001[Music] so [Music] good afternoon i'd like to call this special school board meeting back to order today's date is january 25th time is now 1 30 p.m we are in the process of interviewing candidates for the superintendent's position and uh with their next candidate is dr jennifer ward d joseph hello can you hear us okay yes i can can you hear me yes we can thank you as you know my name is richard barner i'm the current president of the board of trustees and on behalf of the board i would like to thank you for your interest in serving as the superintendent of the carson city school district it is not only our vision but our purpose to inspire and empower innovators leaders and thinkers by providing a quality education to all students we are
002pleased to have you with us today so we may get to know you better now i know that you know all of us at the board however i'm going to introduce the board just for people who may be watching from home and to my immediate right is mrs laurel crossman good afternoon next to her mr mike walker good afternoon to my immediate is lupe ramirez good afternoon next to her is joe cassiopo hello and then don don crainey hi how are you i'll just take a quick second to kind of explain the interview process you have 10 questions that are going to be asked by the board members including myself and then you'll be given 75 to 90 minutes at the max to go through the interview and that if there's time left over then
003you'll have an opportunity to ask us questions and we have some information that you shared with us and we thank you for that because it'll help us in this process and just quickly if you would uh introduce yourself to the board and to the public who may be watching or listening okay well hello i'm jennifer ward and um i appreciate this opportunity to come in and interview um i don't i uh dr oliver had mentioned that i had a brief moment of introduction so is this a good time to do that mr varner yes it is okay great um i had provided everyone a data sheet that was my takeaway for you all today um and i just thought i would bring myself into the room it's kind of a unique environment for this interview
004um and so trying to make it a little bit more personal so i just thought i'd bring out some data points as part of my introduction i have on the top of that data sheet the fremont star rating and this is for my tenure at fremont um i think it's important to point out um that through the hard work of fremont staff and students we really were able to kind of raise ourselves from a two-star school to very close to a four-star school um but then you see a flat line and i think it's important just to note as we look at data that that flat line um ten years from now may not be easily explained however you know i think we assign meaning to the data we see and looking at that we
005would see that it was a flat line however it's also our hiatus from the scoring with our nevada framework of performance being put on hold for a couple of years due to the pandemic the other data point i have on there is my perception survey i believe in serving my staff that i evaluate for our teaching staff through my own mepf evaluation and the different components of that i'm on a four-point scale my strengths are listed for you based on what my staff sees and that was from last year's data set the next data point is just the fact that i am a carson city resident i have been here my entire life i believe that from the age of five until currently i've been removed from the school district about nine months other than
006that i've pretty much had a lifelong commitment to the school district um the next data point is uh estimated data and today it feels like i've actually answered 273 000 questions for just today but um i do think those decisions that i make the most important part is my student first filter and that kind of brings me to a data set the end of the page in your bottom left is the check box that i am fully aware of which is i do not have district office experience i thought it was important to find some information and some meaning behind that check box that remains unchecked i'm not sure if the board knows but last year i had applied for a district office position last spring um in the spring border wife ray got very
007lucky and took cheryl raquetta as their vice principal or as their principal and because of that that left fremont um with some absence of leadership if i had been successful in that bid for the district office and by putting students in staff first i decided to withdraw my application and knowing that this very moment could arrive and i would not have that checkbox checks and i was okay with that um i believe that my student's first mentality and my integrity was intact by making that decision and being okay with that so um i just thought that was an important data point um the other one at the last part is just to fill in the blank so hopefully through the conversation and the questions that we get to have this opportunity to um fill in
008some of those links of the check marks i do have thank you we'll start the questions now but i wanted to mention that don't be offended if you see the board members looking down we are still going to be listening to you very intently but we'll be taking notes and everything so don't be offended if you see somebody and we'll go ahead and start with mr mike walker okay good afternoon what would be your your priorities for the first 90 days in the district in this position uh so i think for my priorities i have kind of and i outlined that in the letter that i wrote to the staff for your writing sample i have kind of a 30 60 90 day communication plan i think the first 30 days it's absolutely essential to
009create cohesiveness in the district level i think looking at how the strengths and expertise at the districts kind of come together and create a plan of communication i think as a building leader and classroom i think there's nothing more frustrating than um having inconsistent double messages um that inconsistency so i think really making a commitment to solidifying that at the district level in the month of july is essential the next phase of that plan would be moving to the building administration the building level leadership and doing the same exact thing making sure that the message that we give to all staff is consistent and reliable um i think the more frustrating part is uh you know the idea of asking mom one question and then if you don't like the answer go ask dad i
010want to avoid that at all cost and you know at the next phase of that plan is really looking at classroom leadership and having those communication um conversations and really listening to um gain perspective to gain information about the health of our of our district as a whole the health of our culture the concerns of our staff and um really solidify in those first maybe days in that first quarter of school that our mission is to put students first and foremost in all of our expectations and to make sure that we are all on the same page and that left hand knows what right hand is doing and that we eliminate those inconsistencies that cause frustration in our school district thank you okay my question for you is community engagement and connectivity are vital for
011a school district what will you do to ensure the stakeholders and members of the community feel ownership and value in the school district so i think it kind of goes back to that first conversation communication is so essential um and to have an open communication an open door policy um so really um listen not necessarily agree all the time but i think listening is so important um we have a strategic plan and to encourage additional community involvement in that monitoring and adjustment of that strategic plan i think that's the opportunity to fold into our community into our school district and feel that um to feel that value and ownership as part of that partnership i think there's also a role of the superintendent to reach out to service organizations that are in our community and
012to make sure that we're well represented within our community as well whether it be with a service organization or other outreach i think that all kind of goes into the idea that the school district is part of our community and as the largest employer we we have a lot of ownership in how our community runs and i think our community will give back with given opportunities to engage in conversations whether it be a community plc the school board meetings and just really that open idea that they can reach out and have a conversation given the current climate regarding equity based learning crt covet response and political divisiveness how would you lead the district to gain community and staff support while advocating the academic success of our students so i think the latter part of that
013question is the most important for advocating for the academic success of our students uh i think that's the primary role of superintendent building leader classroom teacher um i think quite honestly nationwide there's been a lot of conversation on all the topics that you kind of just listed that have been very distracting to the work of at the classroom level um you know i had the some students for example um where our adult issues start factoring into student learning our students started to play a game called squid squid game and it's a very violent very um it's based on a tv show and our students were playing this game at recess and causing major problems of dysregulation because they were struggling with that when they would come back into the classroom and even though that was
014occurring outside of the classroom outside of school watching this program and bringing what they thought they were playing into the school both adult type of things were impacting student learning and i think so often we have these adult conversations that start to distract from what our true mission is and that is advocating for the academic and social emotional growth of our students inside our building um you know with within our control we have our students about 12 to 13 of any calendar year actually in front of teachers and to know that there's a wide variety of experiences outside of the building that impact that 12 and i think it's so important that we as educators stay focused about the impact we're making for students and the impact on our classrooms and so i know that
015there are times when we have to make difficult decisions and i think when we make those in the best interests of students and we stay concise we stay consistent we are making decisions that are relevant and timely and as often as possible completely transparent i think we can't go wrong especially when we put that student filter into our decision making thank you dr worthy joseph i will ask the next question describe effective methods you have used to ensure the safety and well-being of students and staff include how you address diversity equity and inclusion in your in the district so i think uh to answer this question i think one of the components of our um decision making and any level in education is to look at students so often you look at students with a
016mark in their subpopulation for example students who are limited english proficient or are on an iep in the gate program in a free and reduced lunch and we assume that they have certain characteristics um most recently i think the example that kind of got us a little bit shaken was um students on the buses this past week um with all good intent it was students who did not have busing as part of their service plan in the iep would have to be driven or brought to school or to get to school on their own a little confusing because some of our parents who said well my kid has an iep so they're going to be picked up not realizing that an iep did not just grant them access to our business in the last three
017days i think that's an example of looking at the students in with the check box if you so to speak so i think part of it is looking at including all students in our decision making our students behaviors for some of them at all levels including elementary middle and high school have drastically had some changes and that social emotional well-being that has been um something to behold something to really grapple with when we were talking about looking at our programming i think one of the components of safety in your question is really working with our sros our sheriff's department they they step up on a day-to-day basis and i think that's an important relationship just recently with our busing issues the the traffic eighty percent of my school qualifies for um busing so you can
018imagine that at fremont we went from about 150 cars to 400 plus in the last three days and our sheriff's department our sros really have stepped up and that is about the safety component when i think about some of the methods that we've used at um at fremont one of the components we looked at was our social emotional curriculum and what we wanted our students to walk away with and we started with a book study on a book called seven mindsets and it resonated with a staff those seven mindsets which include live to give attitude of gratitude 100 accountable those resonated with my staff as healthy looks at themselves as reflective components so i think when we decided as a staff that we would want to pursue seven mindsets for our students that we realized
019that these were healthy ways to be well-rounded and set up for success as our students left elementary and into middle school but also those key touch points for our staff to remind ourselves about everything is possible and to live big and dream and think positive for your own self and so we actually put that program into place and this is our second year so i think it's looking at all students and being mindful of what you're trying to solve what you're trying to put into place for students whether it be physical safety with our sros or our social emotional safety and well-being with a program like seven mindsets but to remember that all students all students have individual stories and that's our diversity is every student and looking at every student as an individual thank
020you dr ward uh question five how will you meet the individual learning needs of every student to foster student achievement with a growth mindset and how would you track and measure this well i think as a superintendent i'm not actually meeting the individual needs of every student i think it's about setting up the system in which our educators in the classroom can be successful with their students i think looking at our systems that we have in place for example using avid as a touchstone to as a system and looking at how we're affecting students i think all students in particular our english language students need reading writing listening and speaking um skill sets that really are beneficial for all kids so i think when we're looking at that idea of how a superintendent ensures that
021is to make sure that we have the skills the tools and the systems in place for our buildings to function in the best interest of students i think part of that is to make sure as a superintendent we don't get distracted with new and shiny quick fixes i think it takes time to have a system in place to see how the changes that we make to see those positive impacts i think with the data component i think it kind of goes back to my original um introduction i think we have to look at what we value and in in your question uh talked about growth mindset and i think that's an important component because if we're really embracing the growth mindset we take those data points and we put them through that filter uh those
022are sometimes hard because as change is happening change you know change theory is three to five years for something to really take hold in an organization and when we're looking at our data if we're doing it through a growth mindset filter then we have to look at a multi-faceted way of looking at data so not just looking at you know the the state documents or the state assessments or the standardized assessments of act and sbac but looking at measures of academic growth how are we doing with the conditional growth percentiles how are we making those closing those gaps not just what's proficient and i think that that's an important part that sometimes gets lost in star rating system for example is understanding that students using your conditional growth percentile you can measure actually measure individual
023students growth as an organization and i think sometimes we celebrate just the benchmarks just the number of stars just the number of proficient and forget about using that growth mindset to look at our data set so i think it's an important combination of data if you will that you look at triangulation in your data set of classroom data local data state data and assign meaning for each of those components but it all should come together and make a full picture of kind of a frame of reference of how we're doing as addition so i think we have the means i think we just have to really work on our filters of how we're analyzing that student learning great thank you okay um and at this point at the time i'll just let you know um
024because i am keeping track we are we still have about an hour time left and we're halfway through the questions so um just to give you an idea where we're at time wise um and my question has two parts how do you describe the roles of superintendent and the board and how do they work together and the second part is how would you keep the board informed of developments in the district so i think the role of the superintendent is safety and to be aware of safety concerns i think the educational integrity of our program of our system is a huge role of the superintendent i believe community outreach is also a role of the superintendent i think those three components are shared responsibilities of the board with the superintendent i think that the main
025role of the superintendent is to advocate and ensure that students have the best access to the educators in our district and our educators have that access to the tools the strategies the programs the systems that help them bring to life education for their students and if we're going to truly advocate and so that we educate our each and every child i think that the board and the superintendent's communication is essential i think keeping the board informed part is individualized conversation i think reaching out when there are concerns whether it be from community members from teaching staff and having those conversations the role of the superintendent is to bring to the board and the community highlights of the district but also those things that are impactful and i think transparency is just a really important component
026of um that communication more often that we can be open and honest and have confused conversations about the things that are plaguing us as well as the things that we're needing to celebrate i think that's that's just an essential part of that board relationship to the superintendent as well as the the board and superintendent to the community i think that communication is key and being open and honest about what is actually occurring is can only benefit all the stakeholders so our next question is how do you determine if professional development provided by the district is improving student learning and teacher administrator performance and morale good question um so professional learning is a huge responsibility on all educators individually and collectively i think one of the components that helps determine whether or not it's successful is
027i truly believe what's expected should be inspected i heard dr scott the other day say what's treasured gets measured and i like that as well but what we expect should be inspected so if we're starting with professional learning before we start we should have set smart goals and in smart goals we talk about being specific setting goals that are measurable setting goals that are attainable setting goals that are actually relevant and time-bound so if we've done that with our professional development we will have set goals that are measurable and then we need to collect the data inspect what we expect and follow up on that professional learning i think the question is quite large because it's not only on the performance but it's from the morale and i think what when i think about staff
028morale i think about stress level the stress level of our staff particularly that seems to come to light right now is pretty high and i think that it's important to address a little bit of initiative fatigue and professional learning um as a profession educators kind of do the new and shiny things and get distracted with some new initiative that comes in that has promises of of moving students faster and quicker and cheaper um and it's exhausting you know i think the initiative fatigue um in our districts needs to be um acknowledged and addressed and i think you know we have methods we have programs in place and our struggle is keeping to it and you know i think one of the components that we often miss is that if we do not give time and
029dedication to the initiatives that we choose and if we've chosen wisely then stick to them let people get good at what they're doing that change that constant change is exhausting to our educators and when that exhaustion kicks in that sense of efficacy that sense of what i do matters and what i do has a positive effect that lessens so therefore it's the morale lesson and when morale is down it's in my opinion usually tied into the ability for our teachers to say what i do matters and what i do benefits kids and when we are constantly kind of switching around professional learning i think that's i think that's very disregulating for our adults i think it's extremely important that we at this point in time realize that culture is what we allow and if we
030allow our students to learn and we allow our teachers to teach and we allow them to learn the components of the initiatives that we've already brought into place and particularly avid which i previously talked about having that system marzano's critical concept allowing our teachers to get good at something so that when we go to assess we can actually tie and have correlation that correlation of what we do in professional learning is sometimes difficult because we have six different things that are impacting that student learning and it's really hard to take a data set and say a causes b because we have so many different things sometimes that we bring out to our staff and so i think a big part of that is how do you just hurt when determining whether a professional development is
031successful it's how long have we been trying to put this together how long are we um have we committed to our staff that we are going to let them get good at it because i think at that point when we have a staff and individuals come together and as a school we see what we do matters for our schools at the school level that collective advocacy builds and if you feel good about what you're doing and you feel good about what your colleagues are doing in the building then that collective advocacy which is the number one factor in high achieving schools highest impact on student achievement is collective efficacy if we can build into our system that collective efficacy i think our professional learning is spot on if we uh kind of do oh squirrel
032which we do as a system of education unfortunately we will fail and uh doc morale will decrease so i think staying consistent making sure that we're all communicating the same message in our professional learning kind of goes full circle i think it's that connectivity to making sure the district office is connected to the building and the student levels and making sure that we're not distracted by something that's quick and promising quicker results and sticking to something and getting good so what we do thank you faced with a significant change in revenue an increase or decrease how would you approach budget development for the upcoming fiscal year and share your experience with budgeting and deficit spending well i would love to have an increase so if anybody's asking we would love to have an increase of
033revenue uh unfortunately the reality of that in our upcoming year years is looking a little bleak so i think it's very important to have short term goals a year out and then some medium to long range goals year three or five and when we are budgeting we need to prioritize and we need to put that same filter that i talked about at the very beginning we need to put that on our decisions how our decisions in budgeting affect student outcomes how do they affect the students how are we affecting the classroom level impact of our decision making when we look at our grant opportunities i think that's another component is to see what grants are available to do some of the list off of the general budget for example like uh 21st century lifting that
034opportunity off of the general budget for after-school programming very essential super helpful to students but can it be funded by a grant so i think there's different revenue service or revenue avenues that can come into play that will help take some of the stream off of the general budget in my experience which started with the school improvement grant at eagle valley part of my responsibility was to look at as an implementation specialist was to look at the professional development and that budget and making sure that that we stayed within budget and that the items that were in our budget were were itemized and made sure that all of our actions were in that budget um moving to fremont i have a title one budget um i've had 1003g uh the most recent esser money and
035i think one of the components is to make sure that when i'm budgeting i look at that classroom impact but i also look at that making sure that my grant budgets do not supplant the current revenue that should be coming from our district so everything in a grant should supplement and not supplant by that means looking at if a district should be providing it then i should not be buying it with a friend so making sure that i stay within those ramifications of budgeting i think looking at every item on a budget and prioritizing including at my own school we look at what is the student impact what is the staff impact and how are we making a positive effect with using our budget wisely um in our district aj keeps me from overspending so
036going into a deficit situation out of school doesn't happen because of financially responsible budgeting at the district level and i think that's an important component of the district's function is to make sure that we stay within the black and stay and keep our funding streams um concise and well targeted so i think the next couple years are going to be really tough unless we have a legislation session that can turn things around and make a better impact for our students because i think our priorities at the classroom level are going to make it harder and harder to sometimes do the good work that we have been become accustomed to in carson thank you what experience do you have in advocating for public education at the local state and national levels i think i'll work my
037way backwards at the national level i do not have any experience at the state level i think the closest i would say is my work with the nevada department of education with our nevada education performance framework i worked on a group in um 2020 that we were trying to re-formulate if you will how the evaluation was impacting professionals who were working in dual environments being hybrid or remote at the same time as in seats honoring those who were in a remote only environment as well as those who were in a traditional classroom environment along with asynchronous and synchronous learning so that at that that advocacy to work the framework of evaluating teachers so that it was a benefit to students using that component of what i believe is a huge professional learning opportunity in our
038natf but utilizing that and acknowledging the different types of environments that our state's employees and our state teachers have been under in the last two years and so i think that is an example of my state work locally i like to attend school board meetings i like reaching out to advocate for fremonts to advocate for our students and our staff to celebrate our successes and our struggles and to advocate for my staff i believe i'm a voice sometimes a loud voice at the table with my fellow administrators um to advocate for elementary education um and to make sure that voice is heard at our district office and given that opportunity to have those conversations with district level leadership to advocate for my school as well as the elementary level i think the work have not
039been in my recent tenure i'm the president of the carson city school district building administrators and that last year has not provided too many opportunities to advocate for our association but i believe that overall i'm a huge advocate for students and anytime i get the opportunity i advocate for my school and for my my kiddos thank you okay dr ward last question if there was a excuse me if there was an event of potential unethical behavior how would you respond to allegations of this unethical behavior in our district well i think unethical behavior there's such a range um so depending on the infraction and the unethical unethical behavior that's alleged i think determines the outcome uh it can be immediate action um whether it be released from the position or you know administrative leave but
040depending on the allegation depends on the response if legal is involved that also will impact the the outcome of how quickly an investigatory process is put into place i think every employee has um the right to due process and whether or not that includes uh unionist representation in an investigatory conference to look at what behavior is being alleged and then to work towards a determination and what level of consequence is given to that employee in my experience i have not had to have too many unethical um conversations or allegations for employees which i think is a credit to the quality of human beings that we work with in carson city i do think uh kind of reflecting um i think one that comes to mind is when grade fixing may have occurred someone was making
041some grades up when it was time to do the quarter and it kind of goes back to what's expected gets inspected and it was my job to inspect and when i found the error it it started a investigatory conference following the due process that's put out by the contract of all three associations and following that process and making sure the letter of the law the letter of intent is put into place for all employees it says allegations until proven are our allegations thank you dr ward you would now have the opportunity you have some time left if there's any questions that you would like to ask us hey uh i would love to you know i'm not sure how many want to answer but um what if background or experience do you believe your next
042superintendent should have it's the most important to you so dr ward this is trustee cassiopo you know what i'm looking for is well-roundedness not necessarily an experience because no one person can have all those experiences but rather a willingness to become well-rounded um a willingness to as we've heard from from you and others to listen and lead um in the best interest of the district and the students primarily the students so i'm looking for i'm certainly interested in everybody's background and experiences but for me it's really the person the experiences at their level the willingness to grow into that position and um of course um all of it encompassed by the primary goal of making sure we provide the best education and opportunities for our students because that's the person who's going to lead our
043district hopefully is the one that is the greatest advocate for our students seeing no one else right now wants to answer the question do you have another one uh sure uh which of the five pillars of the strategic plans do you feel is the most important at this current time that's a hard question because in my mind they're all equally important but i think in today's time maybe hiring retaining good staff members teachers is very critical because we know there's a labor shortage so i think if there's a way that we can retain our good teachers i think that's very important i i also think healthy generations of students is really important right now we know we know we've got kids who are struggling and i think that that is something that is is really
044important that we make sure that our kids are doing well academically and doing well in all other aspects i'll add to that um you know just for i guess the silly well i won't say that but i take a chair a chair generally needs four legs our chair based on our strategic plan has five legs and you need at least three otherwise you're falling over for sure but for me you're always going to be looking for staff you may always have shortages the community may or may not be in full partnership and all those things are important but you have to have curriculum that matters i think you have to make sure the students are being taught with an effective curriculum so again we can set them up for success and it's hard for me
045to say that's the most important but in my mind that really stands out and everything else has to come and play for it to be a perfect storm but um if i had to pick one i would say the curriculum that matters thank you and i would agree with laurel i think that one of the things we see working in the schools right now is that it's almost like there's a mental health crisis everywhere you go but especially in this state even families who are looking for support there is no support and so we need qualified staff we need you know appropriate curriculum in our schools but if these kids aren't healthy and prepared to learn it's all for nothing and so everything is important but right now where we are as a culture there's
046huge health and mental health needs that are really unaddressed very true thank you dr ward do you have any further questions no i just thank you for this opportunity to have this conversation with you all and i have vested interest in your decision so i appreciate being part of the interview process and and i thank you for all your work that you do for our district well i wanted to thank you for your interview today it was very insightful and has given a view into your leadership abilities and philosophy on education so i appreciate that and what i'd like to say is that i also appreciate it and i think we all did your candor uh we'll be making a decision about our next steps on february 2nd and the video just to let you
047know the video of the interview and all the interviews will be posted online so they can be reviewed and viewed by community members and they'll have an opportunity via link to comment and provide comments to the board and then we'll be reviewing all those and then shortly after february 2nd either deb oliver from nasbi or myself will be reaching out to you and letting you know the next steps so uh thank you thank you thank you all i appreciate your time and effort for our district thank you very much take care everyone am i just leaving you're gone at this time we'll go into recess and the time is 2 23 and the meeting will reconvene at 8 o'clock in the morning and that'd be january 26th thank you [Music] you