001[No audio] [Music] That sucks [No audio] [Background speaking] Good morning, editor. Are you ready to go? I think you are on mute. [Background speaking] Good morning, everyone. Let's go ahead and get started. It is 9:11 and I officially call this meeting to order. So happy to see you all on a Friday. All right. My apologies. I thought I was ready and apparently I am not. But I think what we do when we go from here is, if you would please, Secretary Nolan, take the roll. Yeah. Secretary Tenorio, remember Frank (Indistinct) And madam Cort. I am here. I am just missing an agenda. I've got it. Thank you so much. Anybody else want to give me a script? I'm just kidding. I mean an agenda. Alright. So I would like to entertain a motion to approve
002the agenda. So moved. Second. Moved by Secretary Nolan and second by Ms. Tenorio. Because we have (Indistinct) take the roll on that. (Indistinct) Thank you so much and I would like to entertain a motion to approve the minutes. I'm sorry and I should probably be more specific. To approve the May 19th 2026 regular session minutes and the June 1st 2026 special Session minutes and the June 2nd 2026 work session minutes. (Indistinct) with the addendum that Vice President Wofford already sent. Did he see it? A section paragraph was just repeated so (Indistinct) Okay. I missed that one. All right. Let me be more specific. Vice President Wofford was that prior to (Indistinct) June 2nd? Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I would like to entertain a motion to approve the May 19th 2026 regular session
003minutes that six special session minutes and the June 2nd 2026 work session minutes work session as Vice President Wofford said. Moved by Vice President Wofford, seconded by Secretary Nolan . [Calling roll] Thank you. I'm now going to turn the meeting over to Superintendent Ruiz. Is. Just quickly as we are closing out another year, just acknowledge the work that has been done this year. Many things to celebrate but knowing there is a lot of work ahead of us to continue our improvement efforts and again, our student outcome efforts as well across the district. The other piece that I wanted to mention, today is a great example that the work doesn't stop after the school year ends. Right? The work continues and as we prepare for 26- 27 I want to say thank you to every one
004of our staff and community across the school and every one of our employees and students and parents for the efforts this year and then a quick shout out to our comms team for getting us ready today and making sure we are all ready to go. Thank you, Vice President Wofford, President Cort, members of the board. Thank you. Now I'm going to turn everything over to Mr. Cleveland to walk us through our findings. Am I pronouncing your name correctly? Thank you. Good morning board members. I am pleased to be here. I've never been to Las Cruces before. Definitely dry and warm. I'm sure you probably are so used to it you don't notice but I live in a place called Walla Walla in eastern Washington state It was a long trek but I'm happy to be
005here. Just real quick about me I think I've shared this background before because I've been in settings now with both the cabinet and the board but just so you know what perspectives I'm bringing to the table here. It's kind of an eclectic background. Started out in the corporate world then bought my soul back and started teaching high school in Philadelphia. High school math. Ended up in New Orleans after Katrina. Served as a school leader. Four different campuses from birth to 12th grade. Then served on a school board in New Orleans before moving to Washington for family reasons. I've been consulting since. Moved there for family reasons. First time I've ever done anything for family reasons and not just for the job so I had to figure out what to do and just kind of fell
006into this work because there just seemed to be such a need. There are not a lot of providers of quality and capacity out there to help boards get better from school boards. So I've kind of found myself in this little niche and I've learned a lot more nationally doing this work as a consultant than I ever did as a board member probably. So I sometimes think about maybe I should get back on the board because I know so much more now than I did when I was thrown into it but. So those are the different perspectives I bring. And also I can say I can serve as a conduit of that national lens so I've worked with you know right now I work in Denver and Baltimore and that county and all kinds of different
007places so I can bring those other practices into this room so I can consider different ways of doing things that I hope is helpful to you all. Our objectives for today are this is all board focused so I appreciate the cabinet being here. I'm going to weave you into an exercise because you are observers and interactors with the board right? This is primarily inward focused as the board considers its governance. How can we get better at these things so we're going to look at how can we spend the time during meetings with the board, how the board conducts its policy making and then lastly this is a little bit more of a kitchen sink ending at the end but some miscellaneous recommendations that we've found as we've kind of dug into your materials and your
008meeting videos and your policies. So that's the agenda for today. [NO AUDIO] We are a little bit behind on time but President Cort are going to figure this out so we don't take too much unplanned time for you. So I want to start out with just a quick stage setting so I'm going to ask for board members to have two norms today as much as possible. I'm going to ask you as much as possible to be vulnerable in particular about your reflections on your own practices (Indistinct) as a whole and I'm going to ask you to say the things so if there's something that is really striking you and you're like I don't know if I should say this. It might ruffle feathers. It might be controversial. Just say it. I have learned already in
009my time with you all that you all get along pretty well. I think there is a mutual respect and trust and professional courtesy so I don't -- I'm pretty confident this is a safe space that you all have already built together so I just want to kind of echo that to bring that into the room. We can only get better if you really confront what the issues are. So. And then the last thing in norm setting is just the cognitive lift. My goal is for the cognitive lift to be annual as much as possible. Obviously I have some things to share and give you things to chew on but hold me accountable to that. I should not be the one doing all the thinking. This is your time and this is your work session. You
010are going to do the work and the heavy lifting to figure this out. So. To start out on that note, I would love to go around the table and superintendent included, please take a minute to think about this. But when the board is at its best, what are you doing? How does it change things in a positive way for kids? I will give you a minute of think time and then I'd like to start With Mr. Wofford. I think that we keep our focus on kids that we are at our best which means how often we are at our best may not be 100% of the time, but (Indistinct) we are making sure we are focused on student achievement is important to us. Student Wellness. The whole student across the board. We are recognizing that
011we can't boil them down to a single (Indistinct) thought of as objective data points but we are trying to see it as many aspects of their lives (Indistinct) Awesome. Thank you. I think we are at our best when we all have a goal in mind (Indistinct) know that it matters and know it's important. I think we come together around (Indistinct) and figure out how to get it done. There might be obstacles (Indistinct) There is clearly an atmosphere of collaboration. I've seen that. President Cort. What Mr. Nolan said and what Mr. Wofford said. I think we are at our best when we are doing what is best for kids, and that is just the bottom line that we are working on student success for every single student and I feel like we are at our best
012when we are all moving as this well-oiled machine. That it is truly a team of six but also it's a team of everybody (Indistinct) and I think that we do pretty well because we have the shared goal of student success and we are at our best when we stop thinking about (Indistinct) . Well said. It gets harder and harder. Do you want to go, Mr. Frank? (Indistinct) the things that we do directly affects our students. (Indistinct) at our best most of the time like 99% of the time I can't even think (Indistinct) but I just find it hard to make the connection between the things we do and the advantages to our students directly. I mean, I think one of the best things we do is we have a student advisory council, and that (Indistinct)
013we get to really hear from our kids (Indistinct) So when I feel we are at our best is when we can establish what is the bigger picture and then we start zoning in on what are we working on and kind of immersing ourselves in like what is the experience of our students on the ground, our teachers. Whatever the issue is. Kind of like knowing that experience is what we are impacting and I really love when each of us comes with our strengths, whether you are a former retired teacher. You worked in outdoor recreation. What else do you do with that stuff and whatever. As a parent and all the other steps we have so I think yeah and then I really get a kick out of when we say well, what does the community think
014and what do we hear from the kids directly? I think that is really the clincher like it is not just us in the room in a bubble. We poke out and see what is happening out there. Thank you. I echo everything that has been said. I think what I would add to this is, at the end of the day, the decisions that we make -- we talk about being a team of six -- but the decisions that we make. Are they creating more access? Are they creating more opportunities for kids and we've done that many times so definitely wanted to add >> Thank you. So the themes that I heard, if I could paraphrase, is that the board is at its best when it is focused on kids less than adults. You are responsible for
015adults too right? But students are the focus. There is collaboration. There are diverse perspectives in the room from your background and your identities and your cultures and everything. When you are focused on the big picture, focused on things that matter the most. Lastly it was great to hear at least two of you mentioned student advisory input. I'm just curious as a quick follow up to either of you, Mr. Frank O Or Ms. Tenorio, have you had advice for student Council has directly informed your work in some way? (Indistinct) The calendar weapons detection system. Usually we confer with each other then report what the group was saying. (Indistinct) . That's great. So that alone puts you ahead of many boards that I see. Right? You are actively not just in name only. I see a lot
016of student advisory councils that meet and they talk but it's ceremonial. Everybody is -- nobody is really doing anything differently on the board. So it's great to hear that you've moved past that. That's wonderful. I certainly would encourage that to be more of the definition for this question right? When you are at your best. The role of the school board -- so this is a framework that we use that I'm not going to read to you but I will give you a moment to read it. But this is what we would define as the primary lean of the board. More importantly, I would pose to you that anything that is not in here is almost always not your role. And the last one I put in orange is because I don't believe you are currently
017authorizing charters as a local board. State authorized only so that depends on the board. With this table, does this list resonate? Is there anything that surprises you? Particularly if it is not on here, it's not your role? No surprises for me. Okay. (Indistinct) I should have said that. Absent other legal requirements. This is more about the essence of your work. Sure. Great. So today really number two and number five we are going to be focused on because those are the most recurring responsibilities here. You will note some of these other things happen more ad hoc at certain times, and how I summarized that generally number two and number five in an even more concise nutshell is the 2 p.m.. Your primary lane particularly as you are thinking about your meetings, your work sessions and your
018time together on a monthly basis are the 2 p.m.s. You should be performance monitoring and holding the district accountable to performance expectations that oftentimes is set by yourself or by mutual agreement with you as the board and you should be making policy and in an aspirational and ideal space these two are feeding each other so you are seeing performance data and sometimes you are seeing issues that may need to be addressed by policy. And when those things are connected, you are at your best in terms of the technical work. And the final analogy I'm going to give you that will be a theme today to just consider is this baked cake. And this applies also to the strategic planning work that we did together in the beginning of May. What you care the most about
019in this room, especially this morning, is the final outcome of your work. How good are the results? How good is this cake? That is what you want to measure and be evaluating. Then when those things aren't right you go back and reconfigure and that is the superintendent's job. Right? Not yours. You don't want to be spending a ton of time thinking about and measuring and discussing what amount of sugar should go into this cake or how much flour to use. Right? That is Mr. Ruiz's job and the staff in this room. It's not the board's job right? So we are going to see multiple examples where the board could be better at assessing the final cake rather than the recipe so I just want to kind of use that as an analogy that we will
020come back to. With that, I want to dig into how we spend our time. So you have seen this data in the one on one board members. Mr. Ruiz and Mr. Silver have seen it. I don't imagine many staff have had a chance to look at this report so that's partly why I'm putting it back up so that everybody in the room is on the same page. I try to be very transparent when I use AI, that that is what I have used. It is artificially intelligent. I'd like to think that we are more intelligent but it would not have been humanly possible for me to have reviewed 12 months of your meetings and thousands of pages of meeting packets and video footage. Claude is particularly good at this. We scrubbed it. Mr. Silver looked
021at it. I think we are probably 95% confident in this data. It is good enough for the directional takeaways. And what we have found here, I will highlight a couple of things. Number one. The board by far has spent the most time in its closed sessions and most of that time has been on superintendent evaluation. 20 hours of dedicated special sessions to superintendent evaluation including another one today, it sounds like. Is that right? The other items have to do with like the employment routine. I don't know a ton about it. I imagine there are state requirements about the board making decisions in closed session but the bulk of this is soup eval and I would say that is definitely too much. There are certainly ways to be more efficient and still effective in how you
022evaluate (Indistinct). Going back to my Two p.m.s, less than 20% of your time is spent (Indistinct). I think we can find a way to push that up. Lastly more than 20% of your time is informational updates that I had with Claude confirm include no data at all, generally. Especially when there is no data, that is kind of a flag to me that may be more in the weeds and outside of the performance monitoring responsibility that the board should be in. I looked at a couple of examples. I think there are some times when for whatever reason the superintendent is presenting some information I don't know that the board really needs to see. The board could see it in a written update. It does not necessarily need to be a discussion or a meeting presentation so
023those are some of the things to consider. Are there any other takeaways I have not mentioned including cabinet members? Surprises here that you see that you would want to just reflect on or share out? I wonder how well our (Indistinct) multiple things that might happen (Indistinct) break it down in terms (Indistinct) Is our input here truly 45 hours with the majority of time just talking about superintendent eval? Because I wonder about that. I can see that our performance monitoring (Indistinct) and so that makes sense, as well. The information (Indistinct) 20% that might include the superintendents report (Indistinct) does not really data their. Is just information about what is going on in our schools (Indistinct) in a broad sense so I wonder how that works in terms of, is that information actually helping us performance monitor?
024Great question. And so I don't -- so this is very interesting and useful data. I love your final point and I would just -- I want to elevate that. That is exactly the filter here on what types of informational updates you get. Not that this is a perfect science or formula but I think that's a great question to ask. Is this information related to our performance monitoring responsibilities or our policy making? And that will be a pretty good test. Whether directly or indirectly. Sure. Any other reflections that haven't been touched on in the room? I guess it is good data. Helpful data. It is sort of sobering to know how much we are spending (Indistinct) if you had asked me that percentage I would not have gone (Indistinct) I always think a closed session is
025an hour or two and you know. Obviously superintendent reviews (Indistinct) . They don't have to. They don't have to yes but it does. There's a lot of hours (Indistinct) and I do just echo Vice President Wofford around the informational stuff. I still think there's a lot of value in that for a couple of reasons. One I do think it is aligned to performance. I also think not to get political but in our current political environment, I think it's important for us as a district to talk about the things we are doing that makes all outside of the classroom like I don't know (Indistinct) the grant for homeless students or the grant for (Indistinct), like all of the sort of community schools. All of the sort of out of the box kind of things. I do
026think those matter, how much we talk about them. I think the discussions that we have but I do think they are (Indistinct). May I jump back in briefly? Do we have a breakdown on the closed session use of time? I do. (Indistinct) because we do hear about a lot of stuff. The closed sessions by large (Indistinct) employee movements and other legal stuff are necessary I suppose but I like your idea to get that streamlined. I was just going to say I am surprised at the amount of time we spend on superintendent evaluation but he is our one employee and this board finds it important to make sure that our voices are blended. That we are approaching the superintendent with one voice and that sometimes just takes some time. Understood and I don't mean to suggest
027it is not important or you should not spend significant time. As a benchmark, I think 3 to 4 hours total throughout the year is probably a reasonable aspiration if it is well facilitated. With two evaluations? Because we do a mid and a year. I think so. But it has a lot to do with the design on the front end. Have we really laid out the procedures exactly the way we wanted an efficient and productive way? I think there are ways to do it and we are going to give you some models to consider. Go ahead. (Indistinct) we focused on Smart goals in the instrument we have you would suggest changing ? We are going to come back to that today. Notice the employment decisions that come to you because of state statute are not on
028this list. If it was not for your requirement to weigh in on those, I would say that is not your job. Right? To be clear, we don't make decisions (Indistinct). My understanding -- I could be wrong. My understanding is this but terminations and other types of things have to come to the board. Right? President Cort, members of the board Mr. Rice to address your question statutorily, the board only makes ultimate decisions in a discharge or termination hearing so open meetings governs very strictly obviously what kind of conversations the board and superintendent can have and so when personnel are generally discussed in an executive session, it has been the superintendent to update the board. I will just say what generally I find across the districts, districts across the state, that when those -- it basically helps
029the board understand how the superintendent leads, which then ultimately impacts the confidence that they have in his leadership which ultimately impacts how they evaluate him. Is there a line? So personnel is obviously a very important part of what the superintendent does and experientially I will tell you that sometimes when there is lack of confidence in that, and certainly when perhaps the community is undermining that confidence, if there is no communication about that it can ultimately impact how the board views the superintendents performance. So some superintendents spend more time trying to give the board insight into how they lead in that area and other superintendents don't, and they all have natural consequences. Certainly the more time spent, the natural consequence is time. The benefit tends to be a stronger relationship between the superintendent and the board
030and the reverse is true in the other examples. So there is not a statutory requirement that he update them to the degree that he does. There is a statutory requirement that if he chooses to do so, that he does so in executive session. But does the board have to act on it? No. They don't. It's the confidentiality piece. He can't be updating them and then you run into also issues that if he is doing it in a one on one you have a potential role in quorum or potential eroding again of the confidence of the board that. He told me that. Well he didn't tell me that. So in my view, what that function does in this instance is primarily strengthen the relationship between the board and the superintendent which then translates into how it
031impacts evaluation and those results. Understood. Thank you for clarifying that. That communication is usually one way. We are not giving him any input on employees. It's just thank you for the information. That's good. Thank you for clarifying that. I did not understand this because oftentimes there are eight statutes that require the board to confirm the action and if that's the case it's helpful to know. That's good. I'm just an advisor. You can ignore my advice. Okay? And there are other advisors in the room that might have different perspectives and I'm sure the point is certainly reasonable that the point is that it does bring you all together around understanding those key decisions. Especially if you're going to hear about it in your emails or your phone calls. I would still say I'm going to be
032a stickler about it. I don't think it's the job of the board to even hear about it unless it is a problem to have a concern about unless there's some wrongdoing that requires some independent hearing. I think you hire the superintendent to make personnel decisions. I think you need to trust him unless you have a reason otherwise. That is my opinion. It's great to know that even if you do still do it that you are not trying to override him or meddle or anything so I think that's a good place to be. The last thing I would say about meeting time is the meetings are very long. We are averaging about four hours between the regular meetings and the work sessions on a monthly basis. Sometimes they run into the wee hours of the night.
033That is hard on this team in the room. Right? I don't think your meetings have to be this long. Certainly if a fourth of them are closed sessions and we cut down on that , that's going to help but even if we hone in on some of the standing agenda items in your meeting I think we can get this down to an average of two. Obviously sometimes there's going to be things going on that require more than that. I just mean an average but I think that's possible. With that in mind, as we think about all of these things -- how do we want to spend our time? How can we be most efficient? I was remiss in saying on the front end and I've said this to you all. The most resonant thing that
034I heard from each of you board members in my first interviews with you and Mr. Frank said this morning, is how does this board be impactful and Mr. Frank was very honest and vulnerable I appreciated in saying I don't always know if we are. Thank you. That is exactly the issue we are here to address like how can this board have impact in its proper lane and be efficient about it as a bonus. Right? So with that goal in mind I'm going to ask and this is where I'm going to ask cabinet members to participate, as well. But we are going to take some time to do this exercise. So given the information that I've shared Mr. Frank I'm double Dutch I don't know how else to do this with you except maybe have you
035drop thoughts in the chat. Maybe Mr. Collum can help me pull that out of there but based on what you have seen now and your experience even more I mean my data with Claude is limited. Right? You've been living this based on both of those things, the data and your experience, what would you keep in terms of how the board is spending its time? What is adding the most value? What would you start or do more of? And what would you stop or shrink? Everyone clear on the exercise? Practically, what I'm going to ask you to do is the post-its on that board and Miss Gallegos you are welcome to participate as well. You will be purple post-its so we know who you are. The staff will just be a rainbow of other colors. If
036you would like to participate you are welcome to but go ahead and just jot your thoughts down on there and then stick them up there. Keep start stop shrink is on the whiteboard on the other side of the room. We will see how long this takes you but we will probably have a little time to reflect at the end of the 20 minutes. You are doing this -- it does say -- I'm sorry. I forgot. I was going to encourage you all to talk to each other and you can jointly but you could do it on your own, too, but feel free to interact and collaborate on it. We need to talk into the microphones while we are doing it I think. We will just share what we write down. I don't think -- do
037we need to share our conversations? Can we just have a breakout session and then report what we discussed? Because it's going to get very loud. Yeah . We've got (Indistinct) But if we just quietly work on our own there's no problem at all. Just make sure you get it on the Post-it. Patrick, I'm going to work with you. I don't mind. Mix it up. [Background speaking] Yes, Mr. Frank? (Indistinct) Of course. Can you see the slide on your screen? This is with regard to how the board spends time in its meetings. It is the keep, start/ more, or shrink. Put some thoughts into each of those buckets. Does that make sense? So as informational like when we get an update from a department or a program? Is that informational? (Indistinct) [Background speaking] I guess the
038thing about academic progress is we only get data once a year so what else are you measuring? (Indistinct) Yeah but what data do we use to sort of -- ? (Indistinct) [Background speaking] All right everybody. If we could bring it all back? I love the smiles and the conversations, but it's time. I was going to ask if you'd be willing to go up there and do a quick readout? You got it. [Background speaking] Thank you all for engaging in that activity. I'm going to ask us to come back together . And then I'm asking President Cort if she would be willing to do the Vanna White of the post-its here. Maybe you don't have to read every word but give us a sense of what is up there, at least. What strikes you the most,
039in particular. So what I see (Indistinct) Thanks. So I see keeping student input, celebration of champions. Which I agree, as well. And I had a conversation with Mr. Peterson and we were talking about when students are involved in our meeting and that means our student representative on the dais but when we have student presentations come in and when we have our students perform for us at the beginning, that helps to remind us that we are always keeping students as our focus. So when students came in and told us about their presentations. So when the outdoor club came in and told us about the things they do. I think that helps to remind everybody in the room of why we are doing the work that we do. That would be on my purple one that is
040not up here. Thank you. Look at that >> Absolutely. Student club presentations. All of that. It helps us to remind us. It helps pull us back from all the adult things that are going on in our heads to remind us that why we are here is for the kids. If everything that we do is student centered, then we are all doing the right thing. Once we start talking about adults and adult things then we lose our focus, I think. Anyway. That was my little blurb. Let's do one more then move into the next category. Intentional, thoughtful work on policy development. Intentional. Absolutely. What we need to change. More focus on Smart goals. Strategic policy making. Academic progress. Evolving the budget process. The presentations need a cap. That should probably go over here but anyway streamlining
041the policy process and taking care of the minor edits ahead of time. Which is also a conversation I had with these three lovely people over here. Is that we have board members assigned to each of the cabinet members. We take care of the minutia. We take care of the grammar. Change the pronouns if we need to. If the purpose doesn't align with other things. That all gets taken care of not in the meeting then as presented to us and we are looking at the policy as the policy rather than the nit stuff of the policy. Let me pause here for just a second on that note and check with Mrs. Gallegos. Mr. Frank and I had a conversation about that and my take on it was that that could happen. He wanted to make sure
042we were not violating any open meetings laws by having members take wordsmithing offline. So what I suggested is that the board member can make an edit that is tracked and identify that it is him in written form and that can be shared with the board as for the edits came from. We are not facilitating any decision making and then the board as a whole is reviewing this together so I did not see any problem with that. So , President Cort, members of the board. I think that sounds probably okay. I need to think through it. You can think about it more. There must be a way. One of the things I was thinking as President Cort I -- was speaking I was thinking we might be able to do is the employee who is in
043charge of receiving the input, then it is all reflected in a single document. I wonder if at some point you could do the wordsmithing maybe at some kind of consent agenda where there is an agreement there's not going to be discussion about it. That might be the way, but some kind of Google doc would definitely in New Mexico violate the open meeting (Indistinct). So if it functions like a Google Doc where you just sort of responding to the other outside of the meeting, that would be problematic. So how you make that completely a one way conversation versus now I think it works very well from a legal standpoint because it is individual one way going to one place. That gets integrated and then they have the opportunity together to talk about it. I think it
044may need to be some understanding of how much time we spend on it as opposed to whether we try and do it offline. Perhaps. I put you on the spot so to be fair, I don't mean that you should have to weigh in with a final answer. Let's find a way. I would encourage you all to find a way to do it out of the meeting if possible. Let's keep working on it. I think it helps if everyone is in agreement that they want to bring the time now because a lot of that is just an agreement that this is something that is important to them to bring it down. Because the truth is, in a meeting, everyone has to make their own decision. Am I going to speak up about that, or am I
045not? Typically how it works is (Indistinct) if it's something in her department. If it's something in special Ed it will be Mr. Brian then a couple of board members only 2 or 1 will be assigned to volunteer (Indistinct) so let's say you're working on the draft. First draft. You are not like the rest of the board members aren't going to know what that's going to look like until it's three days before the meeting and then even then like if they are giving input to (Indistinct) then public input if we had more public input they would also be getting that input right? We would not know who it's from. So if Mr. Wofford is saying I think we need to work this and that we don't have to know who it's coming from if it's all
046just input. I think if it is de-identified it would be better. That's true. Where there is a will there's a way. I think we can do it. That Segways nicely into the last category, which is less focus on grammar. Getting out of the minutia. And we do our own policies and we like our policies to look lovely but different ways to do that than at the meeting. Stopping employee updates on here. The work session superintendent reports and that we can probably just only have because we only do board reports at regular meetings. Aligning that with the superintendent report. Stop Department informational updates policy grammar and formatting etc. And just in the weeds so I think we are all pretty clear on we do spend too much time hanging out there. This was really lovely. This
047was a great conversation. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you all. It only works if you all participate the way you have. Thank you. Especially cabinet members. I really just want to shout out. I don't know who shouted the trend. Mr. Wofford perhaps. I had actually intended for you all to pair up together but I thought it was great that you all decided to get with staff and hear from their perspective so it says a lot about your culture. I want to shift to a related topic but still on how we spend our time more in terms of the structure of the meetings themselves as kind of the way that we enact potentially some of these adjustments. I want to propose -- this is a straw man only. There is not one way to skin
048this cat but what I would like to put out there and then I'm going to let you chew on this and think of other ideas potentially is a restructure in the following way. So the regular overall kind of one key theme here is that one thing we noticed in your meetings is the performance data right now tends to get more and more prevalent in the less and less visible meetings. So I assume that as we get from regular meeting to extended work session, there Is less public interest, less public comment etc.. I heard Mr. Wofford I think with staff talk about we could sprinkle that into more bite sized chunks every month rather than these marathon extended Work sessions with these huge data dumps. (Indistinct) Fair enough. I was trying to attribute it to you
049but yes. I actually pointed that. This is part of my job as a facilitator. I plan to double Dutch make it look like it was someone else's idea. That is one shift here. I am not convinced you need public comment in both meetings. Especially given the volume of public comment you have right now is not terribly overwhelming. I would prioritize it here at least. I'm not saying don't do it in both. You can. But certainly here since it is connected to action items. That is the standard practice. If you do an additional one, that is at your preference and I don't see both boards doing that. Usually there is one meeting where there is public comment. So the idea here becomes the way these meetings interact, the regular meeting and the work session, the work
050session is where you're going to have your regular meeting and policy discussions and if you want to do some regular updates on benchmarks maybe on a quarterly basis that could happen there where you've got a little more time. These discussions on policy set up for formal action but theoretically if this is done right you don't need to take much time in the regular meeting on policy because you have already hashed it out here. So this is just like I make a motion to -- or I make a motion to amend or something like that but it is more formal and concise around just acting. That these discussions for policy, I would encourage the chair or the president if you are chairing the meeting, to work with Stefan facilitate 3 or 4 discussion items. Plan that
051ahead of time. For this policy what are the 3 or 4 bullets that we think are the most essential issues that are going to change programs in some way or are going to impact kids in some way that are the substance of the matter. Come ready to introduce those to your colleagues to discuss, but in a more structured way.? Then lastly, the extended work sessions. If we push all of the performance monitoring into the two monthly meetings that really opens up your work sessions to be focused like we are doing today, on inward board governance, improvement planning, self-evaluation. Your training for the board and organizational meeting every year. What have you. Which I think would balance out the other content and is typically sort of the 1 or 2 per year board retreat kind of
052setting even though I know we don't use the word retreat which I agree because it never feels like much of a retreat. Any questions about that? I'm going to have you react to this here in a moment. But are there any questions or clarifying questions first? If not, that's fine. I'm not arguing with any of this but I think as mentioned up there, more employee movement updates (Indistinct) . Since it's on the table, I think it's helpful for us because of the way this community kind of deals with things. Like it thinks it's a smaller town than what it is and I think a good thing (Indistinct) Titan they communicate very well so that if something happens in a school district with an employer or whatever, that is something we need to know about. Also
053kind of like a profile like student stuff that happens, that always happens closed session. I know you say (Indistinct). I just don't know if sometimes it would have to go to a regular session because (Indistinct) a couple of items in there. Fair enough. I had not thought about the smaller town dynamic so that's a good point. Usually in bigger cities it's less of an issue. I put the no employee updates thing and I get what (Indistinct) is saying but I also don't think that we need to know what is happening (Indistinct) as it goes through the investigation (Indistinct) and I don't think anybody is going to ask us what's happening. We can't say anyway so what is the point of knowing that necessarily? I think principles are important. Like that process. Cabinet members I think
054that matters. That's more my thinking process (Indistinct) less what is happening with the teacher at (Indistinct) whatever. Lawsuits. I think every once in a while student things do crop up. I think those are important but that's not that frequently. That is we will take the time (Indistinct) I guess I can't even say it. We all know there have been high profile student incidents in the past year and we get an update on that and that is good and that is helpful but beyond that I don't know (Indistinct) Okay. So maybe there is a hybrid. Maybe you continue but maybe you can limit it more. I think we can definitely make an adjustment to things in the media (Indistinct) items that sometimes unfortunately we have to deal with and adjusting it in that way, as well.
055Finance subcommittee meetings we have once a month are treated more like a regular board meeting and they are long so I think that maybe there are some of these things that we can take and move it into finance Committee to make those more efficient, as >> That came up in that group over there. I could certainly have them do it. It didn't take that much time. I just didn't plug that in. It's important. When I was on the board it became a thing that all the board members should attend the finance subcommittee meeting and it's really helped us understand the budget process and everything else. I think it started before you came. Like maybe a year. I would still try to honor the two hour target even for finance committee meetings. Max. I don't sit
056on those finance committee meetings but I will say that having been with the board and the district before they begin the all board Finance Committee participation and since, it has really strengthened the confidence that the board has in their own knowledge and expertise. And again the confidence. Prior to that point and perhaps for other reasons as well, there was a deep distrust on the part of the community. On the part of the union and on the part of the board with regard to their finance department. And I think there has been enough public comment that publicly it is visible. There is a huge amount of confidence right now. So that is time intensive. The other thing though that has worked that I don't see across all boards who do that is because they are also
057committed to it and it really does translate into a consent agenda items that are honored and they rarely take something off the consent agenda item and they're also very disciplined about not making comments about things that are on consent agenda. So it does translate into less time during the regular meeting but again, there is that sort of ancillary benefit that may not be something that you can quantify. But it has greatly increased as an institution, as an organization, the objective functioning of this district. Having seen it after and having seen how stark it was, I feel like I need to mention that. Literally like live streamed so it's not over. Right? It's not just two board members in an office and then the finance team. It is all of us on Zoom. Anybody can watch.
058Anybody can participate and you can go back and find something if you are curious about it so the public is involved if they want to be. Yeah. I certainly would not suggest not doing the committee. I think it's great and certainly you all being on the committee as a whole only five members makes sense. (Indistinct) a lot of the time can be taken up with vendor payments and stuff that I could get in an email. Yeah. So the same thing might apply even to the finance Committee, of maybe we don't need to be dwelling on some of these things. So that is my challenge to you, President Cort. Two challenges at the moment but they are not just for you because other members will serve in the president's seat presumably as things change. So two
059things. One is really leverage and try to up the ante on your use of the consent agenda. That is a powerful tool to manage the efficiency and productivity of the meeting because it then requires a board member to say hey I really need to make an effort to pull this off so we can discuss it, and that is a built in accountability mechanism. If it really doesn't matter it's going to be less likely that's going to happen. (Indistinct) before you do the whole agenda which is tricky. Question about finance. We are encouraged to submit questions at a time about (Indistinct). Do those need to be addressed during the Finance Committee or if the answers came back to me in an email (Indistinct), would it be possible to share that with all board members (Indistinct)? Such
060a great question. Some of the things we've shared, I really appreciated it and I did not think (Indistinct). Let me piggyback on that thought Mr. Wofford and offer a norm that you all could consider implementing. With Legal's approval, of course. A you as a board have a standard practice that at any time a staff member answers a board member's question all the staff members get BK to. --bcc'd. Here's the other thing about that. You are now intrinsically accountable to staff. Because everyone is doing it and everyone is copied every time you get a response this is going to be like oh. Why does Mr. Wofford ask a question every week? Take his email off the bottom of it so we don't see who did it. I don't know about that but -- >> Okay. Then
061I'll forget it. (Indistinct) So President Cort, members of the board, yes. That's perfectly fine. That is a one way communication and I understood that is exactly what was happening for the most part. There may be some isolated individual back and forth but I think that this district has a practice. I think Mr. Reese does that as a practice. Responding there are memos that go out. It goes to everybody. They do bcc so somebody doesn't accidentally reply to all and create a rolling quorum so they are really good about that. The other thing I would say in terms of just being clear to everyone in this room and the public is that generally speaking, I would not recommend that any board member be directly communicating with staff unless it has first gone through Mr. Ruiz. So
062if any board member is having a direct communication, for example, with the Chief of Human Resources, that should be only because Mr. Ruiz is aware and he has delegated that. (Indistinct) the other day. I did. That should be our practice. I know that is a conversation (Indistinct) and I can't think of a time that I wasn't aware. Until now. Just kidding. That is our >> If that is what you want the practice to be just to have double checks if a board member forgets to, the cabinet can also help so if they were to respond they can be sure to cc you. When I cc Josh do you get it? (Indistinct) Especially when it is through the Chief of Staff it is always continuous updates. Everything etc. So any time there is communication. Here's the
063push though I would make on that issue for all of you. If your board meetings are run right and you are getting the right information every month, and especially if it is on a calendar so you know what is coming, you should almost never have to ask the staff separately because it's going to come to your meeting. And what a load off of them that would be. Right? I realize that is aspirational. We may not be there yet but I think that is worth keeping in mind as a goal. If I may, I feel like we are getting into the thoughts and reactions segment of >> Which is actually what we are about to do so thank you. Last charge for you or anybody in the president's seat, let's put some estimated times so we
064can actually try to target that. And somebody, you can even assign someone to be your time Watcher. Staff or another board member. Somebody say hey, we are at time. So you know hey. I need to keep this moving because you are chairing the meeting. That's what a chair is supposed to do. That's a good call. The vice president doesn't do anything anyway (Indistinct) We had a late start. We are just a little bit off on time. Let's take our ten minute break now and then we are going to come back to finish up the meeting design exercise so ten minutes. I believe it is -- let's come back at 10:40. [Music] And then related to what we were talking about, I want to clarify before we left for the break. Generally, I think if the
065meetings are right in terms of content you won't have to email staff very often at all if there was a good point made from a couple of team members in relation to the Finance Committee but this could apply in other ways too is that if board members have a question or know they are going to have a question because they've really reviewed materials ahead of time. Like I wonder what this vendor payment is? Rather than put staff on the spot in the meeting it probably is good practice for you to email that ahead of time with some norm as to how much notice you give them so they can look into it because they might not know right off the top of their head. However, instead of responding to the email the staff can just
066bring that to the meeting so all the board members there have the answer. Right? That I think was a great suggestion in terms of just like a very efficient way to function together in getting your questions answered without breaking meetings laws and making sure the board has the same information. It would put ownership also on you meeting the advanced notice deadline. If you don't then maybe staff has got to kick it to the next month. Right? So that was just a norm that I think you all could consider. It was a great idea from the team so I just want to put that out there. To catch us up getting back on track with schedule I'm going to try to accelerate this exercise a little bit. Picking up where we left off on the meeting
067structure, I'm going to ask you all individually to digest this straw man and just write down -- hopefully you all have some form of piece of paper or can ask somebody for one. Write down on your paper your version of this. If you just want to say hey I love this as is fine. If you just want to tweak it in some way, sketch it out on your paper. We will submit it and keep it in the notes. It's all going to be on the record. I want to see how similar they are or what the differences are so we can reconcile some sort of solution on the structure. Please be sure to include estimated times for the agenda section and your individual preference. We probably won't do guidelines for consent. Think about the two
068hour test and not being too late at night. Those are really the main things. Use this as a starting point. Tweak it how you want. Put estimated times on it and think about the two hour test Max. Does that make sense? And then we will collect those and reconcile them together and see how close you guys are. What you like to give us a time? Yes thank you I should. I'm winging this on the spot. So yes. Let's take ten minutes max but if you all finish faster then (Indistinct) so we will come back at 10:55 or sooner. This is just a rough sketch on a blank piece. Similar to what I've done here. Your version of it. If it's different. But include the estimated times for each of the agenda sections. Just like if
069you imagine the agenda with these things on it or whatever you want to have on it. The estimated time for that agenda section. So 30 minutes for public comment and whatever and try to keep within the two hour time frame. Does that make sense? [Background speaking] We have five more minutes. Two more minutes. As you finish your sketch of the meeting structures, if you could maybe just start a pile of them on the table. We will make sure we collect them and document them and reconcile them and give that feedback back to you. Your last comment Mr. Frank has been up there for about an hour and a half. We've been thinking about it long and hard. [Laughter] Hey, when did you get there? It's actually relevant to the next section. So we didn't forget
070about you. Please tell me, Ed. I look up at the screen every once in a while but if you were wanting to speak just butt in and say hey so we get your voice in here please. All right. We are going to move into the policy section of our agenda. Let's just pick a stack there and I will get them. Cabinet members, I want you to be part of this because you obviously are involved in supporting policy work but I do believe this will be the last part we will have you in the room for. So we might be able to get you out a little early but I just want you to know we are paying attention to all of you as much as we can about having you here and why. As we
071get into making policy I'm going to start out like we did on the agenda time or meeting time , with data. This data on your current policy work for 2025-26 is not AI. It is me but still with the disclaimer that my assessment of this criteria potentially lacks some context. So it's not perfect but what I did was looked at all of the 11 policies you worked on this last school year starting in September and thought about these criteria. Were they relevant or aligned in some way to the strategic plan and priorities of the plan? Where they response to the stakeholder signal? We mentioned at the beginning like your student Advisory council. You all came up with some examples of how you acted on policies based on feedback you got from students. That would be
072an example of that. That is worth prioritizing. Also worth prioritizing is something that really directly enhances equitable environments in some way for kids or staff. And then the last two are about being intentional about are there some impending challenges the district is facing that policy could help alleviate in some way? Are you facing -- I know you all are potentially facing declining enrollment. There are several policy matters that could relate to trying to set the superintendent up for success to deal with that challenge. Right? For example, a school closure or consolidation policy or enhancement to it that is obviously related to the issue. Or others like it. The point is that if we use these criteria at least as a guidepost we could at least be more intentional and thoughtful and productive with impact in
073terms of our policy making. As you can see now, I think there is room to grow here. I have some margin of error but I think we definitely have room to grow. The last thing I would say is while none of the policy calendar priorities seem to be directly related to the strategic plan that I could tell last year -- we have an opportunity to do that this next year. As far as I can tell every one of them I would have put on the consent agenda. Almost everything I can see in the revisions being proposed or technical in nature, were due to statutory updates or bringing something current. But they were not anything that I could tell that were very hugely consequential in terms of impact to the program. So I realize that's a
074dramatic statement but I realize how much time we could have freed up to do policy work that actually met some of these criteria. Does that resonate with this table at all? Any comments, feedback pushback I mean you want to give me? I do. I feel like (Indistinct) the state legislature on a lot of issues so (Indistinct) it's really nice to be together communicating about it and kind of come to agreement on like what it means to us versus just doing this separately. Could you give me an example? Gosh. On this last one? >> Okay. Fair enough. I'm trying to remember what was passed in the last legislation. Anyone want to help me? Capital outlay, but I think when we talk about capital outlay or 8020, it's not policymaking per se but it is relevant to
075our (Indistinct). And so just capital outlay is (Indistinct) $100,000 to a family (Indistinct) whatever it might be and those are really important to our strategic plan and should be talked about and should be identified as a shared goal. Is this board policy work though or is it a legislative agenda? It's a legislative agenda but it supports policy. It supports the strategic plan. Yeah. I'm with you. I wasn't thinking of legislative agenda. I thought if that is separate from this but -- We just had a huge redistricting that has been kicked down the road for several years and we've had to do it and we've had to update our transfer policy but if we hadn't done that like right now (Indistinct) Athletic Activity Association just passed a new transfer policy so all the other districts haven't
076had to look at their transfer policy or having to look at it and see what they are going to do. I can't give you a perfect example because we've already done the work with it because we worked on it but if that hadn't been a goal where we would be like you guys (Indistinct) we're not involved in that, that wouldn't even make sense. Let me just say this is presented as guidance right? This is not a box to get yourselves by. That's not the intent so if there's something I'm thinking of like you are sharing -- >> Last year they had a graduation where there was additional -- a credit that you could get and they wanted us to add either financial literacy or other yeah. So our department gave us the idea instead of
077just giving them 1 or 2 options let's kind of give them choices, and so that came to the board to discuss of like how do you want to proceed right? It wasn't like oh let's just (Indistinct) . I think they wanted to make sure there was community input and that the board had some say in it. (Indistinct) Why was it because the legislature asked for it? Yes. I think that was a legal thing. They did all the work trying to figure out how do we respond to the legislature then brought it to us. So it was passed through the legislature then came to us. That was also outside of the window (Indistinct) Yes, (Indistinct) Again the point here is to be intentional. To be impactful. There are exceptions to this rule. (Indistinct) Nothing that seemed
078intentionally supportive. (Indistinct) aligned to our strategic plan like deliberately communicating (Indistinct) safety, well-being. Those things are part of our strategic plan. So operational things (Indistinct) everybody in the department does a good job (Indistinct). This is an Ed question because he goes to math. Did you design this for pushback or is this -- [Laughter] I design everything for pushback. That's not a bad teaching strategy. I'm happy you are grappling with this and pushing back. That is the cognitive lift I want. Mr. Frank? (Indistinct) that totally impacts our strategic plan. I agree. That wasn't on this list. I hear you. I think what would be helpful -- (Indistinct) but you know. I don't know. (Indistinct) I've not suggesting that. I'm not saying don't do any policy if it doesn't fit the plan. That is not what I'm
079saying. There are things on here that -- yeah. This is guidance. The point is that you are intentional and even if there is a topic that is theoretically related to a strategic goal, if I look at the content of what you are changing and it is not terribly meaningful then does it really matter? Right? (Indistinct) and this is just policy. Not reports (Indistinct) This is policy. Yeah. This is first of all excellent conversation to be having and I'm trying to in my own brain, fit these categories and concepts behind the categories with the structure of their current policy on policy review, and one of the things I've been inviting them to consider is how many readings do you really need and want? And it has been hard to figure that out, the way that the
080policy review process has been conceptualized kind of all policies being equal. I think what you are saying here is not all policies are equal so maybe what needs to be considered is, consent agenda makes me nervous because we sit around and spend a lot of time of day saying that their core function is policy and that they are not using a policy service. So if you have a policy service and you are building from that then maybe that makes some sense. But this is a board that is very involved in their end policy. So maybe at least getting down to more than one reading and we talked about getting down to one reading but what I like the idea of is using this kind of a structure to pair how you decide what gets only
081one reading. Obviously you will still keep the things that are time sensitive that are required by law as grounds for shortening member readings. But sometimes those subsequent readings are what actually inadvertently invites the conversations about grammar. Inadvertently. Inadvertently I think because there's nothing else to talk about because they've already vetted it. They've already vetted it. But I do want to push back on doesn't really matter because for example, the policy they're spending the most time on now -- this is a value driven board and a value driven district. By value I mean district driven values. Mission and vision. And they have spent a lot of time discussing the equity behind the wording of the dress code. And if you watch that meeting, these are pretty powerful discussions about body shaming but it doesn't necessarily, to
082your point, like what part of the strategic plan does it belong under. And oftentimes I will say as the outsider coming in, I am struck by how much policy they shape around mission vision, kind of basically what I am saying is value on what could amount to sustainability. Some of that, some boards might think that should be consent agenda but this board is looking at many policies from that lens and applying that lens. I think we are inadvertently -- we all get hung up from time to time is that in that second and third reading when everything has really been vetted there is this feeling of okay one last time to look at it. What about the. So maybe if there is a way to number one, use these categories to decide what does the
083policy fall under and if it falls under what you ultimately decide is a low level category only gets one real substantive reading and then you can take action on it versus if it is a dress code where it inherently is going to require a lot of thought with the benefit of prior conversations, maybe it automatically is assumed for your standard three readings. I know I have said this to you before. I said it in one of the work sessions is just to remind you that the standard in the state for policy reading under policy is two and you all do the three. So I do think that it would be valuable to revisit your policy on policy review, and then regardless of how you view these categories, take the feedback from these categories and then
084apply them to your experience and perhaps use this to help drive your delineations in future policy. When I was talking with these chiefs over here we talked about getting a process that worked across each of the policies and who is shepherding this through them so that we would actually schedule a Zoom or something meeting prior to first reading, for a lot of that potential wordsmithing and conceptual work happens so we can bring the policy to the board. The admin who is in charge has met with 1 or 2 board members thoroughly so that by the time we get to the third reading, it could be a consent agenda item. So that first and second readings are more prepared for. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think two readings is the norm nationally. I think three
085is a lot. I just regardless of what the criteria are, you can make your own. The point is if you want to have impact you've got to be able to sit there and ask yourself as you build your calendar or are looking at policy, does this have impact? I watched an hour of time in March on a meeting of the staff conduct policy and during that hour I heard nothing except debates about what word to use, whether three sentences could go to one sentence. Whether there should be a, here, whether you should say and or or. As soon as you are doing that you are not having an impact. don't people go to board meetings? Right. That is the main point here and if this isn't the perfect guide post for you then alter it
086but that is the point. Can I make a couple comments? So I can think of an example where policy that could have gone to consent agenda was something that came to me as a board member and then I brought it up to the superintendent. There was like a gap in paid time off or something, or one of the admin sections. So assistant principals or whatever. That probably didn't require readings from us of an amended being fixed and then going to consent agenda or the one that we just did was advertising and marketing. (Indistinct) [Background speaking] So here's your tool. Everybody at the table has a tool to also hold yourself accountable to this. It's called, call the question. Does everyone know what to call the question motion is? Pull it off the consent agenda and
087talk about it? No. We might want to do a mini Robert's Rules training. I don't mean that in jest. These are tools you can use to make your meeting more productive. Briefly, a motion to call the question is a motion to and the discussion and take action. It requires a two thirds vote to approve and there is no debate about it. So you either get your two thirds and it's over or you did not effectively end the discussion. So if the president is not managing the time the way you feel is appropriate, make the motion. You can do it respectfully. Nice. The other comment I want to make is a lot of times the really important policies -- I know they all have value, but it seems like they don't come up until there is
088a problem to solve and then the policy comes up and you are like let's say with the weapons detention. We got these new machines that were coming in. We had to look at all of our search and seizure language and then repetitive policies where they had to merge them. We would not have known them had that problem not come up so sometimes I wish we could be more proactive like honing through the policies we have to see what is -- I think they have done that but I know that there are some gaps still in our policy website as far as (Indistinct) Perfect segue. So now we are back to artificial intelligence and this is probably the worst data I've given you, because as I started scrubbing more, clouds definition of clearance wasn't mine so
089I could have prompt engineered better. I'm trying to model how we should use AI. Like I didn't use it. This is my work. So the top four take with a grain of salt loosely. Although but the main point here again -- loose on accuracy but this one I'm pretty confident on. It's unconventional to see this but I don't think there is much in terms of your policies that indicates any kind of clear way you are going to measure impact from it defers the superintendent almost exclusively and Leslie again this gets back to this. Is it aligned or not? I don't know if it's 35%. As you get down to a more narrow strategic plan, which I hope you do. That is what I work with the staff to recommend. If you do, this will become
090a smaller number. Instead of 70 it's even less. It's not going to be a perfect match but the point is maybe there's a better way to frame it. As you are setting that calendar, is there a policy or two that very clearly enhances the work of the superintendent on his priorities and can I work in collaboration with the staff on that? Because it may help them in some way. Maybe there is some policy restriction right now that prevents them from achieving the goal the way they feel they need to. Right? And that just even just engaging in that conversation is really a primary point. Right? I think if it existed we would have seen it because we would have been pulling it up during our strategic plan. If what existed, sorry? Strategic policy (Indistinct) strategic
091priorities. I don't know because I don't know how intentionally you all have thought about it that way. I would welcome the staff as they thought about strategic goal. Is there some policy that is a barrier? Is there something in policy that could embolden us to do this in a different way? There may not be right? But I think it is certainly worth asking and examining. Or bring life into these policies. Pull them off the shelf. Amen. So that is the main point here. I'm going to give you an example. So I guess my overall summary on the whole policy but not that I could personally look at every single one of the 200, but in addition to spending time on the policies that matter more the second part of this is what I'm trying to
092shift into. I also want to encourage you to think about as you are doing a policy revision or new policy, is there anything in here that has some kind of methodology for accountability and impact? Even if it is like just a couple of data metrics that are standing operating protocols that will be timeless in practice but like how is the board ever going to know this policy did anything for anyone? Ask that question. Right? And from a review of your policies and there is plenty of opportunities to do that I'm not saying go back through all 200 and do it to everyone. That is not practical but as you go. Right? So here is an example like I looked at and I'm going to have you do this as an exercise but I'm going to
093give you an example first to model it. I looked at JHB, which I think is very clearly related to strategic goal six about attendance. Claude gave you more credit than I am so once I dug into this, I don't think Claude was that concise at all. It absolutely restates the law. It's like 90 or 95% verbatim out of the law. I don't think that is necessary. What purpose does that serve, right? State law copied into your policy. Maybe if there is some essential points there's some key points -- I knew this was going to spark a reaction because my time is designed to give pushback so I'm going to let you speak in a second but I don't generally think that is productive because what are you really doing? You are not providing any guidance.
094I'm going to let you present the devil's advocate in a second but interestingly and this is I think I suspect is unique, that law more than most state statutes I see did actually have some definition around measuring impact and what the measurement and reporting expectations were and but I think it could be refined. I don't think the state legislatures are not educators. All across the country they meddle in stuff they should not meddle in that is not the business of the state. This was an example. It was not the worst example I have seen but it was definitely an example of overboard. Like you all should have figured this out. Not state legislators. I'm going to give you my take on how we could potentially improve that policy. In a second I'll let you jump
095in. Sure. I'm definitely not trying to be the devil. I'm trying to stay in my role as advocate though and I don't disagree with anything you are saying and if that particular policy was a restatement for the state of restatement I think there is some prose in that. If the policy you don't necessarily expect administration certainly at the principal level to be going and looking at the law and so the policy is your local law. Sometimes when you leave those things out it creates a gap and they don't know and you don't know why they are not doing it when there's a legal challenge so there is some value in incorporating it and then adding the piece you are talking about. I don't disagree with you. The only thing I do want to say and
096the only reason I am saying it here is not to make a point to you but just so that the board does not left with confusion about other things I've said at different times is sometimes in New Mexico law, and I don't particularly appreciate it, but the State Department will direct that the policy shall state. Then it will enumerate what the policy shall state. So there are times when my response to why are we wording it this way is because the statute actually expressly says that that language has to be in the policy and I think possibly for that purpose, that if admin is expected to pull up and teachers and employees who could actually discharge or terminated for not following policy are expected to go there as their one stop shop policy and regulation
097then sometimes you are kind of stuck. I take your points. I take your points and they are valid. I would then just encourage to be minimalist about copying the most essential points because here is just a reality check on what happened in. Because this is 4 or 5 pages, this policy, and basically copies the state act into this policy, there are things that then get missed because you can't keep track of it all. Like technically and this is not a gotcha because I think in the spirit of the law the staff has complied. But technically like if I was going to sweat it, the details, this report by law is supposed to be on the website. It's not on the website. I'm sure it will get on the website. It's not a big deal but
098this is just an example of how can you expect the staff to keep track of this? It's not practical. So I would definitely be a minimalist about it. Here are some examples about how I think you could take a policy like this. We know it is related to a strategic goal , and maybe make it better. So maybe instead of just restate the law, what is the local guidance? What is our twist that we want to add as a board to support this objective? I would be more concise. The local guidance for example, and this is just an example. I'm not saying this is the way you have to do it. You could put something in that I don't believe is currently in the state law that requires there be a trigger point when any
099student is absent X number of days that there is an intervention. I would not say you need to determine what the intervention is. That is the staff's job but as an accountability mechanism to know that you as a board put in some walls in the sandbox and some Guideposts, safety nets. Maybe you want to require staff to make sure like okay you've got to have a plan for that. Like we don't just let kids go 20 days out without doing anything. That is a policy. I think it is a good -- Joyce said that's a procedure. It can be a fine line. It is ultimately a judgment call on the board to express its values and oftentimes the way that gets determined is, is it happening now? So the common pushback staff says that shouldn't
100be in policy. That's a procedure. Constant all the time. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not. Not to pick on this setting, right? I work with another board. The 11th largest district in the country. Their staff gives me that all the time. I'm engaged in developed policy. They are constantly (Indistinct) now this is admin. The last example I worked on a safety policy with them and I got the pushback. This should be an admin procedure. I was like really? Do you have an admin procedure on this? No. Okay then how can you tell me it shouldn't be in board policy you haven't done one right? Like that tells me as a board member I have to set a policy so you will do it so it is situational. But even if technically the staff
101should be doing that or could be doing that, I don't know that always means it doesn't warrant some policy. Sometimes there is just some give and take there to push you know to get things to happen. So it's a judgment call ultimately. Not a hard rule. Some of this stuff is tough. I thought we do have a trigger for attendance. In the board so specifically it could be when we are getting in the weeds just for example. If I'm wrong I'm wrong. If it wasn't in there it's not in there. I don't think it is. It's just an example of something you could provide that would be local guidance. In the policy in terms of measurement you could have examples. I'm not saying you have to do these things but your attendance policy could say
102this must be reported to the board, disaggregated on a certain routine frequency. It could say, and I actually think it probably does, what the primary metric is going to be. Absenteeism. Average attendance. If there was a trigger how many of those kids got their trigger? What was the percentage? What was the engagement? How does it work? That's what the board cares about. Is the cake good? Did it work? Did the staff do what policy says and how do we know it worked? So again just examples but I just wanted to give you an illustration of how you could take a policy that is largely just state law, add some local guidance. Make it more accountable for impact because you all told me over and over again you want to have impact so this is how
103you do it. So I want you to do your own exercise now in similar fashion. So you will have in your green folders, policy EB on safety. Safety and strategic goal number four. So you also have the staff's latest iteration of the strategic plan. I don't know what you call it. The document that lays out the strategy and the KPIs and all the things. I would like you to pull those two artifacts out of your green folders, board members. Read the policy. Just skim the staff. I just want you to get a sense of what is in there. This isn't Double-Dutch that is there document. You don't need to mess with it but it gives you a sense of what they are currently intending to do in the strategic plan with regard to safety. I
104want you to read your board policy on staffing and we are going to talk about connections but as you are reading the policy and looking at that document, start to think about like I did. What are ways that we can make more impact in this policy? Are there ways we could measure safety differently? Are there ways we could embed more accountability mechanisms into the policy in some form or fashion to brainstorm? And are you looking at 30 minutes for this? Good question. The reason why I ask is that lunch is ready and this might -- if we are doing a solo 15 to 30 minute thing, we could even do it at the same time. Kind of two birds one stone kind of thing. Yeah. Let's make it a working lunch activity. That works great
105and then let's say 30 minutes, and that we will keep an eye on it. If we are ready we are ready. Perfect. Thank you so much. All right, everybody. Go grab some lunch if you are hungry. [Background speaking] [Music] For those of you who want to stay or for board members who want to know where we are at, 30 more minutes is my plan. But we got a little more deep into the discussion. We are a little behind. Let's come back to this policy. I would love to hear from board member -- Mr. Frank, are you with >> I'm texting him right now. Mikes are on. We are back. All right so curious. Again with the primary focus on the board policy, not so much the strategic plan document but maybe thinking about the headline
106goal that the staff has articulated it. What ideas do you have around any potential revisions that might lend themselves toward either better supporting the strategic goal or just better measurement and accountability in general? So I think that we need to maybe include some actionable or measurable goals in here, like statistics on student safety and academic achievement or statistics on student safety and attendance. So just -- I feel like it is a very general. We want safe schools but we want safe schools because if a student feels safe they attend. If a student feels safe then they learn. Adding more of a student impact possibly in the purpose and the metric. To follow right up on that , one thing that I noticed is that this policy is designed to comply with code and that's all
107it says. (Indistinct) this one at least does say establish a policy to promote a safe environment as opposed to meet with (Indistinct) You know what is interesting though is I think it mentions the fire codes, which you know, that's one example of a restatement of external regs. There already is a regulatory authority that's going to keep you accountable to fire codes. I don't know if you need that in your policy. I remember when the goal was first created and (Indistinct) got to sit in on when they were first starting (Indistinct) and I remember there were like since everybody has compliance why don't we make that one of our indicators? I remember it was one of those boxes you automatically check and it seems like it's just one of those things that yes we want to
108make sure it's done but if they're already going to have to be compliant (Indistinct) so the stuff that I was thinking about here is just wouldn't we have actual measurements already and wouldn't we want to put it in policy? The other thing I was kind of sharing with you is that like usually construction keeps a record of which playgrounds, built facilities and stuff are being worked on so that if you wanted updates on that or report on that you could just be referred to the website where it is at so we could just -- in usually it is tied to like (Indistinct) like that is where the money is coming from to fix these things where capital outlay. The other thing was, you have people going into the schools to kind of see whether or
109not they are keeping the school locked up or checking to see -- stranger danger like if you are allowed in. Is anybody asking what are you doing here? I only know about that because I went to FEMA had some type of training and I felt like even there, it was mostly police and it should have been (Indistinct) principals, assistant principals even like the safety lead. They should have been in on that training. So that is when this palms person was there and kind of told us who he was and what he does and I was like oh wow. So that if we could get some type of report of what they find or just at a very general level that it is being done in. I love it. Secret shopping. We talk about that at
110the staff session also. Actually like elevating the measurements of performance in the secret shopping from an independent review like not do you have a plan but are you actually following the plan is definitely a step in the right direction. Right? But I also want to go back to President Cort. What is interesting about safety as it is tricky to measure. It also has this feeling element. Even though feeling safe is not necessarily being safe, it is important for well-being and comfort. It has an impact. If you don't feel safe, it's not going to be great for learning. So that's another element that is challenging. Let me ask you this, though. All that policy has written, particularly the board policy, was accomplished to fidelity do you actually feel confident that students are more safe? I'm shaking
111my head no. I don't think so. The board policy as strategic plan written? I mean no. Because we don't have anything that tells us how to know, like we are moving any sort of needle. I don't think that we do know. We know the meetings happen. (Indistinct) we know all of those things which reinforce the idea of that. Or at least we are being reminded of it as opposed to having a safety plan that we don't go to the motions to remind ourselves of that. (Indistinct) so one would think that we know how to duck and cover or what have you because we do that. Right but yes. But what does that mean? If I ask anybody, my mom, to duck and cover, does that make them feel safer? Like no. I don't think so.
112It makes them feel like they are preparing for a threat like the threat is still out there so they are preparing. I don't know how we can measure this. We can look at the safety plan and say yes you've done the safety plan. You can say does every school have a safety committee? Yes they do. Do you have your plan? Yes they do so those are all measurable things but if we are going to make it matter then that is where I think then, because students are feeling more because when we took a survey whatever students feel more safe, attendance increased, student academics increased. It all becomes kind of a little blur about how you make that all happen but if we are going to align it to student success then we should align it
113to student success. Do we monitor the number of playground accidents school to school to see if we have safe playground (Indistinct)? You would think that if there were more falls somewhere then that might indicate -- >> Let's take that point, Mr. Wofford, because you talked about assessing safety incidents. Right? As opposed to the number of times a mass shooting incident happened? How do you measure that? Well, you would know if that happened but obviously that is the extreme. There are other presumably within the limits of the district's data monitoring, you know whether safety incidents -- how many falls? How many injuries? How many break ins or theft? I don't know. You could define incidents that are Non-safety outcomes.? And I think that is the key piece. What I'm hearing though is so what is the
114outcome we are looking for? Versus what is the outcome then you establish the goal for the outcome but then establish how do you measure that. Right? I can think of for example, safety. We could measure that through a culture and climate survey that includes students and parents. Or feeling. You could measure how they feel about something. Exactly. I think that is where you go back to what is the outcome we are looking for then in the goal? So if it is feeling then measure. If it is the actual safety piece, which again is a tricky one, that helps us then to think through what are those measures? Number one what measures do we have potentially and maybe measures that we need to put in place potentially right? To be able to then come back to
115you instead of it's not even about the strategies because that is where we come in. It is, did we meet that goal or the outcome we were expecting out of that goal? I have a mantra to say you've heard of what gets measured gets done? If you have to measure the right things. The right things done. And the difference in how you measure trickles down everything else. To your point, if what you care about and what you are measuring is the feeling of safety then you're going to have strategies designed to make kids feel safe. If what you are measuring is how many unsafe incidents (Indistinct), it would be a different set of activities. That question is in our survey climate. Does my child feel safe at school? So I think one example that kind
116of like brings them together would be the feeling and the actual measurement when we -- when I was part of Equity Council we had to try to visit the mental -- middle schools then meet with the students and survey them on what they thought were the issues in their community. A lot of them were saying student violence. Fighting. And to some extent bullying. But the fighting part was interesting because when we looked at our data, middle schools did have like a higher amount of fights than elementary and middle school. So they see it in the hallways. It wasn't something they just felt or imagined. It was something that they saw. The actual threat, I guess. And it makes them feel even if they are not being picked on or in the fight they are still
117around it. I think that is one where we for a while we're tracking that data a little bit, and then other things come up. That is another example. I would call that the baked cake. Right? It affects the kids. Right but it is also the end outcome. It is the final like what you care about. You don't want fights. Like kids are more safe when there are no fights. Their feelings are still kind of in ingredient right? But ultimately they are either safe or they are not based on the number of bad things that happen. And fights happen but I mean when you are trying to teach middle schoolers how to have that emotional what do you call it? Even more when they are trying to like the self control kind of thing. Self-regulation. Thank
118you. So I think that part comes into it too because I don't know the middle school principals were saying we want more opportunity to work with these students to kind of self-regulate and reflect on how to better manage themselves. I don't know if they have those opportunities. And I don't know how many fight incidents over time, what has happened to. This is a data question, right? I think we've struggled with the data piece of it specifically around the SROs in our high school and middle school because they report it (Indistinct) you know schools. So anyways. They report it in a much different way than we do and so the data doesn't always make sense and so we need to refine how we are collecting -- safety is a data issue. There's nothing tied into data.
119There's no questions about data. We are collecting it and I'm sure if I ask the superintendent I could get that data, but we don't talk about it necessarily. So for me it is really like what is the data showing us? Yes. Performance monitoring is one of your key roles. The data is hard. Figuring out the right way to measure the data. That is what you should be wrestling with. That is the perfect conversation we are having. Mr. Frank, I just wanted to acknowledge -- can you hear me okay? I just wanted to acknowledge your last comment up there. We are reading the chat even if we don't respond instantly. At your point about the accountability component, even if the policy doesn't have that it doesn't mean we won't be looking at data. I totally agree.
120I just wanted to offer a twist to that is part of the purpose of policy is to create legacy and consistency, regardless of who is in your seat. So even if this board is really diligent about performance data and you don't need a policy to make you do it and look at it a certain way, the policy sometimes can make that last beyond you in a consistent way because it sends a signal to every board. This is how we do it. So I don't mean to suggest if I offer that idea is because you are not looking at data. I acknowledge you are. Sometimes policy serves another sort of longer term purpose. Does that make sense? Yeah. I agree (Indistinct) I just wanted to make the point that because it's not there (Indistinct), that we
121don't look at it. I agree and I've seen you look at it so that was not my assumption. (Indistinct) when it comes to these policies, kind of they are a reflection of our district and to me, it would be very embarrassing to put up a policy that had grammatical mistakes in it, that was not crystal clear as to its intent. So I think we have to take the wordsmithing incredibly seriously, and it does take time. But I believe to not do that would allow stuff to get out there that would be embarrassing to us. We should never want to put the district in an embarrassing position. And the president signs these things, so one of our names is going on there, and I think we have to make every attempt to make it as high
122level grammatically and in terms of clarity as we can do. And if it takes a little extra time in our meetings then I think it's worth it. I appreciate your perspective. You and I talked about this previously. I think Miss Gallegos may help brainstorm some other alternative ways to do what you were talking about. I'm not saying don't do what you are saying but like you and I discussed before, if we could find ways to minimize meeting time on it to make room for the more substantive discussion that is where the objective is. So I'm not going to argue with you. You should have a high standard for your writing, of course. You are educators. Point taken. Thank you. I agree with you. If we can find a way to shorten our meetings that would
123be wonderful. I don't think there's any disagreement in this room. So we are going to move into the final part here and I had previewed some of these recommendations with you. We are not going to spend a ton of time. We are just going to recap and give you a couple more reflection exercises to kind of process this further. Also, this is probably the least relevant to the cabinet maybe in terms of the content. So again, it's your option. And we won't judge. Yes, we won't judge. The problem is who's got to be the first one to leave? That's got to be tough. Maybe you all need to go together. Could you just take a moment again skimming. You don't need to read every word. Kind of flip through your current instrument called the instrument
124for Appraising Effectiveness. We are pretty familiar with this. I'm sure you are and maybe you don't need to skim it. Given the amount of time I probably should have realized that. I will just keep going. How about that? Just tell me. What do you like about this tool and what do you want to change about it? What is missing? What would you change? I like that it opens up discussion among board members, things in my experience that may not be on someone else's experience. We all get on the same page. So superintendent measure does more than just measure superintendents accountability. It allows us to measure our progress how he is doing. Given that it is a qualitative tool, that is kind of what we have to do. I guess if it was all quantitative, at
125some point we would have to kind of justify why each of us like why we are writing things a certain way you know? And I think for the most part he is very fair in how we treat it. I just think we could get somebody in here that is out to just raise hell, right? In that relationship would change. So that would just change how that person responds to this. I don't know. I don't know if we change it to something more qualitative that would even matter. We could put some smart goals in that say the proficiency rates in mathematics will do this. And then the proof is in the pudding. Right? Right. And so do we think that putting a goal like that into an evaluation would create the fire underneath to make it
126happen or (Indistinct) in different ways? Because we do have I mean it's very clear (Indistinct) has real problems with absolute proficiency levels in mathematics. And so, our focus on growth has allowed us to work with equity, to work with making sure all kids, where they are, show improvement? And how do we measure if the superintendent hasn't shown us that? Pretend it's not you. Any superintendent. Yeah. And then -- that's a half formulated thought. Well, I think that if I may, we have consistently not liked part two letter D, which is ensures on a semiannual basis that principals to classroom observation provide actionable and objective feedback to teachers on their classroom pedagogy. And I thought I had sent an email out to you or president and Superintendent. There's not a legal basis for that. That needs
127to just go or be modified in some way. When board members get stuck on the item itself it serves no purpose and that is one of those that has been repeatedly a problem. And I also think that if we are aligning things with our strategic plan, there is not a lot of strategic plan alignment in here. There is no indicator in here that says -- it's not even mentioned in any way shape or form so. The weird thing is that from one year or five year cycle to the next, if the strategic plan evolves then the evaluation would have to reflect that. And we've been kind of using the same tool with not even considering change like that would be you know, would have to change in accordance with any change to our goals. It's
128true and if we have changed our goals then I think it also makes sense that you take a look at your instrument for evaluation. Right? But there is something to be said for consistency of goals. Also that. What I was going to mention is that you know, as I'm listening to thisk, especiall with the strategic plan it could be progress toward making progress on the strategic plan. Making progress on strategic goals so you don't have to be specific so if goals do change you don't have to go back and change this so that is something to consider. I have seen that regularly. Sometimes it's not strategic plan goals but just goals and strategic evaluations and I think it absolutely could just be a standing section within your existing template and it certainly would invite a
129reexamination. This template has been in place. I think Mr. Frank remembers when it was first overhauled. I think he was part of the overhauling of it. I think it was Terry Dallman. No I think it was actually before her. (Indistinct) She might have because there were a couple of tweaks but Mr. Frank Morris that area. I'm kind of curious because a lot of things got better around that time but it seems like this evaluation has been an effective tool of communication between the superintendent and the board which I think is why there hasn't been a lot of energy around changing it but maybe a more regular built in schedule of revisiting it isn't a bad idea. Mr. Frank, I'm kind of curious since you have that same length of perspective. (Indistinct) Agreed. Well and because
130you need to be set for next year. You don't want to come in mid-year and change the goalpost. No. I think if it's going to happen for the next fiscal year it really needs to happen fast, so we might even be able to add an appointment of that subcommittee to this agenda because we are still within the time frame to amend the agenda. Right? Yes. Glad you stayed, Josh. The other thing I want to say about that is what I typically recommend is if you form a subcommittee it's pretty much impossible to do it as a full board which is what you seem to be saying and you formally have as a requirement that at the end of that before the subcommittee takes their recommendations to the board, that is when they typically bring in
131the superintendent. The superintendent in this instance if he concurs then the subcommittee is presenting it that way. Here's our recommendations. Superintendent concurs and then it's taken as a joint recommendation between the subcommittee and the superintendent. So that's all great if this is categorized as action. Before we get there let me give you a couple more bits to consider. Number one is this is your policy (Indistinct) and highlighted, it says evaluation criteria shall be based on district goals and indicators. Well, there it is. When was this revised? In 2010? I don't know. I would have to look. So I think that is consistent with what I am recommending. Regardless, I don't have any feelings or opinions about how you change the qualitative tool. You all can do that but I do think Miss Gallegos' suggestion a
132minute ago about adding a section with measurable goals makes sense. I would reiterate, you all need to mutually agree on that if at all possible. This is not a gotcha for the superintendent. We don't want to give him a goal that he doesn't feel like he can meet. You don't want anything like that so I absolutely echo Mr. Frank's point that you should collaborate. But I think that would make the framework stronger. And it matches also our model framework which I've showed you already. I won't dwell on but that would generally not only advise that component, advise waiting it even the most heavily because it is the most objective and it is what you care about. The main issue with your instrument is that if you rated him all of the max, exceeds expectation on
133everything, do you know if kids gained an academic outcomes? Not necessarily. Right? Hopefully. Probably, but there is not a guaranteed link. Right? So I will leave you with that. Something to work on which is great. A couple of you had asked me for examples and I can find more as you continue to dig on this. But this was an example of an annual goal facilitation I did with the board and superintendent in Tempe, Arizona a couple of years ago. It's not a perfect set of goals but notice a couple of things. They are narrow. I wanted 3 to 5. They got to six. But there is proficiency focus here. I think they could have a growth component, as well. That is potentially a gap. What I like about what they did is they really looked
134about the baselines of all kids in marginalized groups and decided if we are going to close this gap we've got to have bigger growth goals for those kids and so they stipulated that. They also targeted the lowest achieving students on the college career next by targeting the kids (Indistinct) and growing that group. You can talk about how measurement will guide activity in different ways. Target on those zeros really starts to wake stuff up. Like oh. We've got to come up with a strategy for the zeros right? Like we've got to figure something out. Another focus (Indistinct) like focus on specific grade level. Targeting universalism is oftentimes what that is called. I'm not a proponent of it because I just feel like when you do that -- the argument is when you do that like the
135rising tide will lift all ships. And that may be true. The thing that I don't, though, and this is from experience in school leadership. The danger though is when you set a goal that is high target and it feels high stakes for the team responsible for it and there is (Indistinct) to overfocus on just that group at the expense of other kids. I don't like that because it feels more like a game. So there is upsides and downsides to it. I would love your expertise on sort of the balance of this and what you've observed other places because, as Mr. Wofford acknowledged, our performance scores here in New Mexico are very low. I know this board has expressed at times that it's frustrating because it feels like it's sort of really misrepresents the progress that
136we are making in standardized testing. But regardless of what we think, these are scores that historically across the state have been very difficult to move. So I have seen some boards that have had performance indicators much like what you got on the screen, and then once they become performance indicators of the superintendent, sometimes that becomes what can feel like unclear sort of. You failed you failed you failed. And there are other issues in the state, I don't think we are unique in this regard, but the (Indistinct) and so things like instability plays into those factors. So you bring on a superintendent. He's completed his 90 day plan. He is doing everything calculated to change but if there is no stability and he is out the door in two years we are not going to really
137see the benefit of those results so if you shift your attention too much to these data points when the underlying problem may be this core team of six relationship and how do they talk about those issues, how do they focus on those issues, unfortunately under the Open Meetings Act there aren't many opportunities for them to do that. If what they try to capture in the executive session is some kind of legal qualitative conversations they can have that can build a level of trust and common vision that then hopefully provides stability to impact these numbers as opposed to your responsible for changing those numbers. We are here and you haven't changed or you haven't given this to us in a way that we trust. Those are like it's a balance. It is certainly a balance, and
138that is another reason to have both a qualitative and quantitative part because it balances more of the picture. By no means does any superintendent, should any superintendent be expected to accomplish in 90 days or even one year or potentially three years, dramatic turnarounds. Things take time. So if the board wants to set longer term goals and ramp up expectations that is certainly a valid best practice. Just to further explain this example I facilitated this partly by also not only facilitating the agreement but before that I used the data to facilitate. So I looked at all the historical performance of the district to see what the performance goals have been achieved. I looked at other comparable benchmarks for the state. So we triangulated. Even those growth targets seem relatively high. The district had actually come off
139of like two years of achieving them so like there was confidence that this was possible. That we know how to do this. And they were operating at such low levels as baseline, that 5% is more achievable. It's easier to go from 5 to 10 than it is from 70 to 75. So all of those things are important and sometimes some professional input can help. But yeah. I take all your points. Yes. Districts (Indistinct) do they have some type of way to measure if students families (Indistinct) teachers are happy or satisfied? Do you know what I mean? (Indistinct) there is a focus on this but like if they're not happy? Yeah. People that are happy leave so I would say the baked cake measurement is retention. (Indistinct). We are on a downward population cycle right now.
140Well, there is a difference of less people enrolling versus somebody goes to a driver's school or whatever or another district. The problem of enrollment as a measure is there are other external factors out of your control. Birthrates and mobility patterns that you can't do anything about. But you can keep your kids, in theory, if they are happy. And your teachers. Just something to add and maybe this is probably more conversation. Whatever direction we go, not that we shouldn't be focusing on proficiency, et cetera, but then what I've seen it that works well or not is that the superintendent also has the support of the board and making all those personnel decisions (Indistinct) does that make sense? So those are the things I was like you know are a consideration as we are thinking through this.
141Yeah. So I'm happy to provide further input on that as is useful to you. But in kind of landing the plane here, I wanted to touch on briefly the final three points which are a little bit more miscellaneous although the first one we already talked about. Wordsmith. So really budget alignment. You all had a work session in the beginning of May, or a board meeting. I can't remember which one it was. Were finance folks presented a few slides that kind of categorized -- or a laundry list of things they were doing with alignment with the strategic plan and the budget. That was a good step in the right direction. I'm going to push on it even further in the sense that those several slides essentially represented almost all of your entire (Indistinct), so it was
142almost like you were just recategorizing your existing budget strategies. I want to give you a further push on that that I think those need to be narrow, discrete smaller investments that are very clearly supplemental. Like this is not something you would have done anyway. Like yes you have your salaries for your teachers. Like what is a discrete strategy and I'm going to give you an example in a moment. Actually I will give it to you now. So a template like this. So we have a very clear strategy. Our goal is to grow the percent of kids proficient per our strategy is very discrete. We are going to try an after school program with academic intervention only for non-privileged kids in that specific strategy costs letter -- x. Kind of the same thing for the other
143two. Right? And I'm not saying these are the right strategies. I'm just giving you an example. Another actual example, Odessa Texas. They have that clear Smart goal. I assume it was time but (Indistinct), to move the kids that did not meet on the state assessment to proficiency. They made a very specific investment and a very specific strategy in tutoring. And tutoring on its face is not that interesting really as a strategy. What was interesting is they made it outcomes based. Meaning these tutors got paid only if their kids grew. The dollar sign is the outcome and then the results spoke for themselves. So that is an example of what I mean. Like I would encourage you all to focus in on your strategic plan and your budgeting. Odessa, Texas. Hector County. And then the last
144thing I've spoken to you all about this, but just to recap. I included in the report some recommendations around considering in-house counsel differentiating the duties between your external counsel and your in-house counsel. I think there's cost efficiency to that. I think there's some benefits to having two opinions at times, especially if it's a controversial issue representing different perspectives. Not that the district and the boards have different interests necessarily but I have seen plenty of times where district administration leadership had a different opinion about something than the board did, and sometimes having counsel on both sides can help flush that out especially if it's a legal issue. (Indistinct) Not his personal lawyer but if he needs representation like on his contract he should be paying for that himself right? But it would be a direct report
145to the superintendent. But that in itself , that structure would make that lawyer being involved in the contract a conflict of interest. That's why you still need external counsel on some things. Or if he was in disagreement with the superintendent or his counsel and you think whatever the question is, is not being answered properly then you have an outside resource to go to to get a second opinion. So I'm not saying to change that practice. You should still have an external direct hire counsel. (Indistinct) Exactly. Rudimentary. (Indistinct) Public records certainly. That could be in-house. (Indistinct) a thousand page document. That could be an in-house thing. Yes. Anything that you confidently feel could be handled in-house will end up costing you less more than likely than hiring an external firm. I don't mean to take business
146away from a firm but it sounds like they're doing pretty well. They are doing a lot of things well and I think one of their goals has been (Indistinct) and I'm happy to answer the pure legal aspects of this. Mr. Walker, you are correct. There was an audit finding of another district that had and doesn't have now but had in-house and the way that they originally structured the job description, there was some evaluative role for the board. I thought it was weird that it even ended up there. I found out about it after the fact many years later but an audit finding that a board should have no evaluative role because (Indistinct) and would be the direct report to the superintendent. So yeah. It is a very different structure. The attitude that would need to
147be taken into account is the very case that was just a court of appeals case. So I haven't given it the level that we now have to but then near to your point (Indistinct) basically the Supreme Court put exclamation points after (Indistinct) a really interesting conversation that I do want us to have about what you can even call privileged. Their cases completely based on in-house counsel. It wasn't public schools but an in-house counsel basically took what I think most of us would view, myself included, as attorney client privilege so they are performing a business function. The HR chief you just hired is fantastic. She has a lot of great. In this short conversations I've had with her she thinks like a lawyer. I love it. But I also think Josh thinks like a lawyer and
148I love it. But and so fantastic. I expect legal things in that area that have been coming back because of the strength of their department they don't call us day to day because of the strength of their department. Hiring her based on what I've seen is going to further strengthen that department given her expertise and how she is able to view the world. But the way that the Supreme Court has now viewed it (Indistinct) is you have a law license be advised that what she is giving is business advice and not legal advice so those emails that are advising what to do next would not be covered by privilege and would be covered by the public records request. So there is some unique things happening right now in the climate and I'm not saying that
149either regardless of which direction you go there are things happening in the legal environment that would require some really intentional -- which I spoke with her on at a break -- really intentional discussion about why we do things and how we do them the way we do them. Had said that we live in the world where we have to think that way but this decision is significant and affecting not just public schools but any public entity right now across the state. Okay. So something to consider further. I'm not looking at you deciding it now. I know we are way over time. We are done. Except that I would like your feedback. And I kind of final wrap up go around. So if you all could please -- it is a very brief survey. Was everyone
150able to capture that on their device? That QR? I'll send it to Ed. I can send it to him, too. That would be great. What I would ask you to do is fill it out right now if you don't mind. It won't take long. I'm not going to look at it. I don't want to know whatever you are saying. Say whatever you want. It's anonymous. I don't care. I don't mean like that. I just mean that way I know you've done it and we don't have to chase you down. And then once you are done if you could share this prompt up there, just one thing that you feel like you might do differently as a board member as a result of today. Should I put my school email on here? No. I already have
151your emails. I don't know why that is in there. It does it every time you do a survey. It's supposed to be anonymous. I don't know why that happened. You are just going to end up with my personal email. I'm sorry I even asked you. I tried to make it anonymous. Oh. And that won't be captured. Don't worry about it. I won't see it. I was going to say I've used this form a ton of times. It doesn't give that to me. It is anonymous. I didn't do the email >> I think it's logging you in as your Google account or whatever. So President Cort, does that mean you are done? Would you mind sharing one thing you might be doing differently as a result of this? Once you are finished. Keep going. Unrelated to
152the survey. Any final closing thoughts here. I think just being more mindful and intentional of when we are doing agenda setting or in the meeting, of how to kind of just get to the point and always ask ourselves is this connected to measurable outcomes. And are these the measurable outcomes that we want? Like until it just becomes a natural part of what we do (Indistinct). . Muscle memory. That's great. Yes. I think just around efficiency like being a lot more strategic on which policy we are going to think about and talk about and how we talk about that and knowledge that matters and thinking a lot about next steps right and we're not going to get everything done in one day. But what is the next step from here? How do we continue these conversations?
153How do we implement some of these changes? And I think it is a lot about how are we building the structures that will help this sort of idea continue when inevitably many of us (Indistinct) so how are we creating structures that will support good governance moving forward? Great. Mr. Wofford. (Indistinct) policy talk in the shortness of time I think we can work ahead of time (Indistinct) in our two persons with the department head or (Indistinct) work together. (Indistinct) the concept of two hours is a very attractive idea. (Indistinct) we try to avoid pathological repetition. That's good. [Laughter] That's true. We are all going to dwell on that this afternoon. You've given us much to think about in terms of I think this board needs to decide what from this workshop do we want (Indistinct) what
154do we want to see happen? (Indistinct) we are done aren't we? Yes. We can certainly talk about other types of support but yes. For this project we are done. For many of your clients you work on a long term basis (Indistinct) Yeah. So in terms of long term support it really depends on the district but it's usually some combination of either policy development support. Governance support for I'm helping them implement changes like what we've discussed in observing and coaching the chair to get things tightened up for some period of time. Some boards need board trainings. Robert's rules I mentioned maybe might need no offense but most do. And there just isn't very much out there for that. Soup eval facilitation. That kind of thing. There's options there I could send you an email but for
155the moment this project is wrapped up. (Indistinct) We went through that. It actually I think basically the chair can use it as guidance and that is also a mixed bag. I've seen it really divide boards because it gets used procedurally, but it is ellipses I really like your call the question. I mean I have done Robert's Rules training. I don't typically necessarily encourage that a lot of the moves that sometimes boards try to use but I like to call the question. I thought that was a really good -- I could see that possibly helping here. I've also seen it like create a lot of animosity in amongst boards. You know five member board is different from seven. If you've worked in Texas you know there are seven over there. And so I think it is
156just very relational. Yeah. I did not realize most boards have a policy that says Robert's rules is default. No. Can hear the model policy across the state (Indistinct) they expressly say that they don't. Got it. No worries. Josh. I'm sorry. So it's this whole page? Both sides? I got to two hours because I wanted to take a picture of my regular session. All right. You have the last word Madam President. Any one thing you might think differently about or do differently going forward? Just going off of this, I really like thinking about just the intentionality of our meetings. The purpose of having a public meeting is so that the public attends and if we make it so ponderous that nobody wants to attend then really why are we having public meeting? So I like streamlining
157that and I do like it and I wrote it down that legacy and consistency is the purpose of policy and to really look at policy through that lens of legacy and consistency but also through the lens of (Indistinct) our student goal these are priorities than budget follows then policy. Everything should align to their and I think we are moving in that direction but with the feedback that you gave us and the suggestions that you gave us it helps us to get there faster. And I will say that I came into this not with the greatest of attitudes because I -- but you don't know what you don't know. I was just thinking I don't know. If somebody is coming in is this really going to be helpful? I really wanted to have a good return
158on investment. Good ROI on this and I think that that happened and you exceeded my expectations in what you delivered and I love that you brought us together and working with cabinet to work on solutions. For me, the most impactful things were because I'm president and I love that I can do it called the question. I had no idea. Watch out. So technically you don't have to. You are the president. You can end the discussion. That's very true so it's this fine line to make sure that everybody has a voice but without making it go on too long. And I like everybody's feedback about what we keep and what we should change and we should stop. It was interesting and pretty universal between the board and the cabinet members about those things. Thank you for
159saying all that. I'm very happy to know that you feel that way that we had an impact here. It certainly was the goal. Okay. On the one hand I apologize for going way over time, but I also normally try to be a stickler about that but I also felt like I'm here and we are having these good discussions and so I took a little bit of liberty to go but thank you for your patience on that. I was also told that you might just. I was kind of given a little bit like the board likes to talk and they will keep going. It wasn't me. But I also feel like we could have spent more time right? Because when you said three hours I was like three hours? What in the heck? This is not
160a deep dive. No. But it gets us moving in the right direction. I hope so. I feel like we went on a hiking expedition and we've got better shoes now than it was before maybe we were meandering (Indistinct) we have traction (Indistinct). We could have even had blisters but I don't think we had any rattlesnake bites. That's great. Good analogy. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. It's been an absolute pleasure to work with you all. (Indistinct) I think so. I'm happy to -- I'm not going to ghost you if you have questions. Bye forever. [Laughter] Perception you want to share with us individually (Indistinct)? I don't think so. I think we accomplished what I was hoping to in terms of setting the stage for some follow up implementation. I would encourage you to take
161it a step at a time like discretely like if you are going to do supe eval, like do that. . (Indistinct) Well I mean old habits die hard so like there is potentially a benefit to you know if you are interested at least for some time like some coaching or support around making these changes and making sure you are kind of getting it right. Yeah. So I'm happy to do that but in the meantime before the end of the month you know I'm happy to be available for follow up questions. Mr. Ruiz said he wanted me to look at some strategic goals. I'm certainly here to make sure we are wrapped up properly. We have you to the end of the month? Is that what you are saying? We do. Not on an unlimited basis.
162Within reason yeah. Certainly if you have follow up questions or needs tied to this work then yes of course I'll be available. Yes. You may hear about it when we make that two hour meeting. We will let you know. Please do. I would love to hear that. Great. Thank you. Are you going to stay or are you leaving tomorrow? I am leaving tonight. Safe travels. Thank you. Where are you flying to? To Tri-Cities, Washington. It's about an hour away. Walla Walla is one of the three? No. Richland, Kennewick , and Pasco. Are the Tri-Cities. Very good. Yeah. Do you have to go like to Dallas? No. It's like to El Paso. So you fly to El Paso? Texas. El Paso. So do you have a flight like a leg? Oh. Through. Sorry I wasn't following
163you. Through Denver. Yeah. (Indistinct) I will let you all get to the next thing. I know this is a long time. Thank you so much. Thank you. We are still in open right now. She's not going to adjourn. She can make the motion to go into closed session and then take whatever comfort break you need to take. Because executive won't be in here? Yes. All right. All right, everyone. I would like to entertain a motion to go into executive session. Second. Moved by Ms. Tenorio, seconded by Secretary Nolan. All in favor? The ayes have it 4-0. Thank you all. See you in executive. [Music] The board met in closed session on Friday June 12th, 2026 (Indistinct) specifically regarding changes if any (Indistinct) executive session were limited to those stated above. So. (Indistinct) what's superintendent Ignacio
164Ruiz (Indistinct) with the following terms. A three year contract beginning July 1st 2026 through June 30th 2029. B. An annual salary from $250,000 (Indistinct) market adjustment. C. Annuity to remain the same. D. Annual leave days increased to six days. E. A district (Indistinct) insurance benefit not to exceed $110 per month and f. All other material language to remain the same. Second. Moved by me and seconded by Vice President Wofford. All those in favor -- >> Recommend a roll call vote? Instead of doing affirmation if you would roll call vote. Yes. Ms. Tenorio Yes (Indistinct) Yes. For the record Mr. Frank is not here. (Indistinct) all right. Thank you thank you if I may president members of the board thank you so much. Again I want to reiterate just appreciate the confidence that you have in
165me and also in being able to lead this district and our team. It's been a great -- as I have been here three years we've accomplished a lot of things. A lot of great opportunities and things for us to celebrate and just having the confidence in me and also looking forward to moving forward with stable leadership. That's important right? Stable leadership in the board and the superintendent and I think this gives us a great opportunity to do that and just you know again proud of what we've accomplished and just know that I remain fully committed to leading this district to its next chapter. So thank you very much. (Indistinct) Yes. Thank you thank you. Microphone I move to adjourn. I second it. All in favor please indicate by saying aye. The ayes have it 4-0.
166We are adjourned.