001Call this meeting to order, please. Miss Gina, can we get a roll call, please? Yes, Madam President. Madam President, here. I apologize. That's all good. Vice President Cordova here. Treasurer Hamilton here. Member Aber here. Member Barton here. We have a quorum. Thank you all for coming today. kind of important stuff. So, we're going to start off with pledge and salute led by Mr. President. Okay. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all of the flag of New Mexico as symbol of perfect united cultures. Thank you. The consideration item that we have is to approve the agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. I'll second. Have a motion by Mr. Hamilton
002and a second by Mr. Cordova to approve the agenda. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. All right, then we are here and ready to work. Okay, great. Well, thank you all for being here again. Um, I'm excited today to bring back some feedback on the pieces that we worked on last time and see if we can get closer to landing the plane on for Valley's vision and mission. Let's go to the next slide. Um, so today we'll work on refining those pieces. Uh, we took the versions that we worked on last time, got some feedback both from the steering committee and with the admin council that we just met with right before this meeting. So, we'll share with you kind of what people said and see what revisions, if any, you would like to make.
003We're also going to talk about portrait of a graduate today um, and get your feedback. We um, this is something we'll be building using feedback from all the lots of different stakeholder groups. So, we got I'll show you what the steering committee said. We're going to get your ideas. We had admin brainstorm and we're going to have the focus groups brainstorm as well. So, we're going to end up bringing back a word cloud with lots of people's feedback, but we'll just get your thoughts on that. And then the other thing is we completed our stakeholder survey and we wanted to show you where um your community landed disagregated by stakeholder group on what they believe are kind of the most important priorities for the next five years. So just a quick reminder, the core values
004are the set of beliefs that drive all behaviors of the district. Vision describes what the district hopes to achieve or be in the future. And the mission articulates what is unique about who the district is, what the district does, and who the district serves. Next slide. Go ahead. Oh, you were sorry. I was like not answer. So okay, next slide. All right. So, after we worked with you last time, um I took the summary of the meeting and the this is where um the and hang on, I do need to Okay, so this is where this group landed in terms of uh words that kind of rose to the top four core values. Community, integrity, accountability, innovation, tradition, empowerment, excellence, and joy. And so we took this from your conversation last time. We do kind
005of need to narrow it down some. So we got some feedback from the steering committee um and the admin council. Uh let's go on to the next slide. So here's what the steering committee said. Um we had different groups working on this from the steering committee. So I wanted to show you kind of how many groups said that this word really resonated. Um and there were probably about six or there were probably about six or eight groups that worked on this. But um community really resonated with almost with all the groups in the rooms. That was something that was really important. They liked integrity. They liked empowerment. Um and then this there was discussion around some of these other ones. Um joy, innovation, excellence, tradition, and heritage. So I wanted to show you this. We
006also talked about it at um the admin council. And I apologize. We there was a firewall blocking me from getting onto the thing until one minute ago. So, I'm just going to read the summary off my computer and as a group um the people who are in the room can help fill in some of the gaps because I wasn't able to get to that. But when we talked about this with the admin council today um there was a lot of debate about tradition with some people really loving that and believing it's really important and others is feeling um like it might have some negative connotations in terms of we are innovating and doing things differently. So a lot of debate about that word. Um there was some debate over inclusion of the word joy as
007a core value. Uh lot of discussion about the interpretation of what community means. It really resonated with people but they were sharing that you know we need to operationally define what that means to us and sort of who's included which we will do definitions when we kind of finalize these words. Um and in this that's all I have from the summary. Um team do you want to share anything else that kind of resonated? I will say um when what I'm also remembering uh accountability uh and excellence actually kind of showed up a lot from this group. So that was a little bit different than sort of what we heard from the steering committee and with people saying that wanted that included those I was able to keep up my tally in that exercise. Okay, great.
008And then when they started using longer phrases I under values getting I captured eight votes of each. So that would have been from every almost every table for community innovation and empowerment. And then accountability was up there and they talked about that excellence is kind of interwoven in those. Correct me if I'm misrepresenting this. And then um integrity was referenced. But the ones that there were there were uh opinions expressed kind of in opposition were for tradition, excellence and joy as being selected words because they felt like those were outcomes on excellence and joy or that it could be framed a different way if I represented that. Right. Thank you. And the other thing that I do want to share as we work through these um when we look at the feedback on the core
009values, vision, and mission, some of this we have to decide kind of where where it goes because one of the things you'll kind of notice is we sort of have the same phrases showing up in all three and it does sound kind of repetitive and that was some feedback that we got. So I think part of this is figuring out where some of these pieces, you know, does it go, you know, does a certain thing go in the core values or do we put it in the vision, that kind of stuff. So anyway, want to open the discussion now um in terms of where we'd like to land on core values and see if we can can identify some that we'd like to move forward with. Uh teams usually have about four to six. Um
010and want to just open up for discussion and see if we can come to some agreement. probably this list, right? Yeah. Or we can go back to the longer list as well. So, so what was their the other group's comments about what community meant to them called that? I don't know that they defined it other than they said they would want it to be defined. Yeah. And we we did share that we will be defining it, but they were just like it means different things to different people. So they wanted to make sure that we um spent some time making sure it was clear when we wrote the final document. So people in my group had discussions about the field community versus the whole community inside versus outside. So just needing some definition on that.
011So the ones that have like a lower number, was it wanting a different word in place of it or it just So on tradition and excellence and joy, they didn't think that they should be included. And it was kind of a funny moment when the comment was made about we can't make people feel joy, but if we're aspiring essentially to these other things, that's a byproduct. I think that's what was being implied. So my question is like how often do you have to have joy because you know sometimes it's just right. So though I think I it's still it if they're not ones that they resonated with if it's ones that we just choose new words like did they give an example of one that could maybe be in place of that resonated more with
012them when they were doing any of this? I I think that community innovation, empowerment, accountability resonated with them. of the whole group that was just here community innovation empowerment and accountability and then have those all received eight table votes each. So you can see the tables that are in groups. That's how many groups. So every group mentioned those words and then half of them included integrity in as well. I think it I think with this group that we just did, accountability has a different definition than probably our stakeholder group because when our leaders think of accountability, we're thinking of test scores and outcomes and student achievement and those kinds of things where with our with our group of our community, accountability may mean um you know like employment like if you're a teacher or a
013good employee and those kinds of being accountable to yourself with values and that's not the accountability our leaders think of. So I like the idea of accountability being housed under integrity um in a definition or something like that but it was really important to this group. It kept coming up. But I think their lens is different than a community lens for sure. Yeah. Which is why we do it. Yeah. And I think integrity is important to us as a board because you know we have to have integrity to be good stewards of the things we're charged with overseeing and you know transparent to our public about the decisions that we make and why we make those. So that's part of integrity because it, you know, you could slide things under, but we never do that.
014We always have open, honest discussions, which I think takes integ. But it also leads me back to that tradition. I'm so sad that people don't understand. You know, I always keep thinking about roots and wings. And so I don't think tradition holds us back. In my opinion, tradition is the thing that got us through COVID, that got us back on track, that got us where we are. It's that never give up. That's our that's the tradition of clothes. It's what's bringing back athletic. That's what's bringing back um academic success is that we have a tradition of hard work and u winning. There's a word that comes up in a little bit. um the word legacy and I think there was some discussion at this point or maybe at a later point in this morning's meeting
015about a legacy of excellence or a legacy of so yeah maybe maybe we can we can like we are like talking about housing accountability under integrity maybe we can house tradition and legacy under community. Yeah, it was interesting. I It was so interesting to me today. We had our principles here and the one from James Bickley, Miss Hubard, just came to us from New Jersey and her comment was, "When you guys say tradition," she was like, "The only tradition I know is the chili peppers on the license plate at the DMV." And she didn't say that in a negative way, but as someone who comes in from the military and just getting here, when you say tradition, she's like, "What does that mean? What does that look like?" Yeah. Because she doesn't have that prior
016knowledge of people that have been here for so long. And so it is a it's a feeling when you say tradition for people that have been here, but for some a lot of our community like her, she's like red or green chili peppers. I don't understand why is this a conversation. Yeah, makes sense. I'm wondering if if uh people get in the mindset, you know, with tradition um you know, those of us that were here that were a part of football, ban or whatever, um when they say tradition, if it they just automatically go straight to them thinking and focus on them things, extracurricular. Yeah. But you know and and you know in order to to participate in all this stuff you know extra activities you have to have good grades you know so that
017is part of the tradition. I'm just wondering if the academic part is getting lost behind the sports and you know when because when you say tradition that's what you think of you think of the 80s and football and band and of course band's still going but I'm wondering if if they're losing you know you know that's what they're focusing on right but in my opinion it's you know part of the tradition is being able to make the grades be successful and you know to so that you know when you graduate you know the hard work and everything, you can reflect on that and that, you know, hey, it's going to get you on the steps moving forward. I I kind of think that maybe in defining tradition, what we're trying to shoot for is a
018disposition and a skill set to be excellent. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Tradition of excellent. Yeah. There you go. But if you have that mindset that as we talked about resilience and grit and perseverance and um so you've got to have that disposition, you've got to have that about you, that drive to be striving for something, but you can't just have the want to. You have to have the the skill set, the knowledge, skills, and understanding to be paired with that drive to accomplish. And the word I threw out today was dominate. But they thought that might be too simplified. I don't know. So I kind of like it. Well, I looked up the definitions of them because, you know, that's who. So tradition, the Webster definition is a custom or beliefs that go from generation to
019generation and legacy is something given by an ancestor. So you know sort of similar but and then at the last meeting I went to they also talked about heritage which is uh special or individual portion practices or characteristics used in relation to culture. So that might be less um relevant to every person as either legacy or tradition. They didn't really like heritage this morning. There's a lot of comments about heritage feels like oldtimey days. It just I mean heritage days is what I think of when I think of heritage, you know, like our pioneer days. Yeah. Well, clearly tradition has a negative connotation. So maybe legacy is a bit. So it was the discussion around excellence only to I don't think anybody disagreed with excellence. Not in today's not very well there were some comments
020that was one of the ones that I put an X by because it got only three table group votes and there was a group that says that comes hand in hand they said with accountability or with integrity I think it's accountability. Yeah, but they're thinking of student test scores, you know, they're thinking and we're talking about um this was teacher leaders and principles that were the group that just left. This was all of our principles and our directors, um executive directors, deputy superintendents. It's the core leadership group. Okay. It's about 40 to um representing either a campus or a department. Gotcha. And so we have teacher leaders this afternoon and then we'll have the community next week. Check. So do you all agree with like community integrity empowerment and the top choices and then we're
021just considering if we want a fourth one? What's what's what you guys can do? I think that's the question is how you you said to to make it a little bit less four because it was four or five that we were aiming for last time, right? Yeah, it's usually four to six. Okay. But do we just want one or do we want Oh, one more besides the top three. Do your groups ever like have this conversation and then go through the rest and then come back to the values? Yeah, some some of them actually do and and I will say if you want us to we are going to get some additional feedback on it. um the timing of this kind of felt in between these focus groups as we're going to do teaching leaders,
022but I'm thinking maybe even as they see how this translates into feedback on the mission and the graduate of a profile if if it would be helpful to them to see that and then maybe have some ahas about this to come back and solidify this. Yeah. Even today. Yeah. Yeah. We could we could do that kind of move on to vision of mission because one of the things I will say you're going to kind of see some of the same phrases show up places. So like there we're going to have the tradition conversation again. There are people who really um liked it and then others who didn't. But we kind of need to figure out some of these like does it show up here or is it in the vision statement? You just don't want
023the same words and everything because then it just kind of sounds like we're repeating. So maybe we can move on to vision and then maybe come back to this. Sound good? Sounds good to me. Okay. Okay. So this describes what the vision hopes to achieve or be in the future. Um this is the version that we had when we left this meeting last time. Columbus municipal schools honoring tradition, igniting innovation, empowering wildat. So we are seeing some of those same words that were on the core values list. So here was the feedback. Um we had some a lot of discussion around that phrase honoring tradition and whether we should possibly change it. Uh one group said maybe change that to um honoring heritage and igniting excellence and then the empowering wild cats. Another group wrote
024a different one empowering students with passion, grit, and adaptability to thrive in a changing world. And then just general feedback on the one you wrote, which is the bolded one. Uh people liked that it was short and easy to remember. Uh one group said the words feel redundant to their core values. Um so we might want to try and figure out, you know, how do we move these back and forth? Uh group said they like it impactful, aspirational, elicits emotions. They like having wild cats in there. They feel like that honors tradition without saying it. And we had a group love who loved the term igniting innovation. And then there was just a lot of discussion and different ideas about maybe what to train change honoring tradition to. So you can see one two groups
025said building community, two groups said embracing community. We got an honoring community. Um and then another group had some ideas. Maybe we changed um a word before tradition. So and well I don't think we have more example. Can you go to the next slide? I don't think there's more examples. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, we want to just try and figure out if the top one was where we where we landed last time, do we want to make any changes to it? Um, you don't necessarily have to. And let me see what feedback we had from the meeting. Um, uh, here's kind of what we heard today. Uh we people liked um igniting innovation. Oh, one group said maybe we just take out the honoring tradition altogether and shorten this to say Clovis Municipal Schools
026igniting innovation empowering wild cats. Um we had just a lot of debate again about um you know having one of these at the bottom to replace honoring tradition. Uh one group like honoring excellence over honoring tradition. Um, and one person shared they like that wild cats can mean both students and adults and they felt like as an employee they felt like they appreciated that they felt seen in this as well. So, and team I don't know if you have any other feedback. I'm having to just quickly scan through the notes. So, familiar today, but we can just open it up for discussion. Do we want to make any changes to that draft uh vision? We um when we say honoring to tradition in my mind it's tradition stands for tradition of excellence like that's what
027our tradition is. So what if we changed it to honoring excellence instead of honoring tradition and then and then we could do igniting innovation empowering wild cats. I do like the word excellence. I do as well. or as one group suggested we can just take that off and be left with igniting innovation and I like that too. But I think at some point we want to throw excellence in there because really that's what we're striving for. But I think that's either way. Oh, I agree with excellence and I don't know that it needs to be any shorter. I mean, I get it. If you did that, then you could pull you could remove easily excellence and tradition from the list of values and that narrows down that list for you, but you reflect it here.
028I like that. You said honor and excellence. Could you also take off empowerment since you have empowering wild cats? I take it off of the values list because we do honor excellence. I mean, you think about it, that's we have an awards ceremony, we're honoring excellence. I mean any all of that when we're in here and we're we're you know we we're recognizing the different student groups that's we're honoring excellence. What if honoring excellence was at the end instead of the beginning? Because you start by igniting and empowering and then you honor the outcomes. That makes sense to me. Yeah, I'ming like I'm not a fan of all these read word young people that have been moment so they're not read anything right so igniting innovation empowering wild cats honoring excellence that way it one
029feeds into the next it feels like it builds and then we would take those three words innovation empowering and excellence off of the list off the first list first one empowering what is it? Yeah, empower keeping empowering at the end the powerful word like almost like an explanation. I agree with that. And you could Yeah, you can you could just flip-flop the first two and leave empowering at the end because it's still building. to igniting innovation, honoring excellence, empowering wildcats. Yeah, it's still building that way. Mr. Martin, what are you thinking? All up above. I'm thinking going back to the first group, uh, we can eliminate most that I'm looking at probably coming out with about maybe four or five in that first group because we can combine some of that joy is like damn,
030but each one each one you can combine those three that kind of and then by switching the words around here makes it a whole lotable. Uh, you can There you go. I like it that it that shorten can become a catchphrase, you know, that people can remember and, you know, just hold on to. So that that makes good sense to me. So, what say it again, Manny? Um, Clovis Municipal Schools, igniting innovation, honoring excellence, empowering wild cats. That's I do too. The values real quick then and see what's left. Community left innovation, integity, which is an important word. Empowerment comes off. Just be unity, integrity. like it needs something else. It needs something else. We'll have to look back at that list. Community. Yeah. Did you say they liked accountability? Yeah. But we don't know
031if that if the um rest of them I thought that the steering group did not like accountability because it seemed negative connotation to it. Was that the conversation? Sounds like every other thing that BED says to us is, you know, but they liked inuh integrity and community came up a lot because it has value in so many different ways in small pockets growing and then becoming the entire community. So community was used in a lot of I like community I just think innovation so represents us And empowerment can be under innovation. When you empower women, do do new things and end up in the definition of human. I just think being a educational institution got to have some values that represent or that are connected to that. Well, I think integrity is important honestly in
032a world that sometimes lacking it because every student gets an equal opportunity. Every student gets the same considerations. Every staff member is treated. I mean the rules are the rules. We don't enforce them based on who you are, who you know um integrity. We compete with class. We don't tolerate any of that nonsense. I mean, you know, it's it's it's just insidious in everything we do. But if you call it out to say foundationally this is why we do it because you know we believe in integrity I don't know it wasn't embedded in our other does anybody see achievement tying into any of those I mean I don't I personally like achievement better than accountability because to me achievement is more individualized. Accountability means to me I'm in a big clump and I'm accountable to
033all these people that are not myself. But if I'm achieving something and where you start, what's a word that makes that accountability personal like I it's not well like accountability to me is like the road you travel and the achievement is the endgame, you know, like that's what you get if you are accountable. So it's more positive to say achievement, right? What about integrity, innovation, excellence and community? Well, isn't the criticism that it's redundant in the mission statement because we used innovation? We used innovation. I looked at synonyms for achievement. Success is one. I know that's a basic simple plain word, but you know what? Sometimes it's a good word though because we want the community to to love this too. Sometimes it's good to use words that everybody has a common understanding of I
034like success what it means and I like to have it. Okay, so where have we landed? Well, I think community for sure is a keeper. Oh, on that I think actually we land I think we landed on this one. We got this one. Um we're back on core values. But if you want we can go ahead and look at mission and then also come back maybe what let's do that and see what we've got represented over there. Okay. So the mission articulates what is unique about who the district is, what the district does and who it serves. Um this was the proposed one um that we had after your meeting. Clovis Municipal Schools is committed to a safe student focused environment that transforms challenges into opportunities, upholds high expectations, fosters resilience, and honors traditions and
035a legacy of excellence. So, here the feedback um people like that it's got the flow of past, present, and future. They believe that the selected boards are powerful. Um some groups said we should make it shorter and maybe take out a phrase or two, clause or two. Uh, one group said maybe change student focused to community focused. And then there was a lot of discussion around kind of the end phrase, this honors traditions and a legacy of excellence. And you can see some ideas maybe just honors a legacy of excellence, honors community and a legacy of excellence, honors traditions and a history of excellence. So just different thoughts about that last phrase. And then one group said they felt like safe might be a trigger word and maybe it shouldn't be at the beginning or
036maybe we should change it to secure. That wasn't safe of primary interest of parents and yes that they feel safe. Yeah, actually it was on that survey. So I think in today's world safe is important when you think of a school because it means so much to everybody now. I mean it sucks that it has to be that way but it does. Well, and then safe is better than secure. Secure mean you lock down. Safe mean we don't have to worry about because they're going to be okay. Yeah. So, we're out on the safe. We're moving. Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. Just the five of us. Well, you all are the decision makers and there are lots of different thoughts and it just because one person or one group said it doesn't mean everyone felt that
037way. So, Okay. And these were some other drafts that they wrote. Okay. Okay. Clovis Municipal Schools is committed to a student focused environment that embraces differences, upholds high expectations, fosters resilience, and preserves a legacy of excellence. Clovis Municipal Schools is committed to transforming challenges into opportunities, upholding high expectations, fostering resilience, and honors honoring a legacy of excellence for all individuals while remaining community focused. Clovis Municipal Schools creates conditions for wildcats to thrive where challenges become opportunities and expectations inspire growth. And Clovis Municipal Schools is committed to fostering a student- centered environment that is safe, transforms challenges into opportunities, upholds high expectations, nurtures resilience, and cultivates an environment of excellence. So, these were just some of their ideas. They're all uh you can tell variations on the one that you wrote, but just changing some of
038the phrases out and the team that we just met with was kind of mixed with liking sort of number two, three, and four. So, it was they were kind of all over the board on this one liking different phrases. But it's still really the word traditions that people aren't on board with. Yeah. But what what about if we changed and honors traditions in a legacy of excellence to and cultivates a community of excellence. This very last one change it to and cultivates a community of excellence and replace honors tradition and a legacy of excellence. I like that because I so like the student focused instead of community focused up top. Me too. And that still brings that piece back in. So you're saying Clovis Municipal Schools is committed to a safe student focused environment that
039transforms challenges into opportunities, upholds high expectations, fosters resilience, and cultivates an environment of excellence. A community replace environment with community and cultivates a community of excellence. because it seems like it's important um to people that we get in community that really love that part about transforming challenges into opportunities. That's outstanding. Okay. So, do do people like maybe that change to the top one, just changing that last phrase um to cultivates a community of excellence? I I don't know. What do you guys think? speaker for now forever. Hold your peace. Well, I mean, our communities, you know, it's we're able to do a lot of things because well, I know that word cultivate, you know, I grew up on a farm, so to me that means like nurturing and tending to and you know, we're not
040just saying, "Yep, and we're going to be great." We're saying we are going to uh have a community of excellence because we're tending we're tending to things. Certain intentionality accidentally, but I I I'm a fan of that word. I think it just sounds like to each of the focus groups it's important to to take out the word tradition. Although I like the honors traditions and the legacy of excellence. that tied it together. But it seems like that's been your feedback for every group that you spoken to so far. And it's a hot issue. Yeah. I wouldn't say because there's probably equal number of people who really really love it and then people who really really dislike it. So it's uh it's it's just interesting. Sarah made a good comment in our in our group that
041it's a contentious word and why do we want to use Let's just find another word that's not contentious. Yeah, I get that. And I also like I use that all the time to be cultivate. It's a good word. So I guess cultivates community. Is that the is that what cultivates a community of excellence? How do you feel about that? You're using the word community there. I think we definitely need to use community because everybody likes that and I think we do but also community might be in the core values right so it goes back to if we to use these words yeah and you can have some repetition it doesn't they were just saying in the dress we shared it felt like there was a lot so just wanting us to be thoughtful about that
042but it's it's okay to have something in more than one place you guys good with that other changes No, I'm good. I think that sounds good. Roll that out there. Great. Yeah. And just so you know, that'll be the version that we when I talk to teachers this afternoon, we will share that with them and just get their reactions to that one itself. So, we'll take out some of this and show them the version you just landed on, the vision, the version you just landed on, the mission, and we just gather some feedback. Okay. Um, do we want to go back to core values now? Do you think we should or to finish that list? Let's go back and give it a go. We need to have some lit and finish. Okay. Yeah. Ideally, I
043would like that too even just to take to just test it out with the teachers. Um, perseverance comes to mind. Everybody here is sensitive. So, I'm sensitive. What you think? Well, Sean Sean and Oh, yeah. And we could use some other words since we have some of this embedded somewhere else. So there might be other things that we had been thinking of that could make the core values. So I made this note for you guys. We talked about community, integrity, and success. To me, community was the who, integrity was the how, and success was the what. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be four. If you want to just keep it simple for like I like that, too. I you know, like I really like that. Sure. Yes sir. Thank you.
044Because we we clearly have like innovation and excellence and those are the other two words we needed to include and joy I do think is an interesting word that we maybe should avoid. Well, and I think that the the way that we can rely on this document that we're creating is that when it comes time to make tough decisions, uh, match people into the district, grow programs, whatever the future brings, we want to align with what our values are. And so we're setting guard rails that help us make future decisions. And so I I think that's why these words are really important because I know when we're making decisions about even employee discipline or where are we headed with our academics, we need to say what are the things that are important to us as
045identified and named in our strategic plan. Um, so I think it there needs to be enough substance and enough terms there without it being too much. Yeah, that's agree. So here, integrity, success, three, we know. Do you want to leave it with that or do you want to We're asking you. Is that enough? That's enough for me. I'm Shaw. I bet you. No, I think it's good with that. Sean, favorite success. Did you put it in a different order? Community, integrity. I think it's the Okay. I like the way it rings. Community, integrity, success. Three. We're down to three. Great. So, integrity, success. Great. So, what we'll do is for the upcoming future, we're not going to show them all the other stuff. We're just going to take them where you landed today and just
046get feedback on those pieces. Um, and they'll just let us know if there's, you know, anything that they might change or modify. But I love that we've landed on clinical core values, vision, and mission. So, good job everyone. Yes. Go ahead. Let's go back to mission. Thank you. Or the statement. Okay. So it would read coming from your vision, community, integrity, success and then now those are the values, right? Yes. So then the vision becomes igniting innovation, honoring excellence, empowering wild cats, and then it would roll into the mission, which I'm a little afraid to try to read because where's the cultivates? Is that on the next page? Yeah. So it's just the same top one changing the last part to and cultivates a community of excellence. That's that's how it would roll together. All
047right, great. Any other kind of final comments about those things? I'm excited that we have landed somewhere. Perfect. Okay. All right. Let's move on to portraiture of a graduate. So, the portrait of a graduate um is a piece of the plan that articulates the hopes, aspirations, and dreams that we have for the students. uh these are the things that we want to build and um kind of skills that we want to grow in the students so that when they leave our system they will be successful no matter what they choose to do in their futures and usually districts choose no more than six words or phrases. So here's an example. This is a district in Texas, but they were saying, okay, when students leave our system at the end of high school, we want to
048ensure that they are confident leaders, empathetic collaborators, global communicators, creative problem solvers, and critical thinkers because we believe if we if they have those skills, they will be successful no matter what they choose to do. Let's look at next slide. Here are some examples from new u oh just from some other districts. Um, one district said, "We want them to be innovative, resilient, dedicated, and empowered." District on the right, they want the students to be self- advocates, community builders, lifelong learners, skilled communicators, problem solvers, prepared for success. And here are some New Mexico examples, lifelong learner, creative and critical thinkers, responsible individuals, effective collaborators, and over here, Los Cusus. honest, self-aware, empathetic, confident, productive, responsible, and they also want them to be independent and critical thinkers, effective communicators, and problem solvers. So, we see different
049approaches of words that kind of rose to the top. And so, we asked the steering committee, what words really resonate for you that you think we should possibly include in our portrait of a graduate? So, let's go to the next slide. Um, these were we had all the groups kind of share out their lists and we tallied them up from steering committee, but these were the words that kind of rose to the top. Um, and I had to put that underscore there to make sure they showed up together on the list. Um, you can see resilient communicator, critical thinkers, effective communicators, lifelong learners, collaborators are some of the ones that were really resonated. And we just asked the the other team to do their list and they shared a lot of different ones. Um we
050because they just left the room and I just was able to open we haven't been able to tally theirs up yet. Um but what we will be doing is adding their feedback to this word cloud with the steering committee and we will be adding your feedback to the to the word cloud and then we're also having the focus groups do it. So you'll hear from the teachers and students and so when we come back we will bring you kind of the massive list of what we heard overall but what we wanted to do with you is to get your feedback also to include in this. So um next slide. Okay. So we want you to just let us know what are some of the words that you think should be included. Your hope for the
051graduates here is that they are blank when they leave our system um so that they will be successful. So let's go back to the word cloud. So, I just would like for you all to brainstorm some of the things that you believe are the most important that we can kind of add to this feedback. There. Yeah. And some of them kind of mean the same things or sort of synonyms where it might be small, but it actually kind of links with something else. So, just anything anything is great. not didn't get very many votes, but I do like the word prepared. That's that the so what we do. I also like open-minded, which also was really small up there. Yeah. And and honestly, they weren't choosing from any list. They were just dreaming up words
052that they felt. So, it's it's not that people weren't really voting on it. It was just um it was it's what came to mind for some of the groups. Effective communicator that said what did I say? creative that they are creative critical thinkers. A very important skill to teach our kids with all this stuff that comes at them is to be able to critically evaluate about and perseverance. me grit and resilience and another. Can we look at the examples of them? Uhhuh. Resilient, dedicated, empowered, innovative. Was there one before this? Uhhuh. you know that some of those are good but like confident leader I don't know that you know I don't know that everybody's going to want to be a leader like I don't sometimes we need to be good followers Like to me that's
053more like innovative, resilient, dedicated, empowered. I mean those words to me are more than the first one. I'm sorry, Mr. about these words is that they're just right. It's just one word by the Next slide. That one. One more. Yeah. You mean? Yeah. Yeah. The last one that you showed. That one. No. Next one. With all the on there. For me, out of all of everything that they do, they need to be equipped for lifelong success regards what they do. We need to have a preparedness to that they can be successful in whatever choices they make. So, you know, we see when like airmen come in and they're fresh out of graduation things that they are lacking. Um, they're not the best communicators, right? they are in the era of they were the communication online
054and and you could really say and communicate any way you wanted to and so to have them be an effective communicator and not shut down in the face of adversity is things that we now have to teach. It's tools that we have to give them in their toolkit for them to be success. So to be an effective communicator when you're angry, when you're happy, when you're mad, like I think it's very very important to be able to just adult and not be like, well, I'm taking my toys and going, I'm going home. Yeah. And a growth mindset. I mean, I self-sufficient is huge, too. I have people who do laundry things. So anyway, just self I don't know. There's a there's a bunch of words in here that It used to be like when they
055graduate high school, they need to be college ready. But now it's more than just college read. They need to be vocational. They need to be whatever because technology thing don't change so much. It's academic and it's vocational. So being equipped for life itself is what we need to be focused on as far as making them successful students or successful people. to look at it through another lens when I see the work that we would do and that would go on in campuses when we define what is that final set of characteristics that we're shooting for is that we would want to have experiences and indicators through the grades to say we're striving to develop self-sufficient second graders. What does that look like? What is ambition for a an ambitious ninth grader? And so I would
056just, you know, I'd say keep that in mind because that gives us something to aspire to as the educators within our day-to-day programs to be building those skill sets. Very similarly to like the amazing shake, we know that we're trying to develop that confidence to represent yourself to to make a good first impression. those those soft skills and having that defined helps us all align as the educators to say we're working towards these outcomes with students. And so what you come up with here will really guide us outside of the academic standards. Um it will guide us for those characteristics that we're working to to instill in our students. I also like the collaboration piece uh because again we have individuals who just do things solo and they do everything and they struggle they struggle
057with that the communication to work collaboratively but it's it's so important when you get into even in college you have groups you have to work in and there's group projects and you know there's always that one individual that it's true no one pull their weight to be able to effectively communicate that to be part of that collaboration is So what about so communicator or effective communicator? We're all kind of on the same page with that, right? Yeah. Self-sufficiency is I agree with that. I like resilient is good too because you got to have resilience through life. It's not all I think that's another reason why I like perseverance because everything's not going to go your way the first time, but if it's something that you're passionate about, you're going to persevere through those to get
058right. Yeah, perseverance and resilience kind of same. How do you guys feel about productive? Like productive. life is forceful, too. But I do think that restore is probably something that they will come out with because of the internet and everything's at their fingertips and they're able to search and look for it. What about the word equipped? I don't see that one on there, but that's kind of what you're talking about is there for success. Oh, okay. Okay. What word did you guys like as opposed to resilient? Persevere. And we don't have to come up with like any kind of agreement here. We want to just know what rises to the top for you because we are going to ask the teachers and students and and come back and let you know kind of what rose
059to the top after we spoke to everybody before we narrow this down. So I have a few but minds critical thinker perseverance growth mindset effective communicator self-sufficient open-minded prepared and collaborator which is obviously I have to break that down a little bit but I think that word adaptable words that are like that but that's a good one you can't you be able to adapt change and adapt change being certain which is sort of like perseverance on if you go back I mean will you go back one too. So if you do one kind of like the one on the left where you picked resilient, productive, crit critical thinker, then you could put in there like if your first one was resilient, then you could put adaptable like as a bullet point adaptable to like that
060could be a bullet point or some of those words that go together. Uh-huh. And even under that perseveres through challenges that that makes you resilient. And then under empowered, the very last one, possess all the tools need to achieve their dreams. That's I like that. Hopefully under dedicated lead by example and with integrity and then the authentically engage with others and seek to find understanding. That's kind of goes along with that communication part about if you scream louder it doesn't make you right although I've tried that a few times. So authentically engaging in that also you know accept that and along those lines we see such a significant need for a focus on social emotional skills and the things like um being compassionate and connected and knowing how because I think that so many of
061our students now don't have many really um strong and valid connections you know a lot of communication is happening blind on the internet chats, social media, um, and there's just a real disconnect there. Or you don't have to look somebody in the eye and say some terrible thing to them because not hopefully you can do it. With with community being such a big thing, I wonder like something like community builder, it says I collaborate with and advocate for others. That means I and then it breaks all that down right there. I like that. And it still has the skilled communicator over here under the I was just saying that I think this format provides you the opportunity to bring in some of those other words. Yeah. And categorize them. To categorize them and get your
062point across without just picking four words. Yes. Yeah. I agree with that. So your top three, Amy, would be what? Communication. Oh, sorry. I'm just top one. Communication was definitely um one of the the top ones in that perseverance for me. Perseverance. I don't know. self-sufficient or prepared productive collaborator was my other one. Yeah. Sean you have some I really liked those. Um did what did what did we come up with resilience or perseverance? What do we decide on? Whichever what word did you like? I like both of them. I I think they both mean the same things. And so I just I think that's teaching them to be that way is important. We're trying, you know, our best to teach that to them because it doesn't matter what you do in life. You got
063to have that. That's a fact. Are the ones that are really important to you. Um, besides those, I like self independent thinker. I like that. Um, integrity was a big one. And you have lovely important to you. Did we put productive down? Is that one? We we talked about it, but I'll put it down. Perseverance. I don't know. I I'm just open-minded kind of looks, but I think that might that could probably be the bullet point. uh you know but I do like that you know having an open mind I could be in community yeah you put that under but I do like that but I think it's also uh you get to be in it and I guess I have to to uh I don't know. Thank Mr. Bar because equipped for lifelong success,
064you know. Thank Mr. You really got me thinking. series, you have some that are burning hot on your only one is like if you got lifelong um learn over there and you got lifelong success, but they need to be prepared for the world. That's what I'm trying to get at. uh when they go out, if they just go into the workforce, they need to be prepared with some of the other things that y'all we taught them in school how to do better. So, uh that's it for me. So, I'm a big fan of productive um adaptability, respectful, and connection. that talks to that communication piece about you need to be connected with other people because you need it for your mental health and you need it for your help solving problems. So, I'm thinking about
065going into the workforce, you've got to be responsible to show up to work on is a foundational concept, isn't it? And I'm thinking how that translates into the classroom and responsible for getting your work completed and responsible to your group if you're doing group work, responsible for showing up to school every day. Um, you've got to be a learner. You've got to be dependable completer. Let me see what I see. I see a almost every one of us put perseverance. So, I think that's I think that's a good that's a go. Um, varieties of self-sufficiency, self self-sufficient, independent thinker, uh, we had a couple of and then lifelong learner, prepared. If we just we need to settle on some words that well touch that for us if we're so like if you think about it
066as an employer like what we were talking about because everybody's going to hopefully go out and get a job and we want to prepare them to do that right regardless of what that job is. We want them to have perseverance. They've got to be responsible right? I mean those are those are like core things that they've got to have if you want to if you're want to hire somebody. They've got to be a decent communicator because most most everything that they're going to do, they're gonna be doing it with somebody else. Um, somebody to be able to get along, right? I think that's where growth mindset or openminded kind of in and also self-aware, right? Like if if if they are are willing to to continuously learn, they have a growth mindset. If they're willing
067to be open-minded, they have a growth mindset. If they're willing to be self-aware that maybe that this is on me, not you. That's a growth mindset. We want them to have integrity. Depends on what job they're doing, right? I'm kidding. You're not talking about car salesman. That felt like it was flying at you. So the the one The independent thinker. Several of you had that open-minded independent [Music] thinker, prepared, self-sufficient. I want to change one. Okay, there you are. You can change his to try to see if we were connecting. I I agree with with Renee, you know, uh you have to be responsible, you know. uh when you have a wife that's a school teacher that you know turning in your work you have to be responsible I mean you know your success depends
068on depends on that and and everything that comes around that u I really like that one u cuz it starts you know you know when you're young you have the values in it and you still in you when you're young and that'll you keep them. And so I really like that one. So I have um everybody agrees about that you need to be an effective collaborative communicator responsible. You need to be able to persevere. You need to have some self-awareness so that you have a growth mindset that you can accept responsibility for what is your part in the integrity. And then I think the other thing that to bring back around um was the compassion and the empathy because we definitely see lack of it and trying to explain that empathy is an active thing
069and sympathy is not you know it's difficult for our I feel like and that could still be a growth mindset the compassionate and the empathy to be self-aware could still be part of that but I do think those are important skill sets that they tend to laugh right now because it's about me me. Okay. Okay. So, what I will do so that that's great. So, I do have the transcript. So, I will um one sort of add all your comments and all your votes to the word cloud, but I'll also kind of take this shorter list that you have now um and get people to do the big activity and then kind of respond to that shorter list and just see if they have feedback about um kind of making changes to that. So, um
070that's what we will move forward with. So, thank you for that conversation and next when we come back again, you'll see kind of what how people's reactions were. Okay. So the last thing I want to do is just share with you the overall big picture results of the survey that we gave to your community. And on the survey, we gave people a long list of things that the district could be focused on and ask them to pick the top five up to five that they felt were really important and the most important things for this this district to to be working on and improving in the next five years. We also asked them to do just some open-ended questions at the end um about what they'd like to see the district start doing, stop doing,
071and continue doing. And we did share kind of the deeper level. We're going to share with you the high level pieces, but the steering committee who's working on coming up with the priorities and goals has is is working through that data and and going to kind of figure out how to build that into the priorities and goals. But overall, I want to let you know we had 1,238 responses to the survey, which is the most survey number that I have ever seen in a district. So that is great. You all had so many stu half of those were students, which is amazing. Um so you should be very proud of the participation in this and we're going to show you the results disagregated by group. Um let's go to the next slide. We also had
072um some responses in Spanish. 21 came back in Spanish. Um, and most of them you can see the 85.7 are parents and then uh the 14.3 are employees u who took the Spanish the survey in Spanish and the Spanish ones were combined with the English one into the rankings. So all right so when we looked at everyone together students teachers overall um you can see kind of our list and I know the words are cut off but we have put over on the side just the top five that were selected in order. So when we look at everyone's ideas together, the number one thing was school safety, mental health, social emotional wellness, high school readiness, graduation, post-graduate success, reading, and math. So this is what overall everyone kind of said we would like to see
073improvement in. Okay, so now let's go into the individual groups. Let's go to the next slide. Um, in Spanish, for the Spanish surveys, uh, we did want to show you this as well. Um, their number one was school safety. again, mental health, social, emotional wellness, biiteracy and bilingualism, K12 athletic programs, and high school readiness, graduation, and post-graduate success. Okay. All right. When we looked at parent results in the number one, school safety, mental health, social emotional wellness, high school readiness, K12 fine arts programs, and reading. We're seeing some some same themes, also some different ones. Uh overall employees said mental health, social emotional wellness, reading, math, high school readiness, school safety. Employees who are also parents in the district said reading, mental health, employee recruitment and retention, school and district culture and math. And the
074LA and um this is uh community members, reading, math, mental health, social emotional wellness, so school safety, and career and technical education pathways. And the last one is students. Um they had a tie for number or yeah, oh, I'm sorry, the numbers are off, but they had a tie for their number one spot. Um mental health, social emotional wellness, and high school readiness. Um, and number two, it should say school safety, CTE, and K12 fine arts programs. So, want to just open I Let's go to the next slide. I don't think we have any more. Yeah. Okay, go back. Um, so I just want to open it up to any discussion. We wanted to share that with you just so you know kind of what we heard. The steering committee is working through this data
075and looking at other district data to kind of identify, okay, based on what we've seen, we believe these should be the priorities moving forward. And so they are kind of analyzing all that and we are going to come back later uh with those priorities and goals at a future meeting. But I just want to open up to any discussion. Were there any surprises or things that you think really resonate that we should make sure the steering committee, you know, considers as they um build out the priorities and goals. Can I just interject that? As we looked at it, it was very interesting to us from the school safety lens that it feels like the people within the system understand the safety measures that we're taking and how we're expanding and adding those additional layers and
076maybe less known to those outside of the system. And so it's probably an opportunity for communication out to the world a little bit more just to inform them. So that was just an interesting aha to us that it wasn't number one all across the board. It was mentioned by everybody, but we just felt like our employees especially have a deeper understanding of everything that we're doing to address safety and security. Can you go back to the overall one high school graduate? Okay. Couldn't remember what the third one was. I knew it was the same all the groupers. I think it was interesting on the high school student one that they talked about CTE and fine art. You know what they they didn't talk about reading or math or those kind of basic things. What does
077mental health and social emotional um wellness mean to every Everybody like I think taking a look at knowing what the stressors that both the kids and teachers and parents go through to make sure that one you have to have the tools in the toolkit to know when you are stressed out what things that are going to help you get there. And then social emotional wellness. I don't think that currently kids understand social emotional wellness like what is can they stay calm in the face of adversity or do they blow up because that's just what makes them feel better. That's that's what it means. That's how I look at it. I think of mental health as being your internal what's going on inside. Social emotional being more external how you're interacting with the society with other
078kids, right? like if you're being bullied or not being bullied or if you've got good friends or that kind of thing. Kids are coming with a lack of coping mechanisms. They don't know how to regulate and they don't know how to um advocate for themselves and appropriate inappropriate. They may be skewed and and not have a realistic view of what that looks like. And it manifests when you look at um discipline and the issues that we're confronting in our schools, that social emotional piece. And so I think that leads to employee frustration and and burnout and parents dissatisfaction. It's a it's a very large issue when you think about mental health and social emotion. Yeah. Readiness. Yeah. We deal with it just like the schools are dealing with it with the students. So yeah. And
079I think from of course you know my background but I always think it's about the kids who act out who you know really make a thing they get that sometimes the attention that they need and there are equal number of students who are just withdrawn state to themselves and they're not really causing trouble for anybody. So sometimes they get less attention. And so maybe some of that those numbers reflect those kids that are like, you know, I'm struggling here, too. But I'm not throwing chairs and I'm not screaming profanities, but I'm equally in need. And so I don't know. I don't know if that's that. I mean, there's no way we can know from a survey what Well, and you roll school safety into uh number two, the anxiety that you're kids want to feel
080safe. They want to feel recognized. everything that you're talking about and I think those two play and interact with each other at many levels. Yeah. And I think reading through some of the responses as well, some of the disruptive behaviors caused by that lack of regulation impacts the other students as well. So if you have a child who cannot emotionally regulate well and they're exploding and throwing things, that impedes that other child's ability to learn in that environment. So them getting their mental and emotional help would actually benefit them as well. Yeah. Yeah. And usually those children aren't self-aware that they are that they're the ones causing their outburst. Although making them feel better temporarily is actually causing more. Yeah. For others. What can you say about that? So should anybody else I just have
081Is there anything? It's hard, you know. I mean, it really is hard because I don't know. I was I was brought up differently. They deal with it at home and and I understand that things, you know, bleed out and it's a different world or anything, but you know, I just it Oh, I like Mandy's training that she's been to because I'm from that old group also and understanding your workforce and your clientele that you work with. She's gone to many trainings that they talk about the difference between the genzers and the baby boomers and the and there is a significant spread between what how we work and how they work and how we function how they function and it and it yeah I mean I've seen it too it's you know we didn't get called
082they didn't call home they didn't do that you know it it didn't happen Um, you know, and it it just, you know, we were disciplined. I mean, you know, there was 12 of us, so it, you know, and and the thing about it is one did it and if you're around, you should know better. I mean, that's just the way it was, you know, and and sometimes I see these kids and and I don't know, I'm just looking at the way I was brought up, you know, throwing a fit in the grocery store cuz they didn't get the candy, you know, that that, you know, and it's just weird. I I yeah, I know I'm rambling, but yeah, I just hard to we've had we ruffled over those very things in different conversations. And really
083what it comes down to is here's your present reality and what's in your locus of control and how are we really addressing the issues that are in front of us? Because when they leave us and go home, we're done at that moment. And so what are we able to empower and equip and do the things that need them really? I think we have to look at it too is that parents are also in a field of not safe possibly in their environment that they're also struggling with mental health and some of this. That's true. And so they're getting it the same outburst from their parents because we also maybe don't have those tools in their toolkit and it's going to them. And then so that's why it's our job in the schools to help give
084them some tools because maybe their parents also aren't quite equipped to give them those and they're feeling the effects of mental health and social things because their parents also don't have that. It'd be interesting how define for us just like Sean has. Yeah. Tell me what this means to you and that would give us more insight. And I don't want to think that I'm insensitive. No, I don't think there's a whole lot, you know. I mean, I I mean I mean you can't got hoodlums at home, but my hoodlims keep their hands to themselves. Oh, hey. Well, we wanted to show you this just so you know. Um we we have been really looking into the survey and looking at what's important and analyzing the data. And this is where the steering committee, we're meeting
085with them next week and we will what we're doing is taking all of this plus other district data and figuring out, okay, what should the top five priorities be? Um, we might do some combinations and then we put some goals underneath them. And so we're working on kind of the meat of that plan. But we wanted to show you this. We are listening to what is important to your community and thinking about um the different groups and what is important to them. And we're also doing the focus groups to dive a little bit deeper and and get some more information on what they would like to see in those areas. So we are going to do a focus group with students and we will talk to them and you know kind of get their thoughts
086about like what does that actually mean because we want that to inform what we put in terms of the goals and strategies. So so I was telling Renee that I think I think this was done prior to our SRO getting into place also. So, and she talked about last week how we have had zero fights at the high school since we've had his SRO. And so, as we address those hot topic things that are at the forefront of our community's mind, these are going to shift some. So, I'm I was telling her, I wonder if we were to give the students the same survey now, a month later if it would come back the same. And I think that would be an interesting question to pose to that group of kids next week to say,
087you know, since since the survey was given, we've added a couple of layers at the high school. They've also like right now actively underway would be the pass through detector at at a random site at the high school. Okay. Just to to see how those things are um if their feelings are are shifting around that because we believe that it has a more calm sense at at the high school. Um Okay, great. Yeah, we we can definitely ask them about that. Um because that may just maybe it's now kind of being addressed and not as important to them because they feel like it's, you know, safer. But I still mentioned enough times that setting some some goals around it and we can easily identify some benchmarks so that we can continue to track. Yeah. And
088some districts kind of combine safety with wellness and talk about physical, mental, um, and you know, emotional safety in the schools and kind of do accommodations. So that could be also how we sort of address the safety piece. But we wanted to let you know we're not just making up stuff without listening to the community. We want to make sure that we include those thoughts so anyone watching knows also that. And when is the community meeting? It will be a week from today. Okay. At uh 6 p.m. that evening we meet. So we have strategic planning steer committee 8:30 to 10:30 on Wednesday. Then Aurora and I will go to the high school to meet with that group of what I've learned are hungry kids. So they'll have lunch as well. Yeah. So we and
089then what we do after each of the focus groups, we do kind of pull together the comments to make sure the steering committee was able to hear what people said. We'll share the comments with you. So it's just this is a very iterative and collaborative process, but we try to dig deeper to make sure that what we build is really reflective of what this community needs. So anyway, we just wanted to show you what we've been looking at and next time when we come back to you, we will have um more fleshed out goals and priorities use, you know, that were made using some of that data. Okay. So, I did want to let you know, yes, next week, tonight and next week, we are doing it focus groups on these pieces. We are going
090to move forward and take the drafts that you worked on today. Um instead of doing kind of the big ones, we'll just bring those drafts and have people respond to that. um and just see their thoughts. And um next week at the steering committee, we will be digging deeper, looking at a little bit more data and then trying to identify narrow down the names of those priority categories and then what goals should go underneath them. So we've got a lot of work that's happening over the next um next week actually and after that we will come back to you in June with a kind of completed pro product u or at least draft for you to respond to and then we'll make any revisions that we need to. So, uh, any questions at this point
091about the process or, um, anything? No, ma'am. Well, I think Okay, great. Well, um, that's all we have for today. I want to thank you so much for your time. I'm excited that we've landed the plane on some drafts and we'll um I'm excited to hear kind of what the teachers tonight and um, students and community think of it and to see if we need to make any tweaks. So, all right. Do we know the in June or the date? for the board meeting. Yeah. Are we gonna have another one of these, another one of these in June? You Yeah, usually we come back and do like at least one more round to get your feedback and then the team makes revisions using your feedback and then um then usually they take it to you
092um at the end for the approval. So look at calendars. Yeah. So we'll we'll have one more of these um in June for you to kind of look at where we've landed on everything announced to be announced. Yeah. We asked first about dates. Yeah. Okay. All right. Cleaner. Well, thank you so much. That's all um I have for today need to adjourn. I'll make a motion to motion by Mr. Hamilton and second by support of all in favor of journ. I think being adjourned.