 1. so kind of that's the that sweet spot it you know what we've seen is a lot of candidates almost right about that mid-year time that holiday break time uh start thinking about yeah maybe maybe i'm interested in in taking a look at another district and what's out there and so does that answer those questions yeah and how does the second round of interviews work if we if we have our on the 26th we have our reference check and we hold the
027second round of interviews how can that happen on that same day no the reference checks would need to be conducted i'm sorry if i didn't make that clear after may 24th and before may 26th before the meeting right and then how would we who is involved then in that second round of interviews because then we're to select the lone finalists that same night so i'm not understanding the second round of interviews yeah so let's let's just say that you do interview six people in round one and you move two or three candidates into round two you would interview those two or three candidates on may 26th and at the end of that interview night you would deliberate and determine if you have somebody that you feel you want to move forward with and offer a
028contract to so then we on the 24th would have to have made our decision about who moves ahead yes and if you had fewer than six it could be on the 23rd as well but yes yep is that enough time for background checks well it would only be for the finalists right yeah yeah i i think we've seen that uh board member olson we've seen that uh that happened and because you've got you've got that wednesday but you also have then that thursday up until mid afternoon generally and when do you anticipate uh emailing us your recommended list of the first interviews we would try to get those to you probably the 16th or 17th again it it depends on for sure by the 16th or 17th because we have again a number of people
029who are working on those candidates again if there are six candidates doing those background checks doing those pre-interviews etc anything else on the timeline okay so let's move to the school board interview training and preparation manual i think the key here is we really want to talk about things that keep keep everybody on the legal side so we're really talking about things that can and can't happen or shouldn't happen during an interview process and things that should happen during an interview process so i'm going to start by referencing page two there are some don't ask kinds of statements or points that are made there and really the bottom line is that there are both state and federal op prohibit questions regarding protected categories or indirect questions regarding protected categories so some of those are listed
030below uh you know in terms of race national origin age familial status etc you can read through that list of protected categories and an indirect question that might get at the protected categories would be for example that first bullet how much longer do you plan to work before you retire so the answer to that question may reveal information that discriminates with regard to age so again you can look at that do you own a home have you ever filed for bankruptcy what about dependent care etc so really you just need to stay on the side where you don't ask questions that are focused on or referencing those protected categories also avoiding questions that are not job related so that's pages three and four i'm going to start on page three you know questions about um
031will you live in the district so that's one that's come up quite a bit in in different searches that we've been involved in and you know in in terms of school employees including superintendents you can't require a superintendent to live in the district and you really can't ask a question then about would they live in the district a candidate may offer that to you but again that can't be a question that you ask as a part of that interview process where are you married or would your spouse move with you if you got this position or again when we talked about when do you plan to retire or a question about military status you know if the candidate is a member of the national guard for an example you miss work because you're a member
032of the national guard again that's a question that you really can't ask so i just suggest that you look through that information it at some detail but i think i've hit on some of those particular highlights again one might sometimes comes up what does your spouse do for a living and what that question is kind of designed us to say is well is your spouse able to move if you're going to move to the district so that's an indirect way of trying to get at that question i'd like to then next reference page seven uh and you probably have model policy so i'm just referencing some of those policies that you already have in place but i just want to point out roman numeral 2 a the school district does not unlawfully discriminate on the
033basis of race color creed religion national origin sex marital status status with regard to public assistance disability sexual orientation including gender identity or expression age family care leave status or veteran status the school district also makes reasonable accommodations for disabled employees but again that's the legal statement but you have that as a part of your policy as well i also want to then shift to page 10. and at the top of page 10 letter f so the question is when does information become public and we've talked about this just again to note that a finalist means an individual who is selected to be interviewed by the school board for a position so once you select candidate a b and e then those names are public and should be made public at that point in time
034i'll just stop there i'd run through quite a bit of information pretty quickly any questions well you'll yeah you would select them to be interviewed and as soon as the meeting is over with i'll call them and they'll have to determine but you will have already named them as a potential finalist before that yes and you know one of the questions we we ask in our pre-interview although sometimes thing change things change but rarely is you know i'll ask this question very specifically are you really interested in this position because the board's going to invest a lot of time effort and energy and so are you in going through the interview process so we want to make sure if we're going to recommend you to be a candidate that would be interviewed that you are
035interested and you want to move forward and you want to accept the position should it be offered to you i mean that's not a guarantee but we're you know we're pushing that hard yeah uh you know it's it's not typical but it does happen and you know it happens for lots of different reasons i mean the candidate is moving through the process and they're excited and and they they get home after they're offered the second round of interviews and and they tell their family and let's say they have kids that are in high school and they're like i don't think so and so i would hope that you would have maybe talked that through in advance but some sometimes that's not the case um so page 18. uh just that point that we made again
036during the the planning meeting process all of the meetings in this process are open meetings so they are open to the public um anytime you have a gathering of at least a quorum or more members of the school board or a quorum of a committee or a subcommittee then that is an open meeting and it is open to the public and the materials that we review are open to the republic as well so just want to make sure we we reference that and i know that that you guys are doing a good job of that and posting all of that and and following that as well you probably have that policy as well so i'm referencing the legal points of policy that you already have in place and most districts do on page 20. sometimes
037there's a question about especially as you'll see on the round one schedule at the end of the first night one of the statements is the meeting is recessed until in this case 1 pm on tuesday may 24th in the boardroom at brookside education center so once in a while there's a question can we really do that and yes you can that's that point number four under recessed or continued meetings if a reason if a meeting is a recessed or continued meeting of a previous meeting and the time and place of the meeting was established during the previous meeting and recorded in the minutes of that meeting then no further published or mailed notice is necessary so you are moving to that that's a continuation of your first round meeting essentially is what we're talking about
038yes yep yep exactly uh page 27. i'm just going to reference several items in in terms of we label them as common interview mistakes and you can you can read through all of those but i want to again reference that that don't referencing the violations of the don't ask list so make sure that you go back and review those make sure that you stay on top of those one of the things that's important is that all of the candidates are asked exactly the same questions so you don't really get to go off script on those questions it is acceptable to say could you clarify that or could you please explain what sometimes somebody will use an acronym and you probably know this one but let's say pbis and you might say could you help me
039remember and understand what pbis is referring to so you know that would be an example of a clarification question not asking a new question but the other piece and we'll talk about this we get to those questions typically you'll you'll determine around robin's schedule and each of you will ask a question sometimes it's just one person asking but more often we see the entire board asking the questions and we think and i agree that i think that's important it also gets that that candidate to engage with each of you as they're responding to your questions so i think that's important um it's important that there are good questions vague questions lead to vague answers number seven and i think you've you've mentioned this and kind of referenced this we don't want the interview treated like
040a one-way street because really at some level the candidates interviewing you at the same time that you're interviewing them they're going to have an opportunity to ask you some questions at the end of the the interview time period at the end of their hour time period but they're also interviewing you really during that entire time period and and they're they're looking to to see if they think that they're a good fit with you and in the community as well exactly exactly um you are likely to be taking notes on your interview forms um one of the things that happens if those notes are taken as they're part of that interview form those notes should be turned in and retained as part of that interview documentation that's kept on record in the in the district office
041the other piece that as long as we're talking about this part i want to make sure that i mention it is you will be asked to fill out a form at the end of each interview it's called an emd form so for each of the questions there'll be a box and you'll you'll have this electronically and ashley will be working with you on on setting up some time where you can practice that or if you would prefer to do it in paper and turn it into ashley or and or kathy or whoever they can they can input it as well but you'll see that's one of the reasons why there's a 15 minute time frame break if you will at the end of each interview to give you a chance to kind of refer back
042to your notes and fill out that emd form e for each question is exceeds what you would expect the candidate to answer in the questions m is meets which we expect the candidate to ask d is does not meet and then there's an additional one which is a t which we hope we don't get to that means timed out um and what would happen then is you'll see there are like 14 questions uh suggested questions in round one um if the candidate doesn't get through their responses in the allotted time frame then the interview's over and they timed out they didn't they didn't get a chance to answer all of the questions i haven't seen that oftentimes the candidates are they move pretty fast in terms of their responses um the shortest and i don't
043think this was all that great was 17 minutes uh getting through all of the questions and but then you know typically it's going to be in that 45 to 50 minute range i will be sitting somewhere in a place where the candidate can hopefully see me and i'll have a 30 minute and a 5 minute card to show them for the entire interview yes absolutely um yeah i think you keep those through that deliberation process yes it yes through that through that deliberation process correct absolutely yes yeah um this um maybe gets into the question was asked a little bit earlier uh you also don't want to accept the wrong fit um you know you the the bottom line is you're looking for a great fit for the albert lee school district that can you
044know really lead this district forward in the next multiple years so you you shouldn't you shouldn't settle uh is how i guess i would say it if if you don't feel at the end that there's a great fit then there isn't a great fit and then then we'll talk about other options which might include an interim and restarting that process off next year or you know other options as well but just want to make sure that i mentioned that one questions there you'll see in uh pages 29 through 36 35 excuse me there are a whole bank of sample interview questions uh so and they're they're listed by category so as an example personnel management and administration or school board superintendent relations so you can see some sample questions if those are questions that you
045might be interested in and again we'll talk about that uh more as we get to that question section uh there also will be the candidate's turn so that's one thing that you'll might want to just think through and discuss even if you choose to a bit tonight candidates will ask if they have that 10 minute time period hopefully they'll they should be prepared with maybe multiple questions they're going to ask some of the questions might be one individual could respond and you can determine who might respond to that or someone might volunteer to respond or it might be the board chair that responds other questions might be something like what are you most proud about in terms of the albert lee school district what do you really think you know just flies high you'd want
046to put that on a billboard outside of town and each of you might respond to that but again just kind of think through that because sometimes what ends up happening is you're kind of thinking well who should who should respond to that you know again if it's a that kind of question you all might might respond and again the candidates trying to get a feel for what are those things that are that you think are really important but also kind of getting a read for the entire board as well so can you clarify um so if a candidate is has answered all the questions and they have like two minutes left that's what they get for asking questions okay so it's an it's 60 minutes right now because again we want that to be an
047equal time frame for everybody or else you might have a candidate who like just goes on and on and on it takes an hour and a half then you're way behind schedule and somebody's waiting out and then you know it it i think it's important and and i'll talk with them about that very clearly there's an hour here you need to be complete but succinct and clear in your responses and you do want to have time to be able to ask questions of the board at the end as well yes exactly [Laughter] yeah for sure on page 37 just some sample reference check questions but i i would say this just generally um the the best question that i have seen out there that i think is a really good one is simply you're talking
048to that that reference checked tell me about why you think this person is a great superintendent and you know what they'll they'll take off and they'll go on and on or or not and if it's an or not that's pretty telling in terms of your reference but you you might want to if you have any suggestions and neil you know you certainly can determine that you've been involved in interviews before there may be other board members who might have a particular question that you think would be important to ask again deliberating in the public that's on page 38 and the key point that i want to make on on that uh item is really focusing on the positive attributes of the candidate again and we i mentioned that earlier but um you know you'll be
049talking about now a candidate by name and you're going to be referring to the things that you thought you know really maybe match those that candidate profile or the kinds of things that you got in terms of input from the the survey you know somebody who understands budget uh is a good collaborator is a good team builder you know um just be really trying to focus on on the strengths of the candidates and why you think that they're a great match and sometimes that gets that gets difficult sometimes because you're you may want to say yeah i don't really think they they answered question 17 very well well you all know that they probably didn't answer question 17 very well but is there is there a strength that's you can pick up on on the
050other questions or maybe somebody that did answer question 17 really well question 17 is probably a bad example i don't even know question 17 is right in front of me here so questions on that deliberating in public peace oh yeah that wouldn't be a good one to reference i was thinking about that i have a question back on the references yeah so um who who determines or how do we determine who is contacted as a reference um they'll have references listed but we typically would would think that you would want to be talking i i think the most important thing is you're talking to somebody who has a direct employment decision on that individual so if it's a sitting superintendent talking to a board member the board chair or another board member if they have
051them listed or not connect with that board chair the candidates should know that their sitting supervisor if you will would be contacted if it's a person who isn't a current superintendent who is their direct supervisor you know sometimes it's nice that that they have a colleague or a friend that's a you know a nice reference but you're really looking for the person who's making that decision because a good question might be you know given the opportunity would you hire this person for this job again and that's again a pretty pretty telling question right um and then just at the very end and and uh you probably already have this figured out if you look at uh page 39 through 45 that is a sample superintendent contract that is both agreed to by the minnesota school
052boards association and by the minnesota association of school administrators in other words the superintendents um most of the superintendent contracts are like that but and as you start thinking about negotiating that contract the other piece you'll see is that if you have a superintendent that's been in the district for a while they typically have some other things that have been negotiated that may go above and beyond that that core base contract and those are some things that that you can talk about as you start thinking about the parameters for contract negotiations those are the key points that i wanted to make from that interview training and preparation but i would encourage you to read through some of this information again particularly under those areas like don't ask and common interview mistakes etc maybe maybe before
053that first round yes yes it would that very very might be a very good idea yes okay so next time we'll be to take a look at the round one sample interview questions so as you'll see there are questions but really when you look at the the questions there are um there are really 13 there because the first three the name of the candidate the date of the interview and the school board member aren't really questions and 17 what questions do you have for us that's not really a question so just to let you know that those questions um generally the round one questions are more general in nature you have a few more it's it's in in a way to think of it it's it's screening more uh you're taking a look at these
054four five or six candidates and you're asking them these 13 questions and there are a broad number of topics so there are questions again that are tied to that candidate profile around school management practices and you know there's a question there about budget uh about diversity um long range and short-range operational plans which gets kind of under that idea of strategic planning a person who is visible and accessible i think i mentioned the one about budget so take a look at these questions and what i think we're interested in hearing about is how would you like to proceed with these questions are you good with these questions for round one do you have different ideas would you like to modify and as we talk about that again the tricky part is not actually giving this
055specific question out but so it gets a little a little wonky so sometimes what happens is if you do think these questions generally are good but you might have some other suggestions or ideas or modifications or maybe there's an area that you really think you'd want to see in round one you can get that to to neil or then he can get it to ask here you can go directly to ashley or kathy and they can connect with me and i can try to modify these questions based on your input and get them out to you prior to that candidate selection meeting but if someone were to make a suggestion not a change one and maybe we don't we're not in agreement with that um yeah that's that's that's not an option to do that
056without a meeting you'd you'd come back on your candidate's selection meeting and finalize those questions stakeholder engagement and the candidate profile that the vacancy brochure profile the pieces that you as board members filled out so we really tried to tie those those questions to those key categories and if you look at those categories you should be able to see those those questions not all of them because there are 13 options there and one of them is what questions you have for us you know at the end there are a couple themes that came up with the board and then with the the stakeholder surveys that i would like to see may be incorporated more but maybe we don't want to say what those are in this forum and just email that i think you're okay
057talking about them just in general just in general one that was high on everyone's list was honesty and ethics pr and trust is there a way to get at those kind of i don't really see i see you know something that might get at one of them but i don't know if there's a way to maybe get it some of those yeah there's one in there that was kind of talking about a a scenario a situation you've dealt with you know kind of thing and then how um what kind of questions then are asked in the round two are they more um intensive we still have to ask the same questions to each candidate and run correct you do have to ask the same questions each candidate they're typically fewer questions and they're more in-depth
058and they more maybe more situational in nature like given i'll i don't know if i'll do a great job of wording this question but given the fact that you know there is going to be a bond referendum how would you respond to a person who came up and told you i already pay enough in taxes i don't know why i you think i should be paying more in taxes i don't even have kids in school how do you respond to that kind of question in an open meeting when you were presenting a bond referendum question to the public you know so something like that where it that gets you thinking more about all right you mean these are potentially real live like real world kinds of things you're going to get and ask about how
059would you respond so fewer maybe more in depth and and again if there are things that that you think you'd like to delve more deeply into one you can send those through uh ashley to me as well and i can start to draft those potential questions for round two um you know and then secondly you'd still have an opportunity after round one to say you know one thing i'd really like to know more about from the three candidates or two candidates or whomever that we're moving forward is around the area of whatever it might be maybe it's financial management how do you go about the process of involving stakeholders in a budget reduction process exactly correct yes i think we we would what our goal would be is be to have a consensus around the
060questions we'll have a draft set of questions that you might suggest in advance that will be available for you to review at the end of round one and then at that point we'd have to say if there's another area i could get that question you know out there and you could make sure that you're good to go with it or you might want to modify it right at the start of your meeting of round two again time is just tight there right a little bit between potentially the 24th to 26th but i think that can be done but i think to the point again if there are areas that you feel that would be good to move into the round two questions that's another approach to making sure that you get all of those things
061covered quite frankly i think right other thoughts questions questions on the questions i think there is a well-rounded list and actually before i looked at this okay all right are we good to keep um so let's take a look at the round one schedule um you'll see that the round one schedule is and i'm i think i got this answered already from kathy and ashley and maybe neil before so you see there's a yellow in the round one schedule but i'm pretty confident this is going to be at the brookside education center boardroom correct and this is going to be the hot seat for the candidate so i'll i'll make that uh that change and get that out there and actually i think that may be in a micro uh document you can you can
062correct that as well so yeah so you'll see that uh three candidates uh on uh the first night there's that light supper section in there the only reason that that's there is you're starting at four o'clock sometimes it's good to just have a break between when you're going to interview those three people or if you're going to potentially interview four to have a break in there but you don't have to have that in there that'll be one of the questions and it might just be a chance to you know take a break take a little time off it's going to be pretty intense in terms of trying to keep track of the responses of those questions fill out those emd forms in that 15 minutes at the end but that's something that that you should
063take a look at and again we can you can either give me that input now or you can give the input and we can finalize that when we do the candidate selection meeting um it is and yeah and i would say if you had if you had for example four candidates my suggestion would be to just complete that interview on may 23rd but that's again up to you that also gives you a little more time in terms of reference checks and and time in between that first and second round based upon the time of the year i i think so um but again we're we'll be sitting may what 7th 8th over the weekend that's going to be the that's going to be the deciding factor i i would think you would i know that
064there are candidates who have connected with me specifically who are interested to be honest they're a little nervous about the timing and where they are in terms of the sitting in their current districts that doesn't mean they won't apply they may very well play they really have an interest in the district but there's a little concern on the timing just to be honest but you don't know you know that the the bottom line is one point we make is don't settle and the other point we make is you need one great candidate to come to come through and you know so you know i've seen a pool of four and the interview of of three and there was a great candidate in there and that that district ended up with a really top-notch superintendent so
065you don't know until we don't know until midnight on may 10th i think it is and if we choose to only have four and complete on the 23rd would we start earlier would we have time to announce that uh you could or you could you could uh you know end up going from 6 50 to 7 50 to 8 35 you'd be going probably 9 35 10 o'clock depending on how long you deliberate 10 10 30 at night but again we've we've seen that you know as opposed to coming back to that second day so either starting earlier or just adding on at the end whatever you determined because of the short time frame candidates coming in i know in some cases sometimes they have the ability to check out things in the community basically
066that's going to be on their own my fear would be is we find a really good candidate and we bring them in but they really haven't had a chance to check their community out is there any worry that they come in and then you know that's who we decided on they start looking through the community i suppose that's a possibility but i'll tell you my experience my personal experience and the experience that i've seen is candidates that are really interested they're going to be down here on may 21st and 22nd and they're going to be in in the community they're going to be looking around they're going to be looking at houses they're going to be doing all kinds of things that's typically what i what i would would see so we're good just we'll
067we'll keep this this schedule for now but again understanding that that might modify and change based on your action and activity on the 17th of may at that candidate selection meeting so then uh just just briefly to review through that draft schedule for round two again i've just got two candidates listed there you could end up having three typically you don't see more than three in round two um but you could just determine how that that would work you just add another hour in there and you'd almost look at like the first day of the round one schedule for for six people but that at the end of that date just what i want to mention a couple of things there you just you're obviously discussing information you're having a motion to extend the offer
068of the employment contract that offer the employment contract is contingent on two things one the successful negotiation of an approval of a contract by the board and then two would be the successful completion of the background check process you've identified so the motion isn't we're extending an offer of employment is we're extending an offer of employment to john doe contingent upon and we'll provide information and wording for those motions as well but uh just just so you note that um and then you're discussing deciding and scheduling the steps necessary for the for the rest of the hiring process but that's really you've already talked about that that's really that negotiations of the contract making sure that that everybody's on the same page and you're ready to act on an employment contract on i believe it's
069june 6 right it's your regular board meeting on june 6. so a 7-0 that's yes so your two points are exactly right uh you know candidates will often ask the question what was the vote of the board um you know so obviously being unanimous is good um i think if there's a really tight vote let's say it's a four to three vote they might have a second thought about that i think that that i've seen that happen before but again you you you deliberate you vote majority determines and then that's that's how we move ahead um and we'll contact the candidate especially that that second round when you uh identify the candidate i'm going to step out of the meeting as quickly as i possibly can and get a hold of that candidate and tell
070them that that if you have that you've made that offer of employment and are they on board they're really accepted are ready to start negotiations that next day and i'll come back and hopefully do that and we'll be we'll be in the right on the right spot uh so again just i think we talked about this just want to mention if you have ideas for topics for those round two questions uh you can get those however that process to kneel to ashley to me and i can draft some some questions up and we'll look at those um maybe even on the 17th as a beginning step and you can again finalize those as you move forward because sometimes there is something that comes out in the interviews that you think you know both of the
071candidates or the three candidates all kind of talked about that but i'd like to know a little bit more about whatever that topic might be and that's just fine okay any final questions about anything involved with the process the training materials how we're moving forward you guys have asked really good questions tonight yeah yeah it it it's you know it's it's interesting i think we see this with boards you know you start this process out and it kind of seems like well they're really really not doing all that much and all of a sudden bengal here we go you're moving right really fast you got a lot of things going on a lot of information to to go through and and decipher and think about because again this is a really big decision and you
072you all are well aware of that to what extent and especially this question to what extent can we i think you'd have to you'd have to be careful about doing a serial board meeting which which would be so you know really i think the best approach would be to get those questions to a central point through the board chair to ashley and then uh to me and let me take a let me take a shot at it and yeah and just so you know i mean i've done this a lot even as my days as a superintendent i'm not i don't feel bad if you tell me i don't like that question i don't think it's worked very well i think you should do it differently we can't agree either individually or collectively to that
073set of questions in private correct correct yeah it's a public you're going to need to collect the suggestions bring them to us that's exactly right i just wanted to go back to sorry dennis um go back to um the questions i thought of something i i really like the questions and i like how it's candidate focused and i think that that's how i would like to see it approached that we're really focusing like you talked about the strengths of the candidate in a way for them to kind of lift up and and talk about themselves i really like that approach okay thank you the interviews are open to the public correct so they'll be out there what happens when we finish and we've discussed if we start getting a lot of calls from the audience
074um input or suggestion how do we because i might get 20 calls from a certain group of people kim might jill might you know we all are going to have different cores of people how do we deal with that you know i i think that you know just you're you know just you're you're listening you're taking in input you're gonna take into consideration the kinds of things that you hear in relation to what you've already identified as the kind of candidate you're looking for around those those profiles you know a lot of things can happen i mean it's not uncommon even where board members will get calls from employees in the district that the candidates in either positive or negative you know so you know you you have to kind of filter that all out
075um and and in the deliberation process you're looking again for those strengths if you found out something that was really concerning i think that's there's a a little bit of a a challenge with that to bring that out you know because it may or may not be accurate if you if you're getting a comment um so i think again listen and get back to focus on the criteria focus on the stakeholder input that you've received focus on the positive attributes of the candidate and those those reference of the checks that we've done but also the reference checks that you do are going to be really important that should be really telling because you're getting then that that information from the person or persons who are responsible for the employment of that individual you'll have concerned
076citizens other questions for me yes so from from this meeting yeah typically this this document you would see yep and you know i don't think that you've unless you think differently i don't think you i don't think you've given away any any any questions that would give an uh upside to anybody so putting this putting this meeting out there all right so it would take us several days after um anything streaming else video of the first round of interviews so that the candidates on the second day don't have an advantage members of the eyes come and do this and we could make a statement that we would prefer if if there's no live streaming so it's an even ground for all the candidates because they might may not even have thought about that all right
077thank you very much we'll uh look forward to our meeting on the 17th and hopefully we'll a pile of good candidates to look through