Carson City School Board Meeting 1/25/2022

001[Music] times now 8am i'll call this special board meeting to order the first on the our agenda is the adoption adoption of the agenda so moved so moved do we have a second second by laurel a motion by joe cassiopo do we have any board discussion any public comment about the adoption of agenda any online no public comment mr varner okay i'll now call for a vote all in favor say aye aye the opposition say nay motion carries you know we'll move into the flag salute the lupe ramirez would you please lead us to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice this special board meeting today is being held to allow us to conduct three interviews for potential

002super superintendent candidates first will be mr n drew fueling that'll be from eight to nine thirty then dr john goldhart from 10 a.m to 11 30 a.m and then dr jennifer ward to joseph we'll start at 1 30 and i'm going to 3 p.m i want to let members of the public know that we are not going to take any public comment today public comment will be taken at the end of the meeting which will be concluded tomorrow we'll recess this meeting today at three o'clock then call it back to order at 8 a.m in the morning and at the end of that meeting tomorrow is when public comment will be taken our first interview this morning is mr aj fueling mr president just a point of order is there is there a way to

003make the volume a little bit louder i i can barely hear what you're saying raymond can we turn up the volume all right i guess uh is that better can you hear me better now okay president barnard mr fueling has been added to the meeting i couldn't hear what you said i'm sorry mr fueling has been admitted to the meeting okay thank you you see it coming up on the screen mr president you know i did want to read a statement before we start the interview which i was reminded that i needed to read and this is a statement from mrs stacy wilkie mcculloch she writes i acknowledge that one of my comments at the last board meeting has been viewed as hurtful and i'm sincerely sorry to any hurt caused i will be recusing

004myself from taking part in the superintendent interviews i also took immediate actions when this matter was brought to my attention to educate myself so this will not happen again so mrs stacy wilkie will be not participating in the supervisor in the superintendent interviews now we'll move on to mr fueling good morning mr fueling good morning can everyone hear me can you hear us okay absolutely can you hear me can everybody hear all right yes we can hear you thank you mr fueling i'm richard varner president of the school board of trustees on behalf of the board i want to thank you for your interest in serving as a superintendent of the carson city school district it's not only our vision but our purpose to inspire and empower innovators leaders and thinkers by providing a quality

005education to all students we are pleased to have you with us today so we may get to know you i'd like to interview i'd like to introduce the members of the panel and i'll start to my immediate right mrs laurel crossman good morning uh next to laurel is mr mike walker morning aj to my immediate left is mrs lupe ramirez good morning mr fielding and then we have mr joe cassiopo good morning and then mr don good morning i want to briefly go over what we're going to do today is the interview will last approximately 75 to 90 minutes and this includes a period of time for you to ask questions of us at the end of the interview after we ask our questions the board has decided on 10 questions that we're going to

006ask you we'll take turns asking questions and this will include myself i'll be asking some of the questions and then what we'll do is go into like i said you'll be able to ask us questions at the end of it and we have received some material that he provided us thank you for providing that it'll help us get to know you better we appreciate it and at that point what i'd like to do is ask you to go ahead and introduce yourself now a lot of us already know you and a lot of the members of the community may already know you but please introduce yourself again thank you sure thanks to vernon and good morning everyone um so i'll introduce uh maybe some things you don't know about me and hopefully it'll be of

007some interest so um as when i had my first interview with the district back in spring of 2014 i started it the same way i was born and raised in god's country which is cudahy wisconsin if you were from wisconsin or southeastern wisconsin you likely would be laughing right now not uh not exactly maybe how you picture god's country it's a working-class town i uh at my church here in town i go to saint peter's here in town um i ran into a gentleman there i met a there's a gentleman who goes there um parishioner he's about 40 years older than me and he's from south milwaukee south milwaukee is the the big rival from cudahy um and to to give you an idea of kind of the perception of the town the the first

008thing he said to me when i said i was from cudahy he said oh south milwaukee whitefish bay nothing smells like cudahy and it's it is that uh you know little thing that everyone in southeastern wisconsin is is familiar with and so it's been around for a really long time it's a factory town two big factories there's a leather tannery so that's kind of the smell that everybody knew of there's bars on every corner my elementary school was near uh the factories well and actually there's the airport the main airport in milwaukee general mitchell is uh right next to the city of cudahy um so in in my elementary school we often would have to pause when airplanes were flying over and it was just kind of a normal part of what happened you know

009you'd be in the middle of an instruction and you stopped for 30 seconds because there was a plane and then you'd start up again um the one of the factories has this enormous hammer that would i don't know it was like every hour or what it was but it would just pound it would shake the whole community so my school would be shaking um during the day so not not uh the optimal environment that i think we all hope for our kids but it's um uh definitely a place that can put a chip on your your shoulder uh i think growing up so um but but a good place with good people nonetheless uh i i'm actually an only child i don't think any of you know that about me uh i was raised by

010my my mom and grandmother back in cudahy um school was always really important to them i've had some amazing teachers um i just to note a couple because they may not get the props for this anymore but my first grade teacher milgram um big hugs and i still uh send christmas cards to her she sends christmas cards to me she's 90 years old um living in rural wisconsin uh isla mansi who is my fifth grade teacher and got me to be obsessively interested in the world around me um the globe cultures other countries mr plath my pre-cal teacher who was a young guy and it made me realize that it was okay to be really good at math and you and you could like it and you could still love 90s grunge music which i

011thought was a pretty cool thing when i was in high school um and and mr ed lexler who um has passed away but he he's my german teacher i i didn't actually learn a lot of german um but she was a bit of a kind of the most interesting like the character on the commercials he's like the most interesting man um a bit of a philosopher and bibliophile just always reading books and so it's just some really good experiences um even back in cudahy so i wanted to escape cudahy and go somewhere more exotic so after i graduated high school i went to a college in des moines iowa which is usually where people go when they're looking for something exotic and initially my goal was to go out and make as much money as

012possible i wanted to be a stock broker i had seen a movie wall street and i was going to move to new york and that was going to be my life and fortunately when i was in college i did a semester abroad had the opportunity to do a semester abroad in australia um and truly just changed my life and my outlook and what i valued in uh priorities so um came back and then finished up my program there but then went back to school to become a teacher soon thereafter started teaching in east troy wisconsin and uh actually the first year i started teaching i met my wife there it's a rural community about 30 minutes southwest of milwaukee um and we got married in 2005 uh three children i have um swarming around me

013they were born in 2007 2009 2011 and then in in the summer of 2013 uh my friend who teaches at the university of nevada um he invited us to come out here he was always sending taunting text messages about how great it was so we decided to to come out and visit for five days um and and really you know just enjoyed the area kind of hit all the highlights and you know love the i've always been a history person so i love some of the history um but then we went back and um didn't think too much of it until the worst winter since 1977 set in um it was we had below zero wind chills for two months straight and uh couldn't really take the kids outside much and we decided um you

014know it's okay maybe to to try something else and so um i i literally i was looking for for jobs out in in this area and on christmas eve of 2013 i saw this job posted and so i don't know if that was a sign but it sure seemed like a sign and it's worked out pretty well so um we've been here eight years and i just keep finding more reasons to love the community well thank you that was the entertaining introduction appreciate it we're going to go ahead and start asking questions now now keep in mind do not be offended or think of rude if we have our head down we may be taking notes at certain times throughout the interview and so we're going to go ahead and start and mr mike walker

015is going to ask you your first question guten morgen hair fueling morgan that was a test to see how close you paid attention that was probably so what would be your priorities for the first 90 days in your district um so i i just have one clarifying question to ask here so um i i know i was asked to provide um you know kind of a 90-day plan am am i able to reference that or would you just like me to that might get into a lot of detail and i can otherwise just speak about generalities i wasn't sure kind of what the expectation was i think as as a candidate i'm going to leave that up to you how how would you best present that information to the panel and the community at large

016okay so so i think i'm just going to kind of speak in general tones and i might get into the weeds a little bit with um what was provided and i know we don't have unlimited time um so i i think initially and i would i would hope that anyone coming into this position um you know you're you're coming in and you're listening and listening and listening um i i don't believe um you know it wouldn't be appropriate to come in and start talking and talking and talking and telling people what to do um the uh the the play by um shakespeare julius caesar there's a famous line that mark anthony delivers friends romans countrymen lend me your ears i i feel like it's um for me it's friends fellow carsonites and colleagues let me

017lend you my ears right so just just being out there and and trying to soak up um everything you can um but you're not going to learn things uh a better way and in that elite i think the second point is building relationships um that that's going to be the starting point but getting out there internal external all of you um even though i i know you and for some of you you've been around as long as i've been here um but clearly the um the role the relationship is is greater uh in this way circumstance so i think that that would be time well spent um getting data informed i i uh that i didn't come up with that term but it is a term i i like i don't like data driven and

018i think data informed kind of came from people who are frustrated with data driven right we're we're here for kids we're not we're not um we're doing things for kids we're not doing things because of the data but just to to really take a peek at what you know under the hood and see see what is going on um with with outcomes for kids and last uh i think just in general like you know we have a new school year coming up we've had two years of discontinuity for our families um and you know we just to make sure that uh you know feel like we're being prepared for the new year just like we would in in any other circumstance but i think you know just given the circumstances extra extra care has to

019be um given that with somebody new coming in even in my role there's conversations that i'm not always involved with and um again just listening and trying to understand um what's going on um clearly nationally and statewide and in carson city there's significant labor shortages um which are crippling uh in many cases as we know all too well and so really i think that has to be one of the highest priorities coming in well as well actually is just kind of getting a pulse check on where we are um you know there are things we can do at least to make it easier um for um you know retirees to come back and things like that and i just think jumping on those things earlier um rather than later would be helpful um so that

020that's kind of the initial i think the the summer then you have all your your welcome back feel good pieces i would love to do kind of a larger district-wide welcome back event even if it's only for 30 minutes just just to say hi to everyone and and kind of build that that feeling of school community um after a rough two years i think would be really nice what what i call the triple s meetings stops the same and start so when when we come back and i start having opportunities to to meet with our community members to meet with parents to meet with our staff to meet with our students um again this isn't a new idea but i think what's critical so that the stop is what what should we consider not doing

021anymore the start is what do we need to be doing and the but the sustain in the middle so usually you just think about what do we continue and i i think i i think this is the finance guy in me i i don't like the idea of just continuing because you know we like it and we're comfortable with it um it's about sustaining that sustain i think is an extra level of commitment because that means you're putting resources toward it so um and and i think if you're gonna put resources toward it you're gonna defend it and so what are those things that we really want to continue and we're willing to defend um to to do that so hopefully within all that you're you're building trust um ultimately that that is the key

022piece not having trust is the biggest tax on an organization you've you've got to have that um belief in your people your people have to believe in you the the not having that trust just slows things down and really just makes you digress i think from the direction that you're trying to get to thank you thank you like having clarifying questions at all okay uh thank you mr fueling we're going to move on to question number two and this will be asked by mrs laurel crossman hi mr my question for you is community engagement and connectivity are vital for a school district what will you do to ensure the stakeholders and members of the community feel ownership and value in the school district thank you mrs craftsman um so to feel true ownership and i

023think that's a really important term in in leadership in life in your communities do you want your community to thrive that it's not one to be taken lightly but if you're gonna have true ownership you have to have some level of engagement that you can't i don't think you can feel ownership if you're not engaged so the example the analogy i would use is uh you know many people end up investing in stocks right and and i don't know if everybody knows this but when you buy stock in a company you're buying ownership you literally are an owner in that company i would argue that for most people they don't feel like they're an owner in that company it's it's an investment and they're they're hoping you know that'll help them with their future um

024but it's not the same as it's not the same thing because you're not engaged it's not an unless you're some someone who owns ten percent of a company you're going to all the shareholder meetings maybe it's different but for average everyday folks it's just not the same so um but then they're they're engaged right so that that engagement is kind of a key piece to that so um ultimately if you're having engagement you're talking about things coming together and so there has to be some kind of physical mental emotional connection interaction happening to have that engagement and and i think just with where we have been the last two years and and this was true before um but but i think that physical engagement at this point is probably the most critical thing that we

025need to bring back and and not just bring back but enhance and to me that that is bringing people into schools um i you know part of it is seeing as believing um and and when you have people coming in um that can look around and it might be i i would hope it says volunteering and i think you'll hear that there's a little bit of a theme here that um we have got to get out there and you know it sounds bad whether they want to volunteer or not drag them into schools and give them the volunteer i really feel like that has to be a part of what we're doing is trying to get um our community members our parents into the school so they can feel comfortable again and they believe in

026what we they're doing what we're doing they see what we're doing um and maybe it's working again with the labor shortage um that would be a great piece of this as well i think i mentioned that in um in my uh welcome back letter uh just an open invitation for people to come in and and maybe consider working for us if they haven't um i think the the events we have and and i will say i have excuse me i've been pleasantly surprised i'm not surprised that's wrong with just um appreciative i think of the events that a lot of our school administrators host around the district um you know some sometimes just showing appreciation to groups and i know many schools do this and i early when i when i first got here that

027the two that stood out to me um sealanger elementary did a really nice veterans day ceremony actually my my friend from reno that kind of convinced us to consider coming out here um he works in with the army rotc and he's a veteran of of um of iraq and and bosnia and so he actually came down for that my kids got to present them and that was it was such a great feel-good community event um and the other thing to see like i didn't know you probably all know and mr craney and mr walker i'm sure you probably participated more than you uh liked over the years but the pumpkin patch event um you know just what a what a fantastic way to bring people in and just just see smiling faces and and kind

028of appreciate your community so i think things like that are um really critical especially again after after closing where you didn't you weren't able to have the physical presence um together i think that that'll be a would be a great way to to heal and when you have that kind of physical interaction that that engagement i think you know i i think anyone who steps into a school and it's not just our schools i think it's like there there is value there in what you are seeing when you're seeing a kid's smiling face there are good things happening when you see kids engaged in a classroom um i i had the opportunity to to sub um at mark twain last friday um and and i give all sorts of credit to elementary school teachers because

029i've never really been in an elementary classroom in a teaching capacity before and that was an experience um but seeing the kid the kids just knew a lot of what to do and they were engaged and they're they're making it happen and you know just i think the feeling you get from that especially for people who aren't familiar with school and i'm more familiar than than most i guess um i think they would see that and and that would just light them up so that you know it that value is thick and tangible when when you are there um and i think if they if they see value um often those people then want to engage in it even more and it's kind of this feedback loop with with what um you know what is

030happening and people wanting to be a part of that i think the other side of um the question mrs crossman is um you know we we also live in an age that has changed quite a bit with internet and social media and i think there is an expectation of transparency i don't know if that's exactly the right word but that that you can have you can know what's going on kind of that end moment right we have 24 7 news um i can search up any term i want any time learn about anything so if i want to know what's happening in my kids school i want to i should be able to find out and you know that can be taken that can be a slippery slope so i think you have to be

031kind of careful with that but i think in this circumstance it's utilizing those resources of the internet and social media um the i mean to me there is it is an area we can grow to utilize that to show what's happening in the schools on a more regular basis and i think the regularity is really important um because that that makes it seem more transparent because it's just always going on it's not you're not just showing the single best thing there's everyday awesome going on in carson city schools and so it's going around the district and pulling these pieces maybe it's just little videos of you know 30 second videos of what's happening in the classroom and teachers just doing amazing things with kids and they're happy and engaged i think there's something to that

032so i think building that that engagement and building that um that trust that connectivity with the community that you mentioned i think that's also part of it that um that we can work on thank you um i was just gonna say that every day awesome would make a great hashtag i'm just i'm in there you go uh thank you mr fueling i'll be asking the next question yeah given the current climate regarding equity based learning crt or critical race theory covet response and political divisiveness how will you lead the district to gain community and staff support while advancing the academic success of our students thank you president um so it it is um you know it it's unfortunate i think that um i think some of it goes back to just kind of a you

033know trust and just you know a rough two two years of a lot of this and you kind of have this and i call it the pathological duality there there is um you know it's either you're you have these two sides it seems like kind of the the moderating forces have just gone away and you have two sides and it's you're either with me or you're against me it and it doesn't it doesn't seem like there's a lot of anything in the middle it's just this barren wasteland um and yeah i just i think it's kind of a strange kind of point in time and i'm sure there have been other times in history like this and it's not it's not for um you know bad reasons i i mean there there's legitimate concerns um

034all around and it's a confusing time and there's a lot of uncertainty so that's it's the world we're in um but but i would say that you know it's like is there hope and and i i think the answer is yes and i i i think the answer to me is really embedded in the answer from the last question i i think it's about getting your community you know the the community has to feel ownership community has to feel value in what is happening there and if they are in the schools if parents are in the schools if they are seeing it seeing as believing rather than what they might be hearing about what's going on um i i think that i don't think there could be anything more powerful in in trying to get

035people to to just i think be okay with with what's happening and realize that there are a lot of really good people doing a lot of really good things um that are are creating value and then and then you get in there and see the smiles and and i'll i'll throw out the everyday awesome again since that apparently went over well um you know the and again the the value when you're you're there and you're if you're engaged in it and you're working with the kids and you're having fun with them i mean that and that value is just thick i i don't know how you know how someone couldn't be turned um into a supporter of what is happening in schools if they are in there doing that sort of thing and if if

036you have those you have community members and you have parents doing that sort of thing you then have for our staff so part of the question is our staff so they're going to have one way or another more support in the schools right you're going to have these adults that are in trying to help out it might be in a classroom at the outside of the classroom you might be making copies it might be during lunch periods and i i don't i don't know exactly what it looks like and i think every school will figure that out for themselves um but then those outside uh community members and parents they're seeing what's going on in the schools they're seeing the magic and they're seeing the people that are responsible for facilitating that magic how do

037you not appreciate that and magic's an important term too and i um you saw there it's kind of a secondary welcome letter to some other transient members of our our community that end up in a fancy building on carson street for a couple months each year but that that word is really important and it wasn't it was placed very used very specifically because i think you know the idea of magic is oftentimes you're you're creating something out of nothing right and and so much of what our staff is doing with our teachers and sports staff and administrators that they are making it happen uh even if the resources might not always be perfect they are making it happen so i think that if if our community members see that that value um will be there

038and then you have the relationships that have been built so that's a good thing and then for our kids now you have more volunteers in the school supporting them they can get more individual attention more help they're seeing positive role models and good at good relationships with with adults if we if we can do all that we presume positive intentions along the way we're doing all that we rehumanize uh all of ourselves with each other that that's to build that trust that's that's what you need thank you mr feeling the next question will be asked by mrs lupe ramirez mr feeling describe effective methods you have used to ensure the safety and well-being of students and staff include how you've addressed diversity equity and inclusion in the district thank you trustee ramirez so um my

039answer will probably not exactly be like anybody else's just um from from my experiences but um i don't think it's any it's not any less important but it may not um even be exactly from the angle that kind of what the intent of the question was so um bear with me a little bit so as far as the the safety and well-being piece um my my interac are because my work with that has been more you know related to my job so when i um first came to the district um we had been working on um safety single point of entry projects around the district um and ran out of money so we needed to go out and bond again and that's kind of where that was my first bonding experience here to get funds

040to help take care of the rest of those projects around the district and actually i think specifically at that point i was finishing up carson high school was kind of the last big part of that and otherwise um working with our our risk manager a number of years ago um to secure funding to refresh all of the the camera technology around the district everything related to the kind of surveillance and being able to keep an eye on on our assets both kind of physical district assets and inner kids and making sure that you know things are being taken care of as far as well-being we've done that that to me kind of takes more to the operations side we've done work over the years trying to bring um cleaning products into the district that are

041that are greener um that are safer for for all of us to be around um improving air quality putting in bottle fillers around the district uh keeping kids hydrated um it it's a it's a key piece to uh human conditions so so that that is something that that does help um help the cause that that's actually an interesting one too uh being in a classroom and i mean as adults you go around and you see people carrying bottles all the time now but in the classroom it it just is a little different and and i had when i was in school you know you weren't allowed to have anything um although i don't think water bottles really existed kind of like that either so just kind of a little side note um as far as

042diversity um kind of diversity equity and inclusion piece again my my side of that is a little different but i'll i'll bring it back to my teaching days in a second um just thinking about my my little department um fiscal services and i have um even within my small department i i have some diversity a little demographic but definitely um some ideological and kind of work process and communication um but i i believe if you asked my staff um if you explain to them what what we mean by an inclusive environment i i believe they would say that yeah we have an inclusive environment we you know we have people with kind of different all these things and yet they all work together really well and i think they all like each other um and

043i think you know i they're like they're my family i see them all the time i love them they're amazing people um and just like me they're not perfect but we continue to find ways to improve and and try to make make things better so um in my teaching experience um i i think this kind of gets into um i think a little bit more of the the diversity it at least i i hope it comes across that this is something that um has been important to me for a long time and i i go back to the the my my fifth grade teacher i mentioned um who kind of opened up the world to me uh and really got me interested in i guess just understanding there was more than what i saw around

044me um with the globe and different cultures and forcing us to try new foods from other countries and it was fantastic but um so the the school i taught at east troy uh east troy high school in wisconsin is a very rural community about 4 000 people um and and not diverse at all um and and so um the opportunity came up i think it was my second year teaching um that it used to be called the afs club and that might be more familiar to some of you in a lot of times if kids wanted to um travel abroad for a semester during high school that was the club they they did i think american field service i think is what afs stands for um but it turned into a multicultural club at our

045school and so um the the advisor at that time stepped out and and i knew this was something i would enjoy doing so it was something that i jumped into right away um and so we we would get together and it wasn't kind of a um everyday thing or even an every week thing but we'd have kind of events and get together and talk about different places and enjoy food and that sort of thing um and we took we took a trip to sweden um which was a great experience for for me the first time i'd taken actually any i did many field trips in my time that was the first field trip i ever did it scared me to death um going to another country um but very nice people in sweden so so

046everything went really well um but it was a really good experience for those kids to to get out and see some different things um in in the area we um in southern milwaukee our south side of milwaukee there's a large it's the large mosque for the areas with the the islamic community and so we took a trip there um for for a half day and um i just think that was a real eye-opener for the kids because none of them had ever seen anything like that before um and just had a really nice presentation and a walk around and you know the architecture and all that and just soaking up um just that feeling of of something you know feeling like you're almost in a different world um and that was a great experience and

047that actually led us to then um going to the madison area where they have it was a buddhist temple um in madison and it was absolutely ignored it was overwhelming for the kids because of how big it was and um i mean literally walking into a golden buddha statue that i feel like it seemed like it was like 30 feet high and and 30 feet across it was just gigantic but again kind of the same thing where kids had never had knew nothing about it but then talking about you know so where where are these religions in the world and why do they exist and you know just that appreciation um and understanding and again it's not not that they have to uh we're not talking about agreeing or anything like that but just the

048experience and realizing that there's people from different walks of life different cultural norms different expectations um when we talk about social emotional learning and we're to there's five um five competencies within that and in the two to their self-awareness so um you know kids understanding what themselves right and and what they value what their culture is what their norms are but then also social awareness um one of the other competencies and it's really just the opposite is kind of seeing those things around you um being able to understand that there's different ways of doing things and so it's again it's it's not exactly um maybe the intent of the question but but i think that that's the the best experiences i have where i could um i think say that there's something to offer and

049that i've had some experience thank you the next question will be asked by mr joe cassiopo hi mr fueling how are you good how you doing doing well okay uh the question i have for you is how will you meet the individual learning needs of every student to foster student achievement with a growth mindset how would you track and measure this thank you trusted cassiopo um so the the first thing i think what's really important and and the term gets thrown around a lot but in in the scheme of what um kind of edu what we think education should be the process of education it's a really important term and that's the growth mindset piece so it it's not complicated but it's really just this idea that we shouldn't be placing limitations on the expectations

050for our kids they shouldn't be placing limitations on their own expectations um and some of that goes back to brain research and what they call brain plasticity basically that you know your brain can rewire and do these things that maybe before it couldn't but with with hard work and you know hopefully some curiosity and interest along the way um there can be some growth that maybe you know wasn't expected at first but so the the the reason that definition becomes important though is it the the kind of the next logical step is well if we're not limited right the limitation does not exist then there is no reason that we can't have high expectations across the board for kids and there is every reason to get them every opportunity we can and reduce any barriers

051to those opportunities so that they can have the opportunity to to try to access the the highest expectations right and it's not it's not about um every kid getting to the exact same outcome right we're that there's that's not going to happen but getting the access to those opportunities so that having those high expectations as a goal is is completely realistic it makes sense and it's something that i think we would want to do um and so in in education terms you'll you'll hear um this kind of curricular idea of having a coherent guaranteed and viable curriculum and this high expectations piece um it in in the opportunities to access it as a part of that that guaranteed curriculum right this is this is something that um we believe all kids can should be able

052to access they can get to and they're going to be successful with um so then within that having before you get to that point what is helpful is having what's called a coherent curriculum so that this is just that everything is aligned um things through the years make sense things across the different curricular areas make sense within those areas you have assessments that make sense in terms of the standards that you have and the goals you're trying to hit um so all those things kind of make sense to you and so if you have that alignment and it's across everything it makes it much easier because of the kind of some of the standardization it's not it's not that every classroom is doing the same thing in the same way but with the assessment keys

053that they're they're similar assessments and and know that they're you know showing if the standards are being met or not then it's easy to see if where kids are and and how they're doing and um maybe where the deficiencies are and where do we need to get in and offer support um and if you know we get to a point where we feel that that kiddo is good again and we can try that assessment again and maybe try it in a different way as a check for learning so if if we can have that all set up and and to a great extent if i mean the race to the top program over the years that that was a huge part of what race's laptop was for the district was that that curriculum alignment piece

054and trying to get to that um coherent guaranteed viable curriculum that we have in the district the the last piece of that is then having um that's a lot of data um ultimately and and so having something that allows you to crunch it do the analysis and analysis and put out something that can be used quickly and on the fly um you know with a lot of a lot of assessments that teachers do they're formative they're kind of just happening as we go they're quick and and it's a kind of a quick check and you know where are we and you move on um but i i think the the question you're asking is more centered around kind of the summative piece and um kind of ultimately showing that what would you really know um

055about this standard or what we're trying to do in school here and so um i think you have to have something like that for for staff to access to know what's happening with students and where where we need to provide the support for those kids so that they can have the achievement that we hope of them thank you i thank you again uh this next question will be asked by mrs crossman and uh just keep in mind it is a two-part question okay and also i just wanted to um mr varner had asked me to start a clock for 75 minutes and we are at 30 minutes remaining on that so about 45 minutes left of our 90 minute time frame so um we're halfway through the questions so just to give everybody an idea

056on that um my question for you mr fueling how do you describe the roles of the superintendent and board and how do they work together and then the second question part of that would be how would you keep the board informed of developments in the district thank you mrs crosstown um so you i your your official role to me is you are the community um in you are this distilled representation of the community so as as your only employee um you know the the schools are are the community schools and so as your only employee your guidance your you know your your wishes are what we're trying to execute kind of within the parameters that that were allowed um i mean ultimately there is law on some of those things so um i i think

057the what what's really important i mean we have to have a good relationship but i i think the the the healthy relationship is that you all have to have a good relationship and then we have a good relationship um that kind of high functioning board where you're presuming positive intentions and i i think i mean i've probably been in front of 20 boards in my time most of them back in wisconsin but um you guys you have it and the the agreement isn't always there um different opinions but i think the presuming positive intentions piece is i i can't imagine it being any better um and and so to me that that is huge i feel like with the current superintendent you you completely believe that as well and if you all believe that and

058that trust is there that that is going to get you um down the road you need to go um so i think the the next piece then was asking about sorry i'm just going to reference the question um how would you keep the board informed of developments within right right um so well the one other thing i've mentioned then otherwise like the relationship ultimately board you're setting policy um and in in my role um and and kind of just otherwise providing guidance in my role i'm executing right so um i'm the chief executive officer the executive officer is the one who is supposed to make things happen um and you know i might create regulations that we might create regulations along the way to kind of further define that and help those processes along um

059but it's i i i i think of myself as um in in executing those things like kind of bringing your will um and and if you are going to have a bullhorn to be able to speak as the board amongst the schools and what you want to see i'm kind of the you know the volume i guess um and the message uh kind of coming through and making sure everyone's hearing it and making making those things happen um then as far as um keeping the board informed i think that um having i mean regular meetings and i know this already happens with the current superintendent and the board president um i'm not i'm not sure actually if there's regular meetings outside of that with all the board members but but i think that having some

060kind of regular meeting with all the members individually um and not to generate a walking quorum and i'm i'm aware of that but um but but i i think that relation again that relationship is so important with all of you and it's about building that trust and not that i'm always going to agree with every opinion you have and you're not always going to agree with mine but at least you know we're we're on the same page um [Music] having you know just kind of regular checkup emails along the way i think is you know currently what what you expect and i mean ultimately some of this i i think what you expect is what i would do um you would always have access to um a phone number to give me a call or

061send me a text if there was ever really pressing issues you'd probably get a phone call from me or i would expect a phone call from you um you know and potentially if there was some type of emergency situation would be kind of excuse me a text blast um along the way but um you know with that communication um i think we would all kind of the goal is ultimately we're all on the same page and we have the same information you're not always going to be able to communicate kind of in real time as some things maybe occur but then that goes back to the trust it goes back to the relationships that we have and knowing the type of people you are and what you may expect you having trust in me to

062make decisions um in some of those circumstances um but ultimately i i want to put you in the best position for success so you know when you're having meetings with us i'm i'm trying to get you the information you need i mean there's information you're requesting but there's other information that is helpful to the process i'm trying to get that to you i'm trying to put you in the best position to make good decisions um and that's not just you know not just trying to make you look good but because i want you to make the best decisions for our kids and for our staff so that ultimately is um i think how i feel the relationship should look like in that communication piece that's the secondary um part i think that really is is

063kind of just embedded within that that first need as well and again i i don't know you know just having that relationship in communication doesn't mean that we aren't going to disagree on some items um but but having that presumption of positive intentions um having that good relationship having that trusted you know that that's that's humans we're just not always going to agree but i'm going to carry out with the board ultimately what the board wishes thank you mr feeling the next question will be asked by mr mike walker have you how do you determine if perfect if professional development provided by the district is improving student learning and teacher administrator performance and morale thank you mr walker so i want to start with the morale um she's a little first because i think that

064can be a part of it but but it it also can be um have other influences and just to kind of i guess clarify my thoughts on it um so morale is clearly really important um we wouldn't talk about it so much i think if it wasn't and and organizations with with high morale um they just operate better um i would argue that a lot of that has to do with trust again if you have employees that feel like they're trusted and they feel like they can trust their their you know supervisors management um that is usually going to build some morale um with with the professional development um piece of it so clearly if if you are good at um if you if you believe you are good at what you are trying to

065do if you're if you're good at executing you have that kind of self-efficacy as they call it um that in itself you know research psychological research shows you usually that that brings rap like that brings a good sense of because you you know you bring value um as long as you're being recognized you know by your um by your supervisor or whatever it might be um and so if if professional development is making people better at what they do and they they recognize that i think that will that would kind of logically then lead to a building morale um in a sense of you know so much of what the shift in education has been a lot with education reform in the last 40 years and um some good and some bad um but i

066think one of the good things is that you know trying to recognize that this isn't something that is done on an island um and you know we need to you're really going to utilize your resources you need to work together and and be able to have this you have this common interest and this common goal and and i don't know everything and you don't know everything but together we know a lot more um and we can come up with some creative ideas to for solutions to things and so i think believing then that group and what the group can do to call it group advocacy if if you believe that as a group you can do those those sorts of great things and you can execute that to me would should bring that same level

067of morale building as the self-efficacy but um what's interesting about that is there's this um researcher john hatty who over the years has kind of been updating this document through analyzing all these educational studies about what matters in student learning um and and the number one thing it's not the number one thing for a long time has been this group advocacy and if a group has that that tends to have or that has the greatest impact in in research of anything that we can do for kids is simply our group of teachers understanding believing that they are making a difference as a group it's making even a bigger difference that they can execute so um so the the caution then is that um morale can also be influenced by a lot of other things and

068so i just i don't i don't i wouldn't say that you throw out a professional development entirely because um morale because there might be you might find some places where morale isn't spectacular um because there may be some other things i i think it's fair to say there could be other things that influence that um but so if you're looking at at least if morale is something that you're you're caring to um kind of track and see and know what's happening um it's not the most um objective thing to measure but but i think you can get a sense of it if you're there i think you'd have a sense of it i think you can do you know survey data um and and just anecdotally you know kind of what what is happening so

069um if we're but so that's kind of that's that morale piece and i just i want to leave that that alone i think for there um hopefully that makes sense but then kind of getting into the student learning um piece of it so um one of the one of the really important things and again this gets talked a lot about on um in my financial world and when i go to events and conferences and um and quite honestly there's the finance people get frustrated with how things will get implemented and usually it's professional development type items you know these initiatives that are supportive of professional development but there's no there's no sun setting or or plan in place to evaluate is this making a difference and and i i just i wanted to say this

070because i think this is part of the heart of the question is is it okay to to bring in an initiative that you think is gonna do awesome things for kids and staff i i don't know that anyone would disagree with that that that it is good but i think it's really fair and and an obligation on all of us not only for the the sustainability of programs the sanity of our people and the limited resources we have um to take a step back then and say okay so what is what is the time frame we expect to see results because most of the time it's not going to be a year and a i think that's something that it's really hard because um over time we just expect things to happen faster because the

071world around us happens faster and i just think it's really it's unrealistic to see big changes in the year um with almost anything we do but is three years a fair time frame maybe i mean it might it might depend on the program but to actually have a place and time to say okay let's stop and take a look at this and are are we getting what we expected out of this and does it make sense and considering how much funds and and really i mean clearly on my side the funding piece is huge but the the time resource piece that um that is put on on all of our staff it you know that it's just i i think it has been become a little overwhelming in ways and so just being really cognizant

072of how important that is and and what a special resource that is and you need to make thoughtful decisions in in kind of appreciating it in that way um so again so i guess the point was most districts have have problems with that and um you might have different opinions of if we do or not but i think that what's important is just what do we expect to do going forward and i think that that's a reasonable place to be with any of this pd so then so then the question is how do you know if it's working right so you have the time frame on it well how do you know it's working well because the superintendent said so and and that's not a good answer right so you want to have you want

073to have something else there and um clearly you have the trust but there's there's a further obligation to your responsibility to to make sure that you know it's been being used well so the the common place to go i think with any of this stuff especially if it is over a number of years as you're looking at standardized test scores and um you know there's such a an enormous focus on these um across the nation across the state and i would just say that that you need to there should be some caution there because there are i think one of the things that over time um i mean clearly there's only so much we can do but i i would probably challenge you over time to consider the to consider what those scores are really

074telling us um and um i i just i don't think it's really what we think it is in in its purest form there are a lot of other things going on there and so it may not be the best gauge it can it be a place to look absolutely um can it be a part of the equation absolutely but but for that to be the be all end all um i i would question i would question that um sorry this one's vibrating um so the the prop the some of the problems some of the concerns that you know standardized cesarean are looking at just a couple places in general it's math and ela and right and there's a lot more going on we want to see success across the board so it has to be

075something bigger than that um i don't know that the the incentives are always aligned properly where the results are always really meaningful um and and the the example i would give and i've given this over the years i had a student um who was absolutely brilliant when i was teaching at east troy high school and um when i when it came to his standardized test he i was just very shocked how he did not come in as proficient and he was well well below standard um and he just didn't care about it he wasn't concerned about it he he decided to do the writing portion in spanish because he thought it would be funny um and and i was being judged on that so that that was kind of a real um personal hit to

076me um and you see across the board nationally ect and sat scores starting to be not um used as much are as or weighted as much in decisions about college entrance so again just something that i think you all just need to keep in mind but it where it does go then where i think it goes and it comes back to what we're talking about earlier you have you have this coherent guaranteed viable curriculum you have all of these assessments aligned curriculums aligned assessments are aligned you would be able to look at longitudinal data data between classes you can see hopefully that growth over time better scores over time if you have that right software program you can go in and offer support to kids if they need it you can offer support to teachers

077if they need it right so so one of one of the the bad things i think that came with educational reform is there's this focus on um you know if things aren't going right then you know that that that teacher is ineffective and and so that you got to do something uh you know punitively um and when you look at countries that are actually really successful countries like denmark country countries like singapore um that do you have some sort of testing requirement like this it's not that it's punitive it it's okay so so where do we go in and support how are we going to help our staff right and so that kind of it's that that professional development um kind of spiral i i think and you're just you're just trying to build people

078along the way um so i i don't know if that answers um everything but but i just i feel like there's a lot we can do within our schools to to measure um what we see what the the success is with professional development and i think we have the capacity ourselves to do a lot of that and we already do fortunately with some of the work that we've done it just might take some some fine tuning thank you mr feeling i'll be asking the next question faced with a significant change in revenue increase or decrease how would you approach budget development for the upcoming fiscal year and share your experience budgeting and deficit spending thank you president barnard so um big picture the answer is strategic plan strategic plan strategic plan you you know the

079the circumstance of your budget does not take that focus away um in in to me and this was in my my previous district as well that is the crutch that you can go to anytime and not not that it shouldn't be kind of in thought on a regular basis like the community and you have laid out here here's here's what we want here's what's important to us but i think oftentimes we get so caught up in the process um and it's really confusing and and there's so many angles and so many things to worry about um that we kind of just we can lose track of it but that that is that is just it makes things so clear and not that it always makes the answer you know obvious but it just makes it

080really clear that you can lean back i'm really okay so let's let's just take a step back let's let's go back here what are we trying to do what does our community want to do what does the board think we should be doing that that is such a valuable thing and not not every district has that um so it i mean this is really i i know it's a big process i know it's a big deal to go through but it's this is a good thing um for everybody that that it exists um more detail kind of to your to your question so um the budget process as i see it in the ups or downs of revenue um you when you're doing a budget process you start you start with revenue because you can't

081go anywhere without that you don't know you have no there's no meaning to the rest of it um there's no obvious kind of end point to even think about if you don't have that revenue piece you need to know how much money you have to work with um you then you're rolling your costs forward at that point assuming no changes and and just to kind of get a baseline but i but i think again it's a really bad assumption it's kind of like when you're bringing in initiatives um it's a really bad assumption that if things look good or they look fine you have a balanced budget that there should be no changes right the the this is about utilizing your resources in the best way you can to get the most bang for your

082buck within the parameters of what is important to your community right so i might have this idea that i think is amazing um that i think is going to do a lot for our kids and we may talk about it but ultimately if it doesn't fit within the strategic plans if it just there's something off about it then that's okay then that's something that maybe doesn't happen but but having those conversations and um having that guidance through it i think is um is critical and just just assuming um things should carry on as that and again that's in good times all that when when times are bad financially like you have to have those kind of conversations but those conversations should not really be any different when when times are good it's just it's a

083question of do you have x amount of resources what's the best way to utilize them um so i think just kind of generically back to the question but do you have really substantial increases or decreases the conversations have to be a little more substantial because you're you're talking about um the magnitude of the impact can be so big um you have to have some i think bigger conversations longer conversations about you know what are we trying to do here and how is this aligning with the strategic plan of the district and you know what what are our limitations and as you all know those those i feel like you know we got a one-year reprieve this year but we've had those kind of conversations and we're probably going to have more over than over the

084next years um so my my experience um as you know i've been here almost eight years now um had a little over three years of experience before i came here um with a worked with the school district in wisconsin in in this same capacity um i i worked for a company that did this kind of work for districts all across the state of wisconsin um and it was um you know i think at that time what was i i had only been doing it for about two and a half years and it was a really unique circumstance because i i knew i was looking to move west at that time in this company robert w baird who was the most respected like financial institution in the state of wisconsin and they have this whole division

085dedicated to school finance um and they they basically came and asked like asked me to please come and work for them and and it was about the most flattering thing that i had ever had happen to me at that time um so you know to me early on it felt like i was being recognized for for doing this work and i feel like i've been recognized for doing this work here in in nevada and just been fortunate to work with such great people here in the district and um and around the state um there's just some some a lot of really good people that care a whole lot about this um and so you know and one of the things kind of a side note to this i hope i answered the question i and

086this is a little unique to me and i just i don't want you to feel like um you know if this were to happen that somehow you're you're losing your finance guy um i i think you know so there's two really good examples in the state of where the finance person moving into the superintendent's role has been really successful um and i'll say i don't know of any that that have failed but i only know these two so i don't know what that means exactly but um dr dave jensen out in humboldt who's a fantastic guy um he started in a finance role and then if you've been around a little bit longer jeff zander out and elko um and and jeff jeff was the man statewide when it came to finance and then when

087he moved into that role what what it allowed him to do he became the go-to guy for of the rural superintendents for almost anything because he had that financial background and you know just because you're being involved there doesn't mean you don't have an eye and you don't have like we're we would find somebody we're going to find somebody better than me um to come into this role and it is with with that when we get to the legislative session we're going to have a lot going for us and a lot going for all that i think the rural districts so um i i don't want that i don't want if that is a concern at all i don't want to be concerned ultimately i'm i'm still in the building and um has access to

088me like i have access to mr stokes um so i just hope i hope that's not a that's not a fear thank you the next question mr president if i may um that concludes an hour and 15 minutes so we have about we have about 15 minutes remaining and you have two questions left mr mr president i'm sorry to interrupt but i just want the board to be aware that the agenda does include a hard stop date or a stop time of 9 30. okay thank you the next question to be uh asked by don greenie what experience do you have in advocating for public education at local state and national levels thank you mr creany um so at the local level start there um i i think it's important to understand kind of go

089back to the the question about our relationship and you know what you know what is the board and kind of where am i in this picture and again as far as i'm concerned you you are the community you are this distilled version of the community and and so when when over the years you're listening to me go on and on about some of these topics and the the graphs of of uh you know some good and some doom and gloom over the years um i feel like i'm advocating locally just there because you then are going out and you have your friends and your families um and and i think yes we think of advocacy as you know kind of these events and i don't it doesn't always have to be and i even think

090you know some of the smaller conversations that i have with my friends um here in the community they those are really important because i they have groups of friends and people that they go work with and they talk about these things so i think that's a that's a really important um it's just it's important to keep in mind that i don't it doesn't have to be an event necessarily um i've been i've been to rotary to to speak um some years ago on the district and what's going on here there was a presentation to nnda a number of years ago at a breakfast event they had the leadership carson city group has come through the schools a number of times um and i've spoken with them on school funding and other issues um so so

091that you know kind of is i think the local local piece um at the state level i i think you know i have more experience than most and and some of it is just being fortunate to be in the position i'm in and um taking advantage of the access that i have to to certain people and and time to do some of these things so um i i'm a regular participant and and attendee and legislative during the legislative session at committee hearings up until this point generally just about funding issues and concerns that we've had over the years i think some of you um join me in mrs crosman i think i remember you a number of years back um being there uh at one time so um meeting with our senator um for the

092time of being here it's been bank key keffer who's just a fantastic guy um and he's been very gracious with his time um with carson city um two assemblymen al cramer and pt o'neal um over time um working with al cramer he was um absolutely critical in helping us get assembly bill 244 passed in 2019 um at that time we were so concerned about explosive growth in the district and having the capital funds to to provide facilities for kids um and and you know covet has kind of taken this conversation sideways unfortunately and that was a lot of work um and and it really uh made me appreciate the importance of the relationships that you need to have not only with your own um people but the importance of knowing other senators and some women

093from other areas and they may not represent you but it it is really hard to get a bill passed um when you're carson city and we're not that big you gotta you gotta know some people and and so that's just really really important um i've worked with other districts when the nevada association of superintendents develops their invest document about funding education that's something that a lot of the finance folks from other districts come together and kind of help formulate some of the at least the numbers and trying to tell some of that story um i worked in 2019 kind of behind the scenes with some of the initial development questions of the people-centered funding plan um and that didn't actually work out um and how we hoped uh well um and currently on the commission

094on school funding so it's not necessarily advocacy specific to our district um but it's hard not to advocate for our district with um the way certain things within the new model um impact us and and and there's other districts you know kind of in the same boat so there is some advocacy going on there but it's not exactly to the to the legislative level it's more about advocating to get a certain opinion from our group that then moves moves on um at the federal level truly i i i've never other than i think sending maybe a couple letters over the years and even back in wisconsin um i have not um really been very personally engaged at the federal level although my um my national school business network which i used to go to conferences

095before covid and a certification through them and they're great information they're they're very involved at the federal level so they'll ask us to sometimes write things or give opinions on things and that's kind of how the federal level be involved um i do know we only have four minutes left and i i will uh make quick work of the next question okay that question will be asked by joe cassiopo all right i'll get to it quick since i know we're running out of time if there was an event of potential unethical behavior how would you respond to allegations of this unethical behavior in our district so um educators as you may or may not know in education we are like legally held to a higher standard of care um with our interactions and what is

096going on in schools and expectations for us so any type of accusation of unethical behavior is is significant and and i don't i don't think anybody would minimize minimize that or or or sweep that aside whether they came up um just like any other concern um you know you investigate um and and you know you go through the it's due process right you're you're you're you're innocent until proven guilty you're just trying to gather information um you've probably had a conversation with that person and the other parties involved gathering all that um and then ultimately once you have all that information you are you know potentially making a determination as to you know what was there really some type of event here that that is of serious concern um is it something there's a miscommunication

097is it a misunderstanding and and that that happens as well um you know the way the way things are said the way things are done aren't always exactly clearly understood or or you know that it's just the way things happen um but once you have all that information you make that determination um and again you kind of you're having some trust in the supervisor making that determination as to you know the magnitude of the infraction um if it's small um maybe rather harmless maybe maybe not intentional um just not well thought you know it might might just be a verbal thing it might be kind of a early progressive discipline step just to kind of reinforce the importance of you know you don't want to there's mistakes but the the unethical nature there's to me

098there's a higher um level of concern and caution that comes with that so i think it's just important that that is um clear um but if it's significant then you know you're you're taking that then to another level you still have your your processes to go through but you're you're talking google console i think um at a minimum just to get some guidance and talk about next steps you don't want to overstep um with you know a punishment or anything like that um but you know you want to make sure you're doing the right thing and you're not putting your your district your positions um and your your community and kids in a really bad spot um in uh in in any way so that is all thank you thank you mr fueling what i'd

099like to do is thank you for participating in the interview today been very insightful provided us a lot of information that we needed to know normally we'd ask if you had any questions but we're out of time unfortunately uh we appreciate your candor we'll make a decision here before february 2nd or on february 2nd we'll be meeting again to make a decision and the web the video the interview will be posted on the website for everybody to see and the link will be provided for our community members to leave comments and then we'll be taking all those comments into consideration as we make our decision and then either dr oliver from nasby or i will be contacting each candidate after that so we appreciate your participating in this interview today and you're interested in serving

100as the superintendent of the carson city school district thank you thanks so much everyone take care thank you i think laurel just we have roughly 30 minutes now to yeah this time we'll be in recess until the next interview at 10 o'clock thank you [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] time [Music] oh [Music] wow [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] ah [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] my [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] foreign [Music] baby [Music] so 10 o'clock on april 25th 2022 we'll call the special session of the school board back into session and we're waiting for mr goldhart who is our next candidate

101is he up okay good morning how are you doing did you hear me great yeah can you hear us okay yes i can all right good good uh just on behalf of the board i wanted to introduce myself i'm richard varner i'm president of the board of trustees and on behalf of the board i want to thank you for your interest in serving as the superintendent of the carson city school district is not only our vision but our purpose to inspire and empower innovators leaders and thinkers by providing a quality education to all our students and we are pleased to have you today so that we may get to know you and i'll go ahead and introduce our board members now to my immediate right is mrs laurel crossman good morning next to her is

102mr mike walker good morning nice to meet you to my immediate left is mrs lupe ramirez good morning next to her is mr joe cassiopo good morning and then we have mr don carini uh good afternoon probably where you are it is afternoon here but morning for you good afternoon what i'd like to do now is just briefly explain the interview process the interviews will last approximately 70 to 90 minutes 75 minutes to 90 minutes and this would include a period of time for you to ask us questions the board has chosen to twit excuse me ten questions to ask you each trustee including myself will take time asking you questions as you're responding please don't think we're being rude if our head happens to be down at the time we will be taking notes

103but we will be listened to you intently we have received the packet of information that you submitted as requested and we thank you for that it'll help us get to know you better i appreciate it and then what i'd like to do at this time is just ask you to briefly introduce yourself and let us know what interested you in becoming or applying to be the superintendent of the carson city school district mr president yes i'm sorry to interrupt but i would just note uh for the record that the the interview will end at 11 30 um regardless whether all the questions have been out yes we have a hard time break at 11 30 so and we will as we go along the process mrs crossman will give you an update on the time

104of how much time you've spent so please introduce yourself well good morning to you in carson city my name is john goldhart i am a husband first to my wife roma we've been married for 33 years she is also an educator she describes herself as a recovering special education teacher she is also a former reading specialist and reading coach so we are an educator family and love that opportunity to be an educator family we're the parents of two adult sons our oldest son and his wife just had their very first child and our very first grandchild our son is currently attending enzyme college pursuing his bachelor's degree and then is going to pursue a master of social work degree and would like to become a social worker and therapist working with individuals with autism is

105what he would like to do our youngest son this past summer returned from serving as a missionary for our faith in montana and is currently a student at utah state university where he's pursuing a degree in aviation and his dream is to become a commercial pilot so that's our family i'm currently in my 33rd year as an educator it doesn't feel that long to me and i i feel like i bring a great depth of experiences at various levels however that experience means absolutely nothing if i haven't learned from those experiences to become both a better person and a better leader so each and every experience i've had the privilege of serving in this great education business i'm in has added another layer of growth another layer of opportunity to be better and both the

106good and the bad have improved me and have made me a better leader i will admit probably the most difficult of the 33 years has been serving as a superintendent during covet 19 and the pandemic and in a highly political community and a district with 15 board members where the mayor is also the chair and at the same time everywhere in the country where there's a lot of anger a lot of undermining a lot of difficulties however through that our leadership team was able to accomplish a great deal and that made me better and i've learned and grown from that to be a better leader and a better person the question though is why would i come to carson city as i mentioned in my letter carson city is a great family community i've been

107to carson city multiple times in my lifetime and have always loved the community my plan was to stay where i am for at least five years or even longer however there comes a time where you have to take a deep look inward and focus on what really matters most to you as an individual and the birth of my granddaughter had a great change for me and along with the pandemic i had some changes in what i thought was important and what i didn't realize was important and it changed my perspective i needed to be closer again to my family and i needed to be back in the west i am a westerner i believe in western values especially the western values of hard work respect and responsibility but even more important carson city has the

108perfect setup for a school district it is just the right size with just about seven thousand students it's large enough to provide excellent programming and services but small enough to be personal where you know one another a sense of family a sense of a team and working together and with one main high school and of course another high school to serve students with other needs there's one feeder system where all of our schools and all of the individuals working in our schools are engaging parents and families and aligning curriculum to meet the needs of our students to be successful in the 21st century and the other part that was really appealing is there's a strong tradition in your district of a really positive and effective relationship between the board of trustees and the superintendent where

109you collaborate well together on behalf of students doesn't mean it's always pollyanna but there's a real collaborative culture and when that happens you're able to get a lot more done on behalf of students and that's what i'm about is getting things done on behalf of students i'm looking for some place where something that some people would call small like carson city so i can focus on what matters most students and community engagement those matter to me a lot some tell me it's a step down to go from a larger district to a smaller district but i personally believe it is a step up from my perspective because my passion is about helping every student and i emphasize every student have a high quality education and that prepares every single one of those students for college

110or career or and to be effective citizens and to have meaningful life skills that will help them to be successful and that every one of our high school graduates after they walk across that stage at graduation have options for their future and that they should be able to pursue the dreams of their choice that is what makes us a success for us public education has been and will continue to be when done effectively a great equalizer for our society i don't consider it a vocation i consider it an advocation i also strongly believe that a strong public education system is essential to our form of government and to preserving our nation to have good citizens and i believe that together we can build upon and honor the great accomplishments of the past and that then

111we can together make that a brighter future for our students to me carson city would be as uh the music folks would call the crescendo of one's career a perfect size district supportive community and students that love their schools it's a perfect fit and a place that i would love to be a part of thank you as a very insightful introduction i appreciate it and we'll go ahead and now begin with our first question which will be asked by mr mike walker good morning mr goldhart what would your priorities be for the first 90 days in the district well my first i i provided you an entry plan but my one of the top priorities for me would be to start listening because i think one of the worst things a new leader can do

112in a district is come with an arrogant attitude and say i've come with all the answers and here's what we're going to do that is wrong because you need to honor the work that's been done in a district i need to learn about the work that's been done in the district and you need to get to know the people in the district so my first 90 days i'm going to be doing a lot of listening and learning i'm going to meet with board members one-on-one i'm going to meet with local community members one-on-one students teachers principals custodians bus drivers as many people in the community i can get to when i came to this particular community my first 90 days i met with over 300 people and it gave me the opportunity to truly understand

113the perspectives of the individuals and what their feelings were about the schools and they gave me a better insight that i didn't know then i'm able to take that information and learn from it and then i can share that with the board of trustees and say here's what i've learned and this is what i feel could help us as we now move forward to improve upon what we've done and that we consider this or this i i have to build those relationships but i also have to learn the other group that's really important for me to get to know are state assemblymen state senators because you need to work with those individuals and befriend them and support them but also so you can work with them so you have supporters for your district and for

114your students with legislation and then having community members your rotary clubs your kiwanis clubs and your faith-based groups as well it gives you more support as a community and i gain a better understanding of where we can go to get help for students if there's other groups out there that can help us and support us but the most important thing as i said before is giving me the true perspective because i don't come to the district with this agenda where i'm saying here is my agenda and i'm going to do this this and this my only agenda is student success but i first have to listen i first have to learn and then i can lead based upon that and align with the current strategic plan that's in place and work with the board and

115with the leaders so that we can continue to move forward effectively and as i find things that say hey we could do this to improve we could do this to improve we can do so so that's what i would do in my first 90 days still running the district you're doing that at the same time listen learn lead thank you mr goldhart my question for you is community engagement and connectivity are vital for a school district what will you do to ensure the stakeholders and members of the community feel ownership and value in the school district excellent the entry part is the first part of that i've got to go out and meet them they need to know who i am the second part of that is not just lip service that our district involves

116them we just don't say come over and help with the bake sale that we want you to be truly involved with the process we i assume we have parents that are helping on various school committees we have parents that we involve with initiatives in the school district we have parents that are on committees when we're adopting new curriculum or new uh textbooks so that we make sure we have those perspectives that i am involving myself in community organizations that are are important in the community and that i'm visible with those folks and involved with those folks and that we're inviting them to our schools that they are welcome that they know when they come that they can be not told what are you doing here but how can we help you and what can we

117do to help you uh be a part of us i know that during the time i was a teacher education professor i taught a class in family involvement and the thing i told my future teachers all the time was you're not just trying to get family involvement in name only it's about true family involvement means that they're really involved with their students school life and some of our parents cannot come to the school every day and help out in the classroom but that doesn't mean they're not involved because you can get their involvement by being involved in their child's life and being involved in their education and being involved in their success and that they know you are a partner in that success and that we're not in us and them we are true partners

118where we reach out and work together in communicating with each other and talking to each other and in making sure the student is successful because that's the bottom line territorialism has never been successful in schools i've been in this business long enough i've seen it over and over again when we become territorial it turns off the community it turns off those that we serve and it hurts our kids so again in getting that community engagement we invite we let them in we ask and we remind ourselves our parents know more about our students than we do and we have to always remember that even when it's hard they know them more and so we need to ask them about the child and learn more about the child we also need to find out what works

119for them in helping with the child's education and then beyond that community members coming in to help with children's education for work-based experiences for speakers in classrooms for providing various materials to learn better science or social studies or so forth there are so many assets in the community that can be done we even started a partnership here with the boy scouts where the local boy scout camp is never used other than the summer so i worked out a partnership with the scouts that we could take our elementary schools to their camp so they could then do their science and botany class experiment uh experiments and activities there by their little lake that's not too far away that's better for our students and they liked it because they're letting their land be used instead of just

120sitting empty so we have to build those partnerships boys and girls clubs i don't know if there's if there's one there they are a great partner ymcas um other organizations your business community chamber of commerce i've had the privilege of being on our board of directors for the chamber here they come forward and say how can i help with your cte program we bring them in line them up with the cte program so we have more job embedded experiences for our students and also younger students so they can get an introduction it's a win-win when we do that i find it exciting to have those community partners and engagement uh both in the community and with parents it makes education better and when we can do it right it is masterful and the children come

121out ahead where they have you know that full partnership with the community it helps with the curriculum because it's helping generate those pathways for kids in a direction that matter you have more engaged parents more engaged families and you're helping your staff as well so it's a win-win i have the next question here given the current climate regarding equity based learning crt covet response and political divisiveness how will you lead the district to gain community and staff support while advancing the academic success of our students well first of all with equity there's a lot of misunderstanding about it i don't think there is a school district in the country that i'm aware of that is actually teaching crt and it shouldn't be as regarded to what it really is that is a college level law

122school-based approach to teaching individuals and is not meant to be taught to k-12 children in regards to equity the most important equity to me is academic equity that is the most important and one that should be focused on and by that when i use that word all are all of our students having access to high levels of learning high level courses and experiences that lead them to success after high school does our data show that some of our students who are students of color or students from poverty are they not graduating at a higher rate are they not taking ap classes or dual enrollment classes at a high of a rate we've got to look at why are our number of students getting ass do we disaggregate that and we see the difference between gender

123race and ethnicity special ed uh ell and so forth we address that and find out why and if there are systems in place to provide supports in a multi-tiered system of support to bring people up to help them succeed that's the most important for me the greatest example i learned of that is in my current position when i came here and found out that the district still at this time was leveling students into four levels when they hit secondary education and the bottom two levels weren't taught all of the content and of course the scores would be lower you're not getting the content then when i dug into the data deeper found out that the majority of the students in the level one which is the lowest level courses were students of color or students

124from poverty and the far majority of the students in the level four classes were white and from upper class that wasn't acceptable to me and i have been working hard and got a policy pass but it still isn't implemented because it is still highly controversial to get that work to have us so we can get the students taught all standards and still have honors classes and still we want more we want to open the door to more the other part with that is making sure our schools have a culture and climate that is welcoming to students that we truly show care that we sh we truly welcome students and we want them all to succeed now regards to covet protocols what i have found to be most effective is basing it upon a metric so

125that decisions are based upon that and not having to continue to either vote all the time or go through multiple sessions of anger where it's like you know we're at this point where we have substantial our metric says substantial we do this we're at minimal it says we do this and i know regardless there will always be individuals who will not support it and it will be difficult but we try to make it as clear and as transparent as possible and provide as many mitigations as possible in our schools to protect students air quality cleaning temperature checks washing uh separation if necessary masking if it's at that level and and remembering even those people who come in who are very angry probably we have to remember they care about their students too they're showing it

126in a different way and we have to remember that they all have we all have the same goal and that's to help our students be successful and sometimes we have to agree to disagree but the bottom line is we all want to do something for our students and trying to do that together is better but sometimes it's not going to happen unfortunately but the covert protocols have been hard unfortunately that i think this is going to be around a while but the equity part has gotten really some interesting traction in the past year but to me again the most important parts of that are academic equity and then with covid it is making sure we have the mitigations for safety and that we're very clear in regards to what and why we're doing it and

127then i'm a believer in having a metric to base our decisions on so that it makes it tends to make it less political and less difficult to have continued votes and changes on it unless you change the metrics and that would require that thank you dr goldhart i will be asking the next question describe effective methods you have used to ensure the safety and well-being of students and staff include how you've addressed diversity equity and inclusion in your district okay safety i'll give you an example from when i was a high school principal that comes to mind we had a situation where we had three groups of students who were not getting along and for the first time in years our school was having fights that they had never seen before and so what i

128did and i said this is enough and had the resource officer involved they said we just can't keep sitting people out of here all the time it's not solving anything so i brought them all in with their parents and we had some conversations and went to a root cause analysis of what is the problem and wanted to know why the fighting was taking place and found out the reason why the fighting was taking place was because of racial name-calling that was not known in the building and by addressing the root cause we enhanced the safety of the school and also protected the dignity of other individuals which was far more important to me to do than just keep suspending and kicking out people although sometimes you have to have people go because of safety issues

129but getting to the root cause is far more important if you can so we set up new parameters of how we deal with issues of bullying and name calling and what was before considered small issues we made into bigger issues as far as bringing in and having consequences and counseling and discussions with individuals because it prevented the bigger issues and it kept the school safer now in regards to the other part of your question i have had the opportunity in multiple schools of bringing more students into at that place i should i will never can say is a place at the table and the first way you do that is by asking the hard questions who is learning who is not who is participating who is not and why when i was a middle school

130principal we had great involvement on our ptsa but i also had the largest number of hispanic students and i had a native american reservation in my boundary but we had no parents so this isn't acceptable so we reached out and said come join us we need your voice they didn't know they could the invitation opened the door and then they came and then more thereafter and then just became a common occurrence after that and it enhanced the parent group because now we have the perspectives of more families and we had a better understanding of student issues especially also on what i had a community council as well and just that simple invitation helped alleviate a lot of other issues that we had then i was in the salt lake city school district we enacted a

131strong professional learning experience where we had all of our school leaders at the district and school levels go through a full year with a group out of i believe it was portland or seattle with courageous conversations because we'd had multiple ocr complaints before i'd arrived and so we're looking at how do we address this problem in order to do that we've got to get down get to the hard part of the discussion and admitting and addressing and it was a tough year there's some people that did not want to discuss it but we needed to and we were able to solve some of the issues and address issues and help prevent issues by doing so so i would first thing i would do coming to carson city is i would want to look at the

132data i would want to during of course those first 90 days the stories i hear and reaching out and finding out if there are issues for students in this area that we find out where is it happening why is it happening what has been addressed and then we can figure out how we can make it better because i believe everybody should come into a school and feel safe both physically and emotionally schools should be the most inviting place anywhere so that anybody who comes in feels safe both on the outside and on the inside and that's a lofty goal because it's not always the case but it's something i believe in and it's something i strive to do because i remember what it was like as a student myself when i was growing up in

133poverty and i wasn't the cool kid and i was the one being made fun of and getting beat up in the bathroom and nothing got done so i get it and i don't want other students to have to deal with that when they're in school i don't want any student to feel uncomfortable unsafe unwanted or uncared for because schools are to be places where kids are cared for and that they know they can go and they have an advocate there and they go there and they know that they can learn and grow and become something that they're not that's what it did for me it changed my life because of some special teachers and i want to do the same and i've been doing that for my career for others schools matter and as a

134superintendent i have to make sure that we would do that for our students in carson city thank you dr goldhart question five how will you meet the individual learning needs of every student to foster student achievement with a growth mindset and how will you track and measure that the growth mindset is a quite a concept i i've always liked it i studied it quite a bit uh when i was teaching my students the carol dweck approach and it's true the key to it though is the adults have to have the growth mindset first in a collective efficacy where when we believe our students are capable and we believe ourselves are capable it changes the results with kids now regards to that individual part of a growth plan or a learning plan i have come through

135the years to become a believer in a more competency-based approach uh to learning instead of a time-based approach i never thought in my in my younger years that i'd ever come to that conclusion but i have because it is not only more equitable but it is more actually more rigorous and those that aren't familiar with it it's saying you are expected to master this competency and you have to master the competency before you go to the next competency it's not based upon time it's based upon learning the competency and so every student can be at a different level as far as where they are in the competencies within a course and some students could finish quicker if they needed to and move on but could be part of their own plan within that course and

136each student inside your learning management system would have those competencies on there and you would be keeping track of those so that you would know what those plans are now of course some of our students may have modifications or accommodations based upon an iep or they may have an accommodation because of a 504 accommodation or there may be an ell support for the student and that's okay because we're still learning the competencies but just in a different way to accommodate the needs of the student so one of our schools here started an approach that has been highly successful where they have multi-age classrooms where you may have students that are in the same classroom that are in two grades but they're working on the same competencies together and when the older student in that grade

137finishes those competencies they go right over to the other classroom and it's no big deal in the building it's not looked at as this bad thing and the kids have done better since going to this system and they're learning more and the data of their learning on other assessments has gone up the attendance at the school has improved and the behaviors at the school have improved because the students are feeling more successful and the approach is more student centered the same school is now piloting a standards-based report card so that they can see how it works they asked us if they could do it and then they'll share with the rest of the district if it's successful or not so there's a an alignment with everything in regards to their learning and it will be

138it'll be fun to see how that works out with that part of things but having that plan but the other part of that is aligning it with a student's a comprehensive guidance approach with the counselors and having a college and career readiness plan where in their secondary years in grades 6 through 12 where they're meeting with those guidance counselors at least yearly with a parent preferably and mapping out what they'd like to see in their future and that can change with kids and then when they're hitting ninth grade they're aligning their coursework with their desired outcomes that they want to see happen and i call them pathways and elective classes should be aligned with your pathways and your core classes you're looking at ones that would be better with your pathway and that's another part

139because that could be more individualized for students to be more successful so when they graduate it is truly individualized for them in the pathway they want to pursue post high school and it can be pretty exciting does it take extra work yes is it worth it yes because it's about the student again and helping them to be successful so uh either a standards-based competency-based approach you can put those plans in learning management systems marking off where they are along the way and students can go at their pace and making it so there's no shaming that they can be successful we just want them to be successful in getting their standards met that's what matters to us is that they learn and allowing the accommodations for students that need it and at the same time we

140have good comprehensive guidance for our seven through six through twelve students in planning pathways for their future and looking at options and doing those online experiences where they can think about different career options and what does it require to do that career and what are they really interested in passionate and they're experiencing different types of courses and then they start to kind of hollow you know hone in a little more with uh detailed courses and it's just part of their ccr plan college and career readiness plan for their future okay and just as um for your information because the president has asked me to keep track of time we are halfway through the questions and we have about 50 minutes remaining in our 90-minute time frame so my question for you is how do you

141measure the roles or how do you describe the roles of the superintendent and board how do they work together and the second part of that question is how would you keep the board informed of developments in the district thank you the first part of the question i i asked dr oliver to give you a visual that i really liked from one of my mentors and it's the tennis court kind of visual that i got from dr gorman uh because i think it's very well done in regards to that superintendent and board relationship where you have on the one side of the court have the board of education the policy they set the policy for the district they set the vision for the district they set the mission for the district uh the beliefs of the

142district they also are part of the development of the strategic plan a major part of the strategic plan and then on the other side of the net you have the staff superintendent side they're implementing the strategic plan and implementing and making sure the vision and mission is being carried out in the district and that the policies set by the board are in place and happening and they're accounting and the superintendent is accounting to the board saying yes here's where we are with the strategic plan here's what's happening with that plan this policy you know is where we are here this policy we had to consider looking at but the board has that ultimate choice and in the net is what he called the theory of action but i think the more important part of it

143is isn't the vision part of that where the common vision of what we want our students to be some districts it's a portrait of a graduate is that big piece and in that going around with that ball back and forth we're not in a win lose it's a win-win match because we are working together hand in hand for the betterment of students we're the one side elected by the public to oversee to set budgets to set policy to hire and evaluate a superintendent and make sure that the day-to-day operations of the district are being handled effectively and that the superintendent's accountable to that group and then on the other side you have a superintendent who's running the day-to-day affairs of the district making sure that the strategic plan is taking place that the vision of

144the district is center of all and that that mission is part of us it's part of what we do and that the the policies are taking place but it's it's done together you can't do it in isolation and as far as working together and in communication with the board in addition to board meeting you know information i believe in multiple ways of providing communication for the board i like to have periodic one-on-one meetings with board members just so i can find out their particular constituencies may have different issues because my board is so large i can only do it once a quarter but in a smaller board you can do it a lot more often and it could even also be a quick phone call a board report every week that's what i've been doing

145any updates any information that the board ought to know they get i get an article that i think is good i share it if i get something that looks like something the board might like it's an online webinar or something that's you know optional here you go and then if there's any emergencies or issues that go on in the district we immediately share those with the board i think the board should know if a student's being taken in an ambulance you ought to know just so you're aware of it if you get called you're aware if there is a lockdown in the building the board ought to be informed if there are other issues i believe the board should be informed and so that would be shared with you and if there's other ways that

146the board prefers then i'd be open to that the board i have prefers has preferred email but i think i i've thought texting might be quicker where you could give some of that information of a ambulance coming to a school or there was a student that was ran away from the school and they were found you could text that and get it a lot quicker so that's depending on the board's you know per preference and i'm open to that and then board reports that there are certain parts that they prefer they're a little different but again it's having that ongoing meeting and with fewer members on a board it would be really exciting to have ongoing conversations with all members of the board beyond the board meeting where we'd have formals and even just quick

147calls so we can stay in touch and we're always together and then i also like to invite forward members to school events you know so you're always aware of them and that you're welcome because i know board members enjoy it and especially if they're in your districts the board superintendent relationship part though i think is is vital and up front having some time to get together and talking about what's worked really well with you and some things you would like to see get better or that you want me to try i think it would be a great experience for us and i would like to i would respect that and would want to work with you as a partner because we are partners thank you how do you determine if professional development provided by the

148district is improving student learning and teacher administration performance and morale every professional development that you run you should always do a detailed survey not just did you like the professional development but finding out what can you what will you use from this experience and then after some time you do something else where you find out what was implemented and you do that through your you know your schools to your trichome specialists your pd specialists and then you look at the data so for example if we're having pd on i'm thinking what we're doing now in a new reading program you can compare your former data before the pd and before the reading program and then start looking at how well the students are doing on those formative assessments after each pd and if you're seeing

149an improvement or not and then getting feedback from teachers about what in the pd helped them and what in the pd didn't help them and generally you're going to get consistent feedback with the themes that are consistent and then you can adjust your professional learning so that is more meaningful and providing the action part because professional learning is not effective unless it's having an impact upon student learning so we have to measure both how the teachers did and then how the students are doing it can be very complicated but it's worth it so that we find out if the large investment made in professional learning is making an impact on our district uh your the other part with professional learning that i have found is if you don't have coaching in place where you have

150instructional coaches in your buildings that are supporting what is in the professional learning the likelihood of it being carried forward is pretty low and so that's another part we want to look at to see if that's taking place and if that's been effective in helping our folks and then uh putting that data together saying okay we spent all this money on this pd and we're not seeing any improvement in our student achievement is it because we didn't help implement it or is it because the pd isn't aligned really well to what we want and digging in there deeply doing a deep dive and root cause analysis to find out and then if you find out it's because we didn't provide the support after to help folks implement then we could do that we find out

151the pd we're provided just isn't aligned to what we need we say we shouldn't be doing it that's that's a waste of money it's a waste of time and we find out what does work and can be effective i have found in my career that some of the most effective professional development for teachers is job embedded professional development where the teachers are working together in designing and developing the work and helping one another and analyzing data as well as the traditional pd of having those supports and the coaching added in and to be highly effective in helping us succeed it's been hard in our career in our business to add that coaching piece especially in our secondary school and i'm a secondary guy because i would have never allowed like i'm not going to have

152someone coach me and watch me teach only the principal can do that but i've learned better through the years that's the greatest thing that ever happened in a non-evaluative peer coming in and can help me get better and by giving me true suggestions and ways to improve my practice from a peer who understands it better great it's not gonna it's just helping me improve and having that alignment so again with professional development number one is it aligned to what we want the outcome to be we look at the after with really good surveys uh to find out not just did you like it but the implementation then we also then look at if there is data after with learning and that can include um not just not just summative assessments but it also can include

153other assessments and then we also look at if that's really aligned or not in a deep dive and if it's not we don't do it and then we use what will work and then we focus more on job embedded pe because the history of it is more effective and we provide the best of approach to pd is where we also include coaching and we involve our staff when we're planning pd it shouldn't be something we do to people it should be something we do with our folks thank you appreciate it okay i have the next question and it is faced with a significant change in revenue increase or decrease how would you approach budget development for the upcoming fiscal year and share your experience with budgeting and deficit spending had both so i'll start with

154the deficit uh this past school year wasn't a good revenue year in the fiscal 22 budget revenues were down a lot of that the year before was a great year then covered impacts came and not good here in this state the state aid is very very low and local property tax is the main revenue for schools where i know in nevada it's state-based is pretty much the revenue but that can change based on the economy too so we had to go through and prioritize what had the best impact on students and wouldn't hurt because we knew there were some things that we had to eliminate it would have a it would have a deleterious impact on our students and so those were off the table and then we'd look at others that wouldn't have as

155big of an impact or would have no impact and those would be considered regardless it's never easy and you figure out ways first can you do it through attrition and we were fortunate that we had a large number of retirees so that helped a lot where we could do that and not replace some people and that made a big dent in there and then looked at other places where we're like you know what we've got some really small sizes here where we could combine some some programming here kids will still get it but we can save finances here for me the other thing i had to do that was not easy but i was surprised it didn't become real controversial i had to close at school i had one elementary school that's 140 years old

156disrepair great community school had been a wonderful school through the years the building has not been well taken care of through the years and needed multi-million dollars repair that wasn't going to happen we have a school less than a mile away that could accommodate the students and so by closing that school alone would save us you know five or six hundred thousand dollars a year minimum and it did so uh had a very positive transition with that where the students all move together to the same school we did that as well and then we also had to use in the end because our board did not want to have as many cuts in our teaching staff that we would fill in with some of our cares money for some of those positions and then by

157an act of grace the state had some surplus that they gave us and we were able to fill that in and it worked out but again that process on a deficit you've got to go in and look at what really really matters and what can we do better and more efficient and then what can we live without although we may really like it but we can live without so that we we don't hurt kids and my big priority is to not hurt at the teaching level so that classrooms aren't have the big you know the major impact of the cuts it's hard it's hard now in a surplus year and those good years those are hard too because i've been used to not having much and so you're like what do i do i've never

158had this kind of money before and so you have to start saying what can i do and then you have to also think this isn't going to last i got to make sure that some of these things can't be permanent because what happens when the revenues go down again and i have to stop this that's always in the back of my mind you know this esther money's been great but it's like in three years it's gone so i we can't make this permanent and so when you have those surpluses you also have to remember that and budgeting but again looking at what are the greatest needs our greatest needs right now having more reading coaches because we're seeing some issues with our young readers do we add more there do we have issues with high

159schools with credits do we need to add some sections of credit recovery support for students is that a better use of the money for the time we have it so we can help students get to graduation like they should looking at those needs and then the big one is for all budgeting for me is how is it aligned with with the strategic plan i believe budgeting should be aligned and the reason we do strategic plans is so that you're getting something done and our budget should align with those uh plans and while we're doing that budgeting process and if we're cutting things that are not going to help us get the strategic plan but we're keeping things that aren't we have to take a step back and say is this the priority is this priority

160in the plan well if it is we shouldn't be cutting it we should be looking at something else because the plan is the priority we've agreed upon that and too many times we stray from that and go back to tradition in budgeting where i think the plan should help drive a lot of the budgeting in both the deficit times and in the good times so that we can achieve our goals because those plans aren't put together in a haphazard way there's a lot of work and deep dives taking place to look at the needs of the district and the district's learners and so that ought to be driving our work including our budgets so with deficits that's what i do in surpluses you think you remember it's not going to be long term so you

161got to hit what's really important and align it with the strategic plan thank you what experience do you have in advocating for public education at local state and at national levels i've been involved with working with local legislators i think it's important for a superintendent to reach out with bills uh both as far as laws and finances that will affect the school district i think it's a really important role of a superintendent to be involved with so in my current role i have made testimony on bills one in particular this past session was in regards to a they called it a freedom account but it was a voucher bill that was claimed it would not take much money from the state in the end it's a lot more millions and they said it would be

162in hundreds of thousands and you know i got a lot of backlash from some folks for doing that but i was advocating for my district i am a superintendent of a district that has high poverty and high needs students many of which will not use such monies and other areas will that have access to some private education and it won't help our students a lot of them and there's no accountability our students take state assessments the students who get this money don't have to take that there's no accountability i also testified that maybe they should take the same test so that you have accountability that would be fair i didn't go over very well but nonetheless i'm going to i'm going to work on behalf of the district i'm going to make phone calls i'm

163going to talk to legislators i'm going to write letters and i'm going to participate in the process also in my current role our board sets a budget but our board of aldermen is the one who actually approves the budget and sets the budget so i'm actually working with 30 people to get the budget set and it can be quite interesting uh when you have one board that says you gotta do this and they're the school board is a lot more accommodating and wanting the budget to go through and then you have another group where it's a lot harder to get approval and then there's also a tax cap law that says you can only have it at this level and if they want to go over they'll have to have a super majority and it

164is a very interesting process say the word tax cap it becomes this bad uh not good thing and so that has been quite a process and but i try to work with them and the ones that i know we can get support with and try to get things through as far as the national level this last year i was able to get in communication with our two u.s senators in regards to cares act support that they were very supportive of and helped us with they were very receptive and excited to help us with that and in my other districts i've worked in i have done the same thing where i've worked with our congress people and have reached out always even to the senate level i may not get the response i want but i'm

165still going to advocate and involve myself and when i was in utah the school board association and the superintendents association have a joint partnership when they're working during the legislative session and every friday they all go up together and work with legislators which is very effective but during the school year we held a breakfast every quarter for all of our state reps and senators that were within the school district and we had a really good turnout and the purpose was to share our priorities to share the current situations we were having and to give our take on upcoming bills that were coming or that they were looking at during their interim meetings before the session so by the time the session came it was pretty clear where we stood and that we would hope they

166would support us in those areas what's nice with carson city district is you're right there at the capitol and you have the opportunity to interact with the assemblymen and senators and be highly involved and i i don't know what kind of involvement the superintendents and the school boards association have at what level i'm there i i would welcome it and i want to be part of it and i've done it before and i want to continue to do that because we have to advocate we have to involve ourselves and have to be in a position where we can work with people even when they disagree with us and maybe next time they won't and that we keep a positive relationship with folks knowing that even though we disagree we're not disagreeable and that we can

167carry this message to be an ambassador for the district of trying to work for student success the nevada legislature will be much easier because here in new hampshire there's like over 400 nearly 400 in the state house it's huge and in my district there's like nearly 30 plus legislators that live in the boundary and so that's a whole different thing for me it's they're much smaller districts with a much larger body but where you have fewer you're able to get a lot more one-on-one contact and do that work for the district i'm in favor of it i like doing it and i would continue to do that be the district's ambassador as much as needed or i i i it's something i would want to do and i would hope that the board would would

168like that to happen because i think it's important that the superintendents involved thank you looks like i'm the caboose here with the last question before we turn it over to you for questions for us so if there was an event of potential unethical behavior how would you respond to allegations of this unethical behavior in our district well number one i'd have to find out more about it i have to get the full information i like to get my facts want to know what is true what is not true is their hearsay or is it correct if you find out there's unethical behavior taking place you you deal with it uh depending on the situation you follow your procedures in place you bring those individuals in and you follow your consequences that are that are in

169place but more importantly you need to dig and see how far does it go so for example if there was unethical behavior in spending that could go deeper in regards to well how did this happen in approvals and why was this vendor chosen you know in such a way and you'd want to get all that information and have it addressed if there are any legal ramifications you bring in those folks and of course the board would be fully involved with that because it's a major situation but i'm one that believes in acting quickly on those because education should be the most pure of places and if we're having unethical inappropriate behavior then it should be dealt with quickly and if we know these individuals are doing it even in some cases we may have to

170put them out on leave immediately on a paid leave so we can do a true investigation to make sure we have all the information even though we may not want to we need to or we won't have a good investigation and if we have to let people go or do ex pretty serious uh discipline so be it because we cannot have that type of behavior i think one of the most difficult things i ever had to do is when i was a principal and my assistant principal was in a situation where he was using students to set up time so he could meet their mothers for he was having affairs with their mothers and was using the students as the conduit to meet them and when we were able to get that finalized we had

171to swiftly address it and it wasn't pleasant but we had to do it and there were people in my building that weren't happy with me because he was a well-liked person i liked him i liked him a lot but we can't have that it's not acceptable behavior in our school system and i had some teachers on the staff who were just extremely angry and i just had to let him know this is a personnel situation i'm not giving you any more information he will not be back here and we need to let it along we need to give him his privacy and we need to let who will be coming in here do their job and just move on because you can't give those details and we shouldn't but we have to do it we

172have to take care of it we have to address it and the board should be involved and if there are false accusations by doing the investigation we find out if it is true i would hope we don't have those but unfortunately in my years in my career i have had to address them and none of them so far have been enjoyable but all of them and the actions i've taken i have not regretted it because it has protected not only the integrity of the system but has protected people in the system and protected students and we have to protect our students first and foremost protect the people who we're working with and we have to protect the integrity of this great institution and we cannot have misdeeds and unethical behavior or misdeeds that hurt the

173profession or hurt others which is not acceptable thank you dr goldhart this has been an insightful for all of us and has given i think us a good view into your leadership abilities and philosophies of education so thank you i'd like to give you the opportunity now you have a few minutes here if you have any questions for us my first one would be what would be the one thing the new superintendent has to do in order to be successful in carson city uh thank you i think it's tough to say one thing but in my personal opinion i think you hit on it you have to understand the district understand what's working and what isn't and meet with our key stakeholders everybody at all levels the operations staff custodians teachers parapros all the way

174up the chain to understand what's working at each school within the district i think there's no in all cases no one size fits all so an understanding of the district i think is key thank you and i would also i would add on to that and i would also say have some courage to examine what we're doing and have some suggestions for what we could do better i'm we've had a set system for a very long time and some new ideas might be warranted and so i don't think that we necessarily want somebody to come in and just see what we do and continue i think we want a leader that is truly here to lead and you know that's going to take stakeholders board input it's a big job but i think that it's

175i don't i think it's well-rounded is what we want thank you any other board comments uh see no no i i agree with what the two speakers before me said but do you have any other questions yeah let if you had like a a board magic wand and you could wave it and make one thing happen in the district that would make that would really help what would it be improve the statewide per pupil funding i like that one yeah that's what i was going to say we're talking magic wand so you know yes and also if i could do anything i'd erase poverty and that would eliminate a lot of the achievement gaps that some of our students experience and would truly balance the playing field for all kids which is what each and

176every one of us advocates for and i know our teachers and staff members advocate advocate for and you know and i know parents at home are worried about that also so you know poverty would be a great thing to eliminate and i would maybe add to that i agree with i agree with those certainly my magic wand might be a little closer to the ground just in what we're experiencing certainly finances and and financial situations are are very important but i look at how do we how do we ensure the students are getting the best education they can from our district how do we improve the academics while at the same time being careful about staff burnout because that's a real thing and also satisfying the needs of the community these things don't always align

177and come together in a perfect storm so you know i think sometimes it does take a magic wand to achieve all that thank you very good questions so far do you have any others yeah another one to be here what are the things you're the most proud of about the district i'll take a shot of that i'm very proud of our staff our teachers they've worked very hard through this pandemic we've had remote learning they've had to adopt to in a year or so ago and they had to do it quickly then we had a hybrid system where we had some remote and some in class and the teachers and the staff and other individuals had to adapt to that and so i'm really proud of our staff and our teachers because i think or

178under the circumstances they've done a very good job thank you that's great and i may add to that also i'm very proud of our administrative staff you know i don't want to forget them because they've had to deal with a lot of different issues and i think overall it's been handled very very well and the board members i think have been very involved in this process and so i think the community should be proud of our board members [Music] yeah maybe i'll add to that i agree i mean i'm proud of the the district we have and really the community we have this is why i moved here quite frankly almost 30 years ago is it's a community you can get involved in and i've been able to get involved in the school board and

179the planning commission other things like that throughout the years our community members who are coming to our school board meetings lately they have serious concerns and valid concerns in many cases and they're able to come to the boards and while we we find we can't resolve all the issues it's and it's an avenue and an ability for folks to come together express concerns express ideas and you know find ways to keep our community moving in the right direction and i think we have the right you know the teachers and staff our students i look at our students and i have the benefit of having three kids now that all graduated from this district and i watch how they and their friends have moved on to achieve other goals in their life academically or otherwise and

180i just see a lot of successes coming from this and i'd be remiss not to point out our current superintendent who has the longest tenure of any superintendent in our state at 14 years and so i think you know he has big shoes to fill and he's done a great job for us and again we're not perfect but we work hard to try to keep moving in the right direction and that's what i'm proud of you still have a little bit of time left do you have any further questions uh the only i think my final question to be is how do you intend to hold or how do you hold the superintendent accountable for you know leading the district goals for the district meeting your collective expectations we annually evaluate the superintendent and i

181think that would be where we hold him accountable for those through an annual evaluation and i would go ahead mike well and i was just going to say in addition to that we're i consider us truly to be a high functioning governing team and that includes our superintendent and so there are goals that we set and then we're continuously having those discussions and working together and so i wouldn't say it's relationship like we're sitting here with our clipboards waiting for a mistake to happen and ready to respond it's more like we've had a lot of bumps in the road the last couple years like all districts and together we've found ways to navigate around those potholes and keep the ship moving forward and i think i think that's a testament to commitment to the district

182and these students and also i'll add you know we like trustee crossman said we do annual evaluations but even before that we have a strategic plan that years ago we worked hard to put in place and we recognized it has to be updated and lately we're talking about more measurable outcomes we want you know from it and so when we look at what the superintendent's doing we're looking at the strategic plan we're getting reports on academic progress from students we're hearing about the social social emotional portion of learning and in a lot of cases for us as trustees for me as a trustee some of this stuff is is newer because i come from the private sector doing something totally different and so i've learned over these nine years how districts operate and that's allowed

183me to hold the superintendent in one sense accountable but also work with him to make sure that we're not just looking like trustee walker said we're just not looking for the bad but we're working together to achieve the good thank you any other questions or are you ready to wrap it up no i'm good thank you so much for your time today well thank you and um we appreciate your candor today i think you've been very candid about everything it's very insightful your interview and i want to let you know that will be making our decision about our next steps on february 2nd the video of the this interview will be posted online on our website and the link will be provided for our community to leave comments we will be taking all those comments

184into consideration as we move forward then dr oliver or myself will be reaching out to you after the february 2nd meeting and once again i just like to thank you for uh your candor today thank you appreciate your time and i hope you have a wonderful day you too mr president yes are you going to formally call a recess i'm sorry yes i am at this time we'll be in recess at 11 24 and then we will re i'll call the order call the i can't even talk right now we'll call the meeting back to order at 1 30. the recording has [Music] you