April 18, 2023 Voorhees BOE Meeting

001the actually I'm gonna just move here um okay pursuant to the open public meetings ACT public notice of this meeting has been given by the board secretary in the following manner on uh posting written notice I'm sorry bear with me I'm like all discombobulated all of a sudden posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the Voorhees Township Public Schools administrative building on March 28 2023 and April 4th 2023 sent a written notice to The Courier Post on March 28 2023 and April 4th 2023 written notice with the clerk of Voorhees Township on March 28 2023 and April 4th 2023 and posting on the Voorhees Township website on March 28 2023 and April 4th 2023. please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and

002to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all board secretary will you call the roll please Mr Bryce here Mrs cassenza here this cat over here Dr Levy Mr Rosner here this is Rudder here Mrs stubler here miss Verdi here this is Watson here okay we are going to um immediately go into executive session so that some of our visitors won't have to suffer through the rest of the rest of our meeting um I do not expect to meet the executive session to go around 30 around 30 minutes um and then we should be back to conduct the rest of our business uh okay so whereas the open public meeting act authorizes Board of Education to meet an executive session under certain circumstances whereas the open

003Public's meeting act requires the board to adopt a resolution at a public meeting to go into private session now therefore be it resolved by the Voorhees Township Board of Education that it is necessary to meet an executive session to discuss certain items involving matters involving the purchase of real property and or the investment of public funds and matters involving Personnel issues including but not limited to employment appointment termination or the termination of employment terms and conditions of employment evaluation of performance promotion or discipline of any public officer or employee be it further resolved that any discussion held by the board which needs to remain confidential will be made public as soon as feasible the minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists further resolve that the

004board will not return will return to open session to conduct business the conclusion of the executive session can I get a motion to adjourn to Executive session so moved second but you want me to roll call or should we just say unanimous unanimous unanimously we're going into executive thank you yeah that's why it was okay she looked at me the report correct superintendent report thank you very much good evening everyone tonight I am pleased to inform the community that after an extensive search that consisted of multiple rounds of interviews and targeted questions and activities we have selected a candidate for principal of Signal Hill and the name appears on the agenda this evening uh the candidate is Lauren Sauls who was a former staff member of Voorhees so we would like to bring her back

005home she worked at E.T Hamilton and at the middle school she is currently a principal in the Hainesport Township School District where her responsibilities include overseeing the daily operations of the school building while also supervising the district's child study team to ensure compliance Miss alls is a dedicated and experienced administrator with a proven track record of success so tonight board members I bring her forward for your consideration we um have on our next virtual parent Workshop series on April 25th and our very own director of technology Bruce Taylor will be presenting a workshop along with his team on our District's technology plan so I hope our parents can join us on April 25th six o'clock it is virtual our elementary enrichment math committee met on March 22nd and our plan now is to offer enrichment

006math to students in grades four and five next year we'll be working on selection criteria and instructional pacing at our next meeting on April 27th and I'd like to thank Dr young for spearheading that meeting we also had our diverse our first diversity equity and inclusion committee meeting on April 26th and it was great we actually have subdivided the committee into subcommittees one is a website committee a Communications committee curriculum and resources committee professional development and community outreach we'll work on developing a parent and guardian survey so that we can obtain information related to religious and cultural observances of our families I'd like to thank Sue Donnelly who oversees that committee tonight we uh are indicating that our performance report from 2122 has now been released by The New Jersey Department of Education these are

007this is from the 21-22 school year um on August 29 2022 Dr Young did a report um on this performance report and she went over the New Jersey student learning assessment data that report is can still be available to anyone who would like to see it but the state is now formally releasing that report a letter has gone out to parents and also it is uh the report is posted on our website the only thing that Dr Young did not present on August 29th which was not available at that time was The Chronic absenteeism data so I'll share that with you this evening very quickly for our elementary schools the state average for chronic absenteeism in the 21-22 school year was 17.8 percent is pretty high 17.8 percent was the state average and chronic absenteeism

008is a student who misses 18 or more days in a school year so 17.8 was the average our schools and I'm going to do an order of the least amount of chronic absenteeism to the greatest uh start with E.T Hamilton at 7.1 Signal Hill at 7.3 Crescent at 8.7 and Osage at 10.9 so although we don't want to see any uh numbers um that any High numbers in chronic absences and we are well below the state's chronic chronic absenteeism average for our Middle School the state average was 16.4 and Voorhees Middle School had 11.5 so we continue to work with our students who are chronically absent by mentoring them and contacting their parents as a district the state average was 17.3 for its school districts and we were at 9.6 so we are below the

009state average and final announcement today is the district will be presenting we'll be participating in take your child to work day we're excited about that on April 27th so all of our District staff are invited to bring their children to work on April the 27th that ends my report so much there are no committee reports audience participation anyone wishing to address the board please approach the side table on the right and write your name and address on the login sheet if you are attending via Zoom please use the raise your hand feature to be acknowledged while the board is limited excuse me and its ability to respond to the public on matters involving Personnel litigation negotiations and attorney client privilege the board will now hear comments from the public relating to the items on the

010agenda for this board meeting comments are limited to three minutes the board will not take action this evening you will be notified at some later time by letter electronic mail telephone or the context of a later board meeting of any action the board does take okay board member comments moving right along there are no items under policy or curriculum Personnel can I get a motion to approve all of the items under personnel so moved second voting is open foreign you want to give your response squirrely and motion unanimously passes voting is closed there are no items under transportation building in grounds can I get a motion to approve all of the items under building and grounds so moved online voting is open foreign passes no items under Finance public comment anyone wishing to address the

011board please approach the side table on the right and write your name and address on the login sheet if you are attending via Zoom please use the Razer hand feature to be acknowledged while the board is limited in its ability to respond to the public on matters involving Personnel litigation negotiations and attorney client privilege the board will now hear comments from the public comments are limited to three minutes the board will not take action this evening you will be notified at some later time by letter electronic mail telephone or in the context of a later board meeting of any action the board does take everybody foreign we have a three-year-old and we're crossing our fingers and everything else we can he gets into the new Crescent mansion coming fall um but something I wanted to

012talk to you about or ask about really is the Middle School we moved here two years ago and we've met a lot we've met so many great people lots of other parents that either that have kids in the school district a little bit older and we've had an opportunity to ask them what was your experience and almost unanimously across the board they were very complementary of the elementary school they were not complimentary of the Middle School um their experience in the middle school was very different to the point where you know we're looking long term and we're like man are we going to have to go into private when we get to that point because we just can't afford can't afford to have that kind of a bump in his his educational path so as

013a board I'm sure this is something you're aware of the test results scores satisfaction you have insight into all that so I'm not telling you anything I'm guessing you already know you don't already know so are you formulating a plan to look at addressing and getting that changed over the coming years um you know are you ramping up your staff are you pumping money into your Frontline people your teachers you know if this was like an NBA team don't you know does the arena doesn't really matter as much as you can have all these ancillary Services as people on the court that's where you put your money are we are we looking at stacking more money into and into the teachers how are you addressing that problem like what's your long-term solution so that by

014the time he gets there it's not even a question in our minds of course he's going to go to the middle school and in public so just letting you know that that's a concern of mine and I'm sure there's lots of other parents that have that same concern because they're all hearing the same stories so and that's really a lot of what we go on so anyway just heads up and hopefully we'll hear more on what you're doing to address that thank you um moving to board comments before I oh I'm sorry we have a comment okay hi Diana Brown I'm just curious about if we're doing more about security or especially in recent events with the PFA doing things during school hours like Book Fairs I just want to I guess I guess know

015what's going on with all that that's it that's it thank you you went I'm sorry you went out so we couldn't hear everything that you said could you repeat that so I was just curious what's going on with PFA and like Book Fairs and security oh sorry and I just want to check that everything's okay and that we have a plan going forward that's it thank you thank you thank you any other comments um before I open the comments up to uh the full board two things I want to welcome Lauren's Halls um we are so excited to have you as part of The Signal Hill family and um if I am correct you have some words that you would like to say so I'd like to invite you up to share with the board

016thank you so much for president Watson and members of The Voice Township Public Schools Board of Education Dr Hackett and the interview committee I'm Lauren Sals and I am so grateful to once again serve the community of Voorhees Township as Dr Hackett mentioned I began my educational career in Voorhees back in 2009 as a fourth grade student teacher at E.T Hamilton and then shortly thereafter I became an 8th grade math teacher at the middle school and then during that time I taught in the district's extended school year program in grades K through five and the program itself was taught at Signal Hill Elementary School so as you can imagine it's a very much a full circle moment for me to say the least uh and I've always seen myself returning to Voorhees Township Public Schools

017it's a district that's very near and dear to my heart it's one that I've always considered home being that it's where I began my career and during my tenure as principal I've learned a lot about the skills needed to cultivate a school culture that's built on inclusivity and diversity equity and respect as well as the importance of building positive relationships with not just the students but also the staff and of course the families of the school community so to say that I'm humbled and honored is an understatement to not only return to Voorhees Township Public Schools as principal of Signal Hill Elementary but also to share my love of children and my enthusiasm for learning with the students staff and families of Signal Hill Elementary so thank you very much thank you I don't know

018how you can't be excited about that um so I'm going to open up to the rest of the board um seeing no comments I'm going we are not going back to Executive session our next meeting date will be on May 3rd 2023 it will be a public budget hearing and district reorganization meeting um and now we will move into board ethics training oh anyone who's here oh yes you all don't need to say thank you all for coming thank you bye from school boards was it Jesse Yeah okay I like Jesse oh all right I'm gonna do this because this is for you guys so apologies to anyone who I've got my back to but this is really for the board I know that uh Bruce has got the slides I think that's the last

019slide Bruce that you're on so this is obviously part of the public meeting just while Bruce is putting this together and I'm always you know I always welcome the the public hearing some of this because I think it's you know not the easiest most intuitive stuff um but uh this is really for you guys for the board you know I want this to be as conversational as possible I want people to ask questions and I want this to be accessible user friendly because there's a lot of things about the code of ethics that aren't necessarily um first you want me to wait are you good okay so there's a couple there's some stuff I can talk about while he's doing that so you guys know you saw it on your reorg agenda that under the

020administrative code the board of education has to once a year annually discuss and review the code of ethics for school board members so um the code of ethics for school board members is part of a broader piece of legislation called the school ethics act uh this piece of it the code of ethics is specifically for school board members the school ethics act at large is applicable to school board members and also School administrators so there's a little bit of a distinction there worth knowing what we're going to talk about tonight is the code of ethics it's like subsections a through J the way that the code is structured is that there's the there's the piece of it that's the code and then the code of ethics that's the statute then in the administrative code which

021is written by the Department of Education it tells you what the proof of a violation of that section is so there's more slides here than we're going to go through I'll have the PDF available for you guys I'm going to go through just the first subsection of it showing you each aspect of it but then we're going to go through and talk about case notes mostly all right so if you can go ahead okay so this is just a quick overview of what I just talked about you can actually Advance forward this is just the the board's obligation discussed every year this is school ethics 101 so the code of ethics is really about telling you guys as board members what your role is here um so these are some broad Concepts here you guys

022are the governing body of the school district you're charged with high level policy making decisions as opposed to daily Administration you are the only entity that can enter into contracts or any binding agreements your decision-making Authority is very limited and you cannot administer the schools and in most situations you cannot Act without the recommendation of the chief School administrator you guys will see that acronym CSA out there a lot that just means superintendent it's just easier than writing it out but it means Chief School administrator you can go ahead foreign so this is one of my favorite and more important slides here okay the the code of ethics is not the it's not the floor right of of your behavior it's not the minimum standard of conduct it's not just the basic laws you know

023but it's also not the ceiling it's not your personal morals it's not your personal beliefs it helps you navigate everything in between there and for anyone who's ever told you that ethics are not situational that is incorrect in this particular concept ethics are inherently situational and specifically in the context that we're talking about the code is designed to tell you what your role is and what stepping out of it looks like okay so if you take anything from tonight right I don't want you feel like you have to memorize or remember any of this I want you to walk away knowing when to ask a question that's it so listen just enough to be like oh I feel like Alicia said something that maybe sounds like that maybe I should talk to Monica and see

024if this is an issue that's all I need you to do you just need to know when to ask questions and I can tell you there's enough lawyers on this board right like you guys know that's what our code of ethics is like our our rules of professional responsibility tell us when we have to go talk to a colleague you know get an advisory opinion about whether there's some conflict in our representation asking those questions doesn't make us unethical it makes us ethical so that's how you need to think about the code here it's not an indictment it's not like a you know you're wrong if you did this there are a lot of things you'll see in this that you can trip over these things are not intuitive okay go ahead so the first

025section of the code and like I said you're going to see the slideshow kind of unfold for each subsection there's 10 sections of the code of ethics there's going to be the actual code the next slide is going to be the evidence of the violation which I'll go through pretty quickly and then I've got a couple case notes under each section just so you guys have some idea what it looks like in practice so subsection a here is just the I'm going to follow the rules I'm going to follow the law okay I'm not going to read the whole thing for you you can go ahead the evidence of the violation this is what's really interesting um the evidence of a violation is actually a copy of a final decision from a court or administrative

026agency of this state so interesting side note the school ethics commission is the body they're appointed by the governor they oversee the school ethics act they review charges brought under the code of ethics for school board members and the conflict of interest Provisions about 95 of what's filed in front of the uh the school ethics commission is dismissed because people don't read this they read the first part you know they read what they say the statute says but they don't look up with the evidence of the violation is right so everyone who thinks that the school board has done something wrong will run to school ethics file an Ethics charge hey they didn't follow the law but in order to actually establish a violation of this part of the code you have to actually have

027a Judicial like a court order or an admin administrative agency decision saying that you did in fact follow failed to follow the law so I always point this out in subsection a because it's it's one of the ones that people file charges under often and it's one of the hardest ones to prove you can go ahead so Caseville a case note under this um under the subsection was the Pleasantville Board of Education so um when you see on the top left corner where it says c58-21 so that's the school ethics commission docket number anything that starts with a C is a case that's actually been adjudicated anything that starts with an A is an advisory opinion so you can actually ask the swathx commit commission for an opinion on whether something might be in conflict

028with your duties as a board member and if they have not already issued a public advisory opinion on it they will give you that guidance so that's a really helpful tool that we use a lot when we're kind of you know working through these issues so this was an interesting case um board members were there's a ethics charge filed against board members what happened I may or may not have been at this meeting I don't know but what happened was there was a a vote there's a um there were a couple ethics charges actually there was a motion there was a vote to suspend the superintendent to fire the superintendent there was basically a the attempt to make action to take adverse action against the superintendent's employment there was no rice notice given and it

029was done in public there was you know no executive session discussion beforehand um and I I think justifiably people were concerned that that violated the law there were a number of Ethics complaints filed as a result of a couple questionable issues that that came up um and although they seem manifestly clear that there was a violation of the law right I mean you don't every attorney I'm sure who's ever talked to you about you know being a board of education you know what a rice notice is you know that you've got to do that before you can talk about an employee seemed very clear but the school ethics commission said this is not yet a violation of the code of ethics because we don't have a determination from a judge from an administrative agency from

030someone telling us that the law has in fact been violated so what we take from that is that someone's opinion is not enough someone's opinion that you violated the law is not enough to establish a violation of the code of ethics at least under subsection a so that's how the code that's how the code kind of unfolds that's how you'll see the slideshow go but I'm mostly going to skip over the evidence of the violation you guys can all have copies of the presentation look at it anytime you need to that's sort of the less interesting part but I just want you to know kind of how it goes so someone in the meeting made a motion to remove the board memory yeah four member made a motion to remove the superintendent for something and

031they said there was no court order saying that there was a violation there so the superintendent so a couple different people brought ethics charges but one of them being the superintendent um brought ethics charges against some of the board members saying you tried to take action against me you did not give me a rice notice you did not give me any indication that my employment would be discussed before the Board of Education which seems like a pretty clear violation of that particular right when when charges were brought under the code of ethics with the school ethics commission said is we can't we're going to dismiss this because we don't have proof of the violation because proof of violation means an actual court order or decision from an administrative agency so it's just really hard to

032establish a violation under this part of the code thanks okay okay sorry I'm geeking out here but so what what should this person who allow your question an Ethics violation have a question to yeah I don't actually know I don't actually know no I've I've always wondered that because the the school ethics so here's what I think I think what that person needs to do is also file in Superior Court whatever the proper agency is right because when you file in front of the school ethics commission you have to assert you have to um uh verify that the matter isn't pending anywhere else so I think they have to file what I would what I would probably do is file and then file the ethics charge and have the school ethics commission either tell me

033file after you're done or we hold it into bands because there is a 180 day statute limitations you have to bring these pretty quickly so I mean you know like we could be in court for a couple years before you actually have a determination it's 180 days from when you should have known there was a violation so it's not clear to me you know whether that's when you've actually filed in Superior Court or when you've actually reached to like had an adjudication of it um but it's a great question okay you can go ahead all right subsection B I'll make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and we'll seek to develop and maintain schools that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race Creed sex or social standing

034right all well and good sounds great totally the north star of what we're doing here you can go ahead this is your evidence of the violation you take a quick look at it nothing particularly interesting there um but you have to provide evidence that the board member who you're trying to file an Ethics charge against willfully made a decision contrary to the educational welfare of children so a couple cases that shows you how this plays out um c3620 that's the first one up there board president raised concerns to the principal and the superintendent about their child's teacher and later filed an HIV complaint against that teacher they did not violate this provision even though that staff member ended up not being renewed uh the comments uh the comments made and the HIV complaint were made

035in the capacity as a parent and the decision to non-renewalize solely with the superintendent so just you know complaining about a teacher you know even taking action potentially in that situation wasn't um wasn't a violation of the code of ethics the second one is a little bit a little bit more demonstrative I think so a board member was found to be in violation of the code when he released an Ethics complaint that had been filed against another board member he released that to the media and that ethics complaint contained confidential information about the other board members child who was a student so you know very like it's a little bit of a roundabout way to get there but releasing that complaint to the public disclosed confidential student information not a decision made you know with

036the educational welfare of children in mind okay go ahead subsection C this one's probably the most important one um in terms of governance right Your Role here is to to be models of good governance you'll hear me and everyone else say your job is policy making planning and Appraisal okay BP and a that is the board's purview I I will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them that's the second part of it so we make policy and we make good policy because we check in with the folks who are going to be impacted by the policy go ahead evidence of the violation is that you uh board member took action to effectuate policies and plans without that consultation or took action unrelated to

037these three things which really speak to the high level governing of the district so developing the generals and principles that guide the management of the District formulating programs and methods to effectuate the goals or ascertaining the value or liability of a policy so all three of those things speak to what is within the purview of the board so taking action outside of that is where you can get in trouble and this is one of the places where it's not necessarily intuitive right you're asked to make big important decisions and the instinct is to want to know every little step that got you there and that's one of the hardest things I think as a board member is you have to learn how to adjust to the governance structure of the board you know the committee

038structure everything flowing through the superintendent and you have to learn and you trust it's difficult it's very difficult not that Dr Hackett is untrustworthy but it's difficult for any Board of Education member to make these big decisions that people are going to then come and you know have something to say about and feel like you know you're you're leaving some of that in someone else's hands but that is what you signed up for so let's see what that looks like in practice so um okay board members conducted a site visit to assess a candidate for the assistant superintendent position without board authority that conduct was outside the scope of a board member's Authority okay um because the assistant superintendent only gets hired at the recommendation of the superintendent it is not the board's purview to

039go and do site visits and assess a candidate now you know the board might have a little bit more involvement in hiring an assistant superintendent because it is a very high level position but you know not much not much more so I was going to ask you could you be more could you be more specific like what because that that is the hardest this is the hardest it is yeah so what type of involvement do you think is appropriate in in a something like that you know hiring yeah so I I think that for any hire I think with the board with the board's purview is what is the process in place right is there a process and are we following it and are we following it consistently um and that process might look different

040for different positions right for uh for a a bus driver or for a classroom teacher that process might not be quite as expansive as what you guys have probably gone through hiring a superintendent right which is a multi-month process but is there a process and what is it and who's involved are there stake stakeholder voices involved um I think it's so I think it's fair game to say what's the process right how did it go and listen there's questions you can ask out of curiosity like do we get a lot of candidates what are you know like I'm okay with you guys asking those questions I'm not okay with can I see the resumes you know why do we you know why this person not that person right if you if you want to like

041it's absolutely within your purview to know who the candidate is what their credentials are all those sorts of things but not really to second guess what the decisions were made what decisions were made in the process was there a process was it followed are we comfortable with the process if that process should look different I think it's okay for that to be you know somewhat of a board discussion are we advertising in all the right places are we pulling from an expansive enough can edit pool it's okay to want to know about the candidate but that's pretty much it um go ahead are those processes just do they have to be documented anywhere are they just like this is pattern in practice this is what we do and we follow it for this particular position

042yeah I don't think that has to be necessarily codified in policy there's some stuff that's going to you know it might already be in your contracts like about posting right like posting positions making sure that you know they're posted for a certain amount of time those are fairly common those are like just common across education they're also I don't know if it's in your contract but there's those are fairly common contract Provisions um I don't think it needs to be codified but I think it's good to know that there is a process um and I mean listen hiring these days is you know you have to be fluid um because hiring now in particular I would call it difficult Dr AG is that the right word uh challenging um you know it it does vary

043there are some Market fluctuations that that impact it so there's some times when you're going to have to move faster or maybe you're truncating a process um you know and then there's other times where it might be a little bit longer but I don't I don't feel strongly that it needs to be documented but I think you should know what it is and I think it's okay to ask what that process is I think it's important to know like if you guys have you know um you know diversity and Equity goals in terms of your staff and representation on your staff where are we posting what efforts are we making to you know build our pipeline of teachers and and that sort of thing um I think it's okay to want to know that and

044to you know um if that's one of the board's goals but um you know it doesn't have to be it's not like a sort of checklist circumscribed kind of a thing do you do you think um it's ever appropriate for a representative of the board to serve on an interview committee for a top-tier hire um so great question spoiler alert I do answer that later in the presentation but the answer is no and um and that's not my opinion that's this whole ethics commission's opinion okay so we I I believe it's in here we'll touch on it later but there's an advisory opinion where they say like they don't even support the existence of like an HR committee which I think is a little impractical there's other HR issues there's other Personnel issues that aren't

045just interviewing right that I think are important for you know the the board is involved in um but they that's very clear in this advisory opinion they do not support board members participating in or even sitting in on interviews for any position on other than the superintendent which is your your higher yep okay so basically though um exactly what I was just going to say or ask pretty much when we were hiring a superintendent the process was very different we did we did um do the interviews so but what you're saying is once that superintendent is put in place that Authority anyone under the superintendent Authority is taken away from us yeah or whether or not you never had it exactly yeah you'll hear you'll hear folks from school board say the board has one

046employee and it's the superintendent that doesn't really make sense they're all I mean they're all employees at the board but the analogy makes sense that's the person who you guys have direct supervisory authority over right that's the only person who you review right you evaluate the superintendent you don't evaluate anybody else and the superintendent is through is who all of the Personnel recommendations come through so superintendent has discretion to share biographical information of potential hires and I mean I'm speaking specifically about I would say candidates not like I wouldn't I wouldn't say here's candidates a b and c I would say here's who we're hiring here's who here's who's I'm going to recommend here's all the information I want you to know about gotcha you know and listen and especially especially these days you know

047um and I don't know how it's happening here I'm just talking generally what I'm seeing across clients like you are seeing more guide consideration being given to new hires because it's very difficult to hire people so if your contract allows it people are getting Advance some steps that's something that I'm seeing more superintendents being like hey just as an FYI this is why I'm doing this is all the years of experience they have like so there's you know you're being asked to vote on that it's okay to want that information but it's really information about the successful candidate which is what you're getting that makes sense thank you [Music] yeah so I think that the best advice I've ever heard on this is you know when you're when you're thinking about asking a question right

048I think that what you have to ask yourself is what action is the board being asked to take such that I need this information right is this curiosity is this um you know beyond is this even something that's coming before the board so I think that's kind of a good guideline like what action are we being asked to take why do I need this information for what question right do I what am I being asked to answer that I need this information for um you guys work through a committee system right so I always say and this this also comes later I talk a little bit about just like sort of boardsmanship stuff um that make some of these things go easier and I think it's it's a board level discussion but you know the

049superintendent the board of the business administrator the board president and I also think committee chairs are your resources right for questions and So within those four people right those well there's three specific people in a category right of of committee chairs um I think that that's where information comes from because committees bring recommendations forward to the board so if there's a particular question you have under policy right it makes sense to me go to the policy committee chair they might be able to answer some questions maybe that takes some um you know some traffic off Dr hackett's desk I know she's always happy to you know answer questions from from board members but you know it's always good to just sort of be aware of those resources so and I think that's also something that

050you guys as a board can decide what makes the most sense um you know in terms of how you want that information to flow but generally speaking that's where I would go right [Music] so if if you're asking a question about something that isn't on an agenda right I mean that's that's probably not the best so it may or may not be something that's coming up yeah and listen I would say like and I don't I don't like there to be this like no you can't ask questions if it's not literally coming up on the next board agenda but there's also a there's also a management of resources here right um you know you want to be mindful of if there isn't something imminently coming up if there isn't a discussion with that question you

051know that needs to be informed by that information is this how we want to use the time and resources so you just and listen you're going to get it wrong sometimes right you're you're going to get it right for the most part but you're gonna get wrong sometimes and sometimes it's going to go too far you learn as a board member none of this sends you to board member jail this is all about learning um and it's all about sort of adjusting to the parameters of the role so if you find yourself doubting I would say ask someone if you if you're concerned like am I am I getting too far into the weeds here am I taking up too much of someone's time just ask you know is this beyond what you know I

052need to know all right where do we leave off all right let's go subsection d I don't think you went through those examples you didn't wait go back oh no I did you know what you're right I went through the first one the second one yeah okay this was C okay the second one's actually important um if you could go could you go back on Bruce yep there it is so the second one is an advisory opinion on volunteering I always put this in there because it's really interesting so obviously you guys are board members making the big zero bucks here okay so the one thing this is my gift to you or rather the school ethics commission's gift to you okay volunteering as a board like when you're a board member even though you're

053a parent is a lot of times off the table if you need to get yourself out of any requests for volunteering you can point to this so under this subsection of the code limiting your actions to policy making planning and Appraisal there are a number of advisory opinions where the school ethics commission has weighed in and said it would create the appearance that you are not confining your actions to policy making planning and Appraisal if for instance in this particular situation it was a it was a um I believe it was a theater production um you know someone wanted to volunteer to do the costumes or the the music or something like that it was a board member they solicited an advisory opinion in the school ethics commission's like well you'd be directing students you'd

054be taking direction from staff you'd potentially be directing staff you can't just completely take off your board member hat and say you know I'm just here as a parent tonight it doesn't really work that way you know there's still that appearance so there are certain volunteer like these sort of long-term habitual volunteer projects are things that the school ethics commission has said you shouldn't be doing p as are still okay to some extent um they have like a whole they have a standalone advisory opinion on like the treasurer the president and all the like it kind of depends on what level of interaction you have with school staff and with students like they kind of seem to say you can be the treasurer of the PTA because you have nothing to do with anyone in

055District you're just keeping the books um but so they really look at the degree of interaction that you're having with staff and with students and the potential that exists there for you know making it seem like you're not limiting your board role um if you want to go if you want to go on a class trip that's fine you can chaperone a class trip you can chaperone a dance like these one-offs I tend to think for not that much of a concern it's these sort of more long-term ones so serving on Dr hackett's committees for example would be like an no no I mean you know it's um it's interesting this one surprise I mean it's one of it's one of the ones where I always say it's not intuitive right you guys fundamentally are

056volunteers you're giving your time well and we're also parents with kids in the district right right so yeah yeah so so those get a little bit stickier right it kind of depends on what you do in that role and I always say like listen if you're not sure let's get an advisory opinion let's ask them the question you know it really depends on the extent like and I don't have a great sense that varies from school to school what those roles look like um you know I can I feel comfortable saying like you're one-off I'm gonna chaperone this trip for this dance like that's all okay you know the more long-term stuff is where it gets a little bit more difficult you know remember I mean these people like staff looks at you as like

057oh this is a member of the board like it's a little bit intimidating for them I don't know what Dr hackett's committees are so I'd have to know more about that one specifically but you know if it feels wrong to you you know yeah the time for it well it definitely blurs the line and I I know as a as a practice at least since I've served on the board we've we've said because people have asked for people not to serve on pfas not to be class parents because it is too boring but yes the like one-offs would be fine but we've we've tried to go more restrictive because it because teachers don't feel at least you've gotten the feedback that they don't feel no and I think that's important to know I think that's

058important to know if it's an experience you really want to have with your kid go to the zoo whatever right um but that other like I think it is important to be mindful of that and it was only in the last couple years that they issued the advisory opinion clarifying some specifics on like these parent these homeschool associations and I don't know that it gave me a ton of clarity but it was it really does it's really about the degree of interaction with staff and students um so I did know that as far as the fundraising piece of it I there's been many times even through Middle School where I've been asked oh can you fundraise for this or no I can't because I'm on the board of ed so I can't do that so

059I knew about that part um for a quick minute when my son was going to be in theater and before I decided not to I did want to volunteer and help out to maybe make the costumes or do something like that but then he quit here's my question um something like teacher appreciation week that is coming up um they're asking for donations gift cards things like that are are we allowed to donate something like I mean listen I don't have I don't have an issue with that it doesn't it doesn't implicate the section of the code right you're not you're not in there you know um telling teachers what to do or supervising students or anything like that if you're just making a donation that's perfectly like for example I would be giving gift cards

060yeah my husband's business it's not so he's my husband it's his business but it's not really me so I thought it would be okay is it it's a donation though right yeah it's a donation yeah yeah so that's okay as a parent right you mean like your classroom teachers yeah yeah I mean there's nothing in the code of ethics that says you can't do that that's I mean I think there's probably board policies on teachers accepting gifts I'm pretty sure this is a stress estimate policy that says they're not supposed to but I don't want to ruin anyone's fun no wine bottles all right are we good can I uh okay go ahead okay this is this sort of goes hand in hand with policy making I'll carry out my responsibility not to administer the

061schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well run okay so this is the no micromanaging principle here evidence of the violation is that the board member gave a direct order to school Personnel or became directly involved in activities or functions that are the responsibility of school Personnel or the day-to-day admission uh the day-to-day Administration so um couple of at least one slide on this I might have two because there's a lot there's a lot that come under these so the first one I thought was actually kind of interesting I like this one Monroe Township so there's a board member who was concerned about um uh someone's conduct I I'm assuming it was Apparent at a sporting event um they then asked to be on the policy committee and sort

062of spearheaded efforts to create a disorder like a spectator policy um and this person brought ethics charges against that board member and swathi's commission was like actually that's exactly what you're supposed to do right this is a hundred percent fine you you addressed a concern through policy which is the purview of the board the fact that it was sort of colored by this person's personal experience um and maybe there was beef I don't know but this was still the right way to do it so I thought that was interesting um the other one the second one up there c4010 board member was uh censured because they tried to they instructed the superintendent to allow us a particular student to participate in graduation exercises they basically gave the superintendent an order related to the day-to-day administration

063of the district turns out there was a very good reason for the student to not be participating in graduation ceremonies there are specific safety concerns that the police were involved in and there were threats that the student was the target of a shooting the board member by the way was aware of that report and nonetheless still was sort of trying to assert their uh their will here um obviously you know there's their reason there are good reasons behind what the superintendent did and even if the board member disagreed that as a superintendent's decision to make not the boards well can one person on the board even direct they can try they do it all the time but no no they absolutely cannot which gets at my favorite slide that's coming up you'll you'll know when

064you see it um you can go ahead well and it's not just it's not just the superintendent it's our staff as well you're not absolutely which I will tell you has happened on more more than 10 occasions yeah that we've found out that board members have either told principals or teachers to do something instead of following the correct chain of command and so this is another area where people yeah and if you go oh all right so he did change his idea though and it's right there right so I knew there were two slides on this so um board member there's a board member visited the school took pictures of open windows in the bathroom items of concern and then spoke to the like media about it instead of talking to the superintendent um you

065know listen if you're picking your kid up and if you notice something let Dr Hackett know right you don't pull the custodian aside and say hey can you fix that or you don't you know I mean that's that's where it starts to get a little bit tricky for you guys as board members so that was a pretty pretty clear-cut example and then here's the uh here's the other one board member would violate the act by participant advisory opinion participating in an exit interview or even observing the exit interview which would breach the board member's obligation to refrain from becoming directly involved in activities that are the responsibility of school personnel and micromanaging School Personnel so there's an advisory opinion on exit interviews and also on Personnel committees so that's the one that we have in

066here all right yep yep it's and listen parents parents do that all the time you're not just a parent anymore it just it takes on a different yep yep yep yeah no it's just the it's the appropriate way for the chain of and listen I mean if there's an immediate safety issue do what you have to do right like that's that's a different situation but if it's just a that doesn't seem right that goes right to the superintendent hmm so to the point of the question can one board member right direct the answer is subsection E I will recognize that Authority rests with the Board of Education and will make no personal promises nor take any private action that may compromise the board this is my favorite part of the presentation okay all right go

067ahead this is a big reveal anyone know what this is anyone know what we're looking at here that's right okay go on next right all right so so Mr Bryce take us through this explains explain Voltron here awesome well amen sister individually they're great but as they come together they even greater yes so you get it my favorite size is my favorite I do this is like my favorite part of the presentation so you can go one more there we go there's Voltron defender of the universe now like all the little space line robots who make up Voltron are cool in their own right but they are not Voltron okay this is Voltron so this is your analogy okay this is who you guys are um but in case we need more examples more more

068dated cultural references okay you are Destiny's Child you are not Beyonce you are I know it's tough you are a queen no one is ready Mercury and of course you are The Beatles not John Lennon um so that that concludes the dated cultural references more than of my presentation I gotta tell you there's always one person who gets Voltron and like that yeah it's again and it's only ever one right and it's like it's like a five-year age range and they're like Voltron I'm like yeah it's very specific question yeah yeah so I always feel really good about thank you each made by night okay so but you get the point you are the board is one group you guys all ran for the board okay you all signed up to play in the band

069you got to play the same song okay no solo wax so that's uh that's my my nice little analogy here but so let's see what this looks like in practice you can go ahead so this is our evidence of a violation this one's sort of one of the more amorphous sections like made personal promises or took action beyond the scope of their duties such that by its nature had the potential to compromise the board a couple good uh um go ahead couple good examples here under the case notes so the first one um this was related to the the earlier one we saw about visiting uh doing a site visit for an assistant superintendent these board members violated the code and were censured when they made personal promises to a candidate for assistant superintendent by

070basically saying like like uh like advancing the possibility of their employment with the district and trying to resolve a contract issue so a couple board members who were really interested in this candidate were like hey listen we're going to get you in we'll we'll clear up this contract thing that was going on it's fine you know now for all I know that assistant superintendent could have relied on that promise made by a couple board members and not taken other jobs or relocated or something like that um nobody nobody individually gets to make those promises so that's one way right that you can get into trouble this is sort of the other end of the spectrum board member this one just cracks me it was found in violations suspended for six months when during a traffic

071stop okay she identified herself as a board member insulted the officer you know um called the request for a license and registration uh you know bleeping insults threatened to make a call right now to the council president meanwhile like does this really give you guys that much value do you know who I am like I am on the board of education sir exactly what is that what I mean right sure no power I volunteer for this position better listen that's right yeah so can you talk so we have had at least we've had um emails come through over the course again over the last five six years whatever it is um of children of board members making comments to teachers such that something along the lines of you better give me what I want or

072I better not get in trouble my parent is a board member needs to ground those kids right we'll talk about the discipline yeah right but like clearly if I like clearly a violation even though it's not the board member acting yeah no that's definitely a concern right um and I think that you know were that to happen and listen like I said there's places you can you know you can trip over the code of ethics this isn't intuitive so I would give everyone the benefit of doubt in that situation but it's a talking to right it's a conversation that's that's made clear that gotta talk to your kid you got to make sure they're not saying this and also I assume they're not hearing this at home right um because that of course is the

073concern right that they're hearing it you know the parents say have at it you know I'm a board member now you know it's all it's all good we own this place right right oh we're not supposed to say it all right you can go ahead yeah go ahead recommend them how so I think that would be a little bit of a concern because you're you're um you know essentially asking for input into a hiring decision that's not within the board's purview I think you can say and listen right now in this moment like if you know any language teachers or special education teachers I forget what I said just call Dr Hackett right we'll get them in tomorrow um but you can tell your friend to a reply exactly like you just can't recommend them

074yeah and then you should just I think it's fine for you to tell them to apply but then that part is absolutely fine to disclose to the board that this is your friend well and I also correct of course you have to well and I also not only can you but I think you should be encouraging people to apply in the districts right like like Yeah a hundred percent right right I wouldn't be like yeah you you wouldn't want to do is say to your friend I'll send your resume directly to Dr right right what you can do is say you know like go on front line it would be under this section you know right like I mean listen probably not you know listen if if someone uses you as a reference honestly like

075I don't wanna I don't want to ruin anyone's like chances like if you have if you have something to say about them like it's up to Dr Hackett how she wants to handle that I think it would probably be better for them to use someone else just because it's you know it but if it's someone new or you know they they only have a couple references it's not it's not on you that they put you down as a reference and then Dr Hackett would just have to decide how to handle that okay all right so section F I'll refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest partisan political groups so to use the schools her personal Gainer for the gain of friends go ahead um interesting evidence of a violation here like it's it's

076not quite as straightforward as it seems took action on behalf of or at the request of a special interest group or persons organized and voluntary United in opinion who would right you can read the whole thing I'm not going to read it like even within that I'll tell you this one confuses me a little bit because you could have a group of people who come to the board and say hey we think this needs to be addressed right and the board might decide to take action on it so like this is this one's this is more about I think when you're taking action personally um you know or whether it's you know again without consulting those who were you know impacted by policies so don't don't get too hung up on the language here you'll

077see you'll see where it um for this kind of where the rubber meets the road on this one you can go ahead um okay so the first one here file this under my constant refrain this stuff is not intuitive so the board member who had owned and operated a business and previously did like a 50 50 fundraiser right like that's you know it's Voorhees night at the Chick-fil-A right and then Mr Chick-fil-A comes and gets elected to the board can no longer run that fundraiser because that was a profit splitting so now as a board member you're kind of generating income so really nice thing something that was good for the community but once you're a board member takes on a different tone um okay so the second one this was an advisory uh this

078is an advisory opinion I gotta tell you this is another one of my favorite ones because this is like someone who really knows how to play the long game when it comes to being spiteful or something about it you just can't help it but admire um so a board member someone got themselves elected to the board they were previously employed in the district terminated by the superintendent filed ethics charges against the superintendent and then their first act upon being elected was calling for a vote of no confidence in the superintendent yeah but like I said someone's really playing the long game there you know so um so fortunately this was an advisory opinion rather than an actual case um someone was able to put the brakes on that and say why don't we just go

079ahead and ask the school ethics commission about that let's go ask this commission weighed in and say yes that was that would be a problem but also because of your history with the superintendent you also cannot vote on matters involving the superintendent evaluate the superintendent and be involved in those Personnel decisions um so this person kind of talked themselves out of the very mission that they were uh pursuing all of those years as Like An Origin story um but that's where it ended up now an interesting point here on the conflict of interest Provisions we're talking about the code of ethics here separately under the school ethics act are conflict Provisions which are some things I know that have been a topic of discussion amongst the board I do talk about that in a later

080slide just give you some examples of those but when it comes to participating in Personnel matters involving the superintendents one of the places where there can be a conflict other than this is if you have a an immediate family member or relative employed in District so we'll talk about that but just as a sort of side issue apart from the code but under the ACT so so personal gain and this may be more appropriate under conflict of interest but obviously we all have other lives other jobs does it only mean by personal gain a financial gain or for instance if I sit on a board separate from this board let's say I sit on the Federation the Jewish Federation board um if I want to have you know the Federation has a great speaker coming

081up and I use my role as a board member to say Dr Hackett it would be great if this better if this speaker came and spoke to our classrooms um I think that's inappropriate but is that blur is that where does that fall so if it's not Finance I'm not financially getting yeah yeah so it's both both of those things like both aspects of that can be problematic so under the um under the conflict of interest provisions and I think let me check I think I might have listed them in here like just so you guys had them in one place yeah I think I do have all of them so we'll go through them pretty quickly but there's so under the strictly the conflict of interest Provisions under the school ethics act you're not

082supposed to act in a manner like for you um a relative or an other is what they're called has a an interest so and where interest is actually defined as a financial interest but then there's also a part where it talks about unwarranted privileges or some just some sort of personal gain so there's a conflict of interest provision for some sort of personal gain whether it's credibility sort of professional appreciation you know other than money right gain Loosely under the conflict of interest Provisions but then it's sort of separate under the code of ethics in terms of overstepping I think so I think it's okay to say Hey you were talking about the eighth graders doing this project I was just over it you know like as a board member over here they have this

083really interesting thing going on here's some information to take a look maybe pass along to the principal if it's something they're interested in it's just a resource like you can share information about resources that you guys know as community members or even you participate in it's where you don't want to be too heavy-handed and make it feel like you're directing the superintendent so I would say you know you've got to use your judgment right this could be interesting and it's about approach too maybe look at this or hey I know that you guys are looking at this this is what I heard these people were doing right you guys can certainly offer that kind of feedback you just have to be careful about staying in your lane okay all right confidentiality this one's fairly straightforward

084holding confidential on matters pertaining to the schools we can go through this one pretty quickly um again evidence of the violation has to be pretty specific that you took action to disclose something that was confidential the other the other part of this is not just holding confidential but also communicating accurate information I always gloss over that but it's a very important piece of it so you've got a whole whole confidential all matters pertaining to the schools but also in in conjunction with your fellow board members convey accurate information and so that's we'll see it under the case notes you can go ahead so um two social media you know just sort of another cautionary tale about social medias these are two cases both of which arise under some social media mishap uh board member was

085centered for responding to and having a social media message reposted over an alleged student discipline incident this actually wasn't a social media message is the right word it was like a a family thread inside an app I forget which um where a board member was on a text thread for lack of a better term or a DM thread with other members of their family where they commented on a student discipline matter involving the school disclose some specific information the school the grade level and some information about the discipline imposed it wasn't and then someone in that thread then posted it so um I've I've had to say to teachers before when I've been you know when I do professional development for staff and I always say to board members like there's no spousal privilege in

086this right like that's not a thing we're like I know I can't tell anyone but I can tell my husband right like nope nope like all of this stays confidential um the other one this was actually you know this this was a little bit more innocent so you see in that top one c1718 that board member was censured that's a higher penalty than reprimand and the one underneath it that board member was reprimanded what happened here was there was an executive session discussion about an issue um the there were that was sort of derived from a parent complaint after that executive session discussion a parent emailed the whole board and said you know um hey I want to follow up on this what are you guys doing about it and then a board member replied

087all forgot to take the parent off and like replied all and said like well further to what we discussed in executive session or something like that like it was it was a reply-all faux pas but it's one of one of the reasons why you're always hearing do not reply all in addition to the confidentiality issue there's also potential open public meetings act issue right the you know you're sort of deliberating via email as a quorum that's why ibcc you all so that nobody can do it yep because I've done it before um yeah right because you can't reply all them right exactly and go ahead um okay so this is Personnel specific I'll go to a point the best qualified personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer okay so your

088job is to vote for the best qualified person and consider the superintendent's recommendation go ahead you can just skip the next one um so where you see this come into practice under the case notes um so the first one you know board members don't violate the code if they don't appoint if they vote not to reappoint an employee who the superintendent has recommended as long as even though you're going against the recommendation as long as it's not arbitrary capricious and unreasonable basically that's the standard so as long as you've considered the superintendent's recommendation you don't necessarily violate the code of ethics if you do not agree with it um I strongly recommend against doing that I think that that's a that's always a big ugly scene um and those are things that those are conversations

089that should be had in actions that shouldn't be taken lightly but you know it's not a violation of the code of ethics would you give an example of what would be considered arbitrary capricious and unreasonable I don't like his face that's my grandfather's thing yeah can't do it not a reason um in the private sector it might be but not in this uh not in this context um but it's generally without any basis right and it's usually um sometimes it's for personal reason for a reason of political affiliation you know you've seen some of those cases where you know it's just for a reason unrelated to you know the actual yeah qualifications here's your other advisory opinion on Personnel School ethics commission does not support board members conducting interviews for positions under the superintendent so

090the functioning of a Personnel Committee in any capacity invites the danger that board members May violate their obligations but they don't even want you to have a Personnel committee most boards do you find a way it's fine there are other Personnel issues that that are fair game to discuss go ahead this one's very important I will support and protect School personnel and the proper performance of their duties if you want to talk badly about Dr Hackett or any of her staff you have lost the privilege of doing that on the board right if you want to be a keyboard Warrior and rant on Facebook you have lost the ability to do that while that that time is over that time of your life is over sorry go ahead and you will see that's exactly where

091um that's exactly where you can keep going where um people get into trouble here so um the first one up there pretty straightforward um board member violated the codes when he sent a letter to the superintendent copied the president of the State Board of Education the executive County Superintendent basically accusing the board the superintendent of letting employees violate board policy if that was something public went outside the district um the second one is um actually there's a couple under here uh co1 18 Avalon Stone Harbor board member violated the code so they basically like went to a district employee and were like hey uh the superintendent position would open up you know what do you think would you be interested you know like basically sort of hinting at the fact like we're going to fire

092the superintendent and you know so in light of the fact that the position wasn't vacant there was no position to fill and then that employee was the current superintendent subordinate this was viewed as being as not supporting School Personnel in the performance of their duties you can go ahead this is one of the more recent ones um so this this came up in the context of an election so what happened here was a board member shared something like shared something that someone else had posted and the other person was running for the board and they'd maybe they were posting about their opponent who they were running against and was like well when she worked at the high school they had to walk her out in handcuffs right something like that the board member who had

093endorsed this person who was running re-share that on her Facebook page and it was inaccurate it was inaccurate information that person was I think that person was like a former substitute in District and there was there was nothing disciplinary about why that person was no longer subbing in District but as a board member sharing that information sort of gives it the imprimatur of accuracy right you're the president of the board and so it caused needless injury and also failed to support at least a former staff member so on this one I'm going to ask a very specific question because and we did it last year too we're coming off of and because it's an easier example we're coming off of coved but during coved the board had to take specific positions with regards to face

094coverings with regards to lots of dimensions is it or is it not appropriate for a board member to because that's a very personal position is it appropriate for a board member to then go on social media take a personal position against whatever the board position was so we we had face coverings in school would it be okay if I got online and said face coverings are the worst they're not safe they give you whatever the people that came to the board meeting said they give your teeth will fall out whatever they said is that appropriate or is that not appropriate so I think it actually depends on the content right if you go on social media and say I think these are doing like I I I hate face coverings I don't agree with the

095science behind it but you know what it's the law and this is what we're following because we're a school district when we follow the law I could probably live with that that's definitely not yeah that's not that's not what it was if I got on and was like covet's not really a thing yeah I mean listen you know some things are protected but I think to the extent that you're suggesting that the school district is doing something illegal harmful inappropriate not good for kids I think saying that a board as a board member is problematic because that's what has the potential to compromise the board if you're out how does a cause of action arise from that so somebody would have to file an Ethics yes couldn't could a board member file and anyone can

096file an Ethics complaint yep can be a board member it can be two board members it can be a member of the public it can be several members of the public it could be the president of your Teachers Association it could be the spouse of the superintendent it can be anyone and it yeah it often is so and do you find though that boards in a situation like that which I know I know what the situation is but can boards like talk about that and say like hey and come to an agreement about how to conduct themselves I mean in terms of social media or specific or like have a conversation with that employee I'm talking about social media specifically stay often there you go I fixed it just just avoid it just saying I'm

097a board member or disclosing your board member at all because I have done that before like listen and so I'm being lib about it right I don't like it's not realistic just be like don't go on social media it's not realistic but it's also not realistic to just expect that just like if you give a disclaimer you can say anything right speaking personally I think Dr hackett's the worst right like not as my but not as a board President right like that's not gonna fall right no one's yeah No One's Gonna think that like you know and and listen and I have seen board members like like they'll post like Hey we're hiring Facebook Network you know like I I don't think you have to be totally like you know abstained totally you just have

098to be very careful I think engaging with people in debate when you are a member of the board is really tough um you know when you're supporting the board's position you know like if you're if you're sort of explaining you know what this executive order means like we saw a lot of that we really did I mean you know during the pandemic there was there was a lot of that and it was hard to avoid and it's also hard to sit here and not be able to explain yourselves right it's a very difficult position to be in so what I always say is like you know tread lightly if if you hesitate you probably shouldn't do it you know and if you have any questions call me like it comes up a lot during election

099season endorsing other candidates that sort of like all of these things are like they're gray they're sticky and a lot of times the devil's in the details so when it comes to ethics if you have a question I always say talk to the word present she'll get you in touch with me it's it's one of the few things that I do encourage like pretty free access to Council on because like I don't want anyone to feel like like they're on an island and has to make a decision about whether they're going to do something that could violate the code of ethics without getting some insight on that the support District Personnel so I have two daughters my older one is much harder and she's not in the district anymore thank you she's in high school

100but when she was younger there were times when I had to interface with her teachers and it wasn't always Pleasant how do you do that as a board member yeah so it's you're clearly in your role as a parent when you're dealing with your kids teacher um even in the conflict of interest section of the school ethics act you know you can't bring a cause of action against the board but you can advocate for your own you know your own child um so the I mean the school ethics commission I think everyone generally recognizes that board members are often parents you know so there is this sort of duality in what you're doing I think you just have to be clear and if it makes you feel better like if you're emailing a teacher you

101know about um a question about an assignment or a grade or something I think it's always like it's okay to say like hey just reaching out as a parent about you know so and so's whatever just want to talk to you about it it's okay for it to not be pleasant you're not going to be pleased with every single one of your kids teachers although I'm sure they're all wonderful Dr jacket um but it's okay right it's okay to not you know disagreeing with them not being happy with them isn't necessarily the same as not supporting them okay um it's when you're publicly saying oh your kid's coming into fifth grade I hope she doesn't get so and so she's the worst right you can't really do that as a board member understood okay so

102where are we supporting all right so yeah we just talked about this one this is the reposting on Facebook so I think we have one more section to go so wake over there Bruce doing all right [Laughter] social media proceed with Extreme Caution I feel like that's the moral of the story so often in uh in my presentations um all right you can go ahead I think all this had to do with social media so I will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and will act on the complaints that public meetings only after failure of an administrative Solutions so this gets at some of the questions that we were talking about earlier you know if you see something this is what you do not only if you see something but if someone brings

103something to you right if you're minding your own business you're just trying to get to the grocery store on a Saturday and suddenly you're being accosted by parents like what is going on over it you know so and so with so and so right or you know my child's teacher said the meanest thing thank you for letting me know I'm gonna some you know I'm gonna give this information the superintendent She'll follow up with you that's it that's all you have to do let yourself off the hook let yourself off the hook you do not have to solve the problems of the district on your own you do the work of the board and committee and at board meetings everything goes to superintendent good um so evidence of the violation that you took action to

104resolve a complaint or conduct an investigation or inquiry related to a complaint before referring it to the chief administrative officer or at some time in place other than a public meeting go ahead um so these are all pretty straightforward c2505 board members violated The Code by going to the principal directly in connection with a parent complaint rather than referring the complaint to the superintendent so and I get it like it makes sense right the principal is you know at the top of the pyramid in the building but again as board members it's just different um the other one c2407 board member violated The Code by not providing the superintendent with letters that they had received because he didn't like the superintendent's management of the issues raised in the letters so pretty clearly not proceeding through

105proper channels all right so I've got three slides that are just this right I'm gonna just give you a quick example but this is the conflict of interest section under the school ethics act and so these are much more like Thou shalt not um so you know very straightforward subsection I up there no school official member of his immediate family she'll have an interest in a business organization or engage in any business transaction or professional activity which is in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his duties in the public interest okay um so these are these all speak to much more of those sort of professional and financial conflicts um you know be shall uh no official shall use or attempt to use their official position to secure unwarranted privileges advantages or employment right

106so all of these sort of speak to more typical like Integrity in governance sorts of things no self-dealing we're not on the take we're not doing favors for people we're not getting favors for our family the next three slides are just laying out all the conflicts of interest you guys can read them at your leisure I see Monica looking I promise you I'm not going to read them out loud so you can you can go all right so you can go one more okay so one thing to keep in mind when you are reading the conflicts of interest the conflict of interest Provisions is that there's a sort of like weird tortured way of trying to figure out who's what so you'll see under the school ethics act it'll refer to members of your immediate

107family relatives or others okay separately you guys have a board policy on nepotism that overlaps with some of this and that comes from State regulation and nepotism will strictly refer to a relative so this is this is just where I go to whenever I'm trying to figure out like what is this person which category do they fall under okay so it's just a little bit of a of a reference chart in case you're ever you know curious as to Who's Who and so it becomes relevant next slide more specifically when we were talking about conflicts of interest in negotiations and Personnel matters and this is where most of this stuff comes up so if you are a member of a local union an NJEA affiliate if your spouse or partner is if you're dependent adult

108child who's still living at home is that's going to conflict you out of a lot of negotiations if you have a relative that's sort of the next level a sibling a parent uh an aunt an uncle if they're in District it's going to create a conflict if it's out of District it might depending on whether that person has leadership in their in their own Local Union but it probably isn't and then there's the um you know the other section so this just talks about spouse dependent child and relatives because those are the ones that come up the most and whether um whether you can participate in negotiations whether you can vote to ratify the contract and whether you can participate in issues related to the superintendent for the most part if the conflicts are out

109of District you're going to be able to vote on the final contract once the memorandum of agreement and salary guides have been achieved so once all the financials have been worked out the rationale behind this goes back to the conflict of interest provision about taking action for personal gain or for the gain of family right we all know that salaries that salary percentages are like you know like this District depends on that District we are looking at County averages so it's possible that a settlement here could potentially impact a settlement somewhere down the road um you know in the same county so that's where some of these conflicts come in not even just the direct benefit but even sort of that secondary you know the higher the settlement here you know the South the higher

110we settle for here the more you know so and so down at Eastern is going to get and that's going to be more money in my pocket right so this is something just to keep in mind when we're talking about negotiations you go ahead and I'm going to try to create chart I love that chart what's that yeah yeah uh yeah this doesn't I I swear I I and I do a conflicts chart before we start negotiations right like the board members who's who right that kind of stuff because it just helps keep it straight um hopefully Shelley has a question sorry go ahead freaking out in the cold sweats over here um so I have a niece who is subbing in the district I didn't know that she was applying until after she applied

111is that a conflict for me do you guys use a provider yeah we use yeah and it's fine interesting decision glad you asked that if she had to be if your sub list was approved by the board that would be a problem but since she works for a third party provider and all the board votes on is the contract with third-party Staffing Company oh gosh you're good oh my God I was about to resign this girl's heart there's a ton of Ethics opinions on that on this and you'll actually I don't think I have it in here and I won't make you sit through it because I know where I'm gonna give me 10 more minutes and I'm gonna land the plane here there's a lot to talk about here and I know new board

112members will get ethics training it's interesting though because there's a lot of these like the school ethics commission has made a distinction between in-house Subs that the board hires and you know ones that you get through third-party providers they also actually opined fairly recently on a board member who was a bus driver with the company that the district contracted with it was like a shared service agreement and that you know that bus driver board member was driving some kids in the district and it was funny because like the school ethics commission almost went out of their way to be like well you really shouldn't but like if you have to go ahead because we all need bus drivers like ask if you could get a different route it's really not good but if you have

113to right like it was almost because everything else like they're pretty clear on so they but the point is they will weigh in so if there's ever a question we can always get an advisory but if there were a con if there were a conflict with Kelly's niece I mean what would it would mean abstain from the voting that's all she wouldn't have to you wouldn't have to resign yeah you would just have to abstain from the voting there are there are nepotism under your nepotism policy right like there are relatives that cannot be hired um substitutes are are excluded per diem substitutes are excluded from the nepotism policy as are like kids who work summer programs in the district but any other relative of yours cannot be hired by the district while you're sitting

114board member what if they were hired before you were elected before you're elected it's fine okay yeah but do you still have to abstain correct yes on any matter that could Implement I don't have anything yeah but no it is an interesting point so for two reasons the distinction between in-house subs and then um external but then also per diem subs and you know kids your your kids working District are excluded from those nepotism rigs time um because I want to spend more time on one more slide but this is just these are my three pillars of executive session say what you're gonna say say it and then say what you said so say what you're gonna say you've got to pass the resolution to go into executive session tell the public what it is

115you're going to talk about then in executive session you stay in that box right if we tell the public that we're talking about personnel and you know uh acquisition of land those are the only thing we talk about in executive session because we didn't tell the public that we were going to talk about anything else in executive session and then say what you said that goes in the minutes there are minutes kept for executive session um and the minutes can be made available when the need for confidentiality no longer exists um I give some examples and the next two slides about when confidential the need for confidentiality no longer exists you guys can look at them you know at your own Leisure we don't have to get into them now okay so you can go

116one more and one more all right so this is my last slide okay and you can just click through I had some I'd figure out you can just click all the way through there's six of them there you go um so these are just some of the things that these are some some tips for governance and boardmanship best practices um we can talk about the code all night long but you know there's still some there's aspects of being a board member that are just important that are not in the code number one and this is probably the most important thing read the entire packet before the meeting get your questions answered before the meeting um coming to the board table unprepared bogging down the vote bogging down consideration of emotion with questions that can be

117asked in advance not good boardsmanship right now sometimes it happens sometimes you get confused but as part of your duty your commitment to your other board members here read the packet and again it's for you guys to kind of figure out your processes internally do you want them you know do you want to superintendent board president you know business administrator committee chair that's where I would again direct your questions and then you guys can refine that and see how that's working um limit your discussion of recommendations and action items to the board members do not engage with the audience right very important thing here this is the board's meeting it is not like it has to occur in public it's not the Public's meeting and they will come up here and tell you otherwise this

118is a like the public gets to witness the board doing its business they do not get to participate they do not get to be heard on motion they do not get to disrupt the meeting they don't get to tell you in what order you get to go you have to provide an opportunity for them to address you at every public meeting but this is an opportunity for the public to witness the board doing its business you are fundamentally here to do business so anything that gets in the way of that is generally an impairment of your boardsmanship um so remember the purpose of the meeting is to take action number three accept the actions of the board and support them when concluded um you know do not continue to revisit things if you were in

119the minority on something and and something move forward or Voltron okay we all signed up to be in the band we have to sing the same song so you debate you have your voice heard you speak through your vote but at the end of the day you support the district moving forward with whatever it is the consensus of the board is and that also means because this has come up quite a bit two things one not to go on social media and then talk about how exactly yeah exactly your decision yeah even if you voted and if we all voted you know yes everybody can wear sneakers on Mondays and you were the one vote that said no you're not supposed to go on social media and be like I said no because I hate

120sneakers and this is the stupidest thing like you're not supposed to do that um but also once we voted then write the entire board on an email and say I'm really not happy with this vote let's vote again because of X Y and Z reasons when you had an opportunity to discuss yeah and there's actually like I tend to not get too bogged down in Robert's Rules but there's some specifics on that when you can reconsider a vote when you can retake a vote don't ask me to remember them now it's been a long day but I know you have to be in you if it's like at the same meeting it has to be like there's got to be a motion to reconsider there's got to be two-thirds affirmative vote to actually re like

121re-ask the question and then I think it has to be brought by somebody who was on The Winning Side it cannot be brought by someone so if you've got a six to three one of the three can't continue to ask for a motion to consideration someone has to sort of indicate their willingness to reconsider by bringing that motion um so that is one where I do um I do specifically know that like the Roberts rules procedures on because otherwise it just it gets bogged down and people will continue to ask for revotes on things so you know you're not going to be happy with every decision the board makes um that's just how it is but it's part of the group project this is one big group project you know um and that gets difficult

122this one's also really important number four adhere to the practice of no surprises no surprises at the board table okay this is the dining room this is family right we've got company do your family business at the kitchen table okay you ask your questions before the meeting you talk to each other you fight it out you guys prevent present a unified front to the public because that is how the public has confidence in your schools it's not that you don't see debate it's not that you guys don't disagree but you do it respectfully and then ultimately you move forward together so no surprise that the table no surprise motions no um you know dissension that hasn't been previously you know addressed or discussed um it just it's a bad look [Music] yeah no this is

123boardsmanship this is absolutely about boardsmanship um you know I I hesitate to estimate how many board meetings I go to in a year um it would say some things about my life I'm not comfortable saying um but it's a lot and I've been doing this for about 10 years um and and these are things that are that are true there's with every every procedure every board procedure you know everything that's not like strictly codified by law it's really easy to deviate from them and just be like oh it's just this one time it happens all the time in public comment somehow we end up engaging in a back and forth or we're not adhering to three minutes or and then we saw a lot of that getting tightened up during the pandemic when public comment

124was becoming much more of a free-fall and going on forever and ever so it's one of those things where like the rule exists for those situations not necessarily the everyday situations um but it's one of the and you know when I talk about no surprises it's about respect for other board members respect for the superintendent and again valuing and buying into the idea that the board as a unified front is what gives people confidence in the district and I'm not suggesting people can't have opinions or disagree you you debate every emotion if you're going to vote no on something that's when you would say it and you can say it there and that's fine it's one of those things where there's a courtesy in giving the superintendent a heads up and you know not bringing

125something up blindsiding you know the superintendent with a question that maybe she doesn't have the information in front of her to answer that kind of stuff [Music] important that we probably understand that we're making these issues [Music] yeah and unless it's an easy default position right people who are unhappy like you're all just up there bobble heads you're rubber stamping you do like and and as someone who it is right and it's funny because as I said I go to a few board meetings and and there's an enormous amount of work that goes into putting an agenda together and bringing forward these recommendations that is not always visible to the public but you bring them forward in a way that's clean efficient and straightforward so the public doesn't have to sit here through a six

126hour meeting because I promise you they'll do it once they will never ever want to see how the sausage gets made again right they won't it'll happen once and then that's it um so to your point I think it's good to give a heads up and I think have the conversation about you know I think it's important that we you know I think it might be helpful for the public to know because listen like the more informed the public is the better I think the more they can recognize and respect the amount of work that goes into doing what you guys do so I think if there's something that you think that the public needs to know again committee chair board president superintendent have the conversation before the meeting you know figure out what that

127looks like there might be some things that you wouldn't anticipate in saying that out loud right like it might be one of those things where Dr hackett's like all right I can see that let me just call Council maybe there's an issue with it and then I'm like no don't do it right there's this thing that we're not thinking of or do it at this meeting or you know what I mean like you never know is one of the reasons why the whole point is no surprises right so put it out there and have the conversation but absolutely there are things that are good for the public to know and I don't want to suggest that you don't want to debate or give information I think it's just a matter of finding an efficient way

128to give that information in a way that again presents it as the work of a committee bringing forward a recommendation to the board all right we'll go down the line go ahead to discuss like like items that you're going to vote on yeah and listen that's a board decision right I think that's entirely a board decision it did move it up it was like this if you saw on the agenda it was second yeah yeah yeah and listen that that's a tough one for boards right when you start out with executive session like sometimes you have to move your meeting time up um you know just like it there's no perfect way to do it public yeah there's no sometimes you have it at the end and the superintendent talks about a recommendations coming next

129meeting you know like it just it just kind of depends on what the board's needs are but you can certainly do it at either time you've mentioned the word debate a few times I love a good debate when is this debate yeah because executive session perfect circumscribed right there's specific things that we can talk about so I wanna I Wanna Be Voltron but I like there are times when I think debate is appropriate and I think I'm struggling with how to recognize that this is not the appropriate Forum necessarily for a debate but yet there are debates that need to happen so what what does it look like yeah so look at number six right you want to explain your vote you do so during discussion rather than the call of the vote so first

130we have emotion motion and a second then we have discussion right so if there's debate or discussion or if you want to explain your vote procedurally that's the moment to do it you know everyone has the opportunity to speak then and that's after there's a motion in a second and before the vote is called okay so that's the moment for debate now that's on a public motion you do want to be careful right if if the motion is to you know hire someone I don't I don't want there to be a debate about you know necessarily you know specific details about that person because there's some liability there that can get you know and so that's where that's where a Personnel committee right like being able to provide that information bringing it forward to the

131board these are the credentials these are you know this is why we did that so if you have a specific question about an issue um again before the meeting superintendent if there's a recommendation coming out of committee that you don't agree with I would say go to the committee chair talk about it it's okay to disagree and you don't have to vote Yes on everything um but I would start having the debate with the people who did the work first and then decide whether it is something that you want to discuss publicly or make those points publicly but you have to make sure I just want people to realize like procedurally so like on the agenda when we say whatever I was looking you know um can I get a motion to approve all of

132the items under Personnel Personnel is a bad example let's say it was Finance under Finance um then someone would say you know first second that's when somebody has to say out loud because I'm not always like looking for people to me you have to say like I you know board president I have a comment then then we won't vote because obviously I like to keep the moving the meeting moving so just make sure you please speak out yeah that is that's absolutely right yep okay that's very helpful I didn't I think I was thinking that it was during board comments but it's not it's it's after the there's the second on the moship to vote on the items I know I I was gonna say something else different but I I want to dig into

133this a little deeper I'm just trying to go in order you can make a comment as to maybe why you're about to not vote for something but not an actual debate of asking questions because your time to ask questions should have been winning you could have called a Committee Member who's the chair of that committee or you could have reached out to Monica and the superintendent is that great so you can say you know um right so motion second we're in the discussion period listen I know there are a lot of hard work that went into bringing this forward you know I spoke with the committee chair I've read the proposed policy I'm not comfortable with it for this reason appreciate the opportunity to be heard thanks for the hard work of the board you

134said what you had to say and then you vote no and that's that so Helen wants to say something I know a former District where I worked we used to do it like we would say uh someone make a motion second discussion yeah exactly discussion I can say discussion for you yeah I'm just not good at it I've got board presidents who like just worried we're going to be here I'm still trying to write down the second you're on the next motion you know even when they say discussion because it is one of those things of moving the meeting forward you know motion second any discussion okay let's go so but it is part of coming to the meeting prepared right knowing that this is emotion that you're going to want to comment on and

135being prepared to jump in once that motion's on the floor all right yes thank for that other board member right what is the opportunity for that so I'll answer your second question first the opportunity is when the vote's on the floor um so right so they asked their questions beforehand right so their opportunity to be heard on it if they're not at the ca if they're not on that committee is when it comes to the board for a vote if they have questions about why the recommendation is being brought forward then that's the before meeting go ask the questions and have those conversations I you know it's not everyone gets to participate in every decision every recommendation that comes forward and that's one of the hard things when you work you know as a committee

136you are assigned to a committee and that's where you get to do your work and really sort of put your stamp on it it's hard when you're not on another committee and you're not loving what's coming out of that committee but that is part of being one of the group so get your questions answered for sure make sure you understand the recommendation be heard at the table if you're not cool with it that's okay get your questions answered try to get comfortable with it if you're not you do not have to vote Yes on anything that you're not comfortable with oh so in terms of the substance of what happens in committees right so yeah so let me I'm sorry I don't want to address that so the committee is a process right there might

137be an idea floated it looks like this and then we pivot to this so like while it's in process I don't really think it's it's um uh appropriate to be kind of broadly sharing that information with the board I'm not going to tell you it's like CIA top secret confidential but you don't get into the details with other board members right they're not on the committee it's the work of the committee you want to give people the freedom to get comfortable with things to think through things to go through drafts you know to work through that it's easier to do that in a committee it's one of the reasons why boards work through committee because it's easier to ask questions and get up to speed and learn things and have some more Frank conversations in

138the non-public committee structure it makes for more efficient functioning um so you're not really supposed to be sharing minutes sharing drafts any of that kind of stuff once they there is a recommendation that's being brought forward to the agenda and that's why I say like you know to the question you asked earlier in terms of getting questions answered what what am I being asked to vote on that I need this information for so if it's still cooking in committee right there's nothing that's being brought forward to the board so at that point you know it's just it's more curiosity which I'm not mad about but you know it's not necessarily something that you're going to bog down the superintendent the board president you know or even a committee chair like you guys are volunteers right

139you know with oh explain to me what you're thinking and why you're thinking and that sort of stuff right you do that within your own committees but not necessarily one that you're not on I know that's a little unsatisfying but that's just sort of for efficiency sake how it works someone else I know has the same question about it no that I don't think that's what she said and that's why that's supposed to flow through me because if you ask a question then I can disseminate to the entire board so if again I'm going to use a stupid example yeah it's it's not you're not supposed to be having I mean at least I want to make sure that we're all hearing the same thing and this is one of the reasons why we don't

140want separate separate side conversations is because you may have heard X and then you know Kelly heard why and then all of a sudden there's total misinformation on the board so instead the easiest way is to have like one flow through video yeah and that's and that's why I said like that's a board choice I always say committee chairs are a resource but it depends on how you want to operate because one of the things that I often put on this list that I didn't for brevity tonight LOL brevity um is that any information given to one board member should be given to all board members so that's where if there's a question asked now I think and it really just depends on how much of a lift your board president can handle right so

141if you thank you um how does that yeah and I think and again I think it's you know that's a it's a board decision I think that there's a couple different ways it can happen right so I think when you talk to committee chairs you know once something's on an agenda they can then bring it to Monica and say look we've gotten a question about this can you can you know can we put out some information how do you guys handle committee meeting minutes do you guys share them do you we uh so we give a Overview at the meeting okay they have a format kind of just right on it okay before at the meeting and okay so I'll say like that I know like some boards use that they'll do minutes for the

142committee meetings that people can read then and like it answers some questions fundamentally right because it happened the meetings happened right before the meeting yeah yeah no and that can be difficult right so that is one of those things that is you know a governance like a board retreat kind of conversation do we want to you know try to look at you know try to do minutes in advance or something or or find a way to give a little bit more information in advance um you know I would say work in your existing structure and think about what that might look like see how it works you know who it works for and a lot of these things um you know I don't want to put Monica on the spot like it really depends on

143how much time your president has to manage a lot of these things right you have a full-time job it's not you know there's other board presence I have who are fantastic who just who take on that role because they have more time to kind of be responding to the public and responding to board members and funneling a lot of this information so I think it's a good question the dissemination of information amongst board members you have some ability to have those conversations and and talk about what it might look like but you adhere to your regular structure until there's a decision to do it otherwise and listen it's hard to get an agenda out right I know every board meeting every board member you know I've ever had this conversation with like I just wish

144I get the agenda sooner right everyone wishes they could get the agenda sooner it's it's like a feat of you know it's a massive fee to get the agenda out um and there's a lot of information on it and I know it hits you guys you know at the last minute with a lot of information it's one of the reasons why this is a commitment you know you get a big dump of information you've got to sit and go through it so so it's a lot and there's no like so there's no one answer right I think that working through the board president if they're you know like to the extent that it's coming up before the meeting and she can disseminate that information same thing with Dr Hackett I mean if you're talking to

145Dr Hackett if it's information Dr Hackett knows the information that the board is going to want she can funnel that back to the board president share it out to the whole board um yeah so I'm happy to you know I'm happy to do this however the board wants but it's there are so many I mean you only know the emails that you send that there's so many emails right so instead of sending the board 700 emails I as much as we possibly can I let it come through the board like the boardogram so it may not be as a detailed but if you want the detailed exchange forwarded to the entire board right well and again yeah and again I would I would just say you're not going to have every piece of information you

146want you're not going to have every detail that you would prefer to have to make a decision and there's there's a learning process you know I agree right but it's also a matter of board members being circumspect in when they need to pursue additional information right you know and I think that's something that comes over time is like like getting used to the idea that you're not going to have all that information that you're not going to necessarily be an expert in every area like if you're the chair of the policy committee you're going to be focused more on policy and maybe know less about something else um but outside of Ethics I know we're really running late here but so I'm a committee chair for a committee that has yet to meet the academic

147Excellence which I care very strongly about um and has come up repeatedly in in comments from the public we have test scores now we have data that we're tracking what is the mechanism for me to drive some of the is there a mechanism for me to drive some of the conversation about that you tell Helen you want to have a meeting the committee meetings oh yeah Okay so oh can I any chairs I'll hear that any any person on it doesn't you don't have to be a chair any if you have a topic you want to put on the agenda like if you're not on the policy committee but you have a policy that you think had there's some sort of an issue you just write the policy chair and say this I think this

148needs to be discussed these are the reasons why you may not be part of that discussion but that was a good question if you're not on that committee it doesn't matter yeah as a board member discussion but you bringing yeah yeah and then you can ask the chair to to give you the information like what was decided what was discussed yeah and that's that's within the code right you know making you know like referring to referring for study almost right Consulting with those who would be impacted would you give the chair your point of view on it at the same time you asked the agenda why not yeah yeah right I think this policy is terrible like please consider doing it this way this is why I think that you know that's fine it's helpful

149yeah yeah yeah that's great thank you so I I really do feel for the new board members because I I felt all of those same emotions even when we were in the last executive session I could feel it I I was like living it all over again so it's hard because you want to do your best job um as a board member you also want to do your best job for the community these people elected you into this position so I understand why you know you want to ask questions I get that it took me almost three years now to get to the point that I'm at now where because I'm an inherent people pleaser where I always wanted to ask the questions and I wanted to everyone to it to seem that I was

150doing my job what I was elected to do um as time went on and we were in some difficult situations I had some people that were very close to me that we butt heads and they questioned every decision that I made of course some of those decisions you can't discuss because they're confidential so you finally get to a point where you don't want to be rude to anyone but you have to say you elected me for this position you have to trust that I'm going to make the right decision you voted for me for a reason I'm here for a reason now you have to trust that the decisions that I make that I cannot disclose to you that they that I'm doing the best job in the best interests of this school district and

151the the best decision isn't always going to make you happy sometimes it's just the best of an not a lot of great options but you know the reason why we talk about boardsmanship and why I think it's important to have buy-in on the concept is because you've got to trust and respect that your fellow board members are as committed dedicated diligent as you are in making their decisions and thinking about things and in bringing recommendations forward to the board you know you guys have District goals everything is in furtherance of the same goals right it might look different if you three put together something as opposed to you three as opposed to you three but it's all in furtherance of the same Mission so it's not always going to be satisfying it's not always going

152to be the way that you would do it um but part of boarsmanship is I think just trusting and respecting your fellow board members that they've put the time and effort into it they've considered the recommendations of the administration trust the expertise that they have when they're saying this is how we should do it that's a wrap that's it anyone else anything thank you thank you very much all right I just went one last thing Monica um sorry Monica um so in addition to you though we can also go to Marissa right as the vice president if we have if yeah I I mean so as a rule of thumb like in the past for me whether this is right or wrong I don't know I try to put as little in an email as

153possible if I wanted to talk to say you know um Dr Hackett I would say could you please give me a call you know for example or this isn't superintendent in the past but Monica if she was she's busy she has an employer she's you know working for someone else I would sometimes checks uh text John and say because he worked for himself self-employed can you give me a call because I just I don't want to bother her she's working so as a backup we can go to I think the easiest thing to do is to when you're when you send a note send it to both of us and then whoever gets back to you first gets back to you okay perfect yep well and I think in terms of committee chairs too right

154well you guys are working out what makes the most sense I think just copy Monica right and then you guys can figure out how to filter out that information does that make sense yes yep it's very helpful thank you yeah great questions I know it's hard to do late at night this stuff isn't super exciting the Voltron slide was good though right um but um and you guys all have trainings that you do but this is just remember knowing when to ask the questions that's it um we still have to adjourn the meeting yeah okay oops can I get a motion to adjourn I gotta vote on that huh so moved sorry I got to find people's names I'm like second I have kenover first then I was second okay [Music] okay all right so

155what else you guys want to talk about it okay where do you work