001I will call this meeting of the uh special board meeting of the ISD 181 Brainard School Board to order and we will start with roll call please here here here I am here SAR here John here great thank you Kelly um please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you this meeting of the Brainard School Board is being conducted in accordance with Minnesota statute 13d .02 persons May monitor this meeting from a remote location by watching on YouTube live this meeting is also being recorded and access to the recording will be made available on the school district's website as soon as is reasonably possible so we'll
002move on to the approval of tonight's agenda as presented second right so we have a motion from director Hyman with a second from director Ward any discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I please oppose same sign motion carries uh public input due to this being a special board meeting uh there will be no public input allowed during this meeting we do have our regularly scheduled monthly board meeting next Monday the 10th at which time there is public input as usual so next up is our main event for the evening uh which is our meet and greet with Mr Peter Grant um just as a preamble and a refresher for everybody in attendance and watching online um we're bringing pet Peter forward as our candidate for the interim superintendent position and uh Peter
003was uh selected by me with some due diligence um in assistance with uh Minnesota school boards Association as well as my fellow board members um we had a number of different people that we were able to look at for the interim position um when we had a few little twists and turns to the project but here we are with Peter here tonight and uh we're going to bring him forward so that uh each board member can ask questions as they see fit uh the board members have not been given any directives or guidelines for questions it's kind of Open Season I warned Peter ahead of time I didn't I didn't really give him any dossier on any of you but um the bottom line is he's here to um get to know each one of
004us a little bit and vice versa um so with that said Mr Grant I'll have you come on up and introduce yourself tell us a little bit about your background and then we'll unleash the fury of a school board on you well first of all thank you very much um for the invite um it's totally unexpected for me and uh it happened through um some of my former employees I worked with on an no atana that I was told about this position here could possibly end up being an inum and they said to me you know well Grant why don't you do that and um you know I said I think they've got things all worked out they they don't need Peter Grant but it um it really perked my interest um I I love
005being a superintendent it's I know some people think it's probably crazy but um there's something special about being able to help lead a school and my whole career 40 years in education um it's been the trans you know the you started the classroom teacher and one of the building principles said you know Grant um if you're going to stay in education why don't you use some of your other skills and and maybe consider Administration so then I went to Monona State and I got my um graduate degree going for secondary Administration and secondary um High School teaching license um became an assistant principal right after I got out of grad school because I I told my wife that if I earned the degree I'm not going to sit on it and I really didn't want
006to give up the classroom um but I wanted the opportunity for growth and I became um another principal at oana high school I was there for 10 years had just a great time um it was a very special place and um but I had this growth problem again and I wanted to become a superintendent so I ended up going to plan view which is a very very small town Northwest Northeast of Rochester I'm a school district of about 1,600 kids it my first superintendent job and it was a it was a blast um it was just so much fun being uh part of an educational system from a different chair and knowing that the impact you have is bigger now it doesn't go from just in the classroom of 30 kids at a time but
007now all a sudden it's a districtwide and it's also a part of being part of a community differently um I was in uh plane view for three years and then I got a call from casson ranville and they said would you be considered um us as a potential School District to come to well when I was a teacher I was in Byron Minnesota and Casten and Byron are right next to each other so I knew a lot of the cast and people and you know we had rivalries and sports and so forth and it was a bigger district and I thought you know I I wouldn't mind trying that and I was at Casten for um six years and and um my wife and I decided that you know do we want to do anything
008different I said yeah I got a real good plan how about I retire and she goes why and I said well it's just we'll see what else is out there you know what to do and I wasn't even I was maybe four or five months I got a call from oana um they had a uh Junior High Principal who was very sick and they asked me if I would come and F finish the year for them as an interim principal and um I thought about it for about two seconds that sure I'll do it even though going into a junior high and I spent all my time in a high school I that I can do this um and it was a great experience and it was a really tough time for the staff because
009they loved the principal who was not doing well and eventually he did pass away and at the end of the school year um lo and behold the superintendent said I think I'm going to retire so the school board came to me and said would you consider a one-year interim took me five years to get away and it it was just I don't know it worked out perfect and um in aanu um it's much like Briner you know they're really supportive of the school district they're really supportive of what's going on with kids they want the Su the success of schools they want their kids to do well um but they had a lot of issues we had to take care of they were financially in trouble and um really what they wanted me to do
010was help help pass a levy so in two years I passed the levy two more years I passed a $76 million bond with the community so we could upgrade all of our elementary schools and um they said would you stay longer because I told them I said you know after six years this is going to be it and they wanted me to stay because they needed to pass a bond for a new high school and I said I think somebody else should take that on um and they did they just built it and they started last year for the first UN in high school but um so 40 years um I've never regretted a minute of it and um I just love being with kids and and as I as I told Heidi um it's
011all about making things better that's really the only goal I have how can I make things better and how can I help kids be better how can I help the staff be better it's never about the superintendent it's about everybody else that you have to help and I I just I get a lot of reward from that and I'm sitting here now um with that same feeling I just want to help make the district better and help you through a transition and how that goes will all depend on how we all work together that's great so we'll go ahead and open it up um for questions um maybe director Warden would you like to start sure well welcome and thank you and we'll just kind of ping pong after John W does one we'll let
012some other folks jump in and we um as just kind of uction of me can we just start with a little bit about ourselves abely a great idea director I think that's kind of important for you to hear from us a little bit as we've heard from you um so my name is John Ward I was a a teacher and a coach for 34 years uh in prer and back in Proctor um up inth area um I uh also have delved into politics a little bit and have and also had an insurance business so um I was elected the school board two years ago um and have loved being back in the education realm like yourself so I have a number of questions but I'm I'm going to do do I'll just do one at
013a time and okay okay so my first one is this um DJ and myself were here this morning at 8 and we've had a couple different um we had some negotiation meetings or whatever but we also have DJ and I are on the finance legislative committee and at the legis at the finance committee um we talked a lot about uh our district finances um we we have we have issues within this District like everybody else does no matter what no matter what district you're in you know uh with literacy with behaviors and cell phones and with Staffing and class sizes or whatever but our in my opinion and as the board as this board has gotten together over the last two years one of our main issues is finances so um and you spoke about
014uh leading two different referendums a Bonnie referendum and an operate the operating Lev right how much was the operating Le Levy 1.3 million for um 10 years okay um so I guess my my question is um what what would you do with our financial situation here what would your plan and I know you have I know you have to learn I understand that but tell tell me your plan about our finances and and as you see the issues how are you going to direct that you know um the financing of public schools is really complicated and the the most important thing you remember it's not our money it's the taxpayers money so they entrust the board they entrust the superintendent on the district leadership to be very very good stewards and when you get into
015Financial issues you have to be very honest and open to the public and just you have to tell them the truth and sometimes people will say well we think you waste a lot of money all you have to do is open up your book and say come on in and we'll walk through it and we'll show you um it's really um the most critical thing we can do because if the finances are messed up you can't do anything else you're either eliminating reducing um taking away and that is not going to be success for a school district it just can't be so you have to really be diligent about understanding it's not your money and so you want to make sure that the you do is balanced spending as you possibly can in fact I've
016always felt if if it worked perfectly at the end of every school year every dollar you got from the state or the fed or whatever you wouldn't have any left at the last day of school you would have spent it all because that's kind of what they think you should do but when you have to get in and you say well we do need to have a reserve and we do need to have a fund balance and we do need to show that we can do things really well with the money you give us but we can't spend it all in one year because then we can't start all over from zero again so it becomes a balancing act of a business you know when you when you run a business you have to have
017profit well our profit really is kids but we have to be able to make sure we can support what they need with the finances we get from the state and the local and that way um if you do it correctly they'll understand we do think they take good care of the money we give them and they are spending the money wisely they're not doing it foolishly and as the schools change over time all the finances change with it whether you're shrinking growing um nothing ever stays the same so as a finance person or responsible you've got to always be planning ahead you just can't look at yesterday and say okay that's done no you got to be looking sometimes two three years ahead knowing that if your population is going up or down whatever what
018are you going to do with the income that you anticipate and you're always trying to project we think this is what's going to happen but we never know until it's over because it all depends what happens in St Paul and then from there you make your decisions and you plan accordingly but you can't deficit spend you just can't because it's not your money and if it was your own money at home if you've been through deficit spending at home you know what that causes causes a lot of problems so you have to mind yourself do what you're supposed to do and what the public expects you to do just a followup please so if you if you find out or if you learn that we KN we probably need to do some kind of a
019levy would you leave need that sure okay thank you my name is Randy Hyman and um I was in the private sector all my life I worked uh in a retirement plan business uh kind of an adult teacher so to speak did a lot of training on tax laws and whatnot and was approached by a group of people asking me to run for school board I said I'm retiring kind you you know the story no so I said sure I'll give it a shot and I ended up getting elected and uh I'm on I got elected two years ago same time that John got elected as well so okay um one of the points that you made in your opening question from John is making sure that our kids are taken care of and uh
020the money coming in we want to make sure we have good kids coming out and of course we just has gone through a u strategic plan we're working on the portrait of The Graduate and all this good stuff and I've kind of changed a little bit my some of my thoughts uh at first I thought student achievement was one of my biggest goals and I it still is but I've kind of changed my thought process a little bit student Behavior to me is now the number one problem you know everything's fluid like you said things change from year to year and you know if kids don't feel safe if teachers don't feel supported they're not going to perform what are your thoughts on student Behavior Uh cell phone policy specifically I know we're going to
021be dealing with that uh we do have a policy by the way I don't know if other board members we we do have a policy right now uh but the state uh they're doing some things that we got to do something by next spring on by next May yeah yeah so what what are your thoughts on on that Peter as far as student behavior and supporting teachers and Etc well most of the time if your student handbook is clear about expectations of behavior and consequences and um you talk to the kids when I was principal we would get together we'd go meet every classroom of every student and we' talk to them about our expectations of behavior and we would go through a short list of the rules and we said is there any one
022of these rules that you don't think makes sense and most of the time you know they they don't want to be told what to do but when you'd ask them about it's important for everybody to be safe so you have a responsibility as a student walking into this building to make sure not only are you safe but you make sure other students are safe as well and if you see something that could possibly not be safe you got to let an adult know don't you know think you can cure it all on your own because usually that goes back into a fight or something but you have to have a belief that the kids are going to trust what you're asking them to do the staff has to have a belief that they'll be backed
023up to with support for student behavior and in the end even though you know kids are kids they're going to make mistakes how can you help them remember you're going to pay a consequence but we're going to move on we're not going to hold it against you you still have a responsibility to keep everybody safe and you have a responsibility to be respectful and if you do just the little things simply a lot of times behaviors aren't the issue any longer but when you're talking about teenagers and young kids um anything can set them off and unfortunately today social media is a really big problem with that and um you have to try and help them get beyond what they might read on a phone they might read on a wall or they might see
024something on TV you have to get them to to look beyond that and don't be so reactive to it and um it it's hard and it's really hard for the classroom teacher and it's hard for the building principal because that's kind of where the buck stops and if you if you aren't consistent about expectations the kids will pick that up right away they will read immediately you're not being you're not serious about this you're just saying it so you can just get away with it so you have to hold them accountable and it's it's every single day it's just like it with your own kids and that's how when I was principal um I just told him hey I'm going to treat you just like my own kid you have to follow the rules I
025want you to be successful in school and if you screw up we're going to take care of it we'll do it fairly but then tomorrow you start all over and we're not going to hold a grudge against you and if we don't do that they're not going to trust us they won't they'll read through it and they they do want a safe school I truly believe every student wants to come into a safe school but sometimes things get out of whack and they don't know how to react and sometimes with their reaction actually is a self-defense of thems self and they get mad really quick and you just have to really talk to them and be solid with them and make sure that the support is there for the teacher so that you know they're
026going to need it every single day when you've got 25 30 kids in a classroom somebody's not going to be happy and you have to help them that's just all they can be but consistency is really important that's why when you have your policy books and your student handbooks you make sure that everybody knows what's in it um if a student claims he never read it well then you you know you sit down with them and you read it to them I mean if you have to but it it is a challenge there's no question about it now with cell phones um in the 90s the biggest thing we had to deal with was kids wearing hats think about that today but we told our kids and they said well why can't we wear our
027hats he said we just don't think it's respectful in the classroom we don't think it's respectful in the in the School itself you can wear them outside but you come in you take a hat off it took about I don't know six eight weeks to finally get it across you know every time we saw a kid take your hat then we had to collect them and at the end of the day you can come and get it and then but finally the kids just quit wearing hats and when we asked them why they said well you sold you told us we can't and you reinforced it you told us give me your hat cell phones is totally different though totally different because sometimes um when I was at cast Manville they started you having kids
028use their cell phones for part of a science project they could do some research on it they could do some formulas on it and the kids say well if we can use it in the classroom for this why can't we just use it anytime we want they said that's not what the purpose of the classroom was for and um if you walk through schools or around public everybody's got it glued to their hand and what you have to do if you really believe it's interfering with instruction if it's interfering with learning if it's interfering with the conduct of the school itself then you have to say no phones no phones in the classroom if you want to use it in lunch fine you want to use it outside fine in the classroom that's sacred the
029classroom is sacred and I think kids for the most part will support that as long as it's consistent but not if some special student has you know he gets Privileges and nobody else does and they're doing this on their phone and the teacher ignores it first time a teacher ignores it the first time a principal ignores it starting all over and that's the worst thing you can do is start all over because once the rains are gone once the horses are running it's pretty hard to stop them so that I find it disappointing if the state would set a legislative Bill to say you have to do something with cell phones I mean think about it there's I don't know 400 and something districts in the state of Minnesota is everybody going to have the
030exact same policy then for cell phones I don't know how they're going to make that work it really comes down to what does brainer believe would be best for their kids doesn't matter what Minneapolis does or Rochester or S Club whatever what's best for brainer and but you do have to get the kids to buy in and you have to have them understand why they have to buy it because it's interfering with their education it's going to take a while follow when I went to a my initial training for school board uh I uh went to one of the uh classes uh or I guess uh to topic uh on round table on well no it wasn't a round table it was a class they called them uh but uh the oana principal oh gave
031a discussion about cell phone in oana because they had an instant down there and he he told the group he said it was set up where everybody could tattle on anybody in other words a student could tattle on a teacher teacher could tattle on a student and guess who the biggest abusers were teachers teachers students were were were calling them out and finally it all everything is fine down in oana and I know they're kind of a model school for a cell phone policy I do know that at the um Middle School this last year they got rid of cell phones they said it was the best year they've had in a long time the interruptions the um interference the behavior all changed but you have to draw the line if you really believe the
032phone itself is creating a problem you can't ignore that then you have to deal with it and um the middle school at at otana I remember talking to their principal and I said that was a really tough decision I think they said everybody loved it though if they all locked arms all the adults the kids followed and and they it was such a more quiet year for them but you're right you you can't you can't capitulate just one time and you know adult we're supposed to be role models and if we're not a good role model what do you expect the kids to do just as a quick followup to that too we have cell phone policy as one of our key agenda items for our June 21st board retreat U with the idea of
033having a sort of an open Forum board dialogue to just find out where the six of us are aligned where we're not to try to you know kind of get directionally pointed towards yeah you know putting Randy and I are on the policy committee um to try to to try to start getting our arms around what that would look like so good good questions Randy director spear anything um sure nice to meet you Peter thank you thanks for coming nice to meet you um I'm Sarah spear I've been on the board this is three years we've lived in Brainard about 20 I've got one student left in the district one recently graduated so um and I work in marketing previously in media and I was a high school English teacher for a time God bless
034you all high school English teachers um my question for you is what does your leadership look like for your direct reports and then as a as an extension of that out into the buildings how how do you Empower how do you direct and delegate what does that look like to be on the other side of you um I have to be trusted so it's my responsibility to bring trust to a building to a principal to a board member to the community I have to be trustful and um that's one of the things that I think has helped me be the more successful as I have been in the communities I've worked because I tell them exactly what I think and I tell them that the truth is they might not like it but they know
035that I'm not going to skirt any issues I'll be honest with them um I like to I like it when I tell people when they come and ask me for something I'll say I'll see what I can do otherwise I'll tell them I know I can't do that I'm not going to be able to do that and I I can't help you now and then follow through um you know when parents come to the superintendent a lot of times they don't want you to fix it they want you to hear and um they have to feel that you're going to be open to what their concerns are but then you be honest with them and you tell them okay do you think your your son or your daughter whatever the issue is was being mistreated
036or isn't getting a fair chance or what's whatever the issue is and and you be honest with them and you and you empathy with them but you still hold true to what the school is all about learning and you ask the parent you ask the businessman downtown you ask anybody what's the purpose of the school and and for me going into a building I want to see learning going on I want the principals to know he's there to see that we're doing our job I want the teachers to see me come into their classroom watching them do their work because that's what it's all about so I I want people to know when he's talking talking about education it's because he he cares about it and there's a passion for it and he's going to
037support us in any way I possibly can sometimes though you have to say no and that's the hard part when you have to say no but if you're trusted they will say okay at least I know what he meant he didn't you know slide on the ice he didn't jerk me or anything like that and one of the things that um I will work on while I'm here I want people to know that I can be trusted that I'll be following through on what we need to do and that um it's not about my ego it's about taking care of them and I can't do that if I think I'm more important than they are so we're all in it together um and I love going into the buildings and in mixing with all of
038the excitement that goes on every single day whether it's the beginning of the day at lunch which can be really chaotic or the end of the day which can be really chaotic because you know the kids want to get outside and they're you know they've had enough of the day and so forth that's part of the excitement of it is to be there and be part of it and the teachers you know they go through it every single day every single day and that's why it's my job to support them and that's why it's my job to support the principles because without my support they're kind of floundering around and they want Direction they want leadership and if it's bad leadership they would rather have no leadership ship sometimes than bad leadership because then they
039never know what they're going to get they don't want to walk on marbles either so um when I get into this I'm going to be very honest and open and let people see who I am and follow through on what I say I have to do or what I can do but if I can't do something they're going to know I'm going to tell I can't do that I can't break the rule I can't break the policy um I just can't do that and that's what it's going to have to be thank you all right so Kevin Bo obviously uh you and have I I have had some extensive discussion so I'll yield what time I would ask questions to my colleagues um but what we never did when we were talking to each other
040was talk about me oh we just talked about you so uh Kevin boils um I uh run a small uh Financial technology firm and uh my last child graduated from Brainard High School a year ago this week and uh so I am in the fourth year of uh of my first term as a Schoolboard member somehow ended up as the chair for the last two years still don't know how that happened so anyway I'm going to pass the buck to director Breen and and let her fire away okay good evening it's nice to have you here um I'm Michelle Breen and I am a trained social worker I started my career in child protection and then for the last 32 years worked as a school social worker in elementary and middle school 20 years in
041elementary and 12 years in middle school so that's um then in retire I decided I would keep this a try um so hoping that I could use some of my expertise to help um influence kind of what I think is is good for kids and families um I had five children that went through the district as well so anyway I have a couple questions I'm trying to decide which one I want to ask you first um you've probably taken a little bit of time to get to know the brainer district and um kind of what we're about maybe had a chance to look at the Strategic plan and that sort of thing as you live here and talk to people what do you see are the top like maybe the top three challenges that we
042are facing as a district when um I was contemplating to go into this potential role here um I did ask a lot of people I know around the community and out on the lake or wherever it would be grocery store um I would say so what do you think of the Briner public schools and almost every single one of them first thing first thing they would say is great and then I'd say well okay what's that mean and um they really do believe the kids get a great education here and they feel that it's a fairly stable district and I want you to understand every school district wants to be stable but most of them aren't stable and if if you go through financial issues you you know it isn't stable but what I really
043gravitated to is that I asked some kids in fact I had my car detailed on um Sunday Morning by a kid who just graduated that Friday really yeah and um it was kind of funny because I didn't know he was really going to come at that time but he showed up and um his and his name was Shannon and I said so didn't you graduate all right he goes no I just graduated Friday night and I said really and um I said so tell me about brainer high school he said I loved it he said had a really good time and I said well what about everything else I mean elementary and everything he says there wasn't one time that he thought he shouldn't go to school he really had a lot of positive things
044and now this is a kid who's 18 years old and he's starting his own business go-getter y he's a go-getter and um I said what can you tell me can you tell me anything more specific he said I loved my high school principal and I thought that was pretty cool Jes I mean for an 18-year-old to say that to a stranger kind of you know um I thought that was pretty cool but specifically um It's always important not to rest on your laurels and um one of the things when I was at oana oana is a lot like you are very proud of their schools and you know they have great history and so forth but you can't rest on your history you always got to be pushing forward and you can use the history
045as a base for your how you got to where you are but you got to keep moving forward and you got to look at how we going to do that um there's got to be a leadership of the of the district to do that with the community and the community's Got to Believe In the leadership of the district because they entrust us to say we're we think we're pretty good but we can do this better how are we going to do it we got to go down this road we got to have a plan and um if you don't you're not going to get better first of all and second of all you'll start to regress but you won't recognize it right away because you've got this historical view of your district and you know
046that it's a good District but sometimes times you have to step out of the circle and look back in and say we can do that better we have to do this better I don't know if it's student achievement if it's student attendance if it's recruiting of teachers you know you got to do a better job you have to have the ability to step back and say we can and we have to do this better now how are we going to do it and hopefully it's in your your strategic plan somewhere in there it's going to be in there that if you step back and go we have to do this better if you go deep into your plan you'll probably have it there and the only question is okay it says we should be doing
047this what are we going to do about it and are you measuring it and how are you going to measure it so you you you can't rest on your LS and you got to listen to the parents you got to listen to the community about hey um we think you guys do a great job but we have a concern about this and I know since since Co student attention has been a real problem it's all over the state of Minnesota Rochester Public Schools just uh went through a a long discussion about students not going to school what are they going to do about it and then it seems like the older the student got the less they came to school and it really came down to the kids didn't feel they needed to and then
048that tells me there's a misconnection here something's not happening and the adults have got to figure out how to make that connection get back in line because the kids want I think to be to school but they don't feel there's a purpose for it they won't go to school so you got to look at how you're going to make yourself better by pushing a little bit go back to your strategic plan and say is this working or isn't it you have to measure everything and it's really hard I want you to know as a board it's really really hard to measure your plan if something isn't working you change it but if it is working you can't just say well that's good enough no because it's going to be a change next year that you
049got to grow to so growth looking forward to um making things better and working with the entire Community to say we need to do this because it's going to help our kids you it's just like a river John oh staying still getting better or you're getting worse may have given that talk a few times in a few meetings in my day I didn't hear you Peter uh DJ daringer I grew up here went to school here parents did my wife did kids did um love Brainard schools love Brainard uh I've got quite a few employees in this market and um I felt the need to get on the Schoolboard a year and a half ago so that's why I'm here I didn't know what I signed up for when I did it she's my seventh
050hour of the day I think of this feel um anyways I got a question for you I don't expect you to really probably know the answer but I'd like to see what your opinion is on it is you know attendance is a huge problem but I don't mean attendance I mean enrollment in public schools is dropping so for example we're we had 99 opt outs this year we picked up some kids from other schools that did come in I think we're down about 550 um it's a problem that's financially hurting us and it's not just us it's public schools in general and there's more options out there I understand but uh do you think it's something that we could turn it I mean I've had a feeling that maybe with a you know maybe we
051could stop it maybe we could slow it down maybe we could get some of those kids back do you have any ideas on how I mean it's what's going on with these Public Schools why everyone's leaving them well first all because there are so many options there all kinds of there never used to be this many options I mean you just went to your school that's just all you had right and um you know PSO kind of opened the door a little bit and um and then it really became feast or famine for all of us um you know school boards said we're going to change our policy we'll go or take our bus into Pillager we'll take our bus into Rochester we'll take our bus into St Cloud we'll pick kids up at the
052corner we'll pick them up at their door step and sometimes when parents get disillusioned they look for another option or if kids feel disillusioned they look for another option or sometimes a district is in really tough shape financially and they start reducing and then when you start taking things away options or opportunities kids go all the places because now that it's mobile um there's nothing to drive 15 20 minutes to another school district the metro area is a mess thank God you know we're not there but in oana um we were fighting with smaller communities because they had smaller class sizes or they had a brand new school I mean we a 1920 high school and you could get I would get lost in it um and so parents will say you know I think
053I can get something better if I go down the road and they take their money with them and there's the hard part and I know the state has tried to address it many times trying to figure out how do we help and really the state can't do anything seem like it yeah um you know it's it becomes a driver of what are they doing better than us that they would want to go to another District when I when I was a teacher in Byron four miles away with Cass and Manville Public Schools four miles away and we thought well maybe if we're going to get along how about if we let kids go back and forth to classes between the two schools we thought that'd be a great idea well your rivalries that's not a
054great idea when kids are in the classroom and they're wearing a cast and manable football you know or a jersey and the Byron kids wearing a Byron Jersey that's not really a good idea but we we did talk to each other about can we share some things so we don't lose our kids to other schools and it work for well and then then that that plan went away but it's a challenge because the mobility of Education day well Heidi and I were talking about you can just go online you don't have to leave your house you can just sit there in front of a computer is that convenient sure is it best for the kid I don't think so personally because they're not having any interactions with other than a piece of equipment you know
055where do they get in with the kids where do they where do they meet their peers and so forth so you have to figure out and it's a hard question to ask the parent why are you going another school district you have to ask the question you might not want to hear the answer and then you find out well what would it take for you to come back what could we do to entice you to bring your students back and sometimes it's something you say well we can't do that you know or we can say well can we work something out where maybe your your child comes for a part of the day to begin with and then I don't know sometimes homeschooling is you know that's a real Target because parents say hey I
056want to do homeschooling okay but can we do something where maybe your kid can come back to school for a while and then the next thing you know they say you know what Mom or Dad I really like going back to school can we just can we just stay there now but you have to work on it every single day and you do have to ask the parent why and then what would it take for you to come back so who do you have to that pardon who does that principal most of the time it's the superintendent I remember when I was an aana we had kids going to um uh farabow we had kids going to Northfield we had kids going to bloom in Prairie you know a smaller School District even smaller going
057to Medford and every every fall we would have a list of our students that were leaving us I'd get on the phone call the parents said can you come in and we have a discussion about what would it do to take you to come back and sometimes you couldn't um Mom or Dad worked in the other community and it just worked out that way daycare whatever it was but most of the time if you sat down and talk to them they'd say well we didn't feel we got a very good shot at something or we got disappointed with this or what my my kid can have a better opportunity on that small school football team than on this big football team and sometimes that's just the facts and you say okay but you could still
058try but I don't I can tell I don't know how many phone calls I made to parents and said what would it take for us to get you back and sometimes I had a really bad experience with and a lot of times s this you know with the board or an administrator and we say well can we fix it I I I'll just tell you one little anecdote I had a parent who was just vehemently against the district your kids her kids were not coming to our school from hell or high water no way and it had to do with she didn't like some of the things that the school board was doing and um and I was brand new I had just become the superintendent interim and um her her name was marleene and
059she wrote articles in the paper almost every week something was wrong with the school district so I got on the phone and I I talked to her for a little bit and I said Marlene is there anything we can do right and she thought we were misspending our money and we weren't doing this right and so forth and I said well would you come in and we could sit down and talk about the finances that you think are wrong and she came in and we were doing and then she kind of looked at me with a like maybe he is telling the truth finally and I said you know Marlene I said we did forgive the Germans and we did forgive Japan are you going to forgive us and I said would you please would
060you take your foot off our throat and give us a chance and she said okay she sent one kid one year two kids the next year three kids the third year and all it took was somebody to pay attention and ask the question and say what can we do to make it work and then it it just I don't know it was maybe that's what she just wanted to be heard and but it worked doesn't work all the time because sometimes they're just going to say nah we're not interested then you say okay thanks but you're always welcome back we'll take you okay um so pet I'm going to kind of follow up just with what you said um and you've talked about a lot about trust and community building and things such or whatever
061um the co discussion will be another little question or discussion later but um we have a a community um a good Community a great community that really supports education but we also have a community that has a lot of difference of opinions um just like you had mentioned um with that woman that you referenced so how do you handle um f uh hot button items like book Banning uh diversity Equity inclusion uh social emotional intellect um ma well masking is done but masking was okay so you get what I'm saying here how do you handle those kinds of hot button issues and critical race Theory um that people feel strongly about on one side people feel strong I mean it's it's it's never kind of like in the middle right right the yep um I'm
062going to be really quite blunt good A lot of those things are interference they to make you focus away from what your goal is educating kids and they are hot buttons and they'll be hot today but they'll be cold tomorrow and I think it what I'm most concerned about especially I got 10 grandkids and I want them to get the best education they can and I keep telling their parents don't get lost in the forest don't let all this stuff become interference it becomes roadblocks um it takes away our focus and you have to ask CRT you have to ask a question how does that really got anything to do with our me our mission is don't we want our kids to learn the best we possibly can if we start focusing on that what's
063going to be left out on this side and and and I know everything has become so socially emotional um and if you don't agreee with me you're wrong and there's no listening it's just you're wrong you have to be able to cut through that and tell them listen what's our Focus we can't do everything we're not we can no longer be well we shouldn't be the end all to everything in society we have to teach our kids first they have to learn and when things start penetrating and sometimes that's done on purpose um when school testing started I can tell you as a principal there wasn't any of us that were happy about it and when we met with the commissioner of education and we asked why are the tests the way they are this
064was blatantly answered we expect 15% of the kids not to do well like why would you make a test if you thought 15% wouldn't do well 15 or 50 15 what's the point of the test if you want 15% to fail not be successful how does that help and and I I mentioned to the Secretary of of the Department of Education at the time I said isn't that just trying to make us lose our Focus it's just like the ma the reading act that was passed last year yes our reading scores are down what was the purpose of the legislation if it was such a good piece of Les legislation why did they have to add more money to it this year what was the problem how do you legislate re it's the goal of
065the school to help the student read if there's a problem what's the interference with the reading problem what's the interference with the math problem what's the interference with the science problem we're losing our focus and you do still have to address them I'm not saying just hold them at the sides of your hands but how does it play a role in what we're trying to accomplish with our kids as a teacher I didn't want to have the prin principal get on the PA system with an announcement in the middle of my class I had to stop what was the point why couldn't you do it at the end of the hour why couldn't you do it just one time a day instead of every you know every hour teachers want to get into their classroom
066they want to teach their kids they don't want interference cell phones are't interference all the Pol all the political stuff that's going around the country now a lot of it is meant to interfere with what we're supposed to be focusing on focus on our families focus on our community focus on our kids focus on our schools how do we help them get better and if we've got all this stuff coming at us because it's what's the hot thing today we know something's going to be hot tomorrow we can't address them all if we try we stop teaching we stop learning the school district stops functioning and I know that sounds pretty narrow but that's my job is to help kids learn help the teachers be supported help the principals be supported help the parents feel
067confident in what we do and if we let all this other stuff start seeping in when are we going to teach math how are we going to teach reading we can work on social skills we can do some of that stuff but the kids want to I do they think they want to learn but they don't want their time wasted either I don't know if I answered your question but I do see it as just an implosion of roadblocks and hurdles and and then we lose our focus and when we lose our are Focus we all get frustrated you know and and when a teacher gets frustrated they can't operate to the best of their ability and then the kids lose and it it becomes a whirl poool of how do we get out of
068this whirl poool and um superintendent has to be the one to pull them out help the community pull out let's get back on the focus of what we need to do thank you yep any more questions Randy um more of a statement U let see if you agree with the statement um I get from what you're you're saying Peters you want all kids yeah to learn doesn't matter who you are no I don't care what I don't care what gender they are I don't care what color of skin they are I don't care what color of hair they wear it's my job to help them learn and if I can in if you can hook them you can hook them where they they take value in learning and they feel that growth maybe from one
069week to the next or it could be just one day kid all of a sudden it clicks that math problem I couldn't figure it out today I get it that's all that matters and I think if we if we can make the kids believe in that and we do model it for them so the adults have to you know we should be learning all the time also it doesn't just end because we got you got a degree you know but um it's if it's not focused on the kids I'm wasting my time and I'm not wasting any of my time never can't do that thank you I have no further questions I just one quick question in thinking about and I know every organization thinks they're complex but I think we're kind of complex and
070um you're stepping into some really big shoes use even if it's in an interim position that takes a lot of energy and focus where coming in knowing you you've got a year at this where are you going to focus your time and energy in the first 30 60 90 days what does that look like that's a really good question um I'm not going to try to attack everything at once I have to have some focus and really to be honest with you one of my jobs will be to help you guys be successful that means we have to work coherently we have to have open discussions we got to know what we're where we're going what we have to do as a board to serve the district serve the community if I do my job
071good it makes your job better but on the other side of that coin it's your job to make sure I'm successful too in other words then you trust me you support me we don't mess up the policy we don't step out of bounds so to speak um Heidi and I were talking you know in the a board has to be unified in how they operate you can have disagreements you should have disagreements you know not everybody's a robot so my goal is going to be to help you start out with a new person by me doing my job getting to know the community better obviously getting to know the the adults in the district the buildings the teachers the custodians the cooks the principles so that when I walk in they can say yeah we
072know who he is one of the most embarrassing times I ever had when I was a teacher building principal walked into my classroom and the first thing I thought was now what did I do wrong because he' never been there before I mean never in 10 years of teaching in one school oh High School principal never once walked into my classroom except for one time and the reason he walked in he wanted to talk to a student he didn't want to talk to me at all and afterwards I went to his office and I said don't ever do that again and he goes what do you mean I said you don't come into my classroom don't even say hi to me don't even ask me why you're or tell me why you're there and you
073pull a kid out of my class don't do that and he goes why and he said because I have no clue what's going on certain I know I'm responsible for that student during that time so I don't want to walk into a building and then somebody goes who's that I just can't that's a defeat for them and for me so I want people to know who I am and that means I'm going to be everywhere I possibly can now am I going to run out of energy sure but you just load up the batteries for the following day you know you can only do so much but I want to be visible and um I don't I want to be able to walk into a building and you know the custodian comes up and puts
074his hand on my shoulder he goes how are you today you know that's what I have to do so um while I'm if this works I won't be sitting in a desk very often I'm going to be out in the buildings I'm going to be visiting I want to go meet the chamber I want to become familiar with them I want to meet the police chief why I beet the fire chief mostly because unfortunately schools have a tendency to create a lot of business for them but I want them to know who I am and I want them to they can come and say hey Pete what's going on and we can have that communication and I want to get to know the the business people downtown but that's what I have to do there's
075no exception um and that's why my I told my wife I said you realize what you're getting into now she goes yeah I know I know what you're going to do and I said but that's the only way I can operate and if I don't do it the right way I expect somebody to tell me uh no we want to do it this way because I'm you know I want to do it right and I don't want to step on toes but I also want to know that people need to know the district is okay with me as an inro we're not going to go down the toilet we're not going to you know have a drop in everything I'm going to do my job just like you expected Heidi to do hers I lied
076I have a question building on that there's six of us at this table that have never been an interim superintendent before and you have um what are one or two things that we should be thinking about as you transition into the role you know that we should get our heads around that maybe is different than dealing with a permanent superintendent right um you know philosophically so we can kind of be prepared to support you and then Downstream of course all the other constituents you've mentioned I I in a phone call I had with Kevin I I told him something that happened when I was the first year interim at otana by the way I was at interim from one year then I was an interim for two years and they said well would you stay
077three more and I said but I'm not going to have that interim label on me I just want you to know that but I did tell them this at the very first board meeting if you don't like me after a little bit of a while you can tell me to go home and you won't hurt my feelings and if I find out I don't like you at all I'm going to tell you I'm sorry but I'm going to go home and I'm sorry but I'm not hurting your feelings either you know so it's got to be honest um I'm not going to know everything so I am going to be probably talking to Heidi quite a bit you know I'm going to be talking to you and asking you okay um what's the history here
078but you'll you'll get you'll get the job I'm supposed to do you'll get the person who's going to do the job he's supposed to do and um I hope to build trust with you quickly because um we have to have an open communication I'm not perfect by a long way just ask my wife however I I will not quit I am a bulldog when it comes to this has got to get done doesn't matter what the hill is to climb got to get there so and if I disappoint you in a manner that you thought hey it isn't what we heard when we interviewed you then you better tell me because otherwise I won't know and what I don't know I can't fix same for you as in your Lifestyles whatever it is if somebody
079doesn't say hey that isn't what you said you were going to do well then you got to tell them and you won't I've got thick skin trust me I've got very thick skin you can't hurt my feelings Peter what are some key differences I mean you it looks like you've been in both positions between being an interim superintendent and a superintendent well when you're interim people get a little bit nervous because first of all there's a change in leadership anytime there's a change in leadership everybody gets a little bit nervous they oh God what's this going to be like he's only here for a year what's he going to screw up is he even going to really care or is he just filling a spot and you have to go out and prove that you're
080not just filling a spot even though I realize I might be only doing this for x amount of days I can't be just sitting in a chair and saying well you know I have to do my job when you become a when I became the full superintendent aratana it really was a no brain everybody knew well we know what he's going to do he's goingon to he's going to help us succeed on a levy vote Because he believes that's what we have to do and really that's what the board wanted me to do once I became the permanent superintendent we had two big things to do we had to pass a levy and Moana was making Cuts like you wouldn't believe and um the public had voted four consecutive years no and the money kept
081going this way and the money kept going this way in the ballot and they kept saying no so I came in and I told the board my first job will be we'll get this Levy passed and I just went out and worked my tail off with the public and um they kind of knew me because I was principal there for 10 years before but they had they bought into what I was telling them and then as soon as I and I told them if you support this Levy I want you to know I'll be back in one year for a bond and they all knew we needed a bond I mean they just wanted a new high school first but when we did our evaluation we had to fix all the elementaries first and when
082I came back with the bond I said okay we really appreciated the money you gave us for the levy I promise you we'll be good stores it'll last all 10 years and I told the board when they give us this money the money's going to last all 10 years you've cannot deficit spend when we got to the bond vote it was the same thing get out to the public tell them what you need tell them why a lot of them didn't like it because they wanted a new high school but once they started looking at our elementaries they go you know he's really right we have to fix these first the high school will come so it really didn't change a lot for me other than I knew exactly what I was supposed to do
083for the board and that's why I need your help you have to really let me know we need you to do this because we think this is really going to be a critical part for the year that you're here I can do lots of other things but if I don't pay attention and you're not direct with me it'll be a failure and I won't feel successful and then you won't either and you'll think well what we what did we do that for so um the the inim part does make people nervous because they're not really sure but as soon as I think they meet me and I work with them that'll go away but my other goal will be to help you find my replacement because it's the big it's the biggest decision you're ever
084going to make is when you hire a superintendent I'm telling you because they not a lot of them out there anymore it's a tough job it's not easy and um hopefully with my help and your due diligence we'll find the right person that will carry on the needs of the district and have you stay successful but in the meantime it's my job to do that now EJ I'm comfortable I'm ready just to vote John yeah um I got a couple more but two um can I go with both of them Mr Chair say so does anybody else have any in in the chamber go ahead John okay thank you and they're kind of I think quick but I I want you to be a thorough on it it's th you K Pete Co has changed
085the educational World yep and I hate blaming Co but it's changed the education we talked about that just a little bit ago what's been your experience with with the that change in in the education world I think we lost our resilience to bounce back um you know my 10 grandkids uh when I talk to them about their schooling there's just something not quite there there's a little bit of I think um I think the kids are still a little bit rebound because it was such a bizarre time for them during the covid my wife and I we had we took two of our youngest kids and we did supplemental teaching for them on our computers three days a week because their mom and dad thought the kids were falling behind because they just things weren't
086connecting kids couldn't do anything and uh that's when I began to realize that this is a bigger deal than what we thought it was going to be I mean we had no clue nobody had a clue this was going to do this to our kids they lost two years of education almost and as Educators we have to get resilient back to you know what that's behind us we can't blame that anymore what are we going to do this way and um it's it's a challenge I can't imagine what have been like to try and teach 30 kids on a computer and never really getting to see them other than a little picture Square and hear their voices um that had to be brutal and um I think for also it did expose though a little
087bit what we can and what we can't do but but we never talk about what we can't do we kind of hid behind some things and then and then parents got frustrated because they could see that their kids were struggling but it was just something we have never ever been prepared for when my mom and dad uh lived through the Great Depression one of the things I always asked what did you learn and they said don't ever throw anything away save everything newspapers cardboard and I said why I said because if you don't have fuel you got something still to burn in the furnace and my mom said um I will never ever be poor again and I want you to know we were poor but I asked my mom I said what do you
088mean by that she goes I never want to have to beg for food because when she was a kid they had to beg for food they had to go out into the fields and Farmers would let them take crops to feed their family well for us with covid everything just stopped all the things we love to do stopped and I think we're trying to figure out how do we get back to all the things we love to do and and that's why I talked about there's a lot of interference still um kids I think a little bit hesitant about they're going to expect too much of me because I didn't have to do much for a while or they're afraid that they're going to get pushed because they hadn't gotten pushed before during that whole
089black period of no friends no dances no football games no after school Gatherings you know kids walking out of the building getting on the buses none of that existed it was a nightmare and I I can't imagine what it would have been like to been in the schools at that time I I think I'd have gone nuts because you couldn't talk to anybody you couldn't shake hands with anybody you didn't see anybody in your buildings I don't know how you guys did it so um I think we have to just say okay that's back here we got to go this way we can't blame this anymore because it's over but what did we learn and how do we make sure we don't let that happen again to our kids thanks okay and then my followup
090my additional question is um in during your 10 10 year of leadership um tell us your experience with the labor unions how did that go uh it really was fun um they knew me I mean I was like a glass window because I told them exactly what I thought you know I said I know what you want I said but we can't do everything I know you want a good Sal I understand that but where's the money going to come from if you don't have it I I will tell you that my first year as interim at oana I convinced all the employees to take a zero freeze one year take a 1% the second year because we were hemorrhaging and nobody liked it nobody liked it but they said what happens if we do
091this and I said I'll get us the money you'll get paid and the next contract we did we signed two two-year contracts because we had votes coming up for the public and we didn't want in interference with contract talks so we sat down and with the teachers union with all the other people and we said we're going to settle two two-year contracts first time it's been done in Minnesota and they we made it work even though we didn't know what the money was going to be the next two years out we just took a Gamble and said we don't want interference with the with the bond vote coming up and so forth um the teachers trusted me and if you know I said hey I've been a teacher but one of the things you can
092teach everybody one day you're going to retire and if you know anything about um TR when you retire your monthly income from being an active teacher to being a retired teacher is a nightmare of change when I was Superintendent at plan view um they really didn't know how they got paid and I did Finance 101 and 102 for the entire teaching staff explain to them you we got ex amount of students the state gives us money and we get money from the feds and then we get money from here and we all put it in a pot and then we figure out how we going to pay you and they had no clue that's how we got our money at the school but once he started to connect the dots they go oh now I
093get it so when we ask for 25% increase that's ridiculous I go that's right how much did our state growth grow in this pupil allowance the one up 200 bucks and the teachers or whoever said well we want 400 out of that 200 well good luck how are you going to do that so you build trust with them mean you if you have a really good Finance director who they trust implicitly you can get through a lot of things with it comes to bargaining a contract because everybody Des deserves a fair and an equitable and a reasonable salary and benefits the question is how far can you take it without going bankrupt and um when I did the 0% and the 1% at oana I said nobody will lose their job this year that was
094a selling point I said nobody will lose their job and um nobody did and that kept that kept the momentum going that we can do this because we're all in it together you know I took a freeze principes took a freeze everybody took a freeze but we didn't want anybody to lose their job and I thought that was more important one quick one thank you special education has exploded yep the funds that the feds promised in 197 2 have never been there right but our special ed numbers are exploding how do you deal with that budgetary Wise Staffing wise U regulation wise because the FED State make regulations for the special and rightfully so so how is how is a sou excuse me John you're right the the FED part is a disaster um lots
095of promises with nothing behind it Minnesota I think is trying to do better I think they're looking at the Gap trying to say how do we help schools close that Gap a little bit it's it's I'll be shocked in my entire lifetime if that happens um you can't deny a student with needs what they need you have to figure it out and sometimes you have to take from one pot put it in the other pot so they first of all you're not breaking any laws and you're delivering the needs of that kid and sometimes it's really expensive but one of the things you can do is if you and I know you guys are in a co-op sometimes a co-op can help because you can kind of pull your money together a little bit for
096some of the things that are the most expensive students to work with and sometimes that works not all the time but you keep going to the legislature and you keep knocking on the door and you say when are you going to do your job and I know they don't like to hear that um and it's been going on like you said 50 years and every year it's like come on are we ever going to get this figure it out um you just have to be you have to be tenacious with the legislature but you have to be really really understanding of how we're going to make this work for those kids who have special needs because they have the same rights as everybody else it's just that they're more expensive and that's just part of
097the deal you you have to figure out out and your Finance director has to be really creative you know and your speced director has to be really creative and there are ways to make it work but creativity is is a value that you have to have because um you can kind of figure things out on your own but if you're not creative you run into a wall and that's the last thing you want to do there's a way to get around it but you have to be creative thank you any follow-ups for Peter any parting words for this clearly very wise group of people that's been inter I you know I know time is is going by um so you've asked a couple questions about being an interim and so forth I guess my one
098question to you is what do you expect from me what's your you know I'm an interim you expect me to do my job but what do you expect from me you want to win the state championship in football in all seriousness let's start with you start with me I'd like to see somebody that can uh maybe get some fresh ideas and uh get an idea of what you see um I I'm with you I don't think you're going to change the world in one year um I'm not I I I certainly wouldn't expect that out of you but I'd like to hope that maybe you see a few things that we haven't and uh give us some good ideas on ways we can go forward I agree with you on John's question about the CRT
099and the Dei and the seal it's all just noise to me um in the meantime the state's regulating that we have to teach all this stuff and the kids are just not keeping up right I think that Civics is a huge thing that's not being taught I think fractions are a big deal I think kids should be all the right cursive I would hope they could format a letter and fill out an envelope I'm sick of teaching them when they come to work for me um I don't think we're doing them Justice and public schools for 120 million bucks in this District we should be able to get kids so that they can spell and they can do simple math not asking them to work for Elon Musk and do physics but we should give
100them if they're smart enough and they want to go that direction it'd be nice if they had the tools so they could be those people and I think that education has gotten off track and I'm sorry Kevin you made me do this I think education's gotten off the rails a little bit and instead of worrying what what the reason I got on this board is so the kids get smarter I think the kids are leaving our school because the behavior is out of control uh in 1980 1975 24% of people that went to college went to school to be a teacher today that's 4% why would you want to be a teacher uh I feel as though that teachers make decisions and I'm not positive about this but the parents attack them the administrators don't
101back them up I'm hoping that maybe you'll bring some of that back where we can start to pick up for our teachers and get you know I think it Heidi straighten me out if I'm wrong but was it 73 75 76% of Forest View is chronically absent that it was a slide you know we couldn't really see what the exact number is or am I screwed up in it's 25 26% is we want 90% of our kids to attend 90% of the time and they've dropped below 80% at the middle school in certain grade levels so it's so 76 to 80% of the kids are attending 90% of the time so we're seeing it decline where we need that ATT so 25% is chronically absent y so you think about that so we go to
102school for what 163 days so it's almost a month of school they're missing not quite but it's close when you start thinking about mea and breaks and service days and Christmas and all the different breaks that come in there I'm thinking to myself what is a month of school is it 19 days so if if you're going to miss 10% of the school in 10 years you've missed a year um it's a problem and I'm not saying you can fix it but but I'd like to think that maybe has some ideas on some things that we can do and I like your I really liked your idea on that if it was uh more fun to go to school maybe they showw up more often and I don't mean fun like it's a party I
103mean fun like I'm learning something the kid didn't go nuts today um I can go there and have a nice day and not to be picked on all day and and learn something so there you go okay um I guess one of Heidi's biggest strengths is her ability to develop relationships with staff and um leadership team and students and the community and I guess um I would hope that that would be one of your focuses because I think we need to continue to be a champion for for our really exceptional District we have a huge um history of tradition and pride and um I would like to see that be um one of your main focuses because if teachers feel celebrated um students feel accepted and are excited to be here and families um are
104confident about sending their children to our school so that's what I would like to see as one of your main priorities is to continue our strong tra tradition of excellence and um a place being a place to belong so I'll build on that a little bit and everybody out there is tired of me this story but you haven't heard it before we might have talked about it briefly um I don't hunt I don't fish don't really like Lakes I don't really like boats I don't Golf and I don't like cold weather or mosquitoes so what in the hell am I doing here I going to wonder I am here because my ASD son was going into High School from a nice Middle School in Illinois where we were living at the time and my wife
105and I had to decide do we go south where we want to be or do we go nor to the best school district we've ever had our kids in having had three kids in eight school districts in seven states over 30 years and I chose Brainard and that's why I'm here then I went a step further that I probably shouldn't have and said why don't I be on the school board on top of it so what am I expecting I think as I look at the inim roll and I hear you talk about it and I've talked to some other superintendents around the state um and msba people that have some expertise in this I kind of look at this as a relay race right so Heidi had the Baton she's got it for another
106you know 27 days or whatever it is and she's going to pass you the Baton um so what we want you to do is keep the pace keep keep going with all of the great things that Heidi has put in place and uh particularly wrapped around the Strategic plan because we just spent a lot of time energy and money on that so that's part of your race piece of the race that you've got to run and then I think you articulated this really well earlier the preparation for handing that baton to whoever comes next in a year all the while helping us to I don't know that it's not really improved but to to use some of your unique skill set and communication abilities to begin approaching the community maybe a little bit differently than
107we have in the past as it relates to getting ready for the funding stuff that we know needs to happen so that's kind of what I'm looking for and then as an individual I'm looking for you to guide me as much as this body will look to guide you um you know so that's kind of that equilibrium that we're going to have to find where there's some guard rails there's some things probably going on the district we would you know prefer that you you know if you're a firefighter running into a building W in that room and that room and that room but I don't really need you over here and over here right that kind of thing so that's kind of where my head's at at the moment subject to correction by my colleagues
108your turn how do I follow that Good Genius as you usually do which room is on fire no um you know I think some of the expectation just to piggyback on some of the great things that have been said here is the idea that you said about building trust I think there's so many decisions that get made um some of them really difficult decisions and we probably have some of those in into our future here that I think having that trust and that buyin and belief will be really really important and so I think that relationship building will be important I think the visibility and um just creating some of that consistency and support we we have some Educators that are experts lots of Educators that are experts in their fields and and for them
109to feel honored for that expertise I think is important okay Dr Hyman AKA Randy yeah um I don't want this to come off as being negative but i' I'd like to see you shake the tree and see what falls and what I mean by that is listening to to staff finding out what's going on I mean I just uh relationships are very important and my gosh Heidi the years that you are here you've developed relationships that are unbelievable to do it in one year you're going to be able to build some of that but I think building off what Sarah had said trust if if you know if you can get the trust of the staff and the teachers I think that'll go a long way in building a relationship as short as it may
110be because I'm already into my what second year being on this board and I mean this is just you're only one day a month be every day I understand right but I mean it just it's just it's just flowing by so what I would like to see is is some really good discussions with staff find out what's going on find out what the temperature is what's working in this building may not work work in that building so I think those are the things that I've seen you or listened to you say and I just wanted to use the term shake the tree not to be negative but just to find out hey you know what's going what's working what isn't let's change okay John first of all thank you for asking that question of us
111I I appreciate it and I know my colleagues appreciate it you can see the diversity within this group you can you can I think I hope you can you can hear and see that you know some of us think one thing and but we always respect each other for the most part for the most part no we always do respect each other and have good dialogue in the two years that we've been together and so I appreciate you asking us that um because you're getting a A diversity of answers here um and I'm impressed that you're still in that seat and you haven't left yet that's that's good to you um what do I expect um as my colleagues have said this is a great great I I have been in uh three different school
112districts I've coached in a number of sports I've taught a number of uh classes a different level of classes um this is this is the in my opinion the best in my opinion even oana even better than oana um what do I expect I I expect the interim to help us continue to be the great School District that we've been with have with great students great staff great parents and a great community and I expect I hope and expect you to be the leading cheerleader for us in market and I know that I know that there's some differences on this board about that as well but I think the the superintendent and the board and the staff are the ones that have to promote and market and get our kids back yeah I mean that's
113we're the ones that have to do that right it's not just you it's not just you it's you and us and them and them to get our kids back so I'm hoping that you do that and then I'm hoping that also you lead a charge I'm I'm hoping you lead a charge to a to for for either finishing a levy project or starting to do the levy project that to me is significant with this District going forward W bottom line okay I I would like to just say I'm you're a very young board um I've never worked with such a young board and but when I say young as years of being in the chair um you don't mean our ages he he was really talking to DJ you know I open that door good
114timing on your part thought talking about at first too I was you talking about great I think the exciting thing about it though is that um you don't have very many Barnacles of any and that's really good because um once you let those start to grow on you they're really hard to get off and um to be really successful you cannot allow that to happen just like I can't allow it to happen to me um we don't want our teachers to start growing Barnacles UMC because it just it's like having a backpack and every day you throw a brick in it well pretty soon you can't do anymore and um so your youth in experience I think is very positive and I think the community evidently had a really good idea what they could do
115to help they elected you guys so um this is going to be fun I can guarantee you um it's going to be a lot of work though and it starts with me and I know what my wife is going to say when I get home she says okay what am I going to do while you're doing all this stuff and and we've already talked about it but the funny thing is she's just as passionate as I am about education um well we're looking for we're looking for what means all the time I mean she was a teacher she was a principal she taught it when oner state to help kids who graduated without an education degree to get an education degree so they could I go into the classroom um it's been 40 Years of
116our lives and I'm older than you think but um I'm excited if we're going to do this let's do it but let's do it right great thank you very much P thanks for coming nice meeting you nice meeting you stick around we have some prizes about I said stick around we have some prizes all right uh we'll move on to our two action it for this evening the first one um we kind of snuck in here because of the timing on the desire to close on the property but we gotot um yep okay perfect you two both somebody ready to go home well we already saw this well you guys are on the committee right so what we have in front of us is the purchase agreement for the trade house and uh so we're
117uh any further discussion we have a motion from director donlinger I all out of sync now second from director Ward any further discussion on the trade trade home does anybody have any questions the question yes I believe my understanding is from the newspaper that it came in above what we anticipated it came above our minimum that we had a minimum okay Mercy's coming to the microphone hi Marcy save me you brought the wrath of Mercy on my way up and you guys are motion second and I'm like maybe I don't need to go you didn't Randy uh so we did get three bids on the trade house which was awesome um and the highest one came in at 1052 200 which is the purchase agreement before you um and then I was just going to
118give a quick heads up we are potentially going to move on trying to get a bid notice out again for next year with having three bids the next highest bidder was asking when that would come out so next good good good excellent thanks Marcy no problem any further discussion on the motion on the table hearing none those in favor of the motion signifi by saying I please oppose same sign motion carries second and last action item uh approval to enter into contract negotiations with the aforementioned and um gracious Peter Grant as the interim superintendent for ISD 181 for the 20124 2025 school year so move I'll second we have a motion from director Hyman with a second from director Breen any further discussion yeah Mr chair I want to just say that uh when we
119talked about an interim at the last meeting I voted against it it was 51 I think voting against it and I wasn't sure how this whole thing was shaking down or going or anything else like that um but I appreciate you being here I appreciate your answers I appreciate your experience and everything that you've uh indicated so far um and uh Mr chair I believe that you've uh done a really good job with all with all of the effort I know that uh um it has taken a lot of your time um so I just wanted to clarify that okay thank you any further discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion signify by saying I please I I oppose same sign motion carries now we got to go to a table and fight
120with each other all right so I will uh begin discussions with Mr Grant um so Peter um Angie Bennett who's our HR Director Marcy Lord who was just up here as our our business manager and uh director Spear and myself will be in touch um tomorrow we'll talk get going on the contract part and um just for the rest of the board's benefit as a as a cleanup item um having been retired for the years that Peter has been retired his superintendent license needs a variance to be continued so we working with Massa Bosa and pby to Shepherd that through the process that you thatn do that H can't you sign that so we have all the paperwork but we anticipate no significant hurdles with that there may be a slight timing issue at the
121end of the month that we'll sort out if we need to but I'll we'll cross that bridge when we get to it so with that said I would entertain a motion to adjourn this motion second motion from director doning or with a second from director Hyman for adjournment any further discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please same sign we are adjourned thank you