001I call this meeting of the Conroe Independent School District Board of Trustees to order and let the record show that a quorum of members is present, that this meeting has been duly called, and that the notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. And the time is 104. And we will begin with an opening um prayer by Trustee May and led in the pledges today by Trustee Semler. Dear heavenly father, thank you so much for bringing us here today. Um thank you for all of our presenters today. I ask that you be with them and provide them travel mercies as they go home today. Lord, I ask that you just stay with us in our in our district and with all of our
002people here as we make this um transition towards a new leader. Thank you for all of our graduates last week. Lord, I just ask that you walk with them into the summer and into the fall. And um I thank you for all of your many blessings. And I pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Texas flag to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you ladies. Um this today we do not have any public comments so I'll skip over that reading of that information. Um and we are on to agenda item uh interview superintendent search firms. I'd like to begin by saying
003good afternoon to everyone and thank you all for being here today. As part of our ongoing process to identify the next superintendent for our district, I'd like to take a moment to provide a brief update on where we stand. Uh we have appointed an interim superintendent to ensure stable leadership and continuity for our students, staff, and community during this transition. In parallel, we issued a request for proposals and RFP to search for firms interested in partnering with us to find candidates who not only meet the qualifications for the role but also reflect the values, goals, and priorities of our district and community. Typically, this type of procurement process is managed by the district purchasing department and designated selection committee. However, given that the hiring of the superintendent is a core responsibility for the board of
004trustees, the selection committee in this case will be comprised of the seven trustees. We will be conducting this process with the valuable assistance and guidance from Brian Brousard, director of purchasing, and Katie Labour. And the board is very appreciative of their support and expertise throughout this process. Mr. Brousard, would you please come forward to get us started and walk us through our plan today? Give us just a couple minutes to get prepared. Um, so what I'd like to do, President Owler, members of the board is just that was a lovely point of leadin, but I'd like to just kind of give you a little feedback on how we got here. So, we put out a request for proposal for these services. We received nine uh responses. Of those nine, eight met the scope of work
005for the services. Um, after a review of the proposals by myself and Miss Labour, uh, all eight were invited to present to you all today. Um, of those eight, uh, six are here today. And so I'm going to, if it's okay, officially read off the list of the presenters. So, we have the Texas Association of School Boards, Beach Boyd and Associates, Walsh and Goss, I asked for help on that, McFersonson and Jacobson's Texans for Excellence in Education, and Ray and Associates. So, what I'd like to do is just take each of you through just a little bit of how this process will go. We will kind of have a two-part process because when we move into the evaluation phase, um I'll kind of come back up, but I don't want to bog you down with
006too much of that right now. Okay. So, each firm will be given five minutes to set up once their name is called. Presentations will be 10 minutes uninterrupted with a hard stop. I have uh enlisted Dr. Lambert as our official timekeeper. The timer will be over here on this computer and he has assured me that he knows how to work it. So uh so what'll happen with after the 10 minutes is questions will then be opened up by the board. Presenters may use any printed materials or online presentation to support answer or support to answer questions from you the board. Um it is not an opportunity for them to continue their presentation if they've run out of time. It's a very important distinction. Um you will in just a second be provided scorecards. I'd like
007to let you know about these scorecards. They are not mandatory for you to use. Each of you have a laptop with you. When we get to the evaluation phase, you will actually enter your scores into our third-party ebid system. Now, I will tell you as a bit of advice, it might be good to use them because when you get to your data entry portion, it will obviously help you. Not required. those documents along with any documents that have been provided with the presenters and given to you during this presentation we will collect at the end. Okay. Um now everybody's asked about the scoring. You got two screens in front of you. The main screen that you all use that will be for presentations if if a presenter has them. Your um laptops you don't need
008them at this time. We've got a ton of help for you whenever we get to that section with Miss Desca, our senior buyer, and Miss Labour, our assistant director, and of course, Dr. Lambert to to help uh guide us through that. Um, so how will you go through the scoring? An email will be sent to you with a link. That link will take you to the EBID website and prompt you to create a username and password. After that, you will be asked to acknowledge our terms and conditions for scoring. The terms and conditions presented to you are the exact same. all other evaluators in Conro ISD acknowledge prior to scoring. Um, if you do fill out the scorecards, again, I would recommend at the end that you place them in alphabetical order by the firm
009or what's called the supplier. The reason is is that's how they're laid out in uh ion wave. So, it just helps to keep you straight when you're doing your data entry. Uh since the inperson in presentation and Q&A were a required step for the evaluation, we did not send any of you a link to create the login prior because they must have come here to do the evaluation or presentation to be considered for the evaluation. Um, so Katie, I would like to confirm that we have the Texas Association of School Boards, Beach Boy Associates, Walsh and Gu Walsh Gaos, McFersonson and Jacobson's, Texans for Excellence in Education, and Rayan Associates. So Miss Labour will be preparing the scoring module while the presentations are going on and then um at the end once the final presentation
010is done and you feel that you have asked all your questions at that time if you would like to take a break or a quick recess I'm going to leave that up to you as the board. We're here to do whatever you need to but I will say that we will not send you the link or anything until we're back in session. Um I have I would like if it is okay Miss uh Odinweller to have you call the names of each presenter will help with assisting on keeping time. You obviously as the board president would know when everyone is done asking questions and it will not cause any confusion for these folks. All right. I was gonna say I'm scared to ask any questions. All right. So, like I said, once we get to
011the scoring section, I'll come back and we'll talk work through that. Okay. I think you have the scorecards. I'd like to say thank you again for your engagement and your commitment to working with us on this. It's been invaluable as we've prepared for today. Thank you very much. Even when he was in a training yesterday, he was answering my messages. Oh, it's already labeled. Okay, great. All right, so is everyone ready? All right. Well, then we our first one is Texas Association of School Boards. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. All right. Well, good afternoon. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. I'm George Kazanis with the Texas Association of School Boards Executive Search Services. Uh just have to say again, thanks to your staff for their organization. I love organization and it's been
012fantastic with all the information and the communication to us. So, thank you very much and I know this is a very big decision for you and you have outstanding firms that you will be hearing from today. And uh again, thank you though just for the opportunity uh on behalf of TASBY to be here again. Uh what I'd like to do then is start the the presentation and all of you know of course about TASBY. Who are we? Uh we have been uh an association serving school board since 1949. We recently celebrated our 75th anniversary. But specifically about the role that I have with executive search services, it began in 1988. It began at the request of school boards. That's the uh majority of our services have been because of the request of school boards. And
013so we want to thank you for your participation in TASBY for the number of uh programs that you participate in. Uh I notice of course your HR services that you have with us and the different reports and salary market studies that you do our insurance products our buy board uh saw most recently of course you had rec in 24 and December a rebate of over $70,000. So thank you so much for participating with us. I joined TASBY uh in in 2023. So I retired from public schools. I had a 32-year career in education. I was a superintendent though 24 of those years. So the big majority of my time has been as a superintendent. Uh I've served three different districts of three different sizes. Uh the first one was one that I would say I
014more grew up in in terms of uh different roles. I was a principal, assistant principal, principal and even an interim superintendent before being named superintendent. So that was in China. Then I moved to Witchah Falls and enjoyed multiple high school district uh excuse me different part of the state. But then when uh Waco Midway came open again, I moved back to the Waco area which is my home and uh served Midway for over 11 years. I think Midway is certainly smaller than Conro ISD but very similar in terms of the expectations uh of the community, the expectations and values uh that they possess and for our students and families. So it really was a wonderful wonderful opportunity. But TASBY came along and I started as division director of field services uh for about a year
015until the retirement of Mr. Felner, our former director. and we merge divisions and the TASB asked me to lead both for efficiency sake as well as my desire uh for this particular type of work. So here's my team. Uh Marian Strauss, Dr. Strauss has been is a senior consultant has been with TASBY over 10 years and so she is my colleague uh and she will be a part of this search if we are so hired. Uh also uh Dr. Robert Duron. Doc Dr. Duron is a former superintendent as well. Uh former associate executive director of TASBY is now working part-time in our in our area. You'll see the different map there if you will. That is the the uh the merging of our two divisions. Those are our field service representatives. And that is one
016of the advantage that we have. I have former superintendents, a team uh with over 30 years of experience each that have been superintendents and they're all across Texas. So they serve superintendents uh on behalf of TASBY as field service representatives. Uh they assist uh of course though with executive search services now. They help with our advertising and promotion of your position as well as the screening and uh referencing of the different candidates. We do have a program coordinator though that is available not only to our candidates but to you as board members in the process. Joy Rivera there in Austin. Um and since we started in 1988, we have served well over 800. We're close to 900 school districts uh doing searches through as I said for since 1988. And we've enjoy collaborating with boards.
017And uh one thing on the right hand side of your folder that was passed out to you, you'll see I know you saw in our bid package, but uh it does have our fee and uh majority of all of the services we provide, our fee is all inclusive. So there's no additional dollars or bills or reimbursements. It's all one fee uh that we are proposing to you today. So what do we do? Our focus is just on searches. We have decades of experience and while we excel over 35 years and one of the things is our track record. Just wanted to say that over 90% of our superintendents have at least three years as a superintendent. Uh we do know well over 80% of them also stay five years or longer. So we're dedicated to
018that. Your search will be customized. Please understand that our searches are uh if we are selected, we have a very uh uh inclusive planning meeting with you to understand your wants and needs as well specifically so that we can customize the search to best meet the the of course your needs as board of trustees as well as your community's expectations for this important hire. Uh the search process uh we rely as I said on my search consults consultants throughout to narrow the pool. Uh we will have uh your search of course posted and advertised statewide but also um because of who you are in Conro ISD, we would anticipate a national search as well. It would draw candidates to uh to your district and at least consider your district for your consideration on the board.
019But throughout all of this though, our our process is to align with you to align your wishes and and and hopes for your next superintendent. As I mentioned, then of course very very critical is the planning meeting. That is when we will get commitments from you about a timeline, deciding uh when to begin uh your search, when to close applications, when to come in and talk to you all about candidates and things of that nature. Uh we also need to be sure you're committed to it because one of the things is that of course I don't think I have to say this, but all seven of you must be committed with dates and attendance throughout the process. So we do have a fair process for all of our candidates that apply to you. We'll finalize
020and talk to you at the planning meeting about qualities and characteristics. Uh you'll notice now I'll refer to this booklet on the left hand side of your um folder that was provided to you. We did put some that we have found with uh since 1988 in our research some top qualities and top characteristics that we have found to be successful with our with our uh superintendent and success in school districts. Just wanted to point those out. But then finally we'll talk about community involvement. What does that look like? We certainly have an online presence with surveying of your community to learn their hopes and dreams, their thoughts, their pro the profile they would like to see in the next superintendent. But we also want to be sure that uh we you understand how available we
021are for community forums, town halls, things of that nature, the size of the of your district. We could see many different ones throughout your community based possibly on your feeder patterns of schools, things of that nature, so that we're out and about. Uh, one thing that's been effective for us as well has been a trustee invited type of forum that you invite maybe two to three four individuals that you would want to be sure we talk to. Um, and we have lunch with them and have an opportunity to to delve into the superintendent process and building of the profile. So during the search, uh, we're doing that work. We're taking care of this. We provide our own application system. We are not burdening your district staff whatsoever. Uh, we're providing all of the advertising. uh
022all of the recruiting that needs to be done. As I mentioned, the survey, one of the things we uh and our boards uh enjoy about our application system is our video component. It's an opportunity for you to put a a name to a face uh if you will, the opportunity when we're looking at candidates, so you actually see this person, who they are on camera, how they respond, how they react, things of that nature to different questions. And so, we have found that to be very effective. We'll talk about um your the interview process and how that looks and uh look at the applicants uh with you. Uh we can certain we will customize that. Uh we are certainly an advocate of an open and transparent process with all of you. But we also uh
023understand your time and your time commitments and we will work with you as well if for narrowing down candidates and at least having some recommendations for you too. So just so you understand that. One of the things too we we like to do is schedule uh and talk with you about after you've gone through an interview process is a site visit. We highly recommend that. It's an opportunity for the board, not not the quorum of a board, but two to three board members that do have the opportunity possibly to visit the candidates uh his or her district, learn more about the district, meet some folks in the district, uh and get to know uh maybe sitting board members, community members, teachers, staff, just so you have a better idea of who this individual is and
024where they're coming from. So that's the site visit. Of course uh with the uh selection and transition just understand that Texas law requires the naming of a loan finalist. Texas law has a has a confidential process. So our process is confidential throughout the the process of uh the applications and your review and interviewing of candidates. But at 21 days when you name the lone finalist of course it's there. It's out there. Uh and so you after 21 days then you would vote to hire. And one of the things that we're proud to offer here at TASBY though is a transition that is part of our fees. It's not an additional fee in which we'll come back at your choice maybe maybe three months maybe four months maybe five months to come back in and do
025a transition workshop similar to team of eight but specifically about how is it going the relationship expectations communication channels possibly superintendent evaluation things of that nature so that we're off on the on the right foot. One of the things too uh about I'll I'll add as I have 30 seconds left to go is uh in our vetting of candidates, we do have contract with thirdparty background check. So that is included as well. It's not any additional charges. That's all your criminal county uh local uh type of uh report as well as a credit report as well as bankruptcy report and then also a social media review of candidates. So that's included. our guarantee within two years. If a candidate does not work out for you, then we will come back with no charge to to
026launch your search again. Certainly hope that does not happen, but we want to be sure you understand our guarantee. So, I'm going to click through those because my time is up and I see if you have any questions of me. All right. Do we have any questions, trustees? questions. Hopefully, it's not long, but yes, I want everyone to have their opportunity, but I'd just like to be succinct. Any other questions? All right. I'm sorry. I I do have one question for you and forgive me if it's in there if I've missed it, but how do you assess the data from each candidate from their previous um uh districts? Certainly more than more importantly than ever is finding the superintendent that has a success record. And so we have a number of tools. Of course, there's
027uh tools beyond uh the state assessment, but that's very important. State assessments are important. So we would look carefully at their prior performance in their district. There's there's analytical tools we can look at. We can gather on uh ratings of their campuses and scores and really their effect. How well have they done over the number of years that they've been a part of of their district. As you all know are well aware of the 2023 results have been released. We're anticipating 24 soon. So that's going to help. And of course our our kiddos just took the 25. So we we'll have much richer data than we've been able to have because it's been in the courts. uh unfortunately. So we're we're looking forward to having that for you. So that that's one area to assess
028their effectiveness. I think other things to look at is of course audits and looking at first reports, looking at things of that nature that financial management is so critical uh in understanding our school finance system. See how they're doing in those in that in those areas so that they do come to you. Uh that's why we also offer that background check because you also want them personally to be able to be a strong uh person of character with their own uh finances as well and then we'll have a dashboard that we can assess all of that data. Is that how that Sure. We can gather that together for you because but we in the planning meeting that's why it's so critical. We want to understand the other types of data that you would like to
029have. We know academic performance is is critical and secondly would be I think financial data would be critical. Many districts may have their own community based type of accountability systems too that we would gather to pull that pull those reports for you. Yes, ma'am. I have one question. Are you you done? Go ahead. Trust. Yes, Mrs. Dawson. Um, how does the process work for giving us the names of applicants? Do you vet them first or do you send us every single applicant that comes through? That would be at the will of the board. As I said, our process is open and transparent, but if this board so chooses, we certainly won't send you every candidate because how we do that is we do categorize and and and put them in order in terms of those
030that have superintendent experience in their career, currently sitting superintendent, and then those that may follow with um deputy type superintendent, assistant superintendent. I think if you remember in the slide, one of the things is in the planning meeting is finalizing that qualifications characteristics and it would be really important for me to hear from all of you about that. It could be simply I've done it before in searches where the qualifications you must have been in uh at least minimum central assistant superintendent and above. So that that minimizes them. But yes, we're more than happy we can do that in terms of cutting that down because many of them may not have for example enough years of experience in their current role. many of them may not have been vetted correctly in terms of just their
031body of work. We will then be able to provide you then a shorter list of those candidates because I know it's timeconuming and very difficult. We'll certainly provide you information about the overall the body how many uh applied and and the scope of the number but we can certainly work with you all as trustees uh to minimize that burden on you. That was actually my question. So it's negotiable is basically what you're saying as far as who's presented to us. Yes. This is your search. Great. We're you're the trustees. I said at the very beginning this is a very critical decision as you u transition a new leader to your district. So we want to partner with you in that process and partnering with you is is customizing it to your needs. I just um
032I didn't not sorry I did not notice in here um how you will communicate and convey all of this to the trustees so that we're all informed and all in real time and you know there aren't some that get it and some that don't and all of that. So I'm just trying to other than the site visits I realize we can't create a quorum and things like that but how do we how will you be communicating everything to the board? Sure as a former superintendent I understand how important that is as you said that all of you receive the same information. So that is one of my cornerstones. Yes. So that is in terms of of communication it could be as often as weekly communications in terms of email email reports status reports. Uh, one
033of the things that you will also receive are some deliverables to each and every one of you. Th those deliverables include the results of our online surveying that we conduct for you as well as then the the community meetings that we have that we build for you. So you will also be receiving that ahead of time before you're we're actually talking about candidates. You will have that information what your community is feeling, thinking along the ways. And so you have also milestones and deliverables along the way too. But absolutely your communication would be as needed but as weekly and it will be with your chief consultants which I'm will be your lead consultant and Dr. Marian Strauss's as was in the PowerPoint would be second. And then one one last question. If a if trustees
034have questions do they reach out to the assist to to you? Okay. Yes. Like in my folder there you have my business card which also has my cell number, my work number. Yes. Thank you very much. Uhuh. You're very welcome. Can I ask one final question? I'm sorry. Um Yes, ma'am. Do do you accept um placement fees from candidates? Accept placement fees? No. No. Okay. Thank you. We have no no fees whatsoever related. Uh the only fee in in full dishon honesty that we ever charge is not for candidates for a particular job particular superintendency. We do conduct workshops uh minimal $20 $25 fee for lunch but it's a mock interviews. It's a way we we build a repertoire of of of learning about candidates throughout Texas and outside of Texas. Uh resume building, coaching
035a little bit with them. Very nominal fee, but that's not based on a district. No ma'am. Thank you. You bet. Thank you very much for your informative u presentation. I appreciate the opportunity. Best of luck to you. Thank you so much. All right. Our next um while BBAC, there we go. Do you have a presentation that you need to get set up for? Okay, thank you. So, while she's getting set up, we can take time to do our score sheets if you want to at this time. Yes, thank you very much for coming in today. Yes, great. Thank you for having me. Um, my name is Sheree. I'm with BBAC headquarters LLC. Um, we we are a Texas do we are Texas domestic entity um formed as a staffing agency. So, we've actually been doing
036acquisitions for about five years now. We started our entity back in Indianapolis, Indiana. We bring our headquarters here to Houston about two a year and a half ago. Um, we are still a small business. Um, we, you know, we're just under 500 employees. Um, so we definitely, um, are here to support the staffing, um, agenda. Um BBAC proposes our support to cornrow ISD um to conduct a a high impact inclusive um targeted executive superintendent search. Um with that, you know, we do want to provide community engagement and board engagement. Um we're going to do the statewide, you know, state and national search for um this, you know, strategic candidate that you guys need. Um, we do want to do uh marketing and outreach on this. Um, getting feedback from the community. Um, getting your feedback
037so that we can actually place someone here um that is, you know, here for you guys. Um, screening and evaluations. We we are going to definitely screen each candidate that we get. Um far I know you know with the questions you had in the last presentation far as screening we will basically get a final selection and that's when we will go ahead and notify you guys. Um we will have a dashboard in place um for you guys to check on you know on the status of this. We will have a um system set up so that you can see you know what's going on. you can actually go ahead and shoot your feedback if you need that, you know, if you need to. Um, we will also have a structured um space for you to
038go ahead and if you need any, you know, any resources or have any issues, we'll be able to give you a, you know, you'll be able to go ahead and put in a ticket and we we can respond to you that way as well. Um after we go ahead and get that final selection and and go ahead and vet those individuals um we are going to you know go on with the transition spa phase as well as the onboarding and you know support for you guys. Um here are the deliverables and the in the timeline that we're looking at. Um we're looking at about 6 to 8 week um timeline to get this done. I know, you know, with the superintendent um space not filled at this time, we definitely want to um fill that
039in a in a you know, efficient amount of time for sure. Um so we definitely, you know, phase one is discovering, you know, the discovery and the community engagement. Um we definitely want to do the surveys. um and you know speak with the board. Do have you know we will have um you know meetings with you guys so that we can get your full feedback on what you're looking for. Um week two and week three we're going to launch that search. We're going to go ahead and launch that search for that new superintendent. Um, and then we're going to go ahead and screen and and create a short list of candidates so that they can, you know, we can go ahead and go do our due diligence to get those people on that finalist list.
040When we get that finalist list, that is when we will contact you and let you know what you know what candidates we have. um and you know what who's vetted, who you know, we will do a background check, we will do a credit check, we will do a social media um check as well as a cultural check um because we want to make sure that the new superintendent has the cultural experience um to provide the services that you may need for the students here. Um also we you know once we after the vetting um spa phase we want to go ahead and do the selection negotiate your terms and do the onboarding. Um so that is you know we do guarantee our services as well. Um we do guarantee a satisfaction um like you know
041any other thing we we you know provide. you know, if you do have issues, we will go ahead and do this search again for you at no additional cost to the to the um district. Um, like I said, value added is the most um probably the most important thing here to add value to this um project because I know that, you know, getting a superintendent for your students is probably the most, you know, important thing here in the district. Um, and so like I said, we want to make sure that that that candidate has the the cultural competency, um, has the succession planning integration abilities and the communication strategies needed to, you know, develop the um, you know, public trust and and transparency here. just a little bit about, you know, our past and our
042past experience. We have done this prior to this. Um, we've worked with the Indianapolis, um, House of Representatives. We're actually working with the, um, I'm sorry, chief commissioner, uh, Rodney Ellis right now on some of the CBC that he wrote for the education. Um, so some of the things we we really work closely with elected officials and community leaders um to to provide our efficient services. Um, you know, what we what we've kind of gotten out of this project, you know, out of this opportunity, um, we really think that, you know, you guys need a strategic, visionary, um, communitydriven leader. Um, and that's exactly what we're looking for to place into this, um, district. Um just to review our proposed um objectives. Um like I said, we will facilitate listening sessions and surveys with stakeholders,
043board members, even parents and educators as well as community leaders. Um just so that we can get that that feedback to ensure that we are um you know going after someone that you really really um are looking for. here. Um we're going to define that shared vision with the candidate um so that we can include value and qualifications on that. Um also we going to proactively target the higher performing leaders for this specific position. Um and we also are going to develop a branding candidate um to showcase this district strengths. um you know we want to promote opportunities through the targeted campaigns as well as you know different um educational avenues so that you know we are strategically placing a candidate here for you um you know we're going to evaluate the resumes against the
044defined leadership um and then we will construct structured conduct structured interviews um make sure that you know performance tasks are are done in in a um you know fashionable time. Um as well as you know like I said continue get that um feedback from the community. Um we're looking at a 30-day transition plan for this um when we do find a candidate for this. So we want to assist you with that 30-day transition plan to go ahead and transition them in. Um so we'll be here to help you with that as well. um technology advantages like I said we do have the technology implemented in our systems to facilitate you know all of the things that you're needing far as the um dashboard far as the um reports and in the analytics far as the
045you know I know you know cornrow ISD has over 74,000 students so we want to make sure that we are getting this stuff done in an efficient time and that you can see that it's being done in efficient time. Um we also you know we do um safeguard we follow all safeguarding um you know regulations with these federal state and local um policies. We do, you know, safeguard all personal identifiable information. Any unclassified, classified information, we do um have that safeguarded. Um and like I said, we have the um technology to go ahead and carry out the community surveys, you know, get, you know, get the feedback through a digital form. Cost a factor, cost factors and pricing. Here's our fixed firm price. And here are the services included with this price. Um, as all
046the services that we actually stated in this presentation, here are our experts. We do have former legislative assistants working on this with us. um as well as HR professionals who do have that component of hiring of employee relations of you know different aspects of different um finding different candidates and vetting them as well and that's it. Thank you. Any questions? I'll start at this end this time. Um I just have a quick question. Um you said that you would assign an executive um for the superintendent search. Do you have a consultant already? So yes, we like I said um I do have on staff consultant. I do have my HR professionals um and so we will probably be working you know directly with them, our HR professionals. um and some of the um legislative assistants
047who have done that campaigning with some of the elected officials as well so that we can know how that how that looks and how that looks far as um speaking with the different boards, speaking with um you know the different community leaders um we want to make sure that we do have that aspect completed um correctly. So we will be working with them as well. Thank you. So, thank you for your presentation and all the information. Um, how many superintendent searches have has your firm conducted in Texas? So, in Texas, we have only completed two. Um, but in Indianapolis, we've completed uh probably about 30. Okay. Thank you. You stole my question, Trusty Dugen. Okay, Dawson. So community engagement is really important to this board to get um all the feedback needed. Um I'm a
048little concerned about your timeline. I'm not sure how you do all of that in one week. Can you explain how you would do all of that in one week? So like I said, a lot of our um technical or technology is going to help us um do a lot of the community feedback. Um we're we're you know we are you know doing virtual meetings. We're going to be doing in in-person meetings. We're going to be sending out mass emails to get information from this community. Um as well as different community leaders here in this district. Um so that that's you know technology is going to help us a lot. So this is going to be a virtual it's not. So, we we like I said, we are going to do a lot of in-person um
049footwork for sure. Um but we just want to make sure that when we are sending out anything, we're going to send it out through our system as well as reiterate it in person as well. I did have one quick question. Um where do you advertise the job posting? So we actually have a system um that we use for recruit. Um we also have the LinkedIn recruit. Um we we have like like I said we have a lot of um different systems that we utilize for recruiting um and vetting systems as well. Um also we do have the I'm I'm actually working alongside of the prosecutor. So a lot of times I am utilizing that same system as a prosecutor far as the background checks, far as the vetting systems. So that's like I said, technology
050is going to help us here for sure. So it's an internal um place that you're you're advertising the job posting. Yes, we will internally post it. Um we will post it on, you know, have our LinkedIn recruiter. We do pay for that service. Um, like I said, we do pay for probably most efficient services so that we can get that out there. Um, and and you know, like I said, we will be doing campaigns on that as well so that we can get that information out there. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. No other questions. Thank you, Miss Sheree. We appreciate your information and your presentation today. No problem. Thank you. Bye. All right. Um, I'm not even gonna try. Walsh. Walsh, are you um do you have a presentation as far as for the screens
051or whatever? I do not. Okay. So, I'm going to ask if you could just give us a couple minutes for us to do our scoring because I I was going to try to be efficient and do them in conjunction. So, give us just a moment, please. [Music] You got it. You got it. Thank you very much for your patience. Um, and if you would like to get started, we're ready. Okay. Well, good afternoon. My name is Melanie Charleston and I am senior counsel in the Houston office of Walsh Gigos Law Firm. Uh we used to be Walsh Anderson, which is a lot easier to say. However, um things do change. We uh are a school law law firm. That is all we do and that's all we've done for 40 years. Now, in saying that,
052um as you know, um that means we cover the the gamut. We are we are board counsel. We we do governance, we do um employment law, we do student services, we do board um bond work, we we do anything that touches a school district, we do um but as uh as a result of that uh representing some uh 500 school districts in the state of Texas, uh we were often called upon to do superintendent searches to help them with their uh to seat a superintendent. So informally we have done superintendent searches for many years but formally we have done superintendent searches since 2013 and we have done over a hundred um superintendent searches very very successfully and it would be our honor to uh do a superintendent search for Conroe ISD. I have brought a
053very important person with me um her name is Dr. Anne Dixon. She would be the education consultant that we would be proposing that you use on this search. She has very uh definitive things that she would do as an education consultant and then I would have very definitive things that I would do as a lawyer. So, I'm going to bring her up to talk about what she would do and then I'll come back up to close it out. Hello. Now, if George can tell how long he's been in, I can too. So, I've been a superintendent for 34 years. Uh I was a permanent superintendent in two school districts and then an interim superintendent in 25 in this area. I've been at To Galveastston twice. I was at Montgomery. I always have to think of
054everywhere I have been. Um but we feel that experience counts. The only searches that Walsh does is superintendent. We're not an executive search firm. We are a superintendent search firm. I've done 58 of the searches. Um Walsh, as they've said, they've done over a hundred now. Our process is totally board driven. You tell us what you want. We give you the framework. Uh we are we have a profile committee that we meet with you. You tell us the qualifications. You tell us what background you want. We tell you what we offer and we you set your timeline. I get to choose who I want to work with and I choose to work with Walsh. It is completely a turnkey. There is no fingerpointing. Not at all. From the day we're hired until the contract is
055signed. The fee includes all the legal services of agendas, things like that. in the contract. And so I'd really like for you to remember that because we have that contract component which can be a bomb sometimes that you find the person you want and then that part and Melanie is going to talk about that more. The other reason that I partner with Walsh is confidentiality. It is required by law and to this the we the law firm posts they send out the applications and the applications are returned to them and they're put in a secure portal there there will be no breach from our end at all our confidentiality and I think the candidates that call me that's one of the reasons they apply for searches that are conducted by Walsh is because it protects
056them also in the job they have. Um the board will see another unique process. The board will see every single application. Now we've heard a lot about technology already, but I will call every single person and do a worksheet on every single person. It's not going to be by a computer or a video or anything like that. I'm going to talk to every applicant and every and then you will see my worksheet. I used to call it a poop sheet, but the law firm won't let me call it that anymore. So, um we do um think that you should do other backgrounds. Uh I will do the vetting. We call it extreme vetting. If I know the color of their long john, so will you. You will know everything I know. And I do believe
057my 25 interims. I'm still working my network. I somebody asked me one time, "Hey, give me your phone number." And they said, "Oh, oh, never mind. I already have it in my phone. Everybody has your phone number." Uh, I will call not only their references, I will call their non-references. I'm going to call their former employers. And most of them know that that's going to happen. And when I ask them on my poop sheet, you know, may I contact your board members? And they say no. And then I say, well, thank you very much. Because if they'll cheat on their wife, they'll cheat on their girlfriend. And you don't want somebody that's going to come here looking already for another job somewhere. Um, again, we do use technology in our secure portal. Uh, I think
058the other thing that makes us a little bit of a designer boutique search firm is we are here every time you are. We are here when you review the applications. I do not bring the top 10. I bring all hundred. And if somebody took the time to fill that out, you're going to take the time to look at it with my guidance. and I'll be able to help you to go through those faster and in and what ones meet your qualifications. We also sit through all of the interviews. We do not participate in them, but we're kind of the fact checker. Some people are, you know, what do they say? All cattle and no barn or something. And um no hat. That's it. That's it. No hat. But um we sit through all of those.
059And if we hear somebody say something that doesn't sound quite right, we vet that out. We also do a social media uh background and if you want the credit, we do the credit. They're going to be managing hundreds of millions of dollars here and you want to make sure they don't have any bankruptcies, foreclosures or debt verse um salary. And we if you want those things, our criminal we do the advanced criminal history check also and Melanie will tell you about that. Um, like I said, I think that we're one of the most personable search firms. Everybody I've already had calls. Everybody's call, you know, are you going to go to Comro? Are you guys going to do that? So, I think we're very approachable. I think that our success rate, I've never had a
060busted search. That's where you name a lone finalist and then it doesn't work out. One of those reasons is because of how we do our contract. And I would like for Melanie to address that. Thank you. And and certainly within your packets, you've got all of our information that talks about our uh our fees and and the searches that that we have done in in the past and our our uh our references. And there's also a um a tenative timeline. That timeline it it can be is as short or as long as you want it. Um some people want to do a very quick search. It it's intended if you want to seat a superintendent before the start of the year, but we don't have to. Some sometimes there's an interim for a uh for
061a very long time. It's completely up to you. In terms of a contract, what what is a a little different? Uh since I am an attorney, I I speak with if any of the the uh the superintendent applicants are represented, I speak with their attorneys or if they are not represented, I speak with them directly before uh the second interview and I share with them sort of the the guideline of what the contract will look like and get their sign off that they are good with that contract. I um I like to uh have everything nailed down before you name a loan finalist because uh that's when uh the district has the leverage. If you name a loan finalist and you haven't really negotiated the contract, then uh then when when uh once you've named
062them, it can be very embarrassing and so they know that the the leverage shifts back to the super to to the applicant. So, that's what we do with contracts and that's why we're we're turnkey from the from the application phase all the way through um signing the actual contract with a uh with your new superintendent. So, again, it it would certainly be our honor to um represent Conroe ISD in this superintendent search and I will just uh see the as they say in the leg, I will seed the balance of my time uh for any questions that you may have. I do since it's right in relation to something you're saying you just said I'm going to go ahead and ask my question. um you it was mentioned that it's turnkey and everything was included,
063but when I read through the fee schedule, it stated that if you become a uh retainer program, part of the retainer program, the the the attorney's fees, first of all, are done on an hourly rate. And then the second thing that it said is that there are two different price points if you do it as a one type of group or the other type that that there's two different price points per hour. But how is that turnkey if all the attorney work is done um on an hourly rate? Because we won't know exactly how much time it is. And then the second thing is is the vetting of the contract with the finalists or the second interview. Is that an hourly rate as well or is that part of the the process with and and
064I'm so glad you asked. We do because we do many many um uh we do many superintendent searches. Some of them are hourly. your particular one, you wanted a um a more of a flat fee. So, we've included what our hourly rates are, but we've also got but but for you all, we've got a it will not exceed this amount. So, um our education consultant has a flat fee and then we have we bill hourly, but it will not exceed $25,000 for the for the legal fees. So, that's that that's that's where the com some of the confusion is. So we will so you you'll see and so if it comes in less than that you would get the benefit of that. I I have a question. Are you president otherwise it it seems like
065as a law firm you're representing the candidate. How do you how do you because you're you're you're working on their contracts, correct? Oh no. Yeah. How how do you the conflict of interest? Walk me through that. I'm so glad you asked that. Um candidates have their own attorneys. Okay. And the when when I say we are a school law firm, we represent school districts. There are some attorneys who represent school districts and individual employees. We do not do that. Okay. I we only represent um the school board, right? That is our client. And so, Pardon me. How would you work with our attorney then? Very Oh, very. We we do that all the time. So, um uh as much or as little as they want. So, if for example, you say, "Oh, well, I want
066uh I'm more comfortable with our, you know, our our um our general counsel negotiating that or whatever." Then she and I have a conversation. Absolutely. Yeah, we've done that. Thank you. Absolutely. I think also as the consultant, I'm the only one that talks to the candidates until it gets to the contract. The applicants don't call and talk to the lawyers. Got it. They everything I do, the people, they do Then she swoops in. Yes. Got it. Absolutely. Thank you for your question. I'm glad I I'm sorry I was confusing. Do you give us a list of all the candidates as well or do you vet them and then bring them to us? I'm not sure about the order of that. Um because of the confidentiality I will bring all of you will get 100% of
067the list and you will see every application in a meeting of application review all at once. You will we we have to be very careful about any type of breach. And so yes, you will get the list, but you will not get it in advance just so that there's no fingerpointing that how did that person's name get out when he probably told somebody himself. Um, but you will get everything at one time together if you want it because there there are some districts and and ranks them. And so there are some districts I only want your A's. I only want your A's and B's. They don't want the C's and D's. So, it's completely up to to you. If you want to see everything, you see everything. I do on my poop sheet, I do
068put I give them a grade at A, B, or C. A means they've met 100% of the qualifications that you set. The B's are good candidates, but let's say you put preferred a doctorate and they don't have a doctorate or they haven't done their dissertation. They might be a C, I mean a B. The C is Anybody out there that's mad and thinks they can do this job. The Dairy Queen and the bank teller and everybody else thinks that this is just a cush job that gets a big paycheck. And so those will be the seats in addition to red flagers. Oh, and Brian, am I going out of my scope with that punishment thing you said? Okay, we do check for red flags, buyouts, high mobility, you know, the ESB hit list, you know,
069anybody that has a red flag also will go to a seat. Even if they meet 100% of your criteria. Now, when we meet though, you can pull a seal out if you want. I'm not gonna I'm not going to hire your superintendent. I'm not going to tell you who to hire. Might whisper who not to hire, but I'm I'm not gonna hire your super. Thank you, Trusty Sumler. Yes. Um, you just answered my question about rating with that. I think that's great. We get the the whole list. Um, I was also going to ask, do you have comments on there from your interviews that we can look at as well when you when you give us the list? When you when you've talked to them. Yeah. You you're going to see my poop sheet. It's
070going to be on the front. It's going to be stapled onto the front. And I Oh, I'm going to get in trouble now. Go away. Because I I can ask some of those ify legal things. I can. Does your will will your spouse need employment in the district? That's a legal question. Can't ask them if they're married or not. Will your children attend school in this district? That's the kind of stuff I ask. You know, I ask them what their current salary is and what's their anticipated salary. Now, you're going to tell me your price range, but I'm not going to tell them. And if they say something whack-a-o, and I'm going to say you are out of their price range, do you still want to be considered? And I have I have them a
071lot of times just say, you know, I really don't because I'm making more than that now. So, don't waste our time or yours. Thank you, Trusty Horton or Duncan. Okay. Thank you both very much. Thank you. All right. Our y'all, we are doing so great. Sorry. I'm so proud of us. So, um All right. We're on to our next uh candidate firm for McFersonson and Jacobson LLC. Do you have a presentation that we need to get set up? Okay. Thank you. All right, trustees. We've got a few minutes. And I forgot to say um Miss Dixon, it's very nice to meet you in person. I we have not technically moved on his presentation and up there if you you want to ask us a question. Um just one more question. Are you the team? Just
072I'm the consultant and she's the lawyer. Now, of course, we have a bunch of people in the background, our parallegal that accepts the applications. We have a bunch of matrix. I know that [Music] she she's not at a microphone. I'm sorry. I was I I was trying not to interrupt you, but they can't hear you. You have to be at a microphone. Basically, I need you to repeat everything you said. It's got the gist of it is she there's a whole team that will um assist her that do things that she does not know on the technical side. Exactly. Um the par we have a parallegal who um accepts receives the requests for the applications. All of that is going to be filtered through our Austin office. Uh is that true? And uh so you
073get all of them. If there were ever a time that we needed backup lawyers, you have 500 other lawyers. I'm the only consultant and um but I but we have a huge number of people in the background that will be available. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Are we ready, ladies? Okay. Thank you very much for being here today. Sure. Thank you. I'm Jerry Gibson. I've worked with McFersonson Jacobson for almost two years now. Um, thank you for allowing us to present to you today. You are about to undertake the most important job that a school board has and members of the school board have. Uh because it's really not about it's not about you. It's not about us. It's about your students. And so you got to find the right fit of someone who's going
074to take this great district to the next level. Um McFersonson Jacobson is the um third largest search firm in the country. U you can see that we believe every student is entitled to a high quality education. We strongly believe the quality of education is dependent upon the quality of the leadership. Uh to ensure each search and quality of leadership for educational excellence. We have 10,000 um we have conducted 10,000 searches in 45 states. Uh that's laid out for you in page 43 that I u folder that I gave you. We have 100 excuse me 130 consultants and um onethird of those are minorities and or females. Uh our retention rate is impressive. I believe it's 80% stay for minimum of five years and 60 60% stay for um 10 years. The group that has been
075selected, you see there's four. Uh Dr. Steve Joel, he is actually represents the central part of the United States. Uh Dr. Walter Cooper has led several searches in state of Colorado. Uh m Dr. White and then myself. Uh those are the four that will be working with you uh through this process. Uh we what we try to do is very structured. It's very transparent with you. Um it's an objective process. uh we will get we you will set a detailed timeline. Usually for the most part it's somewhere between 8 to 12 weeks by the time you look at your advertising having time to come in. We usually have about 30 days for applicants to uh send in their information and then we will begin the uh the vetting process. We will have met with you
076and ask you what are you looking for? uh as questions been asked I know it's go going to be asked you may look at every uh it's your choice because it's your search and so if you want the top five or 10 according to what we have found we will give that you want all of them you want them right we will do it however you ask us and request that we do it for you um it was said a few by the our first presenter that uh this is this is a very reputable district outstanding reputation not only the state of not only the Houston area the state of Texas and the country and so you're going to get a lot of applicants, I would anticipate, from outside the United States. That's why I'm
077glad that we're here today because we've done 40 45 we've represented 45 uh different searches, excuse me, 45 in 45 different states. So, we have search consultants all over. In fact, they're listed for you on uh inside your uh I believe it it is, I might not be wrong on that. Um the I want to show you on page 51. If you turn there for a second, I would like you to see uh some of the larger searches that we have, uh performed for districts in the in the nation. Um uh Clark County School District with 309 students, Boward County, uh Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 256,000 students, Orange County, uh all the way down to those that are in the uh your range 50 to 75 um and 75 to 100. that information is there for
078you as recent uh and some of them are very recent as in 2324 Albuquerque uh school district. Also on pages uh 43 through uh 50 is a list of the searches that we have conducted. Uh all of them that we've done are listed right there for you. So you can see the comparable numbers uh that are there. to the enrollment of the students. Uh we provide also like many others a two-year guarantee. So it is something uh at superintendent lease for some reason within two years we will come back and do another one uh for only for the cost of the expenses of the consultants. Uh there is a dashboard that you may be able to look at and see as applicants apply. Um we prefer and ask that we do we can do stakeholder
079meetings uh so that you can hear and get the feedback of what the constituents are thinking. Um a lot of different questions that will be asked. In fact, you can arrange the questions if you want. If you want to know what people are thinking u as you represent them as I stated uh why engage with a search firm? Well, we we will do recruiting and vetting with candidates, an objective screening process, verifying the resumes for accuracy, uh communicating directly with all the candidates uh throughout the process. Um navigating open meeting requirements, closed meeting requirements as well, advertising rules. Uh our advertising is done. So that you know, of course, the TAS and TASBY, those things, but AASA, uh, top school jobs of education week, uh, education week print ads, uh, TE Texas Alliance of Black
080School Educators, uh, the Association Latino Administration Superintendent, District Administration website, uh, Ed Join, Edcal, uh, and, uh, chalkbeat, I hire school administrators, and of course, anything if you want it in your local newspaper, we will certainly do that as well. We, as I stated, we've conducted over a thousand superintendent searches in 45 different states. We stand on the strength of our references. There are references for you in the beginning of the the um what I presented to you, uh references of school districts, numbers that you can contact and talk to people. Uh we pride ourselves in being flexible and customizing our search and the protocols of that as you want and as you request. As I stated here, the retention 40% of the candidates also have stayed in the same position for at least 15
081years. Uh we do not hire the superintendent that is your job. Uh we we are basically the consultants. We do the recruiting. We look for talent for you and uh to bring what you're looking for. Uh but we represent the board in this and we work strictly with you, no one else. As I stated, timeline we we anticipate would take about 8 to 12 weeks. uh it can go as fast or as slow as actually you want it to. That's your search. You tell us how how fast you would want. But tr um typically that's what you will see 8 to 12 weeks. Um the phases is we would meet face to face with you identify desired characteristics. Uh we would meet phase two is meeting with the stakeholders. Then we begin to evaluate read
082and evaluate the application's files conduct uh contact references. We do uh like Walsh and Gyos, we know people who know people. Um you know, I I've learned firsthand just because something is printed out there or is out there. It's not always true. And uh there was an instance where a consultant was doing a search and actually called 25 different people to either ver confirm or say no, that's not what happened. So that we feel like it's important that they all get a fair shake if this is a job that they're interested in. Um we'll review the remaining short list of candidates, assist you in identifying the final candidates that you would like to uh uh interview and then phase five is uh if you desire actually we we would meet with the board and the
083selected candidates to establish performance objectives and measures. That's once again your choice and um as I stated provide a two-year uh the guarantee. I y'all have that in front of you. I'm not going to insult your intelligence and read it all to you. The phases are there laid out for you. Two and three. Uh, of course, five. Um, so the expenses is not to exceed $49,700. Uh, you can see it is broke down for you and saying not to exceed. It's not saying it will cost that much. It will not exceed that much. Uh, you can see the uh it is somewhat broke down for you in your book. And that is all that I have. All right. Who would like You want to cover a lot in 10 minutes, you know. Yeah, you really
084did. Um, who would like to start us off with questions? Quick question. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Trusty Horton. I was just looking through the different school districts that you found superintendents for. Would we be your first school district in Texas? Yes, ma'am. We're trying to get a footprint in Texas. Thank you. Okay. Trust. Did you have another one? Okay. Trustee. Uh Nelson, I have a question for you, sir. Um you mentioned, and forgive me if it's somewhere in the documents, but you mentioned uh one of the slides back about a percentage of women and minorities. Yes, ma'am. What What was that percent? One third. One third. Okay. Do you have a lot of uh folks that are looking for specific um races or ethnicities? No, ma'am. We've never been asked that. Okay.
085Thank you. We provide it. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Uh, one question for you. So, you are the only consultant for the firm in Texas. Who would the team be then that would be working um to help us? Will it go back to it? I think it was the first slide. Yeah, it was um Sorry, I apologize. I missed that. No, we're taking in a lot. I promise. It's on page 29. 13. 28 and 29. 28 and 29. 29. Am I going through that? I'm not. There it is. Oh, yeah. Right there. Dr. Steve Joel, uh, Walter Cooper, uh, Dr. White has done searches as the closest Shreport, Louisiana, which is a pretty large district in the state of Louisiana. And myself, and I am in the Houston area. You are the Houston area. Yes,
086ma'am. So, we would see you the most. Is that correct? I just, you know, like my wife, I would do what she says. If if they say you be there every time, that I'm going to be here every time. Call her first. You I'll provide the reference there. Um, yes ma'am. I I would assume that uh I would be here just about every meeting. And the rest of the folks, would they be here? Dr. Joel would be here a majority of the time because he is, as I stated, he is the uh his area that he is the director or supervises is the uh the central region of the United States. So from here all the way up. U so those are the ones that I I would I would know would be here absolutely
087the most. But if you say we want all four be there every time we meet, then all four will be there. Any other questions? All right, Dr. Gibson, I thank you very much for your time today and you are very efficient with it. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you'all. We are up to We are up to search firm number five. Is everyone okay taking a few minutes? And do you have um T uh Texans for Excellence in Education? Do you have a presentation to load? Okay, we're going to keep working on the numbers here while you do that. I should have been the other one. [Laughter] All right, we're ready if you are Texans. Texans for excellence in education. Great trustees. Thank you so much for inviting T to be here with you today.
088Before we jump into our presentation, I just want to go over with you your document packet. Uh on the right hand I'm maybe a little bit taller than our prior presenters. On the right hand you will see a complete copy of our presentation for your review and on the left is a con is a copy of a proposed contract for your review. I'd like to introduce my colleagues that are here with me today. You of course know Hava Armstrong and I also want to introduce Gemma Padet who's our vice president of HR services. I think Gemma is coming up on finishing her second year with TE. So, uh, we are part of the team that we're going to propose to you today. And I already saw the smiles and giggles, but from the very beginning,
089this board has been blazing their own trail. You have done things your way in your time and with your values. And I do not expect this surge to be any different. And I want you to see our proposal as an opportunity for you to continue that, to do things your your search your way. Aa Thank you. Well, we also want to recognize that it's been a long time in Connor ISD since you've done a search like this. We understand that. We're mindful and sensitive to that. Not just you, but your community as a whole. Most parents with kids active in the district have never seen this pro this process play out. And so, not only did we think of Conro as we created this proposal and and brought forth our team for you guys, but
090also the fact that this is going to be a foreign concept and process for nearly every stakeholder involved. And so, um, also with that change can be unsettling, um, but it can also be really positive. And so our goal is to make this as smooth and seamless as possible for you, for your community, for your teachers and staff, and most importantly for the students. Now, how we achieve that is what I call the three C's. Community involvement, communication, and customization. So community involvement is huge. The reason we chose this picture is that although this is seven board members, we know that you take very seriously the job you have to represent your entire community, that you are their representatives and you want to hear from them. So we want to give them a multitude of
091opportunities to give their input and feedback to you over a different platforms and then also make sure that they know about those opportunities and word gets out so that that they can be heard. And then we want to communicate all of that information to you in anformational and timely manner. We also want to communicate constantly not only with this board but with your community. And our goal is to answer the question before it ever has to be asked. And I think that communication also alleviates some of that trepidation that some people may feel. And then customization, like John said, this is your search. This is Conro ISD's way. So whether that's the process, do you want to see all the resumes? Do you want vetting? How do you how involved do you want to be?
092Versus also the timeline, how fast or slow do you want this to go, what do you want the pace to be? And frankly, some of these decisions do not have to be made right now. You may get into this process and have a change of heart or realize this is too much right now or we can actually take on a little bit more. Whatever that is, we are here to support you through the process that you see fit that not only matches this board but matches your district and what your needs are. And then also we've customized our team so it's experts but experts specifically for what Connor ISD's goals and visions that this board has stated. So John's gonna John and Jim are going to go over that in more detail, but we just
093want to put you at ease that we are here to support you every step of the way and we think in the end this is going to be a great experience for Conra ISD as a whole at the foundation of our proposal and that's all this is is proposal because it's your search your way. Any of these attributes can be rearranged in any order. If you see an activity and you think, "Hey, we would want to do this first versus last." Total your search your way. But at the foundation is your vision alignment. This is where your ideology, your values, your culture come into play. And it has to be a foundational part of every aspect of this search. We're going to take those Conro ISD values, apply the T process, and have perfect fit
094candidates. We have curated a specialty team specifically for Conroe ISD. As I said, you know, Hava and I. So we will we will skip to Gemma. Uh she's a 30 plus year HR professional. She's been uh chief human resource officer for a major urban district. Uh she has over 20 plus years in recruiting. Cara Belaloo uh she's a school law attorney. She's a former TEA deputy commissioner. She's a governance expert. She's worked in two uh attorney general's offices and two governor's offices. Grant Anderson Grant Anderson u is our school finance specialist. That's a specialty screening that we do with these candidates is to dive deep into our candidates and their school finance knowledge. Dr. Crystal Rz, I want to skip to the part of her state HQIM expertise. She is a leader in the state
095is advising on all the commissioners products including the blue bonnet product. Let's take a look at the different aspects of our search. First of first and foremost, a launch meeting. This of course is where we're going to set all the parameters. It's your search your way. We have a lot of things to cover. Timelines, candidate profiles, selection criterias and engagement communication strategies. Then we're going to post. You can see there it's the it's the wide breadth of all the different places that we that superintendent uh positions are readily posted. Next, we have our community, administrative, and trustee engagement. We begin that with one-on-one interviews with each and every one of you trustees, each and each cabinet member. We want to get your perspective directly uh uh so that we can include that as we build
096that candidate profile. We propose doing at least three community forums with translation available. Comprehensive survey in English and Spanish to all of those audiences and then and you'll see here in just a moment a customized trustee dashboard where all trustees have access to all information at the same time. We will uh recruit and screen for you guys. Of course, uh, applicants apply digitally on our T platform. They will upload their credentials there, including a video submission. We do want you to get a look and feel for our candidates. The screening, we provide three different options. Review all applications. We can screen some of those for board predetermined criteria or we can go to the drawing table and we can customize something during your launch meeting. Interview and selection. We will provide you a customized interview
097an interviewee analysis u of that will include vision alignment student outcomes record and fiscal operations record. We have a 200 plus interview interview question bank for your use. We propose three rounds of interviews facilitated deliberation and an off-site interview option availability. Our contract negotiation process we're here to assist you along the way. that this is your priorities, your expectations, and your legal protections. Um, we customize each superintendent contract as to what matters the most for you, the board. We're looking at the term, the length, the compensation, benefits, performance evaluations, evaluation criteria, and even the superintendent's participation in executive sessions. But beyond that, we're also here for salary guidance. Our recommendations are market informed and fiscally responsible. Um, one of our top priorities is reducing risk for you, the board, but also creating that strong superintendent
098board relationship for the success of the district. We're not here to just develop the contract, but we want to see everyone in Conroe ISD become successful, but we know it starts with that negotiation process of the contract after the loan finalist has been identified. Thank you. Then we enter into, you know, once we have selected that loan finalist, some ongoing supports during your 21-day waiting period. Again, your search, your away. We can provide transition planning and collaboration with the board to begin. There's no need that does not have to wait. Uh we can do cabinet introductions, community engagement events, facility tours, a review of written artifacts. We can handle public relations for you. Um and we will act as an ongoing liaison between the loan finals and the district. and in particular during those contract
099negotiations. Some key advantages that we want to bring to your attention. Our customized um Conro specific data dashboard. This dashboard will also be customized to what data sources do you want to see. We we put some uh exemplars there, you know, uh survey question responses, links to the actual applicant database that you can review at your at your convenience. Of course, this is all it's been mentioned earlier presentations. uh the this is all confidential information so it is secured it is it is username password protected accessed so but when something updates here all trustees have the information forformational purposes all information at all times next our community engagement all means all we want to we want to provide multiple opportunities digitally on paper and verbally we will do that in surveys English and Spanish and
100forums English and Spanish and finally He offers superintendent recruitment with expertise in your curriculum approach. That is critical. This is such an evolving field on the curriculum uh landscape that you will be on the cutting edge probably finding the first superintendent that will have this in their background and we we see it as uttermost important. Thank you again for having us here today. We appreciate the opportunity uh toi to continue serving uh Conro ISC. Thank you. Um, anyone have questions or want to start us off? Okay. How many superintendants have you hired? So, I'm going to take you back to this screen here. We all know T is a new organization. So, collectively as T, we have only done one superintendent search in Texas. Our team however has done 50 plus executive searches and that's
101one of the reasons we curated the team we did we know as an organization uh in fact our in our original mission we didn't anticipate doing executive searches but our clients started coming to us saying we want you to search you understand our values you understand what we're wrestling with and so we honestly wrestled with it for probably about six months and then decided okay we're going to have to jump in here you know to to to make sure that we're selecting great superintendents for our clients. We know that's a u something that we need to mitigate and it's part of the reason we created the team that we did. Thank you. Hi, thank you for being here. Uh quick question. Can you tell me a little bit more about uh the blue bonnet learning
102and how we would locate a superintendent that is familiar or understands the ins and outs of it? Well, I think first and foremost, we need to find superintendents that even or candidates that even know what blue bonnet learning is, you know, that that has that curriculum eye that is keeping up with those trends. And second, they need to understand the components of Blue Bonnet, you know, and I think this board probably knows better than most, Blue Bonnet can be a political football, but there are very, very specific attributes to Blue Bonnet that we want to make sure that candidates understand. We want to make sure that they understand that the science of teaching of reading is a priority in Conro. We want to make sure that they're not going to come in with uh notions
103of hey, we're going you were going this way, I'm going to take you this way. That's that's that that first slide, you know, where we talk about alignment that goes into that. We don't want someone that's going to be a total mismatch for this district, right? Um my background is in elementary education, leadership, and human resources. And so early lit early literacy and so I will be screening for those um blue bonnet indicators as we go through the screening application process. Great. Thank you. So as a followup to that um building on her question so even if they don't have specific experience with blue bonnet because it is so new and that is a rarity um if they have the tenants let's say of that curriculum and their background that is what you're going to
104be screening for. Correct. Um I retired before Blue Bonnet came out um from a large public school and um I know about Blue Bonnet. Anyone that you want as a superintendent one knows about Blue Bonnet knows you've adopted it and has done their research on that. And so we'll be looking for that as a strength of someone coming in. There is nothing more important in your new superintendent than excuse me their understanding of early literacy in the primary grades. Thank you so much. And as a followup, Trusty Duncan, to that, I would draw your attention to Dr. Crystal Ren's resume in our uh bid submission. Her comprehensive resume is there. She is uh she is a contractor to the Texas Education Agency and has been since the beginning of high quality instructional materials. Uh I
105had the privilege of working her on with with her on several different projects and I recruited her to be part of the search team for that expertise. So she knows the names that are out there. She knows the people that have participated and and will help us u you know walk through that. Okay. Thank you so much. That's great input. I just want to confirm. Did you say that you would have individual I think I read it as well as I think you said it that you would have individual interviews with each of the trustees. That's correct. and that um also with our executive leadership team. Yes, ma'am. That's correct. Okay, that's that's a good thing to know. And also um I was going to ask a question and you have no problem with answering
106questions for that the trustees may have uh not just uh one or two or whatever, but you'll be able to answer the questions for everyone. Absolutely. That you know, in situations like this, we're exchanging information. We won't be deliberating. We won't be doing all of those things that are prohibited, but exchanging information, providing clarifying information, that is absolutely an allowable activity. Okay. So, to that question, who would be the point of contact for all questions? Would there be a singular point of contact? Well, uh, Hava and I will be the primary contacts as we work with you, you know, primarily in in other activities. But depending on what the need is, we're not making any of our team off limits, you know. So I say, you know, if there are general questions or hey, the
107dashboard's not working or something like that, you know, filter those through us. If you want if you want to have a question with Dr. Rent, for example, hey, tell me about what you're looking for when you look at these candidates in regards to blue bonnet. Absolutely. We'll get you in touch with Dr. Rents. Also, I want to add all of our team um depending again on your search your way can and will be available here live in Conroe whenever needed. Um uh of course the T team is at that disposable but the other players that we're bringing into uh the picture we will make them available to you as well. We want you to hear from the experts to hear their thoughts and and you know why they're making various recommendations and that the cost
108for that is included in this. It is. Thank you. The just to be clear, and I made this clear in my uh EBID submission, the only cost that is not included is if you did select to have off-site interviews, meaning if you wanted to rent banquet space somewhere or a hotel conference room. Some school districts do that. They want it to be, you know, highly confidential. They don't want the school personnel to see who's coming in, who's going out, that kind of thing. That is that is literally the only cost that is not included. uh we're happy to facilitate that for you. It was just it was a little impossible to plan, you know, not knowing how many rounds we're going to do, what are the dates, what's the time of year, you know, so
109that would be the only excluded activity if you chose to go that way. Great point. Anywhere. Yeah. I had a quick question. Um just to clarify, the team that you have um brought together, are they going to be looking at each um within their expertise, each candidate, what that person brings in that field? Yes, ma'am. Specifically, as as has been described by the other potential search firms, we will put every single applicant uh through a process. Of course, that first screen is very very large. And this is this is just on our end where we're making notes, we're making um you know shift, you know, making those uh shifts in in how you may view those on your dashboard and they work their way through these various stepstones. You know, we uh the last search
110we did, Grant had a very specific screening with all the candidates that dealt with nothing but school finance. He, you know, we have very poignant questions uh that we just and not that you don't have a wonderful CFO here. I mean, Karen Garza is the bomb. We know that, you know, but we want her we want a superintendent to know uh what what the struggles are. What is she wrestling with? Can he can he or she speak the language when Miss Garza comes to the office and says, "Hey, we need to talk about this." Um u so I hope that answers your question. Hi, I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Um can you tell me a little bit more about the search kickoff session, the initial session because that sets the foundation for everything. It
111is the most critical part of the search. Trusty Maine, I'm glad you brought that up. Um, you think that 10 minutes is a long time to cover all this until you till you're confined to 10 minutes, but I wish I could have talked more about the launch because it is critical of everything. Uh, it is a of course it's a dy called board meeting because we're coming together to deliberate direction. So, we will be in a workshop format. Uh it will be a facilitated um uh workshop meaning we're not going to come to the table and just say okay what do y'all think you know we will have a definite protocol. Uh all of the decision points that have to be made will be completely outlined agenda driven so that so that there is a
112per it is a very purposeful process. Um we we don't have a dog in the hunt of which way it goes. we just know where are the decision points and we will facilitate that discussion as uh you trustees decide hey we're going right or left on on this decision point uh at the end of that we do craft it into a master plan or a strategic plan uh for the search and as I've heard other search firms mentioned then we have to commit to that plan because that's when things derail you know if we get midway through and you're like oh you know u we did I want to do this instead of that. Well, once you start, there are many HR implications and employment implications when you open things with one set of standards
113and then try to shift mid and we certainly don't want to put the board in any kind of legal liability. So, that would be my that's why that meeting is so important is we really have to dot the eyes and cross the tees and and make sure that we're we're all on the same page. It goes back to that original SL slide about alignment. that that is the that is the key focus. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question. Hi. Um could you tell us a little bit more about the super that you placed and um uh when was it? And if you can't name this the district, could you tell us a little more about the size and demographics and how it relates to It was a 2A school district uh actually in
114central Texas outside of Austin. Um, we had 38 applicants for that position and it which was a great uh applicant pool for this school's um um uh demographics and and their paypoints and such. Um we brought that down to I believe that board screened eight applicants face toface. We also did three rounds of interviews there. they they opted to very fasttrack their search. And um you talk about trying to iron out the details of a contract. Um when you're fast-tracking a search, that is a that is a very challenging thing to do when you're interviewing people and you're naming along final that night. So, uh it was it was definitely a um you know, it was a very fun search, but it was a challenging search just because of their timeline. Now we were a
115we met every milestone. Um they are extremely happy with their uh candidate. We had um we had applicants from Umble. Uh we had applicants from um Dallas ISD, Lake uh Lake uh Worth ISD, uh Midland. We had many small school districts uh that applied. So it was really interesting uh to see how that how that shook out. And that that super was placed in 2025. Uh yes, we just placed them in we opened the search in March and we placed in May. Thank you. Yes. Where where do you uh post your application or your job posting? What platforms? Okay, we there are very typical platforms and I'm glad you brought this up uh here in the middle of this slide. Of course, the typical you're going to want to post on TASA. That's where all
116school administrators go and especially if you're the job hunt. That's that's you're going to stop by TASA for. Of course, there's a there's a website that's very much frequented by school administrators called Texasist.com. Uh we will also uh put the foot the cost for a premier listing, which means it's a it's a banner ad. It's accentuated on their page. It's all branded to Conroe. You know, it's your colors, your logo, your searching, uh all of that kind of thing. So you'll have a reach beyond Texas with these platforms if need be. Well, in the in the proposal, we said that we could extend this to national if should the board uh choose that. I didn't list national here. Uh as been mentioned by others, there are certain national level okay sites that we would include.
117I didn't take I didn't list those here, but they are in the expanded proposal that we submitted. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Are we good? Any other question? I do. Go ahead. A follow-up question regarding the um speed and where the placement I guess or where the negotiation of the contract falls within that. We heard one presenter mention that that negotiation happens at a specific time. So it ensures that the board remains with the leverage for the negotiation. Is that something that you can ensure? Absolutely. As long as the timeline cooperates with that. The only the scenario where it gets difficult is when you're doing literally backtoback interview days, meaning I'm doing a round one here, I'm doing a round two here, and I'm doing a round three here, and we're voting to hire at the
118end of round three, that's when it gets challenging because you don't there's just not time available. So, if we avoid that, if you avoid that, absolutely. And what I would suggest is a week grace period in between your final round of interviews before the day you named on finalist. That gives you a full week to do all the negotiating. You know, uh you're going to indicate probably to your board counsel or uh we have Cara Blue on our team that would be, you know, if you wanted her to do that, she absolutely could do that as well or a combination of the two. I will highlight Cara has done some amazing work in in superintendent accountability. um we just worked with her to pass um right at 20 uh policies that focus on superintendent accountability
119in another large district in Texas. So she does bring that expertise and how superintendent evaluation should be connected in with the superintendent's contract. Um but yes, having a gap there is we will all be thankful for a gap um uh during that negotiation period. Something to be mindful of. Absolutely. And that is all part of the the fee. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Well, thank you very much for y'all's time and it was very nice to meet you, Miss Gemma. Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity. Okay. The next search firm up will be Ray and Associates. Do you have a presentation that needs to get loaded over there? Okay. And if you could just give us while you're doing that, we'll do this and we'll be back together in a moment. Hello. Hello. Welcome. We appreciate you coming
120out and sitting till the end. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll just say my name's Dave and that's it, right? Since it's the last one. Thank you for having us today. Thanks for inviting us. Thank you for spending the time today and doing your due diligence. You've got some great search firms here. You have great people here and I know you have a difficult decision. Uh but we're honored to be part of the process. My name is David Falus and I'm represent Ray and Associates. Um I was uh superintendent in Navasota kind of down a little bit down the road from you guys. Dr. Stockton who was a superintendent years ago. He and I came on board within the same month and kind of did some of our first year training together and he and I became dear
121friends. And back in the day I coached in Brian and you guys were in our district so we were over here playing your middle school teams. And so I feel like uh it just feels comfortable coming back to Conro. So I now live in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Uh I was superintendent Navasota for about 3 years and then I was superintendent in South Lake Carol for 15 years. Uh a district that I still kind of consider similar to you guys because of the expectations your community support and obviously some of your uh demographics uh you know similar to what we dealt with in South Lake. Uh and then I retired at the end of 20 after you know we kind of got kids back to school from COVID. We were one of the first
122ones in the metroplex to get our kids back. We felt like that was the best place for them to be. And then I retired and be began working with Rain Associates. I'd actually looked at an out ofstate position and kind of fell in love with their process and their people and how they took care of candidates. And hopefully I'll be able to describe some of their process today. Uh and then I serve 75 80 school districts around the state as a financial adviser uh in Texas. And so I'm still pretty plugged in to kind of what's going on around the state, keeping up with legislative matters and just absolutely love pouring back into young and aspiring and upcoming superintendents. So feel like we have a very similar network to some of the folks that you've
123talked to today. Uh you can see this is we'll go through the team a little bit. Again, I'm a managing director with Ray Associates. I've been working with them since January of 20 I think. Now I forget my names or years, but January of 20. So I've been there nearly five years and so I'm on the leadership team there. One of our consultants is Dr. Hector Dominguez who's a superintendent in Rungi. It's a fantastic gentleman uh bilingual and will be a great part of our team. Uh we have a gentleman Dan Bitman and Dr. Karen Hall are both managing directors will be on the team more from a distance as far as boots on the ground. It'll be me and Hector. Uh but Dan would could be here uh at any time. And then the
124other two members of our teams are vice president Molly Schwarzoff and Kathy Shenfelder. Uh we're one of the uh few firms that I know of that have full-time office staff. And the great thing about that is if there's something that you need, you call me or text me and say, "Hey, I need to see this." Kathy will have it to us within minutes. She's just fantastic. Uh and Kathy could also be here to conduct stakeholder meetings or other meetings that we have. So we have plenty of people that that can be on the ground here for you. Uh and we'll be happy to serve you. Obviously, you know who you are. uh fantastic district. You're, you know, one of the top districts in the state. People know where Conroe is. They know about Conro. They
125know what Conroe means. They know a lot about your campuses and the accolades and just like you do. Uh but again, we're honored to be with you guys. So, who are we? Uh Ray Associates has been in business since 1975. We've conducted a little over 1,600 searches over that time period. And I think we've really uh fine-tuned a process that I that I think works really really well uh and works well for you. A lot of things that we do are very similar to what the other firms do, right? Uh but there's some things that I think they're a little bit of the secret sauce. We don't have a poop sheet necessarily. We have a we have a candidate report that we provide. Sorry, I Ann and I go way back. So, um but uh
126you know, we we try to try to the big thing is we try to keep you informed, keep you in the loop. Obviously, as has been said several times, this is your search. We do, I think, have a fantastic process. We've got a great grip on a process, but it's flexible and and amanable to what you determine uh works best for you and your constituents and stakeholders and most of all kiddos. Uh yeah, you know, as far as the candidate pool, uh we track the analytics say that we hit we get about 28,000 unique hits to our website every month. These are just people kind of going, you know, cruising by, seeing what's going on, looking for jobs. We have a pool of about 3,500 people that are registered users on our site, which means
127that if Conro selected Ray and Associates, once we developed a profile, we would shoot that email out to about 3,500 users uh to see if there's either an interest or if they know someone. We have 35 or 40 associates around the country from Washington state to Virginia, Delaware to Texas, uh Iowa that we would notify immediately and they would start doing the same thing. Start looking at candidates, looking at your profile, deter determining if there's someone that kind of fits that profile. And as we talk about it being your search, uh, one of the first things we would do if you selected us today in the next two or three weeks, you're going to either talk to me or Hector or Kathy one-on-one, uh, where we'll do kind of some onboarding with you. We'll be
128asking you questions, asking your hopes and desires and dreams and wishes, and uh, what are the pitfalls, what are the things we need to look out for, what candidates look out for, what type of candidates you're looking for. So, we start with you and building that profile through those one-on-one uh interviews and then we expand that out to a district-wide uh when we did the search in Round Rock was at the time was about a 55,000 kid district, we did about 30 stakeholder meetings and we work with you and your district staff to determine who those stakeholders are. That may be through feeder patterns. It may be it may be elected officials. It may be your PTO's uh you know and obviously your leadership team, administration, cabinet level. Uh we'll visit with the interim just
129to see kind of what they feel like from the a little bit of the inside out. Uh we can do those virtually, we can do them in person. Some people still do a combination of things because as we all know, parents are busy. I mean, you're picking up that kid and getting them to soccer or dance or, you know, and so it's sometimes hard to get to a 5:30 or 6:00 stakeholder meeting. So, we'll try to do some of those virtually if if we think that's a benefit to you. And then we'll provide you some feedback from all of those meetings as we build the profile. We'll work with you with all that information uh to build the profile of what you think the ideal candidate would be. We also do a 31 qualities assessment
130that's sent out to every stakeholder in the district. We love for kids to take that and so you can see what your stakeholders believe are the top qualities that they're looking for in the next superintendent. Uh and we think that's all very very important as we build that profile and then all that gets filtered down through your assistance uh to create that profile of what we're looking for whether it's someone who's been a classroom teacher, has a doctorate, has a financial background, has been an elementary teacher, you know, whatever that profile looks like, it will be developed through that through that process and then we will filter those applicants through that uh through that profile. Um and we talked a little bit about recruiting again use very similar uh locations that most people mentioned today.
131Tassinet, Texas ISD. We'll do some of the national uh organizations as well. Some of those are no cost for your staff to post on. Some of those there are some fees in our proposal. I think on page 40 there's an outline of our of our fees. We have a kind of a base cost and then not to exceed cost. And then you see there's a line item for advertising. That could be zero or it could be more than that. That's just kind of the ones that we recommend typically coming around $1,500 to do those national uh national sites. Uh but we recruit again through that those national postings, through your state and local postings, through our associates, through you know just kind of our organization uh nationally. I I believe that Conro you may very
132well hire a superintendent from Texas. But I think you will get a lot of people looking at you from the from the national perspective u just because you're that kind of a district. Then we'll help you in screening candidates and same thing we can provide uh you can see every candidate that's applied. Uh you can say David we just want to see kind of the top 10 or 12. We'll filter those kind of on a high, medium, low basis. Again, very similar. If a doctor's preferred or not preferred or if you uh want somebody who's been a superintendent or maybe they've been a cabinet level in a certain size district, you know, we'll filter those by those by those criteria and bring that to you. Uh typically, we'll take those 10 or 12 and kind
133of narrow them down to six or seven for a first round interview and go from there. One thing that we do u in the interview process that I think is unique is we provide a it's a forcefitit matrix for you as you finish the the interview then you kind of rank candidates and I this is a process when you start it you kind of go what are we doing and then by the time you end up you're like oh my word this is so simple and makes it uh just really easy and so we really like the matrix so we help you reach consensus on candidates doesn't mean you can't go out and grab another one you know it just helps you to see hey here's what we all collective actively think about those. We
134help you with, you know, interview questions, setting up uh those interviews and all those sorts of things. We do provide uh some one-way videos that we think are important because for a district like Conro, this person's going to represent you. They're going to be the tip of the spear, if you will. So, it's as you start to vet candidates, it's nice to see how they present themselves, even if it is just a one-way video. Uh this is just an overview page of the things that we've talked about, the things that, you know, we we think are important. Uh we do you know vet candidates through Google searches and online you there's if if you've been a superintendent for a while there's a story out there uh and if and if the candidate has the qualities
135that you're looking for but there may be a negative story I may present that to you and you can decide in conro that story is not going to fly or in conro that's hap that happens uh and we move on uh but we try to dig into those and let you know if there's good bad or otherwise. Um, like I said, we think our process is great. We think we have a great team. Uh, we've done this for a long time and we'd love to work with Conor D. So, I think that's got 20 seconds left. The important pages, the timeline that we've given you, a sample timeline, I think, is on page uh 30 or so, and those cost estimates are on page 40. So, any questions? I have one. I'm I'm looking through
136my email to see if I can find it. I wrote down that you guys price match. Is that correct? Yes, thank you for bringing that up. We we do we do offer a price match where if uh you if you're down to two firms and there's you know differences if their scope or if our scope is similar uh to theirs, we can do a price match for you. Absolutely. Thank you. We we don't we don't want price to be the reason you decide we're not we don't want to use Ray. We you know I mean obviously there's you got to pay the bills, but we want to work for the district. and be reasonable. Thank you. I have a question for you and forgive me, I don't have your paperwork in front of me, so
137I'm just going off of what you said, but um I did hear you say that you are located in Iowa originally. Uh yes, our main office is in Iowa. We have a uh an overarching company that's actually in Minneapolis. I'm in I've been in Dallas for for South Lake. Got it. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And I apologize as well. I don't have your information in front of me. Did you say the price was listed on page which uh it is on page 38? Oh, okay. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. PDF page 40. Excuse me. Yeah. Page 38. Um, you mentioned in your cover letter that you're committed to DEI. Can you talk about how that influences the super search? It depends on what the board desires. Um, we, you know, about 40%
138of our placements are women or people of color and, uh, our applicant pool tends to reflect that. Um, but it really depends on the district and what you guys desire. That's not, you know, it's not something we put on a flyer, you know, that that's I mean, if if that's not something the district desires, but as we work nationally in some of the districts we work with, that's important. Um, you know, but you in Texas, we we that's probably not on every flyer in Texas. I'll say that. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other question? Any other questions? I was a little concerned because it wasn't just like once in your presentation for your firm, but it was from beginning to end that it you there's a huge focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Sure. And
139um and so I mean that I'm glad that you just said that it's based on us. But what what I am concerned about then is the vetting of the candidates that it's not vetted based on that. It's no it's based on their characters and qualities. And I I I'm the one that puts together a spreadsheet and filters and there's nothing in that spreadsheet. There's no category for I don't think anything that you would consider DEI. tends to be campus leadership expense experience, teachers experience, uh doctorate, non-docctorate, campus level leadership, that sort of thing. And then the other question I had was um where how would the communication as far as to the board work? Um, as far as I noticed in your presentation that we received with the RFP, it says um that there'll be
140a board contact person and an administrative contact person. Typically, uh, if we're selected, we would want to have a kickoff meeting with you guys, workshop similar to what John mentioned, uh, to where we would go through kind of checking list on, okay, is everybody good with their calendars? Uh, who do you want to have as a contact person from the board? Is there someone on the administrative staff as far as scheduling stakeholder meetings, that sort of thing, who do we need to have as a primary contact person for both? Um, but again, if you said, you know what, everything needs to go to the board every time. We we'll do that as well. Typically, we work through the administrative team, then they send things to the board, so there's not an opportunity to reply to
141all, you know, as far as to, you know, to a search group. We don't want to put you in that kind of a situation. Uh, but we work all that out in that first meeting, that kickoff meeting. And did I also read that there would be individual? Yes, I saw individually meet with each trustee. Yes. That's what I thought. I just selected. Yeah. In the first week or two, we' do most likely a phone interview unless you wanted me to come down. We'll go to coffee, you know, and we'll work through kind of a a set similar set of questions that we would present to your stakeholders. You can kind of see what the feedback what kind of feedback we're going to be asking your constituents. Any other questions? Okay, great. Thank you very much.
142I'm just gonna say David because that's what you started. That works for me. Absolutely. Thank you and good luck. So, um I appreciate your time. Also, um I just want I meant to the whole group. I just wanted to say on behalf of the board, I just want to thank each of you. Sincerely, thank you for your time for coming in today. Um and the amount of work that it takes to put these together and individualize them for our district. And we appreciate that and we recognize that. And I know that's what you're here to do anyway, but I just wanted to say that um we appreciate your time and effort and the thought that went into them. And I guess at this point, we will uh we need to take a break, please, before
143we get on to the next stage if that's all right. And we will do that now. The time is 3:08 and we will be in recess for until about 3:20. We are 327. We are back in session. Thank you for your patience while we care. Darn it. Sorry. It is 3:27. We are back in session. And thank you for your patience while we took care of some technical things. And Mr. Brousard, if you could get us going again. Yes, ma'am. So, we're going to slow walk through a little bit of this. Miss Desca and Miss Labour will be here. They'll probably be on either side behind you. They're going to be here to answer any technical questions, help you through. Many of our folks that have done evaluations have done this process a lot, so
144they're well versed. Um, but we want to be there for you. Just know that we're not there to tell you how to enter your score or say anything like that. It is just the technical side of it. So, um, you all should have received the link to your district email. You're going to click on that, the link that's inside the email, and you're going to create a user ID and password. And I'm just going to ask you to follow the instructions that it gives you for the user. The first thing mine's asking is for a new password. It's that's that's normal. That's okay. I believe they just set a new password. I don't like being called very weak. That's my feeling. Well, after after you do it the one time, you'll be fine. I know.
145That's my feeling. Take it. Okay. I have put it in and mine is very strong. All right. And um so we'll just have we'll just have everybody get to that phase first and then Okay. I appreciate y'all's patience because sometimes it's hard to talk people through the other side when you don't see it. Stop here. It's not moving. I know. Mine's not moving either. Mine's Mine's froze. I can't find it. See what happens. M mine says unexpected error. Do this. Yeah. Plus, there's user error. I'm using Mac now, so it's been a while since I've been on PC. Okay. So then it' be right next to the going into the scoring. Then it would be going into the scoring next scoring page. Acknowledgement. Yep. That's what I had as the next step. So is everybody
146not quite yet. No problem. We're going to hold off. You did a great job. Oh, no. Look at the folks behind you. They're the ones doing it right there. These two professionals. I just want to make sure that wasn't the reason why it wasn't. Y so you should be in the acknowledgement page now. So you're going to if you'd like you can read through the acknowledgement and at the bottom I believe you check box and type your name in. Is everybody done that? Once you're done, we'll just like I said, once everybody's there, we'll move to the next step. And then after that, I'll kind of get out of your way. All of this remains confidential. Yes, ma'am. Okay. I just was asking cuz I was reading through it. Just a second. One more second.
147He's so smart. He's so smart. No, we're Yeah, we're just Yeah. No, you're fine. We're just like say I'm I'm watching everybody and when I see everybody look at me, I think we're good to go after that. We're good. All right. All right. Love it. U I love the attention, by the way. So, um so what'll happen now? You're in the scoring module. So, I'm going to give you just a basic uh overview. As you access each the first firm, you'll enter a score for each of the sections that are on your scorecard. Now, I will tell you that on one side, I believe it's the left side, you're going to see documents in there, like PDFs. Those were provided to you prior to this. So, if you want to go through them, you can,
148but I promise you, you received every bit of that. Okay? Um, if I was scoring this remotely, that's how um our people get the documents. So um so anyways, once you complete uh the first one, you'll have the option to move on to the next firm or go back to the homepage. Once you've scored all fir all firms, you will go back to the homepage and select submit. It's very simple, but like I said, we've got our team here to help you out. Uh prior to submitting, you are welcome to go back through each firm, verify with your sheets, make sure that you put the correct number in. Um but once you submit, that closes out your scoring. Once everybody is done scoring, we'll Katie will acknowledge that she received scores from every single person
149and then we will close out the scoring session. Katie will work on the big tab section for you all and then uh we'll collect the uh scorecards and the documents that were provided to you. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Um I just noticed that it's not in the same order that we uh Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. I mention I mentioned it super early, but I knew the Yes, ma'am. It is. So, if you put your sheets in alphabetical order, that's the order that Thank you. All of them show up. So, thank you for saying Oh, sorry. Enter criteria. Enter criteria. Sorry, thank you. I was looking for that as well. Okay, great. Yes, ma'am. You can go ahead. Thank you. This is quite a Yes, ma'am. Um, I believe there's you. We're going to hit the submit
150button in the top left corner. We're going to have since you spoke up first, Miss Dusk is going to look to verify. I think it's submit. Since you submitted yours, did you receive trusty Nelson too? Okay, great. I didn't do Okay, I'm just going to check in. Has every how many have submitted or think they submitted? One, two, three, four. She has four. No, it's okay. Please take your time. No, please. Please. No. Yeah, it is absolutely no rush. Yeah. Yeah. And just to kind of reiterate while we're finishing up, uh once Miss Leort has all seven of your uh valuations, we'll come and collect the scorecards and the materials that were handed out. We're going to do that. One, two, three. That's great. Yeah, that's So what Miss Leort will be doing right now
151is she's going to work on the bid tabulation. It's very similar to what you all receive in board documents from the purchasing department. The only difference is is there will not be a recommendation from the purchasing department along with the bid tabulation. We'll simply give you the results and we'll step away at that point. Okay. You want Okay. All right. So, if you will bear with me for just one second. If everybody could just look at your neighbor and make sure you all got the similar copy, the same copy. I'm sorry. No, I didn't mean to say similar. So, we pulled them right off the printer and gave them to you. I just wanted to make sure everybody Okay. So, President OD Weller, any more questions for me? Trustees, are there any more questions for
152Mr. Brousard? All right. Do I have a motion? Okay. I do want to clarify that even if this is Can we No, I I mean, you can Oh, no. Okay. I don't care. Go. If you have something I want to clarify one thing, it might be a legal question. Um, are we voting strictly based on scoring? that you're not obligated to do that. It's you you can score. You can vote however you want to. Okay. I wanted to make sure that was clarified. Do I do I have a motion? Yes. I move that the board select the first rank proposer for superintendent search firm as Texans for Education and Excellence and authorize the interim superintendent to negotiate and ex go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. and execute the contract documents. And if contract terms cannot be
153reached with the first rank pro proposer that the award goes to the second rank proposer who is you're going to make me say this Walsh Gallagos Kyle Robinson Gagos and continues on that in that fashion until the agreement is reached and the contract executed. I'll second that. I I um Is there discussion? I do have a concern on who's negotiating only because our interim superintendent may decide to cast his um his resume into the search. Who would you like to uh um maybe uh um Miss Garza, our CFO um or the or Miss Garza myself or Miss Garza and an officer? I I I mean the amendment to your motion. I would I would ask that we make that amendment. I'd accept that. Okay. Which you need to word it exactly how you want it.
154Do we need to vote first or no? Well, you could amend your own motion to change. That might be easier. Yeah. So, who do we want to um that that if you're making I'll make the amendment. I move that the board select the first run proposer for superintendent search firm as Texas educ ed excellence in education and authorize a um board president and CFO Karen Garza. Are you okay with that Miss Garza? Okay. uh to negotiate and execute the contract documents and if contract terms cannot be reached with the first rank proposer that the award goes to the second rank proposer which is Walsh Goss Kyle Robinson uh second rank proposer and continues on in the fashion until an agreement is reached at a contract and a contract is executed. Second. Okay. Now we can
155take a vote on that. What do we have discussion? I I do we have any discussion outside of that? If we're not comfortable with the first range proposal, what do we do? We just vote no. Yes. Okay. Any other discussion? Okay. All those in favor of the motion presented, please show by the uplifted hands, four. The vote is five and the motion carries. Oh, I have to ask for that. I'm sorry. I All those opposed. Thank you, ladies. Okay. The motion is 52 and the motion carries. The vote is 52 and the motion carries. All right. Seeing as we have no other need for closed session, um I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All right. And we are now in adjournment and the time is 4:04.