001Fantastic. >> We are live in ICSD safe. This is HR um work session. Um we will open the public meeting. Um start with public comment. I also don't have any does anyone in the audience choose to speak? >> Right. Great. Um, we uh I would need to approve the mimics from our November 19th uh work session. Would you look >> them over? Over them over. Excellent. >> Okay. >> Um All right. Well, then we will jump right into discussion items. We're grateful to have our HR students here. Um, in our last meeting on November 19th, we talked at length about uh recruitment strategies, uh, what the district has been doing, is planning to do, in the process of doing, um, and had an opportunity to kind of brainstorm collectively, uh, and talk about potential ideas
002for, um, for investing, um, in alternatives and additional ways to to recruit recruit high quality staff. uh in the ICSB. So I will turn it over to you all. Um today we are going to move from kind of recruitment to what happens once we have recruited somebody and they've expressed interest in working here. What is the application process? What does it look like for them to be able to apply to the position um and hopefully get um a job offer? >> Great. >> Well, thank you for having us. Um so this for those of you that um have been following the HR committee this is a uh we talked a little bit about this last year um but this is a evergreen topic so it's I think it's probably talk about it almost every month
003but we wanted to spend a little bit of time a short PowerPoint presentation and I'm really just going to take us through the actual like if you click on this link what does it look like what are your options and sort of >> uh do a a live tour of what your options are when you're applying to the school district. So, we'll do that. We'll kind of walk you through what that can look like as far as we can get. Probably not going to log anyone in. Um and then we can talk a little bit, have a discussion and go from there. So, um, the first thing to know is, uh, we use a tool called Recruit Front, um, for, uh, all of our applications for really any role in the school district. Um, in
004New York State and then across the nation, there's lots of different tools. Uh, we landed on Retreat front. We used a different tool for a number of years, which has come up in previous conversations. Um and we have we have found that this tool gave got us the most applicants as a overall pool. Um but we have dabbled at looking at different portals where you can collect applications. Just the reason I'm saying this is a common question is oh you used to use the old system why are you using this one now? So just to let folks know we've we've been using reprove products for what three and a half years now something like that. >> Yeah. And um uh the benefit of it is that a lot of school districts particularly in central and
005western New York are moving towards it um downstate and in the east they use a different system. This system integrates in terms of data with our um with our HRIS resources information system and then helps us convert applicants to employees without having to have sort of uh redundant entries. One of the criticisms that we used to have for a long time was when I when I come and I join the organization like you're asking me my name like you know who I am. You've been questioning me to internet to the interview. Why are you asking my name? I asking where I'm from, you have that information. So now we actually take that information we already we already downloaded. So the onboarding is a lot cleaner and that's a huge uh benefit of the system. And
006then one of the biggest challenges we used to run into is just name spellings, really specific name spellings. You know who tend to the people that tend to spell their names correctly are the people themselves. So if you enter in your name, we actually we take that name directly. if you don't know the person, you might swap out an E and an I or something like that and that can cause challenges over um over time. So, just wanted to throw that out there for anyone that uh was wondering, but we've been using recruit. So, what I'm going to do now, I'm going to click on the link for recruit. Um >> I also wanted to add before we go to this. So, we decided to go to recruit. It was a tool to streamline um
007uh so recruit is a portal of school fun um and so we were able to streamline our our high our recruitment to hire process um and allow that to also be a digital onboarding. >> Um so that was um one of the decision makers for recruitment versus the other application and online systems that we were using. Yeah. Um, so if you look on the Ithaca City School District website and actually in fact I'll start at the front page on the front page of the district website. So ethical city schools.org we actually have a careers button. So it's like right up in the front in the top. So that's our one of our first easiest entry points if you want to check our web our website. Additionally, when we post jobs, it gets cross-osted through a
008lot of other different systems and we can talk more about that, but this, you know, someone just Google it city school district careers is right there. If you click on careers, it takes us to a subsection of the HR um website. And uh a recent update that we made, we used to have a whole list of all the openings right here. Um, and one of the criticisms and feedback items that we received from the community was that that was nice except for it wasn't always up to date because um, you know, we would we'll send these changes over and there'll be delays and or sometimes something gets posted urgently and doesn't make it over. So, what we did is we decided to directly link to recruit fund for our external applicants. So, that takes us
009directly to the portal. And now if you're here, that's where all of the uh all the jobs and opportunities happen. So when you look um you get a breakdown of the different jobs that are out there, instructional, food service, nurses, extracurricular, it also will break them down by location. If a location is designated, sometimes a uh a position is districtwide, right? And or continuous recruitment, it won't have a specific location, but sometimes it does. Um so let's just look at instructional. You go ahead and click on instructional. You can see uh different openings. For example, we have an elementary special education opening and you can go ahead and click on that and will give us um the school and then a description of the job, the requirements, the writing sample prompts and questions. And then
010uh the salary range down at the bottom and then it gives a specific if you want to apply here's what you need to do. So that's sort of like the like took you from a website to a specific job to then the part where you would have to click in and start um start developing your own profile. So before you go further, what questions like that? >> Um I have I'm just curious. How much do platforms like this cost? I'm just genuinely curious. >> Um >> that's a good question. So, we actually have what's called a closer with Bose um to have this um and I would say it's and I'm going to give a ballpark but it's like uh I don't want to give the exact but it's somewhere between that has the whole
011portal that >> staff side too. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And then Oh, that includes HR. >> Okay, great. our own database that goes with it. And uh so anytime someone applies on the back end, we get every job. It >> groups the folks, it adds applicants, allows us to automail them, send out digital onboarding. So the whole >> um software that's >> And then um you've talked a couple of times about feedback you've gotten on the process. Can I just hear like what is the mechanism for getting feedback from where from people who accept and people who don't and like how do you >> um so we're we're in continual dialogue with all of our um union leadership teams. So usually the standard way that we get feedback is you know in a weekly or
012monthly meetings folks will bring up hey this posting here was a challenge or hey we're not getting a lot. Do you think you could change it this way? So there's a lot of uh uh feedback that way. And then also hiring managers as well. Um when someone's um and what hiring manager means is uh you know a school principal might be looking for a specific position and then you know they'll submit their forms to us. We'll post the post the job and they'll give feedback as well. So um it it's come it's there's been a lot of iterations over the last several years and then we're continually making updates in different forums to thank you. And I don't know who mentioned this probably did but um so when we post on recruit front it does
013automatically then get get posted onto Indeed as well. So, >> have you has there been a time where you've put more kind of like sales pitchy language on the website itself when somebody first goes to that career button to kind of talk like we were talking about last time about the kind of aspects of working in business [clears throat] >> on recruit itself >> on like the first careers page like yeah like almost like like here's why type thing. >> Yeah, we've had so there wasn't a path of recruitment tab to the website. We had video on there. Um so yeah, that that's something that you know um we would you know we thought of like just bringing that but there was that. >> Um can you scroll back up to the writing tasks? I'm
014curious. >> Um oh on the Gotcha application. >> Yeah. So sure >> I just would love a rationale behind >> Yeah. Um the writing sample what is the length that you're expecting? >> We talked about that role last year too. >> Yeah. Um so the the short answer is uh probably 2017 18 uh the district worked in close partnership with the ILC to look at what are the um >> sorry just to tell everyone >> yeah equity inclusion leadership council >> um so a community group that really wanted uh sort of look at how we can uh uh you know represent the diverse student body we have in our hiring practices and sort of represent our community. So one of our first questions or one of our ways and our commitments to supporting diversity and
015equity in hiring practice is the first question which um asks folks to specifically name and identify sort of how they can ensure success of all their prospective students across you know a range of students that you might have. So that that's where that one comes from. Um the the second question uh is just a sort of like a tell us about yourself like what do we need to know type question. Um and then the third question uh dates back to um probably also the mid 2015 when uh we uh sort of were actually very technologically advanced at that time going onetoone model. So asking folks questions about how you might um leverage technology in instruction. So those were like those were identified by groups as like the three most important things. That answer the first
016part. The second part in terms of uh expectations for uh response length. I'd say it varies. Um it's much like when I was a classroom teacher, it's not always like how many words did you write, but what's the summation of or and meaning of of your writing. So usually um within a paragraph or so, you can get an idea of you know what books are. And it also says cover letter. There's a cover letter as well. >> Um yes. >> So you can include this with your cover letter and that would um in and trying to um streamline the upload of it where um uh if someone wants to include it with their cover letter. Um then we will see it's just um offering different options of how to >> I'm not sure is it
017appropriate for me to like share like feedback or just like my thoughts on this or should I wait or >> can I add also that when this writing sample came in and part of the recruitment and retention plan at the ILC we were getting hundreds of teacher applications um and it was, you know, part of the screening process to see, okay, how does this um applicant, um, you know, gauging district values, um, gauging how, um, their understanding of equity, inclusion, um, you know, and then and then there was the the technology, um, and that part there was some New York State Ed had put in some technological dynam um um in addition to us being a a digital school district. So, so there was that where we got so many applications and it's like okay,
018how do we appropriately um screen these applications um to find the candidate that move? >> I think um I think it would be helpful maybe to try to think as much as we can about like questions versus like feedback only because in part we did talk about this a lot last year. Um, I do think that the feedback is important, but also to kind of keep it moving a little bit. So, if you have like questions about the piece, maybe we could do that. I also wanted to just um correct me if I'm if I don't phrase this right, Zach, but one of the things that you and I were talking about about kind of aligning board goals with um the goals of this work is that these are also very reflective of of the
019goals that the board had identified at that time of being like front and center to this is what we want to see you focus on as your recruiting um staff. So that's another reason that like place that this came from was was being really responsive to the board and to the the board and district goals about about what the like one piece priority piece of what they were looking. >> Yeah. I just add um in a district like if you look around the state for example in a district that's really emp emphasizing like certain you know uh literacy practice they might ask specific questions about that because they they might have a value that says hey every teacher we have will you know have a strong understanding of [clears throat] this or that. So that
020you know that's a great way to look at it. And what that means there's probably two questions that I would actually have with the board in relation to this is uh the first thing is as we go forward also recognizing the realities of things like AI and the ability to sort of like prompt response generate. uh you know are there better ways that we want to discuss identifying this in c in our candidate pools particularly considering that the number of you know this was set up at a time as says when candidate pools were much larger right and now and we actually had to sort of like find ways to separate things out now we're we're in a different environment where we might might need to be we're trying to find ways to bring people
021in so the question I'd have is how can we make sure our board values, ideas, our uh our district uh um uh desire to be diverse and equitable. How do we make sure those are reflected in a in a modern hiring environment? That's actually like the driving question that Leader and I have. Um so we'd be open to discussions about maybe how we change and modify this in the future. Um and figure out, you know, how can we connect those values? I one question that I have is I mean questions are incredibly important and and understand and and I would hope that we have teachers within our classrooms who are who are emulating this and the qu so the question for me is not like are these valuable but is this the most valuable way
022of gleaming this information um >> you know I I know that they're also asked in the interviews questions similar to this or along the same things. Um, there's also the idea of like if we put out a statement like I was talking about like on the front page that said this is our mission and values as a district, one would expect for the most part that only any it would be any more likely that somebody would choose to or not to apply based on that than they would make up an answer for this that would be quite easy as well. Um, and so it's just that question of like I know as like someone who has applied to jobs of if I saw that I had to do a writing sample and a cover letter,
023you know, before I even got to go into an application, I probably just wouldn't do it, especially if there were other similar jobs that were not requiring all of that. Um, but my big question is you guys have done this has been on on for you know seven or so years it sounds like except for the odd person that I could imagine being like I don't care this doesn't matter like how many would you really say you you read one of the three of these answers especially the first and even the third one and be like oh like this this does not speak to our ethos or you don't sound like somebody who like I I wondering about number one of someone who would be like, I really don't know. I haven't had that many
024opportunities, but I know I believe in, you know, and and would that be something that would make you not like what is it that you're either both looking for and would be like absolutely not that you've actually like seen in practice? >> I mean, it's always good to see um where a person is in their journey of understanding. Um, we are a district that uses a lot of um um I would say we're ahead in um in our understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion. Um uh and so that that's where we've seen that in those writing samples. Um and and also understand, okay, here's where they're at in their journey. Um, and we have so much support in our micro um, uh, >> micro credentiing. Yeah. >> Um, and that's not something that's going to disqualify
025someone. It's it's only going to inform us on how we need to better support. Um, especially if they are a person that says, I love children. This is why I want to um, be a teacher. um not everyone is at that point of understanding or had had access to all of the language and learning that you know um many of our our educators have had um so so it's more to see okay um placement and and their journey and we have seen writing samples where we're like no this is not the place for you you know >> but how often though um I say that's fairly rare And I'd say that the actual the writing samples become more important with the larger that the candidate pool gets, right? Because you have a you know, if
026you look down a little bit here, it says all candidates must possess New York State teacher certification, right? So we ha when we're short and certified teachers, you know, we're we have to interview them if they're qualified. Um and there's no sort of reason not to. Um so ultimately in if we have a large pool then yeah we're going to be more sort of more selective but that's that's challenge we and we haven't had a many really large pools for the last year. >> Yeah I agree with that what Emily said that like there is value in each of these questions. I don't as a I guess like as a hiring manager I don't think there's I don't see the value in them though for all candidates at the beginning and I also I'm not
027sure those would be the top three like there's nothing about teaching strategies or classroom management or just overall relationships instead these are leading questions that a candidate would yeah if I don't believe any of these things I can still get AI to give me a beautiful answer as all the high schoolers in the room know um and so so I think everyone here would get hired give you know put it put it in chat GPT and say give me an answer that'll get me higher >> and I think I think it's a good point because I mean editor's thinking you know even as a psychologist also I mean an open-ended question is a is a is a different response than a closedended question so an open-ended question saying you know what why are you interested
028in teaching in the school district what what uh how how will you conduct yourself in your role here in the district which is very very broad of course but then that gives people the chance to say well this is >> this is what I value this is who I am and this is what I plan to do um and they don't know what you know >> you know what you're looking for >> and and I just want to name I'm I'm saying this like the these questions are like as you said like old now so and I'm not I'm not I'm just saying like you know in the new reality so I'll just name like a couple of things that I wonder if you all would consider But it's because what I heard in the
029last HR meeting was we want it to be easier for people to apply. So I'll name I've applied for a lot of jobs when I was trying to move to Ithaca because it's hard to IA and get jobs. Um, and some of the Okay, so just like some some of the things that were really helpful was one, I don't know if a proof run has it, but a platform where you can like essentially a person can take a video of themselves answering questions where the question is set and it just be something like why do you want to be a teacher? It gives them a minute to respond and then you can review it at two times speed. is helpful for hiring managers or just like a series of short open-ended questions instead of a
030cover letter so that like as part of an application it's insert your resume and then answer these three questions which are very open-ended. I I know personally I have not applied for jobs because I think cover letters are so annoying but I have applied for jobs and it's like a resume and a couple of sort questions where based on the response we had enough of a sense of them to know if we want to move forward. Yeah, I I mean um as we've acknowledged this is I think all this is open for debate. [snorts] the the question to me really is uh not so much are these valuable questions but how can we how in this world of AI and modern technology might we be able to better identify that um and you know if
031you know if we're talking about tangible next steps I think we'd be happy to either to come back in a month or two with some potential uh different workflows if if it's the wish of the board to um say hey are there we can be interested in thinking about different ways ways that this could work with the following goals. Figure out um how to identify these values during the interview process and figure out a way to streamline the application. You know, minimize the clicks like on on my responsibilities on the tech side and we want to min minimize the clicks, right? If someone's clicking here, upload this, we're we're inviting more opportunities for frustration and failure. And what we've identified for a lot of our conversations is we want to >> we want to uh
032eliminate as many barriers. So you know certainly something that we'd be happy to come back with uh different concepts. >> All right, we're going to turn it back over to so >> sure. Um, yeah. So, uh, so if we, you know, there's not too much more on this side, but ultimately what would happen is if someone wants to apply to a job here, they're going to go to, um, they're going to they're going to go in, they have to create their own recruit profile. Um, and when you go in there, at this point, well, you get verified, so we'll do that. But at this point, it'll start like asking for specific identifying data. So, we're not going to take it too much further than that. But the main thing I just want to show is
033that people would then go in. There's a video on how to do it, all the different things you need to do. I mean, that's where you would go to uh set up your profile. So, that's the so that's the first part. And then the the next part um is what happens on our end. So, we get we have schoolfront which is sort of the uh companion product to recruit front. Schoolfront uh is where all of our our where we do onboard digital onboarding. It's where we all the candidates get filtered into the jobs that they apply. We have a giant database of all of all of our applicants. So we can actually like cross reference or look have they applied to jobs in the past. Um what other certifications might they hold? Oh, has this
034person has this person uh you know applied and been you know made it to a previous round. This is why we like these tools to be clear. Previously it was all for the most part triple kits plus our old system. So if someone applied before we didn't necess necessarily know that unless we were going to go scour files from five to six years ago. Now we have that information. So, um, on our side, we're we're going to get a a job once the job or as even as the job is ongoing, the hiring manager when someone applies gets a notification and it says, "Hey, someone's applied." And they can actually go in immediately and look at look at the applicant. This is a huge step up in OP, you know, for us because previously hiring
035managers would have to wait until it's over to even know if people had applied or they'd have to call into HR. Now they can sort of live time if they're a tracker of that uh of that opening they can like see who's applying which is really helpful. >> Can I help in clarification on that? So when we are hiring right now like we have you know x number of special elementary special educations >> is it it's I I I thought that that meant that you let's say we had the openings of like three different schools. Yep. >> We don't Do you like specify that like this one that like you have to go through this application to be the one at BJM versus South Hill? >> I'm just thinking about the hiring manager. Like is
036there necessarily a hiring manager? >> So there's districtwide ones. So like for special ed, our director of special ed would be the hiring manager for that and he's probably going to uh facilitate the process. Sometimes a specific role will open, right? And then that might be the building principal or assistant principal or whoever's um in charge. >> Thank you. >> We did for a district elementary in the summer. Then there were um uh the principles that uh were appointed. So they would take turns um uh being on the interview committees and then whoever had a vacancy and it was just communicated. Okay. um we would then have a a second round to then do placement of that. >> Yeah, I'd say elementary education candidates and special education candidates are that's the two certifications we have
037the most staff members in. So you'll have lots, you know, handfuls of openings across. So that has a requires a bit more coordination, but otherwise it's usually a building based. >> Okay. Um, >> but also like one thing I do almost every day is I check our applicant pool to just see like who are the recent applicants and I'll often uh do internal checks to make sure we're bringing folks along. So, uh, what happens is folks come in and we screen them. Um, there is something about civil service here and let me see if I can do civil service how many in like 30 seconds or less. What that means is is uh not that it's not important but um uh teachers have to be certified by New York State other positions many of our
038positions like in transportation food service historial uh many of our clerical staff are governed with by civil service and what that means is uh the city of Ithaca is our sort of like over oversight group for civil service and those roles are um uh tied to a test that people have to take and people can qualify for the jobs through tests and then they have to then get the job and if they score in the right range they they can become permanent and so uh civil service has a lot of hoops. Sometimes with those roles, it takes a while to get like they have we have to canvas and see if there's people that are on the list and um you know it's a it's a system designed to make sure that we uh allow
039applicable access and ability for people to get roles in our organization >> and they have to apply >> they have to apply >> on that on their website on the link. >> Yeah. So if it's a civil service position, um there are competitive positions which require an exam and non-competitive do not require an exam but still fall under civil service. And so when we hire someone um that is uh a civil ser through a civil service position, they do also u apply through civil service. So that civil service then starts tracking their work experience. Um and and then there's a probationary there's a provisional probationary um if there is a list. So canvasing requires us to say to civil service we have this vacancy open. Um they will then ask um uh anyone who has
040taken the exam they will send out what is a um notice to see are you interested? Isa City School District is hiring. Please reply by this time if you're interested. Um if we have um at least three people on that list, it is what is constituted as a a bonding list that we have to hire from. Um and then um that um takes priority over any type of like internal collective bargaining agreement um which we can explain. So it there there is a process to it that may at times delay a problem because we have to follow that sess. >> Okay. Um 30 seconds. See uh and then the and then we also review the certifications of folks um that in teaching position their administrative position. So once we screen the candidates um so at
041this point if we had like say 50 candidates you would based on resumeé responses things like that we would choose the candidates we want to bring in for an interview. usually somewhere between like three and eight candidates depending on the positions and the number of openings. Um so then what happens you have your interview committee. Um and in these in this case um the committee uh sets a date and time and then we have processes with all of our uh different union groups in order that they can have stakeholders that they appoint to these committees. Um and then so the representatives are then appointed to the committee. Uh sta all these uh stakeholders that are on these committees have to go through a stakeholder training um where we talk about um bias. We talk about
042hiring practices. We talk about uh what we you know what the committee needs to do and what the committee cannot do. Um you know we have to make these decisions based on information we have. we can't make assumptions, right? And and and then there's a whole lot of protected classes that we have to be cognizant of in terms of when we're evaluating a candidate and their uh ability to do the job. So, there's a lot of pre-work that goes into making sure our committees uh are set up to do this. One of the really important things to know about the interview process, the chair of the committee makes the determination of what candidate is suggested to move forward for final approval. Um the the work of the committee is to provide a recommendation on whether
043they think the candidates could do the job in the skills or with the skills and um responsibilities that the job entails. So the reason I say that is a long time ago it used to be that we'd have an interview committee and we say all right there's our person everyone who yes no maybe right and we picked what we what we found now in this particularly with this job market is that if you just select one person out of a pool like you can you can indicate which person you think is the best candidate each person as a stakeholder can do that but if you only pick one person not everyone ends up coming if Some people start say, "Oh, actually, I'm not going to move here." Right? So, what we're asking our committees to
044do is provide us a recommendation of which candidates you think could do [clears throat] the job well for us and would would be able to do what we need. So, that's the ask of the committee. Then based on that information, the uh hiring manager is going to, you know, proceed along in the process. What that means is hiring manager is going to uh make a verbal offer to the candidate, check references, um and then make the final recommendations that then go to us um in HR. HR is then going to look at what their salary be, work with the hiring manager and the candidate to make sure that they're like they know what their offer is, the position, location, compensation levels. Um and then ultimately then it's going to go to the board report. That's
045the short version of it, but that's it's multi-layered. And the reason it's it's layered that way is that it's really important that we as a public organization have a process that sort of checks and and goes through all of the steps. >> So, one point of clarification on that. um because the like designated hiring manager isn't necessarily the going to be the direct supervisor. How much collaboration is there in that final decision and recommendation coming from the hiring manager? So for instance, if there were you know well you know >> Yeah. So uh so what you're asking is like this happens with uh elementary education candidates for example maybe Lira myself and a principal will be on the committee with some teachers and we'll have eight uh elementary education candidates that come through maybe three
046of them are great we have three openings um but the principles are not there in those cases if we think we need a move immediately we'll call the principal and say hey can you get on the phone and chat with this candidate and just um you know tell them about your school, tell them we're really interested and um almost always we'll try to set up a second interview with that with that um with the actual direct supervisor >> but with just the candidate that's being >> yeah for that role. Yes. So that's what we'll do. Um for other roles uh for example um sometimes for like an ESP role um but that might be the special education director will be involved um and because the special education director will manage that entire process and then
047inform the principal like hey I have a really great candidate they're going to work with this student for this situation and in that case there's just a background dialogue between the two folks that would be the most likely to be sort of uh um responsible for that. >> So usually just back either a dialogue or a second. >> Yeah. >> How did the committee chairs get selected is one question that I have like who who would a committee chair be and is that is it always a certain type like or is principal always a teacher? >> Oh, it's always gonna it's it's always the principal or director is always going to to share it. >> It's the hiring manager. Yes. And and we and Livier has runs trainings for those folks on sort of again
048we uh the processes that they need to go through. One of the things for example is we've trained our hiring managers on follow-up questions which is the dialogue we had last year. Um and what that means is that uh yeah it's our structured follow-up question bank which is one of the criticisms and in a you know helpful way was hey we have set questions um could we have follow-up questions? So now that the hiring manager who's chairing the committee has a bank of questions where they can ask follow-ups. >> Yeah. Let me see. >> I think you can just write it down. >> There we go. There we go. >> The chair is the >> You can do this. >> I just want to make sure I'm So the chair is the decision maker. like
049if I'm a principal, an elementary principal, I decide who I >> Well, so that's that's the point I I think is important that I would love to like dive into more at some point. I as we all know like the relationship between a employee and their supervisor is an extremely important one and managers like are lead in in completely different ways and are really a good fit for some employees and and not a great fit for others. But what they were saying is, and what I know has happened in a number of the elementary schools, is that the principal who is actually going to be inheriting that candidate never gets to talk to any of the other candidates. Some if they're not on that committee and they're not the hiring manager, they might not ever
050talk to the other candidates. So, they do get an opportunity to say hello and and speak to the candidate that's been recommended. But if there were like imagine if you were hiring somebody, if there were three people you were looking at, part of it is like them being able to make a judgment of like is do I want to be working for that principal? Like do I like their the way that they run their school? like those and and vice versa like which which where is that fit of making sure like yes they are a good candidate for you know being a special education teacher or a third grade teacher but thinking about those connections between like like the personnel connections within a building are are not always there um as much as I'm sure
051>> we we actually shifted towards a like we shifted from what you're describing to every principal had access to every candidate for the materials. >> So, so we used to run >> we used to run a a more interactive process um with like a couple rounds and some model lessons and all the principles were here and folks would sort of uh filter it through. Uh that's not something we have done recently. Um and I think part of the reason has to do with the candidate portals. I also think that's around COVID. I think we stopped doing that for um sort of reasons at the time. Um and then but you know again it's certainly something we could we can discuss. I will say uh when we make recommendations uh we do our very best to
052um you know give folks a chance to like tell them like here's what here's what the pool was here. Like I know my conversations are we interviewed three people. this one person, I know you have a first grade end opening, this person has a ton of experience in fifth grade. We're going to steer them towards this. So, we usually try to provide background on it. Um, but you know, there's not a there's not a perfect way, but that's that's how we work. >> Who are the community representatives and how do you become one or how are they selected? >> Yes. >> Yeah. So these are um the stakeholders um uh community representatives are um usually appointed through Ethica. Um so we have a list of stakeholders. The stakeholders are made up of um Ithaca teachers
053um association representatives um employees association um all of our bargaining units can appoint a stakeholder to be on any of our interview committee. Um and then we also did have the community um representatives which was um our appointment at Ithaca um PTA's also >> and and there yeah so sorry I didn't run through the whole um so there's ITA um employers association um the um uh support but so the ESPs um we also have the service employees PTA um uh special education PTA can also phone um a person um community representatives and um and substitutes. So, we'll send out a stakeholder notice asking for representation on a committee and all of those groups can appoint someone. >> The key thing is if they're appointed, they need to take the stakeholder um training. So, um, sometimes
054>> ask the predetermined like regardless of who's on it, it sounds like the questions. >> The questions are predetermined. Um, um, yes, but and the key thing for us is that they also understand our processes. So, um, we've ran into friction in the past when folks don't know like, oh, this is what we're doing. Here's how we're trying to do it. So, >> so to answer Adam's question directly, uh, folks that are interested, you you kind of look at what is my like if you're in a bargaining unit, you you work through that group. If you're a community member who is on a PTA, for example, you try to go through that. Um, if you're beyond that, there's, you know, perhaps there's some other groups, but you don't get a lot of that. >> We
055have the leader representative. So if it's a president um that has been appointed. So, if Katherine is the one that um appoints folks um because there's a certain order um in order to avoid appointing the same people to be on the um same committee and also keeping into consideration if we're hiring um for a specific um building, having representation from that building. Um we may have bus drivers on um for ESB interviews. Um so we want a well-rounded committee. Um and then also ensuring that the process in appointing the stakeholders is fair. Uh so we have appointed folks that will receive our emails to say um could you um appoint a representative from your group if that makes sense. >> Okay. Um I'm thinking about like you know what makes candidates stay in or leave
056a process. So and feedback. So, is there a survey after they apply? Like, how would you rate the process, the communication, how long did it take you to apply? Is there something like that? No. Is that something you all are thinking about or open to? >> We're we're open to any conversation. I I would just push but I would say I push this. I I don't sort of see it as like the way you're I don't mean this in any I wouldn't mean this respectfully. It's not like like we're open to all of it. This is this is this is our school district collectively. So, we're happy to engage in these conversations. So, yeah. And I'm asking the question from a point of like if there's a actually no, like no, I'm in a governance
057role, not a do this. So, I just I'm just throwing things out like actually no, we wouldn't want to do that. I would want to hear that. >> We may have people like well I wasn't hired. I'm not happy. You know, [laughter] >> good feedback. Um I was also curious around um what is I see with this process are there time expectations that you all like for example like it should take this long from application to contact from contact to interview. >> Yeah. So I think this is what this is our last slide so I could if it's helpful and I don't need to read this to you all but >> in general there's a lot of >> like one of the fascinating things about HR is every circumstance is very specific right how many
058candidates are there are they certified is the hiring manager available when is this person actually you know when is vacancy opening so what we try to do so we have sort of guidelines is uh usually a posting is going to be up for either five days if we're trying to expedite it like must fill let's get 10 days is standard and then until filled which are our number ours where we we can't find folks. Um so that's how we set those up. Um and then once that time is over, we need to sort of screen our candidates, make sure that they like we can actually initiate them into the the process and that can take up another week or two um depending on the time of year and the number of openings and then we
059have uh our interviews. So usually, and this is a little confusing how we set this up, but if a posting closes, right? So we might have a posting up for two weeks would be be the minimum usually. That's our 14 days. Then we're going to be screening and try to get the interviews going within another week or two depending on how usually you need it takes a week to be in a committee. Um, and so thus it often will take up to two weeks to get everyone together. And then once we do that, there's going to be um the interview process. Within the interview process um sometimes we have to string out the interviews like three today or tomorrow. So that can take another you know another week or so and then we have to
060our um then we have to start getting into the um uh calling of references, looking at recommendations, background checks. One of the biggest uh things that can cause problems for us is fingerprint clearance. For example, someone's not fingerprinted, we cannot hire them. Not even if they said they went to get fingerprinted, until it clears, we can't bring them in. So, there's those types of things. So, uh >> doesn't impact on certified um instructional as much because that's part of the first that's the first step of applying for certification as fingerprint clearance. Um but we'll see those for um >> certified. Yes. >> So overall from the time something's posted, right? Meaning like when a hiring man well actually before that a hiring manager will put in a recommendation. Sometimes that can take a week or
061so to actually get posted because we have to make sure that we double check make sure that that position vacant that there's uh that it's budgeted for the year not what budget code. There's some business office processes. We have some approval chains in our workflows to make sure they all get um checked off on. It could be a week or two after that's inputed. Then you have another couple of weeks. Um so it can take up to six weeks, maybe eight weeks to go through that whole process. There's also the timing of the board meeting. Like if we're if we did interviewed anyone today and we have a board meeting next Tuesday, we're going to have to be call make get them an offer, get a response, make sure that their fingerprint, make sure they're
062certified, make sure that they have a start date within five business days, which rarely can happen that quickly. So um the timing when a board meets can be not that it's not like that's just how it is. It's >> Have we lost candidates based on >> Oh, probably. Yeah. I mean, but I wouldn't say it's because of when the board meets. It's because of a lot of things in big time. So, um, which really does lead to great discussion on where are the areas where we might be able to punch that down, which I'm sure you all have questions about. We'd love to talk about it. >> And we've tried to tweak things in terms of putting someone on the personnel report, pending fingerprint clearance, and onboarding. And then we've seen that, okay, if that
063doesn't happen and we we have to go back and make a change. Um, so what is the the best way, the the cleaner way? We we've tried different um to to speed up the process. What are the what if any are checks and balances that are in place? You know, the the few stories that you hear about like somebody applied, they never heard back or you know, whatever. Are there especially in these like computer systems that kind of remind you about people in different stages of this that can help reduce the chances of that happening? >> Yeah. I mean, so the the check the main check and balance is the hiring manager and the HR office. So, usually between the two of those, you know, someone we want to fill that position, they're going to
064be like, "Hey, what's the status of this position?" So that's like the main check and balance that sort of verbal dialogue because we have other checks on this. Often our our folks in our unions might be like hey we're still waiting for this position to be filled. What's the status? Um that's so that's probably that big first one. Um >> the vision of our workflow in HR. Um so that has changed um throughout the years where now you know it used to be that we would have it divided by bargaining unit and it could be that you know the person that has teachers and is hiring 50 teachers when is overloaded with handling all of these processes for teachers. And so we've changed it to have like we have an onboarding person. Um they handle
065all of the onboarding. It's consistent. and they're, you know, we have another person that's doing the postings and then they can focus on that instead of um so so the workflow has helped to create checks and balances, more checks and balances um because there's a lot of um uh eyes, you know, like te the eyes the dot in the process. Um and and so yeah um looking at the division of duties so that we can create those check and balances. >> And how many people are in the HR department? >> So we have right now um five admin assistants four admin assistants and >> Okay. Thank you. Um we have like one minute so I think that's super burning. It's really really short but otherwise it's like a good time to >> What did I
066just [clears throat] say? >> Oh, yes. Yes, boss. >> Um, okay. Well, thank you. I think this is like this has been two two uh meetings now of like going through this entire process that I think gave us a lot of like information to not like seeing myself on screen. I know that was that's difficult >> um to to reflect on and to think about the like opportunities um that there are um and it's always really great being able to hear from you all about where you think that the that those opportunities are and that you would be kind of like excited about about diving into more. So, um I think another conversation probably offline with Zach and that we I would like to think that we'll come back with like a plan of a
067way to kind of move forward and take the um kind of focus more concretely on a couple of the pieces that um that we've offered. Yeah, >> that's great. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Appreciate it.