001[Music] um here Ms Fraley here Mr Meyer yeah Joseph anger here at the void here Mr Bill and secure as well as thank everyone for being here tonight we have three different agenda items um uh Mr Meyer has an emotion we'd like to um agree within the motion I'll make a motion board uh we will then have an update from legal counsel on a few items and then um an updates and this is actually the reason we originally had been planned here tonight is to talk about the board's governance work uh anyway let's take a look at our Port structure and committees uh we have a really small group of distribution plan uh that is focused on a lot of really outstanding different initiatives uh I realize a lot of books may not be excited
002to stick around for them but it is really at the core of the work that the board is doing in the government so we'll be talking about how do we work effectively together how do we organize ourselves uh how do we structure ourselves um what are the values that we want to approach uh in how we lead the district forward um the first item that we have is my example as a motion to rescind the districts recently approved human growth and development curriculum Mr Meyer I would ask if you read your motion uh and conclude with the uh your recommendations do you which way to raise the entire documents or do you wish to reference to the documents I think because of the I think Community speakers okay whereas the School District administration conducted an
003online survey of opinions regarding the proposed payment growth and development grade one the hgdc and since data must maintained on the district website whereas documented in an email by Nicole Marvel on August 24 2022 board members requested changes to the hgdc database on criteria offered by board members whereas documented in an email by the gold marble on August 24 2022 District officials worked to carry out the direct and South board members to change the date of presentation in favor of some data over other data whereas the district officials worked as an informal group of unidentified membership I'll call the data exclusion group under the directives of unidentified board members acting as public officials for the purpose to exclude some data from public consideration by the school board the board the data exclusion group did not
004form an act pursuant to the Charter given to School District administration by the board that was formed operated and acted under directive of board government officials for a specific purpose to affect the outcome of subsequent decisions of the board through decisions to filter data whereas although the filtering of survey data may be conducted for legitimate purpose the process in this case to make filtering decisions have the factors used to choose the filtered data should have been a public process as it was directed from the board members as public officials with the intent to influence the final decision of a full board on the hgbc whereas the data exclusion group both effectively action not just as staff but as a separate Collective advisory body to the board on both deciding and citing Wisconsin open meetings law
005and compliance guide of 2019 citing internal fraternity General until the correspondence page 3 of June 8th 2015. and operated in a manner that the activity provided by the survey data was not conducted in the course of meetings notice and conducted in compliance with the oldest meetings alone whereas the deliberation of the data explosion group constituted meetings under the open meetings law as the data explosion of the consecuted a local body created by a formal director by government officials then assigned in duties citing Wisconsin open leading slot compliance guide page two of May of 2019 citing 78 opinion of Attorney General 67 and 68 to 69 of 1989 the data exclusion group acted and its duty to engage in an advisory process that resulted in a written statement of data furthermore to consider in an action
006of the board to the exclusion of other data that was not publicly discussed not a publicly available and that probably bestows disclose or observed as to why data was excluded and what data was excluded whereas the data exclusion group conducted its business out of sight of the public in violation of the Open Women's Law the work product of the data exclusion group was unlawfully produced in secrecy and used by the full board during the liberations and both on the human growth and development curriculum on August 22 2022 therefore the action of the board on August 22 2022 regarding the human growth and development curriculum should be rescinded as an outcome of an unlawful secret advanced process furthermore the data explosion group decision making discussions on data were conducted without notice and out of sight of
007the public as activities of the data exclusion group has to do meetings under the open meetings law the decision-making decisions discussions the decision-making discussions were conducted in violation of the open news level the decisions of the data and solution group as to criteria or exclusion and data were conducted outside of the public as activities of the data exclusion through past security meetings under the open meetings law the decisions and criteria for exclusions of data were conducted in violation of the opening Club during the liberations on the human growth and development curriculum on August 22 the course by roll call both rejected an amendment that required Administration to produce a date certain commitment for a plan and a timeline for development of an alternative curricular choice to a proposal such that the alternative would address the
008requirements of those the data totals who oppose the main proposal the world called defeat of the amendment for a plan for an alternate curricular offering was significantly based on the opinion data distribution in the data before the board for discussion but the opinion data distribution before the board was the fruit of the data exclusion group that had operated and made data exclusion decisions in violation of the open meetings law thus the action of the billboard was the result of an unlawful secret advisory process and should be rescinded as the amendment process was influenced by the group of innovating slot issues on August 22 2022 before board approved the human growth and development curriculum the approval was significant on the base of the data presented as truth of the data exclusion group that had operated in
009violation of mental and meetings law thus we approved the approval action of the full board was a result of unlawful secret advisory process and should be rescinded whereas the decisions on parameters or modification of survey data were not made in the course of meetings notice and conducted and compliance with all the meetings off I hereby move to rescind human growth and development curriculum to know of August 22 2022 and I saw them the board we have emotional force is their descent seeing no second this motion dies there will be more unborn discussion they won't go out to adoption tonight the next agenda item is going to be an update from our legal counseling which is um we're paying to legal items in your statistics is it a preference which side or are they both hot
010mics [Music] litigation what happens financially is that our our insurance then triggers us to go to a different law firm uh our our base law firm is that um yes sir can I ask you um just out in the in the crowd thank you I'm the only person you don't believe so again I just asked you to there were other people here who needed to say a word to them I didn't see them yeah look at your number so so people better is our our permanent Uh current I shouldn't say opponent but our current Law Firm that provides General law um counsel to us they also help us with special education law general counsel um but when there's the threat of litigation that's when we call our insurance company our insurance company that assigns us
011to a law firm which we have been assigned to because of opinion litigation so Miss Lucy thank you for being here this evening absolutely appreciate your time thank you so I was asked to come here to provide an overview or per the agenda and update to both the community and the school board regarding current legal issues before the board and I want to start with I only know the legal issues I know of that I've been assigned to I'm certainly not here to represent any and all legal issues before the board I have been assigned by your insurance carrier as Dr means suggested and and uh accurately I would note stated um to represent the board to represent board members should you board members past or current board members get embroiled in litigation the matters
012I want to overview for you right now include and I want to just kind of preface what I'm saying by um telling everyone I've been a lawyer for 25 years I have never had a circumstance where I've been called other than the the meeting I did come to and I believe it was May 16th if my memory serves I've never been called to talk about the staff status of litigation when the threat of litigation is one of one of our own so I'm very cognizant and I want the board to hear that I need to ensure that my statements that I make to you because the adversary is in the room right the statements that I make to you are not just accurate as they would otherwise be but to recognize that the adversary who's
013in the room could use anything we say or do against us and that's just typical I would expect if our adversary we're not a board member but we're a member of the public they would do the same thing so I just want to caution the board by saying I can speak to the status I will give you an overview I am not here today to disclose strategy that we may use in connection with litigation we may face that would be neither prudent for me to do nor proper for me to do to protect my client the school district and School Board member so I just I wanted to start with that right now um at least as far as what I've been assigned for there is no pending lawsuit so a civil lawsuit asserting legal
014claims against the district is not filed in any Circuit Court that's what kind of triggers next steps in terms of litigation but we do have threats of litigation and I thought I would just very briefly walk through what threats I'm aware of that exist um and where those threats are at and what the board and the community can expect going forward with regard to those threats all right so I'll start back on May 16. I was engaged prior to May 16 to assist the board to try to resolve a complaint Mr Meyer had I came to you uh it was an open meeting for those of you that are in the the background here some of you may have been here I believe it was uh recorded and we had a very Lively I thought
015productive conversation about trying to resolve differences and as you may recall if you were here I know many of you I think all of you board members were here as we talked we tried and you tried as board members and I tried as legal counsel to understand how we could move forward with the complaints that were made and at that time the complaints were what I would just call threats of litigation there wasn't any civil lawsuit filed then just like there's not any now but there were threats concerning actions that individual board members or the board as a whole I think would be fair to state had had made that Mr Meyer perceived to be a violation of Wisconsin open meetings law as well as perhaps some board policy concerns that he had I think
016that would be a fair characterization of of his issues and so we were here We Were Here on May 16. we worked through some of those issues um and we came to a point um where at least in my mind I thought we had at least a verbal agreement going forward but to be fair we all knew we would need to memorialize that agreement in writing and allow Mr Meyer and his legal counsel to review that and and that was fully understood so I'm not implying or suggesting there was a deal Inked there wasn't but I thought the board had come to some general consensus about things that the board was going to do to address some of the Mr Meyer's concerns things like training things like the policy or the policy committee and what
017you you all talked about that I'm not going to go through all of that in any sort of detail I then took it upon myself to look at my notes and prepare a settlement agreement or a resolution agreement and I did my best to memorialize what I understood to be the terms it's always hard when you're dealing with a public body because one person may say something and it might not be the will of the board but I I thought I had a good understanding of where the board was at I still think I did as I sit here today I feel like I did I memorialized that and I got that I can't communicate directly to Mr Meyer so I had to communicate through his lawyer and I sent that agreement to Mr Meyer's
018lawyer and to this day I have not received any feedback other than in essence no no thank you now's not the time things of that nature I didn't get for example a red line agreement where it was like Laura you got this wrong if these words are changed you know we'll sign or we're looking for this I didn't get any sort of what I typically get when I knew when I prepare agreements there's some there's some negotiation there's some give and take I expected that I didn't get that and so I kept Dr means apprised of where we were at along the way but it became very clear to me I can't recall when maybe June late June that it just wasn't going to happen um through no fault of of our own our Collective
019own to try to get these issues resolved it just wasn't going to happen and I honestly as I sit here today I can't give you an explanation for why it didn't happen other than I can assure the board that it was not on my part and not on I believe our Collective part to try to gain Common Ground so we didn't get a resolution then what happened is approximately last week sometime I received uh and was forwarded um to a facsimile that came into the district uh wherein Mr Meyer and there was a another person so it wasn't just Mr Meyer there were in essence to what we call under the law verified open meetings complaints and I'll tell you what that means under the open meetings law before someone files a lawsuit this is
020right in the statutes you can all look it up there is a requirement that before you you as an individual file suit you have to first present those those claims that you believe you had to a governmental entity uh and in this case it was the District Attorney's office um Milwaukee County and that was done and so last week two separate verified open meetings complaints verify just means signed under oath verified open meetings complaints were filed one was signed by Mr Meyer if I'm not mistaken and the second one was signed by Mr Meyer and another individual who I understand as a private citizen I will not I don't plan to go into private citizens names they are what they are their public record anyone could get a copy of them and by filing those
021verified complaints it starts o'clock and the government official has I believe 20 days to consider those complaints and to take action if no action is taken after 20 days effectively they're kind of deemed disallowed that's really not the right legal term but effectively what it means after 20 days is the person signing the verified complaints can now move forward to file a civil lawsuit so to be clear there is no civil lawsuit filed but there is what I would call the step before the civil lawsuit that's been fine all right now I want to talk about those two open verified open meetings complaints and I took some notes so bear with me as I look through my notes the first open meeting complaint was signed under oath by Mr Meyer and it relates to a
022Google doc a Google document that was shared uh to gain feedback with regard to the planning meeting uh before the board on August 17 where the board discussed their strategic plan and the complaint alleges that the board members who made comments on that Google doc um effectively violated the open meetings law by doing so and that as a result when the board came in I believe for a second reading on the uh strategic plan when the board voted at a public meeting on that strategic plan by by placing comments on a Google doc that that somehow violated the open meetings law that is the legal claim that kind of is is embodied in that first open meetings complaint in addition there is an allegation in that first open meetings complaint that at the board meeting
023on August 17 Mr Meyer claims he was cut off by the board president when he wanted to speak concerning the Strategic plan um and again the Cornerstone of that verified complaint is the Strategic plan and the board's action at the board meeting where the at the second reading where the board formally approved that second or excuse me the Strategic plan the second verified complaint that is signed under oath by Mr Meyer and a citizen alleges different open meetings violations and the allegation in the second complaint asserts that back in December of 2011 I believe the board meeting was December 9. that there was a closed session discussion and during that closed session discussion there was a comment maybe two comments maybe a statement there were there was talk at in that closed session that Mr
024Meyer and the citizen allege went beyond the scope the proper scope of the closed session and as a result there's an allegation that the board violated the open meetings law by making a statement or statements in the closed session that Mr Meyer Contender could be on the scope of the topic for the closed session the complaint also asserts that and I'm on the second verified complaint that complaint also asserts that former board President Steve Doman made what is alleged to be secret appointments to a policy committee because of Mr doman's erroneous belief that Mr Meyer had disclosed information from a confidential closed session board meeting um finally this that second verified complaint alleges that the policy committee met sometime in the spring of 2022 without that meeting being noticed for a meeting and alleges that
025by meeting without a proper notice under the open meetings law by the meeting itself the the people who attended that committee meeting violated the open meetings law those are the allegations set forth in the two verified complaints I want to talk first about the first verified complaint and again for reference that relates to the Strategic plan in the Google Doc all right um there is a legal conclusion being made that is uh and what I would consider a novel legal Theory one that I can assure the board has not been tested through any Court precedent that I'm aware of that adding comments to a Google doc that are then discussed in a duly noticed public meeting that that constitutes a violation of the open meetings law but as with novel theories or ideas that will
026have to be tested if it's pursued by a court of law so Mr Meyer either the the attorney general or the excuse me the Ada who's handling that verified complaint um May file a civil lawsuit uh in the name of the state by the way open meetings complaints are filed in the name of the state of Wisconsin all right and that novel Theory could be set forth in that complaint and if again if the Ada doesn't bring that Rocky County technically the state of Wisconsin doesn't bring that complaint Mr Meyer after the expiration of 20 days can bring his own complaint that will trigger insurance coverage your insurance company has stepped in and what I what I call pre-preclaim loss meaning you're not yet sued but you might be so we're going to step in
027and help you um and if that lawsuit is filed just so we're clear individual board members could be named as defendants in that lawsuit because of course the obligations under the open meetings law not to attend a meeting that's in violation of the open meetings law is all an obligation of each of of yours and I recognize some of you might not even been here for that meeting I don't know I haven't looked at the agenda minutes but in theory you board members could be named so I thought I would just spend a moment talking to you about what that means okay what that means is first of all if a lawsuit is filed you would have uh me as a lawyer the insurance company would step in to defend you and we would defend
028that lawsuit vigorously um to the point where we would get a ruling from the court and whatever the court rules the court rules if the court rules in Mr Meyer's favor it will be an adverse ruling if the court rules against Mr Meyer it'll be a favorable ruling the loser could appeal litigation takes a lot of time and a lot of money the remedies which I thought you might be interested in knowing about because you're probably sitting here going okay what happens if it's an adverse ruling to me the remedies are all outlined in statute under the open meetings law there are several remedies that can or relief whichever way you want to look at it that can attend to a court finding of a violation they include um if there was an action taken
029at an illegal meeting the court can that shall but can void the action that would then necessitate the board if if there was avoided action by a court the board would then have to in essence re-notice it rediscuss it and act upon it that's a possible remedy another possible remedy is that the open meetings law does provide for forfeitures for every violation of the open meetings law the forfeitures are not insignificant but they're not large typically you know there's a statutory right changes I can't even remember if it's 35 dollars to a I don't I don't exactly I don't have it memorized but it's it's a smaller amount forfeitures are not paid to the prevailing party they're paid to the government so the money doesn't go to in this case for the first open meetings
030complaint Mr Meyer it would go to the government and then of course there is the ability to get a declaration from a port that you violated the open meetings law and last but not least if someone prevails in an open meetings complaint he the that person or persons are potentially eligible to get their attorney's fees paid okay so if they have an attorney representing them there can be what we call Fee shifting those fee shifting if fees are recoverable you have insurance coverage for that so the big picture for you is if this complaint and it may not but if this complaint proceeds to civil litigation we will defend it there will be a process the court will at some point Enter a ruling or a decision and if there's forfeitures you individually will have
031to pay them but they will not go to the plaintiff they'll go to the government and there will be fee shifting but your insurance carrier will will pick that up and you may have to redo the meeting um I'll now move to I'll take questions at the end if you want because I'm almost done the second verified complaint and again it may never get to a lawsuit but if it does I just want the board to understand I did some due diligence I do understand in general what the issues work and some concerning statements made in this closed session meeting that is alleged I do believe from my conversations that there is a difference of opinion or a difference of perspective maybe would be the better word as to what exactly was said so there
032may be a dispute between what Mr Meyer claims was said and or this citizen will also sign this verified petition and what other board members who were in attendance at this meeting claim was said factual disputes get resolved by a court by the way open meetings complaints are resolved by courts not by juries um so it may be that the court has to have some fact-finding you know if a lawsuit's filed we may need to have what's called an evidentiary hearing where people go under oath you're in a courtroom you testify to what happened Mr Meyer and the citizen would get their day in court any Witnesses would get their day in court and the judge would make a decision as to what happen I can tell the board from my due diligence I believe
033there is a significant factual dispute as to what happened okay but we're not going to resolve that today I just wanted you to know that um and then that again that complaint also talks about secret appointments to a policy committee I have looked at what the rules were concerning appointment to a policy committee and I take issue with the fact that that was allegedly supposed to happen in an open meeting I don't believe that's what your policies provide and then with respect to the Personnel strike that the policy committee that met in April it is my understanding that the policy committee re-net after do notice was given public notice that the policy committee met discussed whatever they discussed at this April meeting took whatever action they took I don't even know if they took action
034there could have been the doctor means to say no there was probably no action taken no motion made so they discussed what they discussed so the remedy that would attend to any violation of that would be there would be we wouldn't have the court being able to avoid any action that was taken because no action was taken there was no vote and because they already did they already kind of redid the meeting with with uh notice I do have the agenda for that meeting I that was due that was in essence redone again remedies for that would be the same I won't go through them again but in theory if somebody were found to have violated the open meetings law all of the remedies that I've discussed previously would attend to the second verified complaint
035that is the sum total of the legal um I want to go back to the agenda and update to the community and the board regarding current legal issues before the board I'm happy to answer any questions and I will answer your questions I just would be mindful that if I answer a question question in a way that um appears to be limited I'm doing so purposefully and I want everybody to understand that because it's a situation in my 25 years of legal experience representing schools I've never been in where my adversary is in the room and I'm giving an update so it's a bit unusual but I'll do my best to answer any questions you may have any questions um so my question is and I've been patients with the second um verified okay so
036first verify just need to sign that signed under oath thank you for that just so everybody understands every time they verify them verify just means under the open meetings law the the step that's required to take the before you file a lawsuit requires you to to present it to in this case the district attorney um and sign it under own under oath just means this is true like like you know like under like you're in a courtroom right I swear to tell the toll truth nothing but the truth that's what underworld means okay and then my second question is I think it was the second verified um complaint you said it was signed by a private citizen both Mr Meyer and a private citizen that was the one that supposedly took place in discipline session
037well that that opened that verified complaint was signed by Mr Meyer in a private citizen and there are what I would consider to be if you want to break down the issues in that one yes part of that complaint relates to the December 9 closed session meeting so presumably the private citizen unless they were there I don't think they were there would know about that okay that's what I was just trying to do yeah I'm like how could they be in the complaint if they weren't yeah I mean but the but In fairness that verified complaint the second one also references um the appointment by by former president Doman to the policy committee as well as this policy committee meeting that occurred in the spring that did did not occur for no notice was given
038that's right so yeah absolutely I I failed to tell you one more update and it happened today um today no I take that back late yesterday and I got to it today I got an email late yesterday from I believe um the assistant district attorney in Milwaukee County um you know basically indicating if there's anything the district wants to provide to that office as they consider the verified petitions that we can provide that and I do plan to respond to that just with that actual information like the agenda a good example of that would be to to give them information that the policy committee did meet here's the date here's the agenda certain information that is factual in nature and um kind of irrefutable um so I do plan to provide information in the spirit
039of you know um good government and the spirit of kind of letting them know um what what the non-disputable facts are I don't plan to get into a debate over what somebody believes they heard at a closed session meeting and another person here that's that would not be appropriate in my judgment at this point I think the um in my judgment the office is looking to see whether there are any clear violations that's my supposition yes [Music] yes uh that is is the district were to lose fraternities to be shipped in the Market District No so we have what we call an American Rule and the American rule is everybody pays their own legal fees in a lawsuit unless there's a statute or a contract that ships fees and unfortunately the statutes that shift fees
040generally don't shift the other way now there is one exception um and the exception is in a case like this I'm getting a little feedback so the exception is if the lawsuit is frivolous so there may be we would have to evaluate the lawsuit when it comes in and to be clear in order to shift fees the other way we would first pursue into the rules of civil procedure we would have to give notice to the other side that we believe they're pleading or a portion of their pleading is frivolous we then by Statute I think they get 21 days at least that's the federal law so I think it's 21 days and in 21 days they could withdraw their complaint if we contend that it's frivolous or if we contend portions are frivolous they
041could withdraw portions so that's kind of what I would call a grace period where you give kind of notice to the other side that say you know we think this complaint or this defense or this portion of your complaint is frivolous they get an opportunity to withdraw what we contend is frivolous I'm not suggesting to you that any complaint would be frivolous because I haven't I don't have a complaint in front of me no legal legal document has been served um I do believe that the verified complaints which are not technically complaints until they're filed in Circuit Court do contain some statements in them that I believe are are factually inaccurate but I will let that process take its course I don't think today would is the appropriate point to be itemizing everything that is
042disputed in those complaints we'll evaluate a lawsuit if it's filed and if there is uh evidence that an allegation in the lawsuit not a legal conclusion but a factual allegation is not accurate and is frivolous then we will absolutely uh pursue that to the extent it exists [Music] Laurie tonight someone suggested items I'm alluding to them being violations is it possible that you could walk through anything for the board tonight on these items kind of even if it's not equipment I know you and I thought yeah uh running to the doctor who knows but the Open Session I think I can address it generally um I can talk about process because it's uh fairly um certain obviously Mr Myers through this resolution that was brought believes there was a violation of the open meetings law
043and I would say the same process could attend to that right like he could he he would um could pursue that but he would first have to file a verified complaint with the uh agency with the Milwaukee County uh uh office and the time period for that would need to expire or the government would step in and file the lawsuit and if they don't then he could file a lawsuit to pursue his belief or claim that the human growth and development curriculum decision that was made on August I think it's 22nd maybe 24th was in violation of the open meetings law so the process would look the same all right no verified complaint has been made I don't know whether Mr Meyer intends to make a verified complaint I obviously was not involved in any
044of the underlying events that are alleged here in it seems to me that there's an issue about data that was provided and the information I have received suggests that the board received all data so I don't know whether the data was excluded from the board um but even if it was there is really a legal question as to whether that constitutes a meeting and again I would just comment by saying I think these are novel um theories that will need to be tested in a court of law and obviously I still have to gather facts and circumstances with regard to what is alleged here but the process would be the same the process would be the same so if Mr Meyer wants to pursue it further his next step would be a verified complaint we
045would wait out that time period if the government didn't act he could file a civil lawsuit and again same remedies right he could he could name every single board member who he believes violated the open meetings law in connection with this data exclusion group I'm not sure who that is um and um those people could be named as defendants or respondents in a lawsuit the same remedies that I outlined earlier would be the potential consequence and sorry it only took one common law to class before I said I think you can have it in me to be a lawyer um so my question is you're using words that I just want to make sure I'm clear out so novel means a unique unique and it hasn't yet precedent hasn't yet been set because it's new
046or corrupt common let me let me go back to the Google Doc because that's no that's okay that's it's a really good question by the way a very good question when I say something is novel what I'm saying is a comment on a Google doc there's not like a case that we can look to to say okay contribution on a Google doc that is then shared available up for discussion at a duly notice meeting is a violation of the open meetings law there's certainly not a case that says it's not because nobody has brought a lawsuit that I'm aware of in the state of Wisconsin asserting that what happened here is a violation of the open meetings law typical open meetings complaints are like a subset of that second complaint where it's like okay you
047met without a meeting notice right or kind of like the allegation he makes with regard to the December 2021 meeting where okay you you talked about something that's beyond the scope of your agenda those are the two you didn't uh you didn't you didn't meet in a you didn't meet in a room that would allow the public to to be present uh you didn't give enough notice of your agenda you gave it two hours before and and that you know so those are the typical uh allegations of open meetings violations um as I understand the facts a Google doc there was a board uh two readings after the first reading a board Google doc was created uh people were board members were allowed to make comments but then you had another meeting where there was
048discussion concerning this plan and it's my understanding there was a lot of discussion concern this concerning this strategic plan now I wasn't there but I believe there's a recording of the meeting um and so when I use the term novel what I mean is like there's not a court decision that says that is or that is not a violation of the open meetings law so a court will if a lawsuits filed the court will need to to use precedent to use decisions that courts have made in other open meetings contexts to determine given the facts and circumstances of what happened whether one or more board members violated the open meetings law by placing a comment on a Google back that was then available and discussed at a duly notice public meeting so as you can
049imagine um the ongoing discussions the concern related to the possibility of our district being sued or us being sued as individual board members is um it's very it's a very stressful experience um it's very time consuming um what I'm hearing is that these are these are not even necessarily complaints that there's precedent for which so I guess I'm looking to you for some advice or you know sort of legal guidance about how we're supposed to function when oh gosh you know when we sort of continually are facing these threats um and we're trying to function as a board but then you know multiple times we're being lawsuits are being threatened against us oh that's such a good question um and one that may not have a legal answer but may have some practical answers and
050my job as a lawyer sometimes is to give practical advice the truth is it's not a lawsuit until it's a lawsuit okay there's no there's a threat of litigation there is I mean a a shot across the bow has been made right the step right before a lawsuit has been made so we're gonna have to my first advice is um it is stressful it is time consuming and um what you're feeling is natural and normal and I think anyone would feel that way anyone would feel that way when they are threatened repeatedly with violating the law um I can only tell you from the Assurance I'm giving you tonight that you are protected by Insurance the only thing that's not protected is a forfeiture and again those forfeitures are rather insignificant um so there is
051some economic potential economic consequence to you individually but it's not grave okay so so as you're thinking through this you just have to keep in the back of your mind that we are protected we are protected if there's a small forfeiture it is what it is um and by the way the court doesn't even have to award forfeitures like they could find a violation of the open meetings law but not a word a forfeiture so that um that may happen if if there is found to be a violation now your bigger question I think is really a question of how do we function how do we function as a board when we are getting you know um what we have that brought me here in in May right what we have now which brings me
052here today which is these verified complaints it's the shot across the bow and now tonight with what we've got relative to a belief by one board member that you violated the open meetings law um I don't have a recipe to make a cake that's gonna taste good I don't know how else to say it um I have in 25 years worked with boards that are fractured and I would say what is probably on everyone's mind which is you have a fractured board um you are going to have to get past this how you do so um I can only speak from legal experience by telling you that time will be your friend okay and that you stick with your values your mission your duties and try to avoid the chaos as best you can that
053is the only piece of advice I can give you because what's going to happen is going to happen like it's outside of your control and if it happens so be it okay a court of law will decide these issues the court of public opinion doesn't decide I don't decide Mr Meyer doesn't decide the citizen doesn't decide you don't even decide a court of law will decide so there's no sense in going backwards in time to you know debate what happened uh what happened happened okay you can only be do your best be guided by your principles and try to do your best to and I know it's hard but try to do your best to avoid the chaos I don't know how else to say it that's a question yeah the district attorney doesn't pick
054up these verified yes disputes is that an indication that they're unbounded it could be it could also not be I mean truth be told government is bogged down so like it it could be I can tell you they're looking into it because I got an email from the Ada so they're looking at it I mean it could honest to God it could just be a matter of resources it could be like oh my gosh this these are novel issues maybe there might be something here but boy oh boy we've got other fish to fry and to a large extent I understand that we've got problems in our community that that you know may through some lens have higher priority than this I know for for some people this might have a higher lens but arguably
055other things are going on that that so so it could be but truth is it could just be they don't have the resources so I can't I can't tell you if they pass it up that it means there's no merit it just means they didn't see enough there to put their resources to it that's the best answer I can give you is there a process to even for the public to verify whether these are unfounded or founded disputes the only process that's a great question the only process I'm aware of is for a lawsuit to be filed and have a court to rule on that lawsuit because the truth is we can all make allegations whether they're founded allegations or not on any matter I'm not just talking about open meetings just allegations are just
056allegations it doesn't mean they're true um you know I defend lawsuits for a living and I can tell you from experience that many allegations and lawsuits are simply not true the only way to answer your question for the truth to come out would be to have a lawsuit and have a judge rule on it and that would be unfortunate in my personal opinion but it it would be the answer to your question about how how do we get like a decision well it's it's going to have to be from a court otherwise their allegations they are allegations that are disputed allegations I think that's a fair summary um but who's right and who's wrong um that's I'm not a court I don't decide that you don't decide that public doesn't decide that a Court decide
057and I know that's not a great answer like I recognize that that's shouldn't there be a better process but there's just not I wish I had uh I wish I had a better process and I think my Uber's calling me no I'm kidding I'm totally kidding all good I'm usually the one whose phone has gone off so glad it's just not me do you have any more questions or clarifications I will end with this I will keep uh the board president and Dr means uh advised I have diaried the deadline for um the the lawsuit to be filed by the state by the government again if that lawsuit is not filed by that date Mr Meyer and to this to the extent of the second verified complaint the citizen could bring and and we are
058in a waiting game because we're not going to know whether a lawsuit is filed unless it gets filed by the government if it doesn't get filed in the time we are in a waiting game and a lawsuit could get filed it might not be filed it might go nowhere so um try to put it out of your mind is my best piece of advice move forward knowing we've got a plan and whatever will be will be and we will take it one step at a time it's okay with you I'm going to stick around for your next discussion okay very good um [Music] governance issues um [Music] Dr Jess Banger if you could speak into the mic just for the zoom attendees please um we're going to talk about a 10-minute recess Jamie and then
059we're going to come back and we'll have a broad conversation on more governance how we get more effectively together uh possibly create structure I know Dr means uh to have some possible items that block could have worse than requested and prepared on possible ways of organizing ourselves where I would Center Us in thank you Lord for doing this it's at the core of what our work is is figuring out how to maximize the resources we have to educate the kids in Wallace house [Music] actualize our our opportunities for our supplement work most effectively together and what do we need to do in bylaws in ethics Clauses you know overriding other things to ensure that we are working together as a team we are fractured and I think there's things that we need to attend to
060there secondarily we've got strategic plan we are incredibly lucky right now to have an outstanding team of administrative leaders assembled and Wellness there's a moment here for us to move ourselves to the lighthouse District we're trying to do things that many school districts around this around the country are not trying to do right now there's opportunity and we have to take advantage of that um we have an incredible community that will support this historically I believe in the future and currently moving supports educational schools so how do we leverage the Strategic plan how do we do our very best to support this work as a board governance here so when we come back we'll be big into that uh let's get back in about 10 minutes about seven to seven months um so we are
061agenda uh our work governance discussion to talk about review of current work on teaching the challenges opportunities and structure committee policy options so we have a lot of breadth um I know that we want to probably discuss but usually this is one of those conversations that the board would be here and where would be empty because it's not very exciting so I appreciate you all being here I will find other board members and I was like I will try to explain things as we go there won't be any common feedback or questions taken um part of the meeting but I will try to do my best so then if I sense there's like a what word did they just say or other events I'll see what I'll see what I can do just like the
062best of my ability to interaction or someone but I want to make sure people have understand what we're talking about because sometimes we need something like the nomenclature that only before we know because we've been talking about a long time um so the board over the last um several months uh and I would say good probably starting about a year ago uh when President Billman at the time was shifting how we were thinking about uh our meeting place and payments um how we were structuring our time together um or some School District boards meet once a month uh and it's a business meeting the the board meeting was really considered kind of a business meeting of the board that the community gets to watch um while we're Tulsa we need twice from them and I
063think there's one or two months a year [Music] December so generally most months twice a month so trying to figure out how do we structure ourselves uh We've historically our legislative advocacy uh we've had a second policy committee that was created um I think we're actually talking about a little bit earlier in December of last year of myself in this freely our members of legislative advocacy uh Ms Willis and Dr Hoyt are members of the um policies and their uh underway in their work uh and we're here to talk about the Olympics pros and cons uh do we have the trusted Foundation to be able to operate the community structure uh last night in YouTube and we had a very robust amount conversation about do we have a hearing panel made up of board members
064uh that would preside over instead of a formal full board over uh expulsion hearings and talked really through the growth consult ultimately that item is tabled prior to perform mode uh possible to come back numbers um and then we'll talk a lot about I think we've got discussions on how we maximize our Effectiveness uh we started a conversation and didn't win anywhere with what is on moral Academy uh the board was given it's a really great text on hygiene Awards and boards that are high functioning in really driving outcomes for solar desserts really our my aspiration for us is that we are a hygiene board that we are driving outcomes for our our kids supporting our staff they're doing good work in that way and so when we need uh as our culture uh our
065bylaws uh how we operate how we uh work with each other to be the most effective in doing this work so as with all warnings this is kind of the next level online this isn't the last time we'll talk about this um this is the first time we've talked about this like you started last September uh in the service where we had a couple folks from the stop the association of school boards here facilitating we had uh early August an additional meeting we're going to talk about that as well as uh open meetings uh public meetings on training that the board had so again I'll try to do my best to walk with I know Doctor Who's looking um and was asked in more volunteering and volunteer um requested um to do some thinking about
066how the board is made through the structure and the novellable board member assessment thoughts as well of all possible additional committees um [Music] instructions Aaron times the questioner in the spirit of having been here for five hours last night I'm just wondering if there's an openness to us setting a Time by which we say we cannot solve and figure out all these things tonight and so we don't wait until it's 10 30 and someone says I can't even think anymore um and so I'm just curious if there's an openness to saying we're committing to having a robust discussion until nine or until 10 or whatever that is so that there's a a point in time in which we say that is the best our brains will do for tonight and we will come back again
067another night so ESPN many of you will be here tomorrow night foreign my belief is that ideas began ideas so if we lay out our first impressions and then go home a little marinate a little yes yeah yes from that and then we will be far better in our conclusions because we will have had time to marinate and Digest the 9 30 at the latest does that seem fair tonight right yes and um at 9 30. unless we're Amendment during a string but we wanted set reminder to we'll travel at that time thank you to my fellow board members so what an interesting concept and a conversation to have and that is the work of committing um person foremost typically boards try to work it's they call the term a committee of the whole as
068much as possible and that happens when we have hormones the research says that there are three advantages to a committee structure the verse is knowledge Festival specialization so you have certain board members who will become knowledgeable in a certain area uh the second is Task division efficiency in other words you are able to distribute the task among the seven of them even um and I think I think that's really the most important one because you don't want to create a committee structure and two or three board members are on multiple committees and so then it's not you know and distributed and then the third one is uh is accountability so knowledge specialization task that legitimate efficiency and accountability those are the advantages to the community structure you can look around the more conventional voting area
069and you'll see a lot of different models with public schools with their committee structures some schools districts have very view committees some operating pads the committee as a whole and almost everything and some have a committee model the traditional committee model so I'll jump into the first option on the traditional Community model or K-12 school system the public school system is a curriculum committee a Personnel committee a finance and operations committee that you typically have a policy committee to round things out and so the legislative advocacy committee for example would be more of a a task that is assigned to people versus it being an official committee and not suggesting that we mirror ourselves to this work but in the charter school World there are a traditional model as well they have a development committee
070typically on but then they they typically go into a finance committee there's a governance committee that's where typically no other people who are responsible for ensuring that there's a self-board assessment um and then there's policies being revised they they then and this is all coming out of the Department of Ed when we research Charter Schools they all see different committees that are interesting um and are suggested one is a strategic planning to me uh we're in that Charter School world there's someone or a committee of the board that's consistently looking at the Strategic vision of the district and a school performance committee so not a curriculum committee where you can get into the weeds of curriculum but what's the performance School then charter school private schools have something that we typically call an executive committee
071now the reason why they have this executive committee is close typically they have a way more than a much larger than the seven of you they're they're typically whatever 15 to 20 people um and so they try to narrow it down and you typically have five to seven people who serve as that Executive Core Group so I'm going to share that with you as well in terms of what the models could look like um you are kind of moving down the road of a committee structure as we speak you have two officially in the divorced approved how or excuse me uh committees through your bylaws um but first is the legislative Pat advocacy committee that's a actual meeting you have a policy committee that will approve in November of 2021. um and and there's strong
072discussion we heard it last night from Mr brightman's presentation of the creation of a finance and resource committee and I like the language of finance and resource because as we've discussed under Mr brightman's purview go comes along with it the buildings and grounds oversight what comes along with it is our technology department which is a very important expensive line item in our budget in the work department those are all really important Financial Centers so you're you're on that pathway there are a couple other committee models that we can definitely discuss um but I want to pause and I just I wanted to make sure that we were able to discuss what are some of the advantages what are some models out there um and ultimately I'd like to always bring us back to the benefits
073is gaining knowledge and specializing in some areas if the purpose is to evenly distribute the work of the board and if the purpose is for the board to create accountability within the seven of them um I I didn't come up with here's what I think because I think it's really important for the conversation to be organic I don't want to really pigeon for it there's a lot it depends on the culture and the preference of the sort of in terms of the different things you may want to explore Mr Carlson attorney first uh you have mentions [Music] um the finance and resource Committee in the past and so I I know we have done some work here if there was a positive new legislation you could you can pass on this one but if you
074and I wanted to kind of Honor you since you've been thinking about this a lot to see kind of what your thoughts yeah I mean what started me thinking about um the expansion of a traditional finance committee was the Strategic goal number six and how and maybe I'm thinking it would be too beautiful to have all the Committees lined up to the to the six strategic objectives but you know that's that's where I was kind of thinking and maybe um those uh maybe that sets to myopic and maybe through four or five communities we could get there because I think uh Leah and I were talking earlier about overlaps and how like legislative advocacy over last week finance committee and policy committee overlaps with all of them right and so like if you start thinking
075about a Gantt chart and you know what would be the major uh ways that we could group the Strategic plan uh into communities that make the best use of other resources as a board not to tax you know because we're trying to do six committees but that make the best sense in terms of could we group a couple of strategic objectives together so that they become one committee so let's see thinking like that because I would hate for us to waste the opportunity to ladder down an operationalize the Strategic plan as close to its current form as possible you know what I'm saying this might be a good time for our superintendent who is I think memorized the whole strategic plan yeah if you'll run through our six put it on spot here oh yeah
076our second goal of diversity Equity commuting and accessibility are very social emotional and mental health our fourth goal is high quality a staff high quality staff and and some of the physical uh goal would then become our community culture movement policy which then leads us to operation there's some there's no overtime that road test the objectives I think having a committee for each of the goals yeah um and we haven't discussed some of the disadvantages I thought I wanted to say by the glass at home there are disadvantages to a committing structure as well um and part of the disadvantages it starts with the time um and so does everyone have the time and when now you've created even more complexities in the scheduling of things I I know what we've discussed this before I
077mentioned a school district on the North Shore of Milwaukee where they have a two meeting scheduled like we do and what they what they create is that everyone commits to being at one of the meetings from five to seven um one in one of the two nights and that becomes policy night or excuse me about committee names and then from that point you you take up break maybe you go from five to six thirty you have a decompression moment then you go into the regular board from seven until the business is done that's a model um but I think it would be difficult to have a committee for each of the goal is smartphones so we had committees that started them 17 years ago and then we stopped so I can speak to some experiences
078there about why we started them and why we stop them um the benefits well originally I want my view was to start them because of open meetings on considerations back then that it's just not natural for a board member human being to not want to talk about an issue before us it's hard and you really need to collaborate and with a seven member board requiring that we all seven gather for a quorum we talked about any issue there just wasn't enough opportunity to discuss and collaborate come the consensus so the theory was that we break up by topic like this we we had a building in Wisconsin that we had a financial move so there would be three members and it because it would be easier to find a meeting time and easier to self
079self police which we became good at on noticing and talking that we could allow a more thoughtful um board member to address every given issue and I think that came true um this is there as well and I can't speak for her but um she's obviously we both have our own opinions the second benefit was that it took the politics or the appearance of politics out of recommendations back then there was this big East-West dispute and who is going to get athletic fields so Mrs Newcomb shared the buildings in France committee and um Led Led a request for um professional staffing coaches to propose the athletic fields plan and um that produced a phenomenal plan and the committee ratified it without changed and brought it to the full board and it was ratified leadership we
080were able to take the politics out of the process and come up with a recommendation that might not otherwise a better recommendation back then for example that the West area West High School would live here should be the center of our main athletic events because they had the most space and clinically that was hard to do not that people played politics but it was just hard um the the third benefit I saw was that it allowed stronger um voice from professional staff and employees as input into decisions because the board members were very close to the professional staff and the professional staff could talk more freely than a collaborative problem-solving away so we got we got the better more unvarnished input from the staff as in with the athletic fields recommendation um but then the
081flip side of that is that the board member is anticipated in the community there's more opportunity for board member micro manager so you got to be careful of that you have to have a lot of self-control um where I thought it broke down was that um the committee and this happened with Finance in my recollection if if the full board is going to delegate to a committee for a specific recommendation when it comes to the whole board you're kind of full board have some obligation not the rubber stamp but to take the deal and if the committee spent a lot of time working on a recommendation and then a lot of recommendations that came with board the full board would want to go through it blind my line anyway but what was the point of
082a committee so I I think back then it broke down because uh the full board really wasn't willing to deferred to the committee expertise established that those in the committee are doing their due diligence and they're comfortable or that the Indulgence yeah and in addition to trust just let go that I can eye on the full board I can't have as much say so but a committee made a recommendation as as when he had revivals on them there's some stuff that just wouldn't be my my voice fostering the recommendation you know you have to let go of some control in addition to trust I agree with the trusting but you are you are delegating and delegation means your let them do it and you have to bless some things that you know you aren't there
083when it got decided so he kind of I suppose that is posture you know you trusted the the wisdom of the decision even though and as a full board member you're not going to completely understand every decision any enough to know that a good crisis was followed and that experts were involved and that there are any Show Stoppers in the same with respect to the core values but yeah you've got to trust you know your books on the legislative advocacy ready we're interested we bring stuff to us and we don't you know dissect it and change it around and impose things if it works like that it works at least in my um experience um I also think Recreation is an area where I I wouldn't want to dilute that in how we do the
084commanding sort of competitively Australian School District here that we've done so many school districts in Wisconsin around the right file you know that we there's a lot of programming we could do in there and I'm really not sure what the policy creating is supposed to be if we have all these other committees I think I'm sure there's a need but I think we need to define it so that we don't have overlap and that's that's based out thank you I don't wanna I don't want to do rail a conversation around committees because I I do think this is something that we we did bring up last time we met about this topic but I I sort of feel like we're putting the cart before the horse here a little bit honestly um we had a
085meeting we wanted to start with like what is our moral imperative what is our guiding sort of our Northern Star can we couldn't do that as a as a board um and that meeting ended with some tension things I think we really struggled with just that starting point um and I think you know we must Ruben's use acknowledgment that this is perhaps one of the most fractured boards that she's ever seen in her career is striking and very very concerning and I I guess I question jumping ahead to committee structure when we haven't we don't have a foundation and to your point Mr Meyer and trust is that what we need to have a committee structure then I think it's frankly dead in the water this is not a group that has Trust smoking I
086might like to wait in here a little bit um one of the biggest ways to collaborate is to have excitement and something to look forward to in order to collaborate so I see we have a great opportunity before us and um and a committee structure well-defined well laid out in support of the Strategic plan could really Advance us and and gain Community through that and what I mean by that is um I I'm excited about this possibility of the financial and resource committee because there I see a way to look at innovation how do we set ourselves up for Innovation so I mean for me what that looked like I mean we had a referendum we're reinvested in our footprint but we are doing some other things with learning but I don't know if we
087have really undertaken a project to Resource ourselves for the future of the children we're serving and the community we're serving and I see an opportunity the Strategic plan has a lot of fixing items to but if we could somehow figure out how to resource ourselves better I think we would have more opportunities for children and families in the district so I know that is a big Visionary statement but again I look at things um I want to try to look at things that are more proactive forward-thinking manner where we have a great opportunity for us we've already made a huge investment in our community and now we have a step on one if we really listen to our community and figure out now we have four rooms that are modernized but what if what if
088we buy ad programs like the stem how can we do that what if we wanted to consider uh a year-round school how would we research that I mean I'm looking I'm looking to the future of what we can do to not stay the same [Music] Federal proposal we're committee Center just throw it out there just for reaction one would be curriculum and academic performance this is the starting point number two staff and Community engagement number three finance and resources and then lacn policy legislative advocacy and policy so that would be five one two three four five I always use my glasses as my thing like my glasses are my lens through which I see everything whether it's construction whether it's Finance whatever I see the policy committee as being sort of the umbrella yeah that
089policies are put in place by the policy committee and then it also the policy committee's responsibility and the other committees like bottom down pop up to make sure that it instructed you're in I don't want to call curriculum I'm going to call instruction instructional whatever that they're in alignment like because [Music] many of the problems that we've seen many of the reasons why Dr means had to come in and do resilient audits is because we were unknowingly following policy or policy was unclear so I see an umbrella yeah [Music] well I like that and in another so I would offer another model yeah which is more of a hybrid model uh where you would have almost formal Committees of Lac the legislative advocacy advocacy committee policy and finance finance and operations that serves as your
090your base not because you can't accomplish the Strategic plan with all Finance about policy and without advocacy yep and then you would have school board reps so identified people who would be representatives to our current curriculum Council I see and have a rep to our diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility committee and have someone who is a school run to our school's Safety Committee those are operating external Basin committees that would allow the board to address now you're we have hit every strategic planning component except for um except for four which is high quality staff which you have requested that we present a monthly reward so you're getting culture amp data you're getting reports on the Personnel issues every month that way it's more of a hybrid it gives you the ability to test the policy
091structure and to determine how how cool you want to move into the United States of that tax and everybody so much right yeah I do all the internet Investments so with Verizon's operations we can policy Community purely for example like what's our procedure for electing officers as bylaws yeah I mean that to me that's that's a plain one with a mouse would fall under the committee as a whole well the policy committee would make the recommendation they make the recommendations and eventually the committee I'm just trying to conceptualize starter examples of what what for sure would be policy played yeah and no difficulty was overlapping yeah okay so I know one of the things that we're talking about the things long-term facilities planning process is that an ad homicated with four members of fiction that's
092about financing operations so gradual and Stephen bring to their committee here's our update they're on their long-range facility Sports you'd be it would be enough that can you give us lesson saying what was true with our what's our moral range what's our long-range plan with the recreation department where we was our strategic vision for that what what you know Mr Price had a lot of vision around what we need through the technology we can't ignore some of the infrastructure components of things those things do okay it takes a lot of plan and so that would all fall under resource and finance community but then you also have the advocacy committee and I think that is a forward basic group that can work with that we know um and you have the policy committee that's really
093working and very closely you heard last night when missile was asking you to mentioned that at some point she'll have to sit and will the policy committee to go to her policies at the same time you have more reps who are going to committees that are external in in nature it gives or members the ability that we're with the public is thinking around curriculum around diversity equity and inclusion accessibility issues which will I believe will venture into School culture and climate issues and we'll get into this proportionality issues it'll get into special education issues um and then we'll get into our school safely and then as well it gives the board forward facing opportunity to bring reports back to the committee of the whole to share this is what I'm hearing at these committees or
094this is what the Committees that we have responsibility for it or this is what we're going to accomplish and looking at the agenda today um the first thing which I think Dr Williams point we need to talk about as our current board governance issues and challenges I mean I have a really hard time conceptualizing these policies when there's this looming distrust that not only are legal chemicals have acknowledged but as did the WASP reps who came into facilitate a workshop for us I mean that was one of my key takeaways from that is how fractured and dysfunctional if you will this board is and I have a really hard time when you know unidentified board members are being accused of doing illegal activity and I'm you know being charged with the board's trust to do
095work on a committee that doesn't have the oversight of the board so it's really hard for me to even track and borrow and conceptualize like the policy structures when there's not trust them on the board I mean quite frankly I think that issue needs to be resolved and I don't know that I have the answer but I can get to our bylaws and and norms and code of ethics the things that I've been asking for and and I don't think we have that so I don't know how we talk about this work and I know it's important work and it's work that we need to prioritize because we are doing a grave disservice to our students by not having these committees and not doing this work that is so key to ensuring the success of
096our computers I disagree with your solution for the problem I agree with this problem I was just gonna say um I that's always like I'm in the middle like I agree I agree and I feel like we gotta keep moving forward because we can't wait and um that's what you've all been doing yeah and then I mean maybe you were like the frog in the boiling pot right and we didn't took a couple new people coming on the board to say like it's really not the culture is really yeah yeah so so what I was gonna say is I I think for me it has to be a yes Aunt so um I think one of the challenges um and I'm speaking for myself one of them one of my challenges as of late is
097knowing that you know my term is ending in April and I want to do it as much as I can for kids specific to academics and instruction as possible that's why I ran for a second term covid be darn that wasn't the plan that this was supposed to be the term that we cut into academic so I want to be assured that we can keep pushing through really important work that is in the Strategic plan like who got a plan we know what the problems are we know what our problems are fun some of them we know what the problems in the district are that we're trying to solve for and so I feel like in this new felt Point like there's there's a lot of opportunity here as much as there is a lot
098of frustration um so what I would compose if the board is open to it is that we do continue moving work and we agree as individuals to commit to having someone come in not for one speed not like on a technical but to actually do a facilitated workshop on how it is that we work through some of this stuff and if everybody is not willing to commit to that then I think we just have to say Okay then we're just going to keep pushing through because we can't we can't do it in unless we're all going to fully engage like fully engage um so I'm in the yes band category um I will say my experience from being on other boards that to Dr Wayne's point and everybody else's point like why they go away
099it's there's advantages and there's just advantages there there are efficiencies and they and Jessica I appreciate what you raise which is and we bring back something and then we're accused of something like that just makes me makes me nervous so I I would need to know that whatever committee that I was on not that anybody would rubber stamp anything I'd actually be disappointed to bring something to the whole board and people not have questions and not say hey did you think about this it's a big job that ideally if we had done our due diligence we would have thrown out some questions in a legal way that people could give feedback for us to work on so whatever we brought to the board was well constructed within bounds Etc I agree with what Ms fairly
100just said and I had that similarly to our students where we said we cannot discipline our way out of our problems we cannot by law our way out of these problems we cannot go to Alternative new book civil through to their program as well um that might be necessary true but I believe there are root causes to this that created the distrust and I do think that the committee addresses those and there's some things we need to have some discussion about about problem solving when we have disagreement um but you know last night we had a motion the table and I spoke to Mr Phillips and I said I don't want to vote on this yet until I'm sure Mr Phillips your concerns our address that kind of behavior to say once when there's a
101concern we don't bulldoze our way through and we know we can win this vote we pause take a deep breath and be sure we understand what the concern is and honor it um there was an issue that spread out last night that was resolved today [Music] um with me and Dr Joseph anger and I think we did quite well you know um so can I call us and calling you thank you for watching oh yeah you're welcome and you know thank you for me um um believing I can not get myself into something with what we're gonna say so um yeah so now I think at the root of this is though the observations we've made as a board about how unsatisfactory things were going for a long time and now we start to talk
102trusted verified and some of us on the board we've been here a long time felt that something was wrong a year ago and we didn't deal with her and and instead of you know not in smiling and just pull those forward we need to pause and address disabled pausing now to address your concerns before you're not just charging forward like oh yeah we'll get to that later this is what I mean that we need to honor um concern Express in the world and answer it before we keep charging forward that's right it's these innuendos that you throw out like Buddhism through like there's this like bulldozing through a decision like you throw up these in Windows and maybe implicating that and indicating that the board acts that way I still didn't understand what you said
103you were innuendos about bulldozing through decisions well okay I think you're implying that the board has a history of doing that this board and to me that creates distrust well okay that it's not an innuendo it's if last night on the motion of the table I was pretty confident from what I heard that it was not succeed and I was going to vote Yes and it's like in the past maybe I would have just saw my whole book yes and we're going to move on it's getting late but I tried to change my behavior and address concerns before I voted so I'll Stand Up and point to me first that would have been that was a moment where I said I have Behavior and it just vote Yes without assuring myself that all the other
104six board members concerns were addressed out that I could make them happy and believe in the compact people we have to hear them people who vote so definitely we all have to board heal one another we spent really significant amounts of time I feel like debating issues talking through things and having a really rich conversation around it so you take a windows that that we don't do that it's I think what creates this level of distress okay here you just haven't heard what I just said and you're directly disagreeing with it which is okay but I I expressed a heartfelt belief about what I consider what was going on and if you disagree with me fine but if you want to say well you know what I disagree with Mike but better think about what
105he said and reflect on it and let it marinate and see if there's something I can find in my behavior that can alleviate those concerns so you'll be part of the solution here with how we address this sincerely new reason tonight and um so I'm trying folks I really am thinking so I think what's tricky for me is that it's all out for people to watch it's like your most private conversations and everyone's looking in and listening and and when [Music] when you feel like I'm just gonna speak for me when I feel like there are assumptions that have been made about what I have done or haven't done and the assumption is one of guilt um where I don't even want to give my example in this in this case in the event that
106it could be used against me in a court of law um where I actually don't think I made a mistake like I looked at case law I email the question there was no directive there was nothing about my email that wrote any rule um I did not talk to any other board member it was a I had a question I emailed Dr means no different than I would have emailed Dr means like I did last weekend to ask the question because again it is really tricky that you know I can't email Sharon and she had email somebody else be like do you know the answer because who knows if somebody else asked them that question so I think what's tricky for me is that everyone at this table and I believe it's on everyone is
107here because they want to be here to do the work for kids at this point none of us would be here working the hours that we're working with no pay being called pedophiles and being called left-wing extremists and all these things none of us would be here if we didn't care so like if you all saw the most upset I've ever gotten at this war table was when someone said I don't care about so I think the distrust comes from like not giving people the benefit of the doubt and like even hearing the language of the I can't remember secret group something that was in the the motion where I was like I wish that sounds like so mean spirited sound the right word it it's um that there was an intentional desire to receive
108um when I don't know if that's the case because I don't know who had those questions so I when we sit and we talk in public I feel like we are having robust discussions and I feel like we are cordial and whatnot hold on but I feel like there's some stuff that goes on behind the scenes where that's where the distrust is happening and it's Brewing distrust in the community where I don't want people calling me and telling me that they're upset with other board members like they're that doesn't help anything we need to function effectively at seven um and that's where I want to get to um but that's what's hard for me personally if I can just add an agenda because this is a more governance issue so I'll stay in my Lane
109um but I would just speak a little bit to Administration with the committee structure you have to understand that most administrators do not have a desire to be a superintendent and most of them do not have a desire to be a superintendent because no offense to anyone here I think you're all lovely people and I've enjoy working with them all and you enjoy them but they don't administrators don't have an interest in working with the Lord and doing the more governance things so I would just ask you to think about what you're discussing now in The Winds of is it is it a is it the right climate for administrators to be at Mr Meyer of reference as open as you need them to be to give you the type of knowledge and information that's
110going to be required in a committed structure if you're not if if you're not attending to that or then it makes it more difficult for adults individuals who are always they're entering the conversation with you as well as a board member that's Demon's job you know that demands off the land I don't I you know I'll I'll give a pet answer and then I'll move on there is a skill um and there's a certain maturity when administrators even District administrators who can navigate that environment well I've worked I've been employer working with administrators who have that level of maturity and confidence and then there's some people who don't have it and it does it becomes a detriment to your humidity structure could they ask a question on your idea of the external facing committees or
111or I'm not sure how you quite frame them but I think right now I understand that we have more internal administrative LED students that board members served but are you describing a different time okay so could you please talk me through that difference because I I really have a passion for um well obviously public education it's as a person but really the community has been something you know been discussing for quite some time where we have quite a bit of expertise in the community and we have um a lot of people who want to be involved and not only with giving feedback but also their expertise and we want those individuals but we didn't have a structure really for them and so how do we over the past year they've they've been coming to the
112microphone so can you so help me understand how that will be different than these categories with our new administrative team I charge all of them to have an external basing group where they're getting feedback I mean so our conversations have led to for you and our team to create those external facing groups um so every director that you see before you they have an external group and they have to work with um you know the Mr Price Mr chelinsky and Mr vanderkamp under the Guides of Oakland finance and operations how can they would would have that ability to to work there and I always forget this so I apologize and it also the finance and operations it said that's really funny but then they also get a report on Food Service as well and fun
113thank you so everything okay well I I agree on this things you've been don't feel unhappy here with you accounting all those fun well I think I think with this new vote you stated earlier and I think it's really important because every time I meet with students they'll say well what about the food and so it'll be nice to be able to say years to two times a year the finance and operations can be able to talk about it we have the curriculum Council that's it's they have it's we have external community members on that committee and I think it would be good to have a member of this board that is the representative to that committee uh we will have a Dia committee and I believe that's going to be a very extensive unique
114external basic committee where parents um we'll have the opportunity to to weigh in I've always said that I I I've been listening to it and we all have been listening to some of the concerns that our special education Advocates have brought forward I believe that's a diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility issue um and so I want to create enough Landing spaces where they have a place to to be heard and it would be good to have a board member that's hearing those community members and then the School Safety Committee we've heard a lot of interests around school safety um we currently have an internal committee but they have an external committee and there are parents and community members who've said I'll serve on that committee if we had in school one reps who were in
115the room when we're going and having those monthly meetings I think you had the ability to come back and share what you're hearing from the parents and community members I think that's the the feedback loop piece that you've been missing and that you've been asking for so I don't think it's an issue that you've ignored and I think you've actually been looking for the structure and and so I know part of our due diligence is to create those communities um so allow the public to weigh in but I think they would serve them in committees they would be I think it would say a lot there and then those community members wouldn't have to feel like they have to come to the microphone or reading because that's the least that's the least productive ways to
116have your grievances aired if you really want your grievances aired we have to create the structure for you to talk and there needs to be an opportunity for you to be heard to have an elected official there would be very powerful and all six of these would be next time yes they would be yeah yes they would be and it would give the public the opportunity to say so now I can bend the ear of those to me you know those board members and so if there's someone who would say ever and you know if you're um if you're a parent in one of the elementary schools that didn't get renovated or didn't get until brand new I hear those parents say so when when does our school get it addressed uh or when does
117our playground get aggress or what what is your online facility you can it would be powerful or a war president or someone to say I think it's going to be on the January finance and operations committee or if someone says I'm concerned about school safety you can say please join us for our next School Safety Committee that's taking place there right you you as a governor sport I think you really you go on to do some really exciting more to your point some inciting work there um in those areas so we have two strands of conversation happening almost alongside each other um it's reminding me of a distinguished lecture series my staff coordinated with bar so the Muslim Student Association work with student involvement in Mary that I work in um to bring in Queens
118and his topic was talking about what it was to do to Muslim American in Milwaukee in the 70s if you aren't aware cream also happened to be a basketball player um may or may not have been the first uh I don't think it's the MVP but the best player on the Bucks the first time I won uh be honest before and honest and it was fascinating to me because throughout the conversation uh one person asked this basketball specific question and then the next person would ask this question about faith and spirituality in the midwest or kind of a lifelong journey was fascinating because it went back and forth and it was almost like there was two different lectures happening uh throughout it previously unthoughtful guy uh and tried to read those together as best he
119can I don't know how to see if I can call him George bar here um this hockey player doctor basketball third question I just hit people at home I I think the idea that could also young activities I like them I'm scared of them um I am worried about I'm on the listing not receiving now um we need people we're kind of a powerful meeting once a month um if I see my fellow more colleagues in mind I see my kids and my wife and I like I like this work um but there there's challenges here and I think it gets in a way we will have four board seats up I know there is hesitation for people to join the board for all the wholesome reasons I think in the best of times there's
120the kind that this is my life um so there's that challenge there so I I want to figure out how to do that there's also the sense of I really I don't want to lose this strand of where the board is at uh and trying to navigate this as a board president um is exceedingly challenging um and as you need to talk through this um and where I would like to Center us a little bit as around the gutter bylaws we also have a board ethics um and I I'm sorry before you kind of said we can't bylaw our way out of this Maybe um I think we would get ethics our way on them um we still have to rebuild trust and as I read social media the community and the next narrative is
121being made but I what I experience as being false narratives unfair here's some Fair ones um but they're being fed intentionally and I think we have to to talk about that we have to talk about can we move past it um what were sort of practices for us have to occur for us to be effective and so I'm not going to look for not engage that tonight I think it's really important um so maybe what I'll say is I'll the kid in the sky book but the girl goes into my home going and see if we can store them all in some We're not gonna pick themselves I think it's really I don't want to lose your recommendation of having what facilitated conversation on this um but when we're in a place where there's articulations
122up I'm going to cause my head [Music] um when there's people saying do you want to go something's wrong yeah listen um yes and I want to talk about the point that we made earlier on policy I view the work of a policy committee as essential and the reason I do that is because the Athletics being cold you know our behaviors and all of that some of the I guess items we've been experiencing leaders are basically because we didn't have a complaint process for example between a board member and the board I mean that's something we could address in policy in other words have done that um notification of policy committees you know or or some kind of a community or however we decide as a board governance to um inform ourselves we can write
123that in policy so you know some of these are just simply structural and process related items that you know we didn't help ourselves with because we didn't really have them all outlined so I I'm looking for the policy committee to really travel and um and again we're not alone other words have fracture I work with other board presidents other board members on the cs1 border control and they share with me that I saw their word of presidents of their board members don't even speak to them they have or you know I mean that's not our ideal situation I realized that we want to strive for the best but it is a tough job and um and and uh so again I just wanted to say if we could address some of these procedural and process
124related things in our board policy at least it would be a guide and a post where we could say hey you know new board members hey existing board members you said we wanted to do this it doesn't mean they're not going to break the rule or they're not going to follow it because board members might not I honestly were seven elected people um we don't work for each other we work for the people who work we work for the people and you know and the students and so um you know we we're not always self-policing we should be we're not always you know um but um and it's a difficult job Miss Freeman it really is because again I don't work for anyone but we are a group of seven board members plus Dr means
125for a group of eight or a team of eight so um I again I have you know I'm one board member I have six seven colleagues so um and uh so that's just that's just my read on it the the sooner we can look at some of these policies and figure out okay what are the things that we can we can help what and we convince ourselves where [Music] thank you so in the course of this conversation here I am trying to avoid like fishing dirt confrontational points accusations and I've asked that we all hear each other and you had some shining phrases here Dr Jess Baker but you've also had your comment that I blocked your phone calls well that's kind of Confrontation yeah I think it's fair for us to talk about that
126well but I have reasons why I do those things and you allude to add things well I had ethics reasons why I didn't know why I do those things there was a time on the board where we blocked emails between all four numbers just so we wouldn't do anything accidentally so I tonight don't want to respond I want to get away from that kind of thing and move forward um I'll say from my perspective when you talk about social media groups well there's groups on the left and the right and both ends are getting bent by somebody or somebody certain people um talk about ethics there's ethical criticism from both directions um you know gold people ask if you're going to go people ask me today the last two days multiple people will you resign
127because this group is difficult to deal with so and once you're what you've said there it's a two-way street but it didn't seem to understood that it seemed that you were directing a message to someone instead of trying to you know solve a one more core problem of trust and understanding so if we start to do this volley back and forth I don't think we're going to get to where you want to go and um do we need to resolve root cause issues in a positive way yes but I think we need to be careful of you know we are an elective body of politically elected legislators I don't know how much restorative Injustice you get in a legislative in the legislature I mean it's not a social group so from anyone in either direction
128so to move forward I think we really have to decide to move forward while solving root cause um you know gaps or problems or lack of tools or lack of understandings um I pretty much haven't answered to most things that nmv had said to me tonight in this in the course of this section of the meeting but I've chosen not to say them because I don't feel it would be productive to be objectives that we all want so for me the irony of this is that um I've spent the last several weeks um creating a framework around the concept resolution and restorative conversation and um what is the process when someone feels like something happened and how do you how do you respond and recently facilitated a conversation between two people over the very adversarial
129um and you know the way we sometimes end those conversations from an HR perspective is to say okay so this is what we're both agreeing to moving forward we don't sing to the point Mr Meyer that we you can't take away the hurt or the pain or the frustration of the past that that's going to stay there um and what we can do moving forward is reset expectations and when the next fracture happens we move to a different level and that's where I do think policy and Clarity of ethics and whatnot um yeah wounds have been inflicted upon me oh absolutely and so what I mean we can't move forward if I want Justice or whatever you know I and I doubt that the people who inflicted them understand what they did right or even
130know that they did yeah okay and we could go there it would be an intellectually interesting but we're short on time right for the next six months so my associate pastor said something really interesting to me the other day um where she said I know you feel like you wish you could have a tougher skin that this would like roll on but like we don't want to have tougher skin because we need to feel what kids are experiencing and what families are experiencing as much as I hate being yelled at by community members I always come back to they are frustrated and angry because they want what's best for their kids the irony being that we want with us for another kid too right and so I I don't disagree for a second or believe
131that you don't feel you that you haven't been hurt like that is as real to you as it was to me when I read that motion and I feel like we have worked very hard to be cordial to one another and be you know computer side buddies you know throughout new things and everything um but I do think we have to come to a place where if we say we're moving forward that we're moving forward under these conditions and if those conditions are fractured again then we have to do something differently um and it's not to say that any one side will feel totally resolved but we do have to move forward so I appreciate what you're saying about how you have and I feeling I can say that you have absolutely metacognitively talked about
132choices that you made last night and everything and that's helpful to hear um and we just we have a lot of work to do um and so if if we're not willing to all engage in a more substantive facilitated conversation then I think we do at minimum and if it would help because I feel like everything is being thrown at the policy committee and the kitchen thing it would be helpful I'm happy to draft a couple of things that that we use that are not saying Matthews but that could be put out as something to start from to say like are these realistic and we can pull from the Epic stuff to say here's how we're going to function and we either agree to that and if we can't agree to it honestly I don't
133I I don't know where to go from there um but I think there has to be a next step um in service to students because the amount of time and energy that is spent reading emails and keeping us from a strategic plan which I think we all want every single person with people um that's that's where I am right now at 8 20. just a surprise maybe I would agree with you later we do have bylaws right now as they stand I would argue that or bylaws are violated on a regular basis and we don't do anything with them so I agree that policy is important I agree that this you know the policy matters but it only matters right but that's right I think we like I would have to have them beside me
134like you know what I mean like sorry I don't have a copy this um and I think that's where I don't know at work you know we always I you know when you're the kids and you get put in groups and it's like you're the recorder and you're the speaker you're the best you're the that right sometimes at work in meetings where we know there's going to be difficult conversations we assign people tasks and one of the tasks is to be the overseer of the Norms so that they can say hey I'm feeling like we're sliding into this like we're talking and making people feel like you know what I mean and and it's sort of the job that they've been given so it's less confrontational um and so I do think that there are
135protocols and practices I mean adults are just like kids we like routines we know what to expect we We Like rules there's a lot of them so why don't we use them to our benefit because I hear that I wrote down the frog in the water thing I that's like the most stupid thing ever like yeah so what are we gonna do different so that that's where I am right now well I think Dr means so fast on opening day fans I know I'm sorry I'm stuck in a meeting and I don't know if he can repeat it but um but basically you said we are all equal to each other I respect that you were elected and reluctant I only ask um that you express what you're thinking in the open meeting so that
136I know how to react and I I have a better understanding of where you stand so that you know so that I have the value of your input when I make decision and none of us already you know more important than the other were seven people elected to serve and um and we can't control each other honestly we can write these rules and we can try to hold each other comfortable but honestly it's very difficult I mean in the room it's just difficult um but I I try but again those are my those are my operating um values and uh I just respect all of you and uh you know and I am at the end of the day it's involved and we will proceed and do what is best for the district and the
137children so questions we will have updated finalists that's several weeks months um a statement to the point where if we will agree to it yes absolutely I think we bring It Forward every year and maybe and I think available on board members we get new board members there come onto this board and you're asking us to Agree to Agree to the bylaws we haven't seen current violence is here as well well okay and there's current and there's current bylaws that are clearly trumped by state law clearly Trump by federal law fear and clearly trumped by constitutional law so when you go down that path it's almost like high school debate time by the way of a little bylaw here and I'm going to think that's going to control all things in everybody and then there's
138a serious issue a board member hasn't heard and that board member invokes the state law invokes the federal right to the speech and Away you go and then in fact we also operate as politicians outside of the sport yes we are we are politicians we're all elected and so if you if you go down that path the things that you can fix everything by writing a phylum um I don't think you can I think you fix it by creating trust so that if you listen to people's concerns and and everybody feels they're hurt whether they're agreed with it or not it's not cannot be expected by anybody because we do vote um so I I believe with you if you want to go down that route I don't think you're going to get where you
139want to go you have seven months left of this term and how much of it do you want to spend chasing violence you can sure but you have opportunity cost you when you have other things to do if we're starting to figure out that we can work together then you know let's run with it that's what I what I'd say um and I understand what your articulating you and I are not on the same we don't have the same beliefs I believe our our bylaws were adopted most recently in February of 2016. so I believe foreign [Music] State statutes federal policy we're all thinking about the whole dose and um this is our guiding document so for me this is done like we whatever possible when all of us join the board it's incumbent upon
140us to at least not right with this so are you looking to find an app to operate effectively efficiently and properly under under rules and biologics or are you looking for some kind of historical Justice thing what will the several people what's your objective with what you're saying Drive success in the schools to do that one I think I'm asking is for me trust is culture it's operating procedures of how we do operate what I what I kind of get to push around with you this doctor needs us increasingly in Stillness into my mind of this Perpetual went into the policy I like my first time going to how do we do this within policy that's one of one of my my deep Learning Systems um and so for me it's development it's saying we
141have policy to guidance uh we know that we've got policies and what a great conversation about philosophy and we've got some cool churches so we've got to read both and one of the ways to do that is to trust that my colleagues are operating a good thing um that I would love for us to come back and support to the moral of the Heritage that we develop together and land on that I thought everyone's operated we disagreed bitterly but I think everybody's been operating a little bit of pain if anyone thinks someone who's not operated you haven't taken the time to understand what they're about so if there's something anywhere over here that someone's that operating with babe well here we go not going to be productive and you really wanted to move forward or
142you know if somebody disagrees with your subsequent policies one of the most effective ways to slow you down and stop representation of what you want to do is to get us pinned down and muddling around in minutia about about things and so I I asked for the sake of what your agenda is to promote their substantive agenda with the seven months you have left in return well seven months until there's an election and of course form the seven seats are up and who knows what happens then because we don't know what will happen but to I'll stop talking I've taken up another term Mr Miller help me understand what is even very reasoning how does your emotion to rescind the curriculum and the way it was framed how does that culture rebuild Trust I was
143sincere with that I read the um open meetings guideline catalog from the Attorney General's office I went into the footnotes I looked at what had happened and I since I was sincere that to me that was not frivolous it was sincere as I I sincerely believe that we owed the people of Goodwill who disagreed with us I sincerely believe that I still do we owe them a choice and and so had there been a second to the motion I would have um offered a motion to table to see whether the superintendent would come back at the next regular meeting with um in his own belief that as the Lord told him to it and it's unbelieved to propose an alternate plan for the beginning of the 23 324 school that was my subsequent objective it's
144never got a second there were board members in the past who believe that principled at every motion should get a second that liner everyone's opinion so that whoever made the motion that their views could be incurred so there's working together which we don't have because emotions don't get a second all the time and the person who believed that was my better opponent back then um so there that was all rooted in my sincere belief about what the law said and what I believe is the right thing to do for many many children in our community that was that was the pure motive it was not adoption thing um some people thought it was some people thought I was opposed to the HGD curriculum I keep saying I put my own kids in it so I
145must not you know think it's whatever people are saying I think it is and so that was what that was about um it was using process as I knew how to use it to try to achieve the objective to bring the conversation for the boardroom I truly thought that there was Data excluded that showed the batting solution thought I don't know how much and I truly was as folder of C2 of my seat was offended that I wasn't involved in those decisions legitimately sincerely abandoned that some board members thought it was on them to be able to decide what data C2 would consider and what beta C2 would not consider and I wasn't in that conversation I do want to clarify all the data was shared twice with the community and with the barn at
146each of those things Louise the board had access to live real-time data nothing was taken away from us well but we don't operate within ourselves we've operated facing the community and the community didn't understand what was going on and again at the time of the meeting why that data was why they went through the process of trying to look at that data and figure out what was legitimate and what was not and then Dr Marvel put in an email but she did it in the direction of four numbers so what am I to think so here you go again you're not hearing Mr I wasn't trying to stunt anything I sincerely disagree with what happened did you reach out to Dr means I think did you reach out to anyone to ask that question what
147question any of the questions that you may have had about the process of the data or did you I need to discussed in the boardroom this this you know this stuff I called Dr means he says something it'll get to the board when he says something else because other board members have talked with them so he's trying them so hard to keep the birds of the board and to respect the board that that I keep saying no please save what you think and lead us so I I don't 55 years I've been a lawyer for decades um I I can take this interaction to a level that the rest of you don't know and if you want to engage in this I mean I'm sure you don't understand what I know or what I'm sorry
148about that I regret that but I don't know how to fix it and I'll just say from my perspective I felt like the way this was framed it maligned the character of board members and so I felt like my character was being maligned and I felt like it was framed and then shared with our community before it even got to the board in a way that made me very much feel like there was an effort here to sow distrust in our community about the board and how the board functions and to ultimately and and I use this because of conversations you and I have had online that you are trying to take down this board and I feel very much like this this exact emotion is one of the ways in which you are trying
149to take down this board okay when individual board members contacted Dr Marvel instead referring to I don't know what it doesn't say but she wrote it in the email my email Dr Marvel's emailed to a member of the community that that data data was removed add the request support members so where's the I can't I don't trust whoever did that because you thought it was somebody that you specifically but somebody thought it was okay to tell Administration that some data should be removed I can only read what she wrote and so no I don't trust there's somebody here I don't trust not because they're evil or bad or nefarious but they don't understand the job and there were other things in the past year where where I was told that the board members were out
150together and from people inside who knew um there were things done you know there was an effort to discredit me in the Public's record my voice matters so Utah okay I told you that if this is a two-way speaker folks and if you want to start to lay all this out we can but I don't think it's going to help [Music] I was aware of a board request that came on Friday to examine because I was cc9 to exam if there was a way to take a look at the data and during during the data election process that I would articulate it was a challenging one because this wasn't a survey that was sent to members parents and students the survey was intended to be sent to all members of Wauwatosa so really inclusive so
151what it meant is that it was an open sermon there may be very nuanced ways to be able to figure out how to eliminate to just people who but that's that's complicated itself during that process um it was shared out publicly visually even you would go back and look at social media posts uh news articles folks who said um let's [Music] can't mean documents particularly is there any way to see anybody who's connected I think would be a district I know I responded to it and said that would be an additional value interesting because uh the board also can say where anybody who's a parent or connected with Recreation programs or anything else at the point for me it was one of many nowadays um I took it from my perspective that I succeed because
152oftentimes for the community or presents are often free when we see seen on Communications with the superintendent Salon email um and I was like interesting and then that information was fully shared after the full survey was shared with the community um I read no intent like I I honestly I didn't know what the data was saying I was curious on what do parents you have and people said well what if I used to you know that's not my own totally therapeutic I think the whole survey as reasonable fatigues attached to it um I can't there were you and I have not talked about before you also mentioned some of the idea Awards and show I've never I I've I think I'm coming to understand what you mean by that now how I'm making something that
153you can grab coffee you can share it at an important point I I've never what what my intent is is where president is to figure out I think we do financially view our roles and how we operate and that's okay um [Music] we're gonna have work students who come super well because What I Hear You articulating is a level of mistrust that's that feeding into how you are experiencing things which is both fair and I would love the opportunity for for you to feel that you can get a place when you articulate the things that you just felt or whether it's emotion that comes forward like this that you are able to ask that question um the framing of this one and where I honestly struggle so you know I haven't navigating life on a
154weekend I think you reached out to me on Friday I saw it later in the day I responded back um my recommendation originally was let's take this up and earn a civil war meeting because I didn't think the world would happen on time agency um I think my understand my reading email is that you know if I can understand that um my concern is my God like I got an Outreach I started getting several emails from community members kind of recommending I had it took me a couple days obviously to even have fun to sit down and Sheriff into the board of what's this happening my hope is I would be able to get next to the board and be able to explain there's what's going on and sometimes we'll have a long-line communication of
155just here's the update and here's what we're talking about next meeting and you may not feel like you have a relationship with me and I can work on that but I want to get to a place where you when you were in a place of not trusting what the board is doing whatever hurts in this treatments you've experienced um that you are able to talk in the process through that the [Music] why when I see that like it generated a lot of anxiety if there's an assumption of kind of where folks are at the emails that I got and actually one of my my a guy with his five goes down for me was the person that I got outside of um Miss Randall who was the first who went down 5 million dollars receiving
156or send an email asking just to put it forward I walked over and I I was like I'm really curious kind of like talking through your thinking on this and what you know and because I thought it'd be an opportunity because like for all the folks to say we don't listen I've experienced my colleagues like really listening very strong I mean I was agree but we really understand so I'm like I'm gonna go over eventually started raining on Sunday I was listening and engaging and trying so for me that's one thing that would help is when you have areas of concern or you don't understand it's not if you can't talk when you talk about convenience or ask questions um we can talk about our new instance what process tools that would be beneficial um
157how I experience this is not consistent with how you are articulating we experience and I would like to get to a point where we have a better common understanding to the story okay let's go man go back to the root of this is my motion on August 22nd that and I said I'm trying to get to yes on the web I said that night I would put my children in the plan I did whatever I could to communicate that I was with you all the plan all I asked for by motion was a commitment for the superintendent by the end of September to give us a date when he thought he could produce and an alternate plan not a plan by September 30th a date by which he thought he could produce a pet whether
158that date was June 30th 2023 I didn't know that I thought that was a very small ask to get my yes vote it made no commitment of substance about programming it only said tell us a date in the future where you're comfortable that you can present an alternative plan why I wanted an alternate plan because as I'm sure you're all well aware why the 60 intents this has to do with sex and sexuality of children and then it's one of the deepest most important things in a parent's mind about the welfare of their children on these topics and I was brokenhearted that there were people of Goodwill many of them sincere who said they couldn't go along with this because they thought it was whatever we picked the word wrong unacceptable you know and then
159we had the noise on both ends about how you know vilifying both sides and all that all that stuff and and and so that was a very small ask any women doing come on they won't even give us that it's like well okay that was and um that's where I was and so um I struggle with these things about what to tell my kindergarten you want to tell a fourth grader and I had to go through those decisions alone because I was widowed and it is um quite distressing and for me to try to figure out how to make the right decisions for two little girls on those things so when somebody comes to the microphone and says they have a heartfelt the stress over what we're doing with their children I don't know if
160the rest of you are wound or whatever I'm sure everybody has their journey and their challenges but I in heartfelt wanting to provide an answer for those people was it 20 30 40 it's a lot that we offer choices for everything else what was it what was wrong with us I said that we could at least try to see if there could be something and then I'd vote Yes to where I'll roll them and then the people who opposed it would have been throwing stones at me just like throwing stones at you figuratively speaking but no I'm like okay all right now what so yeah yeah and as far as conversations with you I because of the open meetings on concerns which I have I I felt in Peril for both of us that it's
161best if we just stop talking and the superintendent is still new he doesn't know how to assert himself with us um and which is to be expected and so there so that was what that was all that was where I came from so that little six month vote on that motion just to tell people that you know when [Music] I can opt out and I know there's going to be something else next year so I'll stay in the school district now you know um so yeah in the public people accuse me of suggesting that student parents would hold their children from school on the resident account which we found out I just found out they left it there anyway because there's other ways to count them I never propose any such thing yet I was
162worried about account because I'm always worried about the health so I didn't vote by two conclusions drawn about me and accusations made about me on social media so there's there's where I was so a I want to thank you for sharing that um and I think our personal stories are really important how we show up in this room and that's why I've never questioned your commitment against let me be clear then I think for me um if I'm remembering that night clearly and I will admit that when Lori talks about you know December 9th and the meeting and what we said I literally find myself being like I can barely remember what I said last night and I'm thankful that things are on video because I don't know if it's being 52 or what um
163but I explicitly remember that night saying to you like oh I I like this you're thinking outside Fox and I probably haven't written somewhere in in my notes where I was like okay so like what are what are we not seeing and and wanting to go down that path with you I don't know if you remember like doing all that we were there and then I think I have this moment where it was it was tough to make a decision that I knew some people so passionately disagree with in terms of their morals and values and I kept coming back to this point two to one percent and this feeling that if we had done that that yes it may have created the outcome that you were looking for and what I saw which is
164the reason why I was like okay I don't want to go down that path was that I knew or I believe I don't know I believe that had we given that directive to Dr mean the next several weeks or however long the he would have most likely felt the pressure to be coming up with something else versus in starting to get the Strategic plan going Etc so I just want to own that when I go on almost any issue there's always parts of me that are like I'm I'm I'm feeling really confident in this part and I'm wishing that there was more more flexibility and and in that one I think it would have felt disingenuous to me to to second that motion um and for the record I think that this thing you said
165earlier about everybody gets a second so that there's this opportunity to engage I don't feel like that was ever articulated to me as a new board member I don't necessarily believe in that but I'm sorry but no more members have but but I think the point is is that I think if that was a norm that was important to people to just say like this is how we honor people's ideas even if we vehemently disagree let's let's talk about wedding that's great I think in that case seconding that motion to me felt disingenuous because of what I felt like I was directing as an individual Ward member the The District staff to say this is really important involvement is really important and I agree with X Y and Z and I disagree with a b
166and c but it is 0.2 to 1 of a student's experience and we provided opt out in a very different way that teachers will already tell you is going to complicate things so I felt like it's not like there was no other option and I know we're not here to talk about this but I but I think it connects to where that left you feeling not heard not valued by your colleagues um intent versus impact right like not my intent I appreciate the thing outside the box when Sharon you talk about Innovation and whatnot I think we have to do all those things when Mr Phillip talked about like strategic alignment like I'd like to think we're all really smart people but I think we have to start articulating when we're feeling like this so
167like I'll put myself out there a little while ago and you said um something about people not knowing how to do their job I don't know if you were directing that at me but I'm one of six board members that was sitting here and that felt really crappy because I feel like I could I put thousands of hours into this District easily more than a thousand fifteen hundred hours in the last five years so like in that moment I felt very belittled and I felt like even though I don't think that was your intention that is how it landed on me right but here's my point I think we have to start saying these things out loud so when you know when something is said that doesn't sit is like the subway if you see
168something say something if you feel something say something so that you give the other person the opportunity to say that was not my intention like let's say you're out looking outside I think that's where we have to get to or we are literally going to be talking in circle from that seven months that we have so much important work to do because again I don't think that was your intent but that's how I took it based on a bunch of other little things that like the little drips of water wear things out um and I just think we have to be cognizant yes um I refuse to talk in circles okay and all I can think about with this discussion is years ago we did a team building effort where we had lily pads on
169the floor and we were supposed to jump with each other or go with each other to these silly pads and I gotta tell you it was a complete disaster but if you want to make me suffer do it again we did try it though so I um I'm at the point where I would like to suggest we um we go and and explore more of the ideas of this hybrid approach that we talked about earlier um with the you know Park committee structure and then also the external I mean I I really want to get into the work I want to have policies brought back to the sport I want to engage the community get our experts engaged and use our experts that we have and our and our hires that we haven't so I
170I can work with all of you I have worked with all of you in different capacities I'm still going to do that to the best of my ability and I hope you'll want to work with me in collaboration as well um I just want to get on to work any other comments on the Stringer push it back foreign [Music] yes [Music] um first I want to start by we can't believe let's not forget that component out there as well apply hybrid recommendations that you formalize a finance and resource committee we've already established a legislative advisory committee in a policy committee then you would identify at a minimum one board member to the curriculum Council that's currently in place to the new diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility committee and the external School Safety Committee it is
171my belief that issues involving and strategic goal number one two five and to a certain extent or will be discussed with those committees that are external phasing the other Advantage is that you will have not only just a committee that you're talking among each other at the board which you'll actually hear from the community and will serve it and feedback group in the areas of curriculum construction assessment diversity Equity including and accessibility install safety as I listen to all and it really do a review of the last year plus those are the main issues that community members are stating they they want they want to hear them they want to have accessibility to them that's the recommendations Mr Phillips love it I had it all I have all the numbers down kind of in the
172same way you were talking about and I think it covers all of our bases and I'll be ready to do a presentation on finance and resources is there so it's finance and research the last thing that we will be creating this would be collecting members to early large that we also review all the other committees that folks are sitting on outside of the one that Dr means talked about Mr Meyer sits on a couple of committees I think it's just uh not I was under the understanding that Mr Meyer was taking stuff from the school board back to the senior committee if that's inaccurate sometimes but okay I misunderstood that there is incentives maybe it's the commission to be of someone who commission okay okay got it because that they uh reduce the size of
173their board and removed all effects of The Shield um doctor means I'm having a brain overload here can you bullet point those recommendations again yes I'm sorry no no no worries um I think it's in three bullet points bullet point number one is formal committees and you already have established two formal committees in terms of legislative advisory committee and policy recommendations of those as graciously said he will be ready to have a recommendation for the finance and resource committee by the October 10th so you would have three committees there formal committees that are formed through your models in your dialogues presentations as far as the charter of the committee he's going to bring forth a charter for a financing so welcome again then you would identify um and other coins a board rep to the
174curriculum Council to the diversity to our diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility external committee and our school safety and strong [Music] foreign multiple areas but in particular diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility okay I think that I mean I have to know what we all need to know what the community to think but that you know we had on that we're interested in the security plan about um including specific explicitly stated students with disabilities you know our stuff related to diversity Equity so it's called to say it's all in that meeting there's occupational and that would be automating for them to go to the needs of concerns representation so yeah okay all right but I I won't say I think that's where they'd go as a starting point but quite honestly their curriculum right right I think
175that's like the starting point but the curriculum committee is and I know that they're already thinking about stuff like this that the curriculum committee anything they do they have to be thinking about every student whether that student has special needs whether they are identified as gifted and talented whether or not they fall into a subgroup that had been traditionally marginalized and that's our data is you know not as good so um I would I would want folks to know I would want to ensure that every committee is thinking about um those things but that there is sort of like the entry point sexy or technology it goes there our physical space as it goes there so that falls under resources right so there'll be it's kind of like everybody working on permeating a lot of
176different committee work yeah just because they did stop here yeah um so so one thing we've been doing at work is that um there's this idea in learning that if you if you go to the students with particular challenges or or strengths and you start from there and all students win so I think Debbie before the idea is is that you you almost I don't want to call that checklist because that sounds very technical but like any committee has to be making sure like okay we talked about this from an equity and inclusion perspective have we thought about this in terms of how it impacts our kids with special needs have we considered what the entry point for gifted and talented or kids who are just really average and good listeners that they're not making
177a big to-do in class making sure that they're reaching their potential so that's where I think like some standardization of how each representative is ensuring that voices are being heard that considerations are being taken that doesn't mean that we're going to do everything that people want but it means that when someone comes to the microphone and says have you thought about this there should be an answer to say like here are the things we consider that's not to say that we might not have missed something or that they don't have access to a resource or expertise that we weren't aware of um I just wanted to get to the point where it's on the start of something versus how are we gonna how are we going to do the circuit this special needs how are
178we going to do this for multilingual Learners Etc let's do it on the front end not the back end so these communities though do not take the place of the internal work that the administration is doing to make sure that the educational programs are meaning the needs of the students and the parents so this is the business I've had and later and these are publicly will be publicly noticed meetings and we will keep minutes and they will be possibly on the website could we have sections on you know online where just like we did for our legislative advocacy that you know the medical advisory sure so all six of the Committees if you will the formal or committees but also the external facing committees though we'll we'll post them because at least one warning will
179be there and we were trying to create it as a space where you want to have dialogue or want to be heard that one board member has the accountability to specialize in a certain area and to be efficient so I'm going back to those three bullet points of the advantage of committees to bringing back to the rules which is probably not on the district website as well yeah and such um harken back to my law school days in one of the classes the book said here is the law that you should do but there was this lawyer type effectively titled abundance of caution although your abundance of caution you would do this other thing I will add to that and say there's this lawyer because I pushed the envelope and with respect to what's okay
180our legal counsel is always available to board members to ask can I do this should I not do this and maybe ask is this abundance of caution or straight down the middle or push the envelope and I do not like to push the animal because there are I can't give legal advice here the lawyer's gone but as you're correct and then I there are a number of things that the legal Community believes the law says but it's never been tested in court so I try to avoid the push the envelope that's just me and and worse being down the middle sometimes I'm to put that out there well there needs to be a process and an expectation and we need legal advisor targets how many days should something be posted some of the community really
181feels like there's the legal like as long as it's closer again very well we're hoping that there's at least a week or whatever the number of dates is um or that the dates are on the calendar well in advance even if the meeting isn't posted there is a place where it's a the third Tuesday of every month is this week so the one thing that so yes and yeah so yes and the one the one final point to the conversation that I their ability to share with you that this is going to impact how your board meetings are structure so there will be a need typically in a commit a committee structure board your consent agenda becomes heavier yeah and so you don't have as much flexibility adult set of number four to talk about
182some of the things that you currently are getting reports on so minus the rewards now that the reports aren't coming from staff they're coming from you and so be cautious right I mean so there's positives to all of this because even there are also cautionary tale that will share that your your work looks differently and you are assuming more work so if you're the board rep to the curriculum Council there will be an expectation from the other six board members in the community that you're sharing out what are they talking about if you're the rep to the diversity Equity inclusion accessibility committee part of your responsibility is to make sure that Advocates within the special education Community doesn't feel like they have to come into microphone because you've heard them so you're the the complexion
183of and the complexity I believe of the work that you'll have will look very different so we could use human growth and development at the nice little case study we followed the process right I believe we follow the process but what would have probably been really helpful is if updates to the board in some fashion headset here's where we are now and maybe in in June we had said the first two weeks of August are going to be when and somebody would have had the opportunity to say like oh the first two weeks of August that's a really bad idea people are on vacation you know I think we don't want to go down the path of these reports being so detailed that then it becomes this minutia like what about this and what about
184this and I think it goes back to what you said earlier Mr Meyer in terms of like just letting go of control a little bit like that we assigned people to where their strengths are and thus I'm just gonna trust that Jenny or Mike or Mike or whomever I'm gonna ask questions but it's in the spirit of like clarifying for myself versus like cooking holes necessarily so I'm I'm hoping that these structures will allow people more access to information so that we don't find ourselves in a place where people feel blindsided because that was never the intention and if you talk to anybody on that committee it felt like there was stuff out there a lot but it's like when you you're not looking for it you don't see it and then when it's right
185in front of you you're like how could I miss this or what how did I miss this in the case of should have maybe engaged a broader community well it's it's probably about everybody here that it wasn't a typical disagreement on the recommendation it was something deeply visceral in response but I should have thought you know what I mean I considered that right but who experience matters right here we are the next time we do growth development were to be never well no three years from now well whoever is about then how many comments so okay we should have known but we're human we didn't know none of us saw them coming the the Schism that that would come up we should have sharp because it's about sex of course but we didn't time check
1869 12 there so a couple of items that are asked the word booster um which seat is foresee herself on the Safety Committee is currently and I don't know I I'm not going to say anybody as the same depending going forward but sharing uh operates enough and that uh not more quietly um I didn't bring anybody to be an opportunity to shed or reconsider uh criminal legislative advocacy the anti uh our code shares with facility there's whatever that would be um policy again is suggested [Music] um I think one thing Mr Phillips having to consider uh is should we rule of treasure be built instead of committee uh or should it be the treasure between options I I think there's something to think about I have a preference but I'll keep that to myself otherwise
187it's at the discretion of the president or the superintendent would be more involved sorry so we want to change that and we will need to build that recommendations so I think that like are there are there wolves that in in some ways Treasurer is the one that is [Music] the audience since you're still here there's snacks up here thank you as a entire education I've done lots of road courses and I'm strength certified by Gallup so it's everywhere um may I have a motion to return example as we go yes yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Joseph anger yes yes Miss Phillips yes or Mr Phillips I apologize Mr Phillips and Miss Willis yeah