001There we go. >> Right. Um, I would like to bring this special meeting of the Teton County School District number one board to order at 5:00 p. p.m. on December December 17th, 2025. All in favor? Yeah. All right, let's say the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thank you. Uh we are here uh tonight in this first 30 minutes of a public meeting to um have uh the Wyman School Boards Association um present some of the findings of their um of the survey that we had done that they produced for us and accepted the information back and have now coalated it and put it into a nice
002thick document. Um and we'll hear from that and then we will move into executive discussion to discuss uh to be presented to further um based on personnel and um and legal um decisions and then we will um come back up. Does that make sense? All right. With that said, we'll turn it over to Brian Farmer. Thank you, Madame Chair, members of the board. Uh, it's my pleasure to be here with you this evening with Dr. Julie Casoric. Uh, Dr. Casoric is our director of member services and was the principal investigator for this survey. Uh as you mentioned, the purpose of the survey uh was really to ask constituents uh about their perspectives uh and what they would like to do uh with regard to a uh superintendent search uh and really some information with regard
003to the climate uh of the district. And so uh at this time I'd like to turn things over to Dr. Casauric to walk uh your way through the report. Uh a few things that I'll note uh before Julie gets started. Uh just uh as a reminder, the survey um was done uh earlier this month. Um, we really appreciate uh assistance from the district uh in helping to ensure that this uh was able to be done uh in both English and Spanish in order to uh accommodate the needs of those within the uh the district. Uh and so uh I I think uh it was uh fantastic to be able to uh ask constituents uh from across uh the variety of backgrounds in Teton County about their perceptions of the district uh and their uh their
004viewpoints for a path forward. Uh so with that, I will turn it over to Julie. >> Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board. It's good to see you all tonight. Um, thanks for having us here to talk about the uh feedback report that we received from your community. Um, I'm going to go ahead and talk about the report. But Madam Chair, before I do, I wanted to know, would you like me to share my screen and scroll along as we go or do you all just have it in front of you? How would you like to proceed? Well, we do have it in front of us, but if you would share your screen, then we'll be able to, you know, match where we are where with where you are. >> Okay, Madame Chair,
005one moment. >> Okay, perfect. I'm not as familiar with uh WebEx as I am with the Zoom, so it's taking me just a minute to get my bearings here on here, but here we are. Okay. Um so, as you all know, um the your school board is uh looking for information about what's working well and areas where uh there are opportunities for improvement in the district. Um and so to that end there was uh a quite lengthy climate survey that was uh given to three different audience groups. Uh one of them being high school students, one of them being your community members including parents and one of them being current staff. Um, one of the intents with this information, as I understand it, is that this m might serve as a source of information that
006you all will use as you decide what your next steps will be in the superintendent selection process. Um, as Brian mentioned, we did uh make this survey available in Spanish. Actually, thanks uh 100% to your staff for making that happen. and we did end up with 38 uh responses from your Spanish-sp speakaking community. Um the remainder of the surveys, there were 603 in total, were all English speakaking. And the survey itself uh covered a variety of themes related to climate and culture. And uh we also asked questions about uh their perceptions related to just the general direction of the district. Did do the public see the movement of the district moving in a positive direction? Um or are they uh wishing for something uh different or something to change? Those questions are in appendix A
007of the report. In the uh interest of time, I'm not going to go through all of those questions, but do just want to call out that all of the questions that were asked for all of the participants can be found at the end of the document. So, as I mentioned, there were three different groups invited to participate. your high school students. So that was uh Jackson Hole High School and the Summit Innovation School as well as community members. Um and the community members represented the largest group of the survey pool. We had 389 community members. Um and then we asked current staff to also take the survey. Um and in that paragraph there is just a brief description of what you ended up with. 74 students, 389 community members as I mentioned, and 140 current
008district employees. Um there is uh some other information in that paragraph for you about the participants. I will not read that to you now, but um there is some interesting information there. And the other uh thing I wanted you to know is at the end of the report in appendix B are several charts that give you a a clearer description of who took the survey. Um, so with f without further ado, I'm just going to go ahead and jump into the results section since that's what we're here to discuss tonight. Um, the majority of the survey used liyker items and a liyker scale is something that is used to measure a continuum of perspectives and attitudes about specific topics. And so, um, all of the or the majority of the charts that you're going to
009see is going to show you the count of responses for each of those, uh, scale categories, which range from strongly agree to strongly disagree. And we use what's called a stacked bar chart to, uh, present the data, where you have colors blue and green uh, to the left, and those represent more positive perceptions. Yellow represent your neutral perceptions and then orange and red are your less favorable perceptions. We're going to go ahead and talk about the student survey. As I mentioned, 74 participants from uh the respective high schools there. Uh they were asked to weigh in on factors that influence uh school culture. You know, what their experience is like as a student in your district. Um I do want to note that in order to protect the identity of um the students uh we
010did combine the Summit Innovations school uh responses with the Jackson Hole High School responses and we did not have enough from Summit Innovations to uh break out that data separately that would have uh led to students potentially being able to be identified. So I just wanted to uh let you know that when you look at these charts, these responses refle excuse me reflect both of those schools combined. I also want to point out that each of these charts has what are called distinct counts as I mentioned in each category. Um each individual student gets one answer option that they can choose per question from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Um, but at the bottom here, you'll see 100% which just reflects that 100% of the respondents answered the question. So, what you see in the
011bars here, these numbers here are distinct counts. Those are not percentages. Um, and then along the bottom just shows that this represents 100% response rate. I also want to point out that uh typically you'll see five different colors here. one for strongly agree then agree uh neutral disagree and strongly agree but in some cases you didn't have any responses in the specific category um such as the statement at the bottom here I feel safe at my school all students either strongly agreed agreed or felt neutral about that statement nobody disagreed with that statement nobody strongly disagreed that statement and so as you look at the numbers here you'll see only the blues and the greens and the yellows. Um, in other words, all zero values are dropped from the data. So, with that, I'm going
012to go ahead and keep scrolling through. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the charts. This is for you as a board to pour over uh at another time. Uh, but I know we have a brief amount of time together this evening. So, I just kind of want to move through it. um as as board members, you might pay attention to um any areas that um you feel don't have uh the amount of positive perceptions that you were hoping for. Uh but I do want to caution that a yellow means neutral. It just means they don't feel one way or another about that. I think sometimes we um are tempted to look at neutral feelings as negative or positive feelings. And um I would not interpret the data that way as you're
013looking at the charts. And so again, Madam Chair, in the interest of time, I'm just going to scroll through these. I'm not going to talk about each of these unless you would like me to. >> No, just as a >> Oh, go ahead. >> General just as a general statement, and I apologize, my camera keeps cutting out. Um I think your students have very um strong perceptions of the district. um and uh their perceptions are relatively similar to what we see in other districts. Um as we've done work uh in other districts across the state of Wyoming, uh I would say your student perceptions uh are relatively similar. Um uh although uh they certainly do reflect strong uh perception of uh uh of their school environment uh and the supports that they receive. >> Yes,
014thank you Brian and Madam Chair. I would I would absolutely agree with that that the perceptions of the students uh in at least at these two high schools um seem to be very positive overall which is a good thing. We want to see that obviously. >> Great. Thank you. >> Moving into the community survey. So again, that was our largest group, 389 individuals. Um I believe it was maybe 93%. I'd have to go back and look at the chart and it is an appendix B also had um children currently enrolled in the school. And so that's pretty meaningful. Um but we ask them uh climate based questions as well. Factors that affect climate anyway. And you can see those topics bolded here in the report. Safety, communication and collaboration, local needs, academic expectations and opportunities,
015school environment, support for learning, and support for parents. Um and then we also asked them to share their opinion about options for selecting the next superintendent, which I'll I'll delve into a little bit more as we go. But these get too far here. Uh I do want to point out that the rate of response, the number of respondents you had here is extraordinary. Uh this is much higher uh than what we see in a lot of other communities. So uh that may indicate a level of interest or a level of importance to your community. >> Absolutely. And I I do want to give a shout out to Charlotte from your staff there. um she's the one who pushed out the communication about this and I know she sent out some reminders um particularly on that
016last day um we saw a really nice influx of responses on that last day as well. So really appreciate her efforts in encouraging participation in this study. So um one thing that is a little bit different is this first this first chart here is about the vision and mission. Um questions were asked about uh the vision and mission and whether or not your community um sees the operations and the policies and the leadership of your district uh aligned with uh or in support of your current uh vision and mission. So that is what this chart is. We ask the same question of your staff as well. This is not a question that we ask the students. And then uh going on again, same type of charts with the stack bar chart. Your your greens and
017blues are your more positive perceptions and then your yellows are your neutrals and then your orange and uh red are your less favorable perceptions. And so again, in the interest of time, Madam Chair, I am just going to kind of scroll on past these and you can uh look at these uh with more granularity uh when you have more time. Uh if you do see something you want me to stop on though and and talk about um certainly let me know and I will do that. We did um ask the community members to indicate whether or not they are uh parents of current children uh students who are currently enrolled in the district. Uh and again yeah 339 participants out of year 393. So that's uh quite high. Um and if they selected yes then
018they were directed to these sets of questions here about the school environment support for learning and support for parents. And so again just by looking at the colors there you get a general sense for their uh perceptions around these >> parent responses are extraordinarily strong. Uh they do show that parents have very favorable views of the district. Yes, very much so. So, um, another part that we asked them about, uh, was, uh, we asked them to identify things that they're proud of in their district. We call those points of pride. And in this particular chart, they were able to select from, um, pre-identified topics. And, and so, this was not like an open-ended question where we said, "Hey, tell us what's good." Um we said here is a list of things uh and we would
019like you to identify the top three that you are most proud of. Um now there were some responses that didn't fit into any of those categories. Uh and so that's this other here with item six or excuse me with only six responses. It just meant that um they didn't select any of these or maybe they selected two but uh their third one um wasn't listed here. So they would select other and then they uh specified what they meant by that. U one thing I want to point out about this chart, these are non-distinct counts. And so what that means is that you may have had individuals um not select some of these items um or you had obviously multiple individuals uh selecting maybe the same two, three, four items. And so this does not represent
020these numbers here don't add up to 393 as you can see. Uh this represents the the count of times that these were identified as a top three strength of your district. The other thing I would like to call your attention to is that a low count um so so some of these numbers you see down here along the bottom that does not necessarily mean um that there are negative perceptions around those things. It just means that it wasn't identified as often. Um but it's just very important to be careful about not reading into um the fact that maybe some numbers are lower and some are higher. It just means that some were identified more often than others. And the other thing we asked them about, and this was an open-ended question, was what are some
021additional supports and services that they would like to see made available to them um from the district? And so these charts down here identify again non-distinct counts, counts of mentions is what I call them. um from their written um answers what was identified as um items that they would like to see provided to them. So um I separated this out by student focused supports versus family focused support uh behavioral and uh SEAL support uh being at the top but closely followed by mental health support for students as well as enrichment program for students. um family engagement. Uh this had a lot to do with um the district engaging with the families and providing um maybe easier or more regular access to information about what's going on in the district as well as information about how
022to access those supports, the supports that are available to them. Um so that was that's what was meant by family engagement here followed by uh basic needs and then multilingual support. Um and so down here is just this paragraph here just kind of summarizes uh what you see in these two charts here. Again, this was taken from open-ended responses. And so what that requires is a reading of each and every response and um seeing what kind of emerges as the top, you know, five to seven um you know, services that or supports that your community um wished for. And there was definitely a stronger emphasis on student focused supports than there were family focused supports. Um, one thing that was uh interesting to me about that is when we get to the staff section of
023the survey um and we asked them to identify some strengths of the district. One of the things that uh showed up again and again and again was the commitment to students to their well-being. Uh so not just to their academic success but just to their well-being as individuals. And so I thought it was nice to see that supported in the community responses as well that when they were asked what type of supports would you like to see that that there really was more of a focus on what can we do for students in our community and that really nicely aligned with what the staff said as well. This next section here the superintendent selection. So obviously you as a board you want to consider a broad range of perspectives as you decide what to do
024next which is why you did this survey in the first place and again excellent response rate. You definitely got a broad range of of uh perspectives here. Um but we did ask some questions uh of your community members and then later on your staff specifically about what they think the board should know and consider as they move forward with the super uh superintendent selection process. Um and we also talked to them or asked them about how they would like to be involved. So um the first question we asked them in this section is what do you think the school board should consider most when selecting the next superintendent? And again these are non-distinct counts. This is the number of time these items were mentioned. And um the top three here I want to call out
025are experience. So experience in in leadership of that nature. um engagement and relationships with uh community staff and so on as well as instructional focus. Um you will see as we get down to the staff section when we ask them this question, the top three that the community identified are identical to the top three that your staff identified as well. So, these are um the items uh in order of importance that your community and your staff would like you to consider when deciding um how you want to move forward. And then we ask them to identify the quality and skills that they believe the next superintendent should uh possess. Again, these are non-distinct counts. uh strong communication, focus on excellence, and well-being are the top three uh identified by your community. When we ask your
026staff the same question, as you'll see later, um they also identify strong communication and well-being within their top three. So again, it was just very interesting to see that alignment between your community as well as your staff members. We also asked them um you know what level of confidence do they have in the board's ability to manage the the search process. So there's that uh and they also identified uh the importance of making sure that whoever um takes this position down the road understands the unique uh nature of working and living uh in your community in Teton one. And then finally, we asked them how uh how should the district proceed? Uh these are distinct counts. So each individual got one shot at uh what they wanted to see the uh district do in terms
027of moving forward. And here's how it shook out for your community. the other uh down here, these 34, those are responses that just did not fit into any of these others. Um I read each of those other responses individually. And if I can fit them into one of these categories, I do. Um, but if I can't, so for example, you might have someone that says, um, I'd like to continue with the current direction, but if the interim superintendent's going to move to Hawaii, then I think we should do a national search. Something like that. Um, I just made that up, by the way. That wasn't a real comment. I obviously couldn't uh fill that, you know, I couldn't assign that to one of these categories. So often that's what those other um responses were was
028it wasn't something so far off from what you see here in these four options. It was just they it was like they couldn't decide. Um another common response for that other was um I don't have enough information to know or I don't know enough about this to decide. And so those were part of your others here. Um but the rest of it uh they selected from basically a forced choice a forced list. they had to, you know, one of these four options they could choose from. And then how would you like the board to involve the community in this process? Um, by far uh the, uh, regular updates exceeds all other options for involvement as you can see here on the chart. Um I will note that when um the staff answered the same question,
029they also had regular updates as their top uh desire in terms of how they would like to be involved. They really just want comm uh regular and transparent communication. Um and so the last section of the survey, Madame Chair, is the staff survey. I do want to pause just for a minute, make sure there are any questions so far before we go over this last section here. >> Any questions so far? Okay, we'll move on to staff. Thank you very much. >> Yes, perfect. Um, so we these questions were very similar um in terms of like the layout and structure for the staff as we did with the community. Um, we asked the exact same question about the vision and mission. So, I'm not going to go over that again. the themes that center around
030culture uh for the staff were different than what we um asked the community members. So, you'll definitely see differences there. The questions are actually completely different um because we wanted to ask them questions around themes that impact their day-to-day work. You know, what is it like to be an employee of Teton County School District? number one. And then we also had a a section a very short section of questions that we asked only of staff who spend a majority of their workday actively working with students in some capacity. Um and so we asked them, do you spend uh the majority of your workday or work week actively teaching, tutoring, or otherwise instructing students? And if they said yes, then then they were directed to a separate section, just one small section asking them about their
031perceptions around academic support and expectations. So you'll see that later on. I do want to call out that the charts that follow right now are your district level data. So this represents the responses of all of the staff members, all 140 who took the survey. Um at the end of the survey in appendix C, you will see building level data. It's building level data by type, not by um individual building. Meaning, elementary schools are grouped together. The middle schools are grouped together, although you only have one middle school, so it's just one middle school. And then your high schools are grouped together. Your central office responses are grouped together. And then um there were uh there were about 10 individuals who didn't fit into any of those categories or they declined to identify um where
032they spent the majority of their workday. And so uh those those were u packaged together in a chart called other. Um we follow a rule you need a minimum participation rate of 10 individuals um before uh we share the data. And so luckily I was able to to get to 10 individuals with those with that other group. So you will see all of the responses from all of your staff um reflected in the report in appendix C. Um but we just are very careful to make sure that we do not um present data that would risk somebody's identity um being uh uncovered for any reason. And so that is why we present the data the way that we do. Okay. So as you can see uh here we are again with the same bar charts
033with your greens and blues uh positive perceptions and your yellows neutral and so on and so forth. Uh again, in the interest of time, Madam Chair, I'm just going to go ahead and fly through this. This is something again um that you as a board can spend more time on as appropriate and as you make uh decisions and have conversations about what you want to do with this data. I will pause here though. Um after we ask them all of the liyker items uh with respect to all of those categories, then we asked them to identify the strengths and challenges uh that they see in the district. So what we asked them specifically was identify up to two challenges and up to two strengths um in the district. So they answered the question that we
034asked them. Um so when you see uh I I like to really call this out with the challenges uh chart here. We ask them to identify challenges and so they identified challenges. Um uh each of these charts here are your non-distinct counts. of the count of mentions at the count of times something was talked about. So here in the strengths um staff commitment as I mentioned earlier um was a huge strength of when your staff was asked and they talked about the commitment uh not only to the job itself but to doing what's right for students. Um student and staff relationships uh were also positively identified as a strength of the district as well as student centered priorities. Um, there were lots of comments about how the decisions that are made in your district are
035student centered decisions, which is always really great to hear. And it seems from the open-ended responses that we received from your staff that the majority of your staff uh see that, feel that, and are proud of that aspect of working in your district. Um, with the challenges, uh, the biggest uh top two here were communication and transparency. Now, some of that had to do with um wanting more information or more involvement uh about how decisions are made. They just want, you know, clear a clearer understanding of things like that. Um and then workload and burnout, which is something I think we're seeing across the country with anyone working in education. Um you know, I think sometimes there's that feeling that we're doing more with less and um and so that can definitely lead to burnout.
036Um, however, the the the foundational strengths that you have in your in your district um are really good and create a really nice platform of um things that uh can be built upon to um strengthen the systems and to keep those things that are going well going strong. Uh you don't want people to reach burnout to the to the point that uh the good things that are happening fall by the wayside. And so when they did talk about, you know, here are some things we wish uh could be done differently or things that we view as challenges, it was really more of a um we are really we feel we're really really good in these areas and we want support to continue being good and even better. Um I would say that is the tone
037um of the open responses with relation to those two questions. Um, we also asked them about uh how satisfied are they working in uh Teton County School District number one and what do they intend to do in the foreseeable future. And so I do want to call out that 70% of your staff uh or nearly 70% said that they enjoy being part of the district and over 60% said that they're happy with the current direction of the district. And then you had 68% of those who are currently employed by your district saying they intend to stay with your district uh for the foreseeable future. And you can see that far exceeds any other um answer there. Uh those that said other here, this nine, this count of nine was the people like, "Oh, I'm going
038to retire soon or you know, I'm going to move, you know, away from the community." Um I didn't see any responses that said, "I absolutely hate it here. I'm quitting." there was none of that. So, uh something very positive for you to reflect on and celebrate, Madam Chair. Um and then the last section of the survey is the identical to the last section of the community survey where again we ask them to uh share what they think are important considerations as the board makes decisions about how to move forward with the superintendent search as well as how they would like to be involved. Again, I want to point out these are non-distinct counts. is the number of times these things were mentioned. And as I already stated, experience uh relationships and instructional focus emerging as
039the top three here are identical to the top three that your community identified as well. Um when we ask them about what are the qualities or skills that the superintendent should possess uh strong communication and prioritizing well-being uh match uh the top three from the community but they did differ in fiscal responsibility and transparency that was part of their top three whereas the community's top three included focus on excellence. Um not that that's a significant diff or anything like that. I'd really point this out more to show how well aligned everything is. Um, so you've got a community and staff who are looking at things the same way, feeling the same way. Obviously, they have different vantage points. Um, you know, one being a current employee versus a community member and then of course within
040your community, current parents, things of that nature. Um but it was just really uh good to see a lot of alignment in terms of how people are are feeling when asked about you know what what should uh the board consider and what are the skills that the superintendent should possess. And then finally here um I have confidence in the school's ability excuse me school board's ability to manage a search process. And then it is important for the superintendent to identify the unique nature of your district. Uh those charts there look very similar again to the community responses. Um but the uh which best reflects your opinion about how the district should proceed. Uh this is different. um the order here uh does not reflect what the community said. I wouldn't say like it's so so
041so different, but um it is different and so um as you go back and forth and have your conversations about what you want to do going forward, I I would just keep in mind that um you know your staff perspective is not totally aligned with the community uh perspective and vice versa. And then finally, how would you like to be involved in the process? Just like with the community, they want regular updates, uh, you know, a lot of, uh, information and transparency about decisions being made, what next steps are, and things of that nature. And so, we end this report here, Madam Chair, with some considerations going forward. Uh, again, in the interest of time, I'm not going to read all those to you, but I do want to just, you know, point out a
042few things. um the insights that were provided uh about the uh the climate of the district um the priorities that um it has identified that they would like the board to consider um that those types of questions and the information that your um participants uh provided were really really helpful. I do think that there's some really good insight here about um you know what it is they really love about being part of this community. Um what they wish you know could be changed or improved upon and then you know what it is that they would like to see um in terms of the future of the district. Um it does seem that as the comments focused on the strengths of the district that one of the things that they really valued was the importance of
043a leadership team that can sustain and build upon all the good things that are really happening. Um they don't want someone to come in and um you know I guess out with out with the old with the new that you know they're not interested in anything like that. They talked a lot about wanting stability, uh, you know, whatever that looks like because they do really value and take pride in all the great things that are going on in your district. Um, and at the same time, there are definitely opportunities uh to improve support structures in a way that would help the existing strengths endor over time. So, they weren't saying no changes. That message of stability wasn't saying no change one way or another. Um, and it wasn't really even about, you know, what should
044the board do in terms of the superintendent search? They were just talking generally. Um, we've got these great things going on. Let's not mess with that. Um, but we acknowledge that there are some things that we would like to see changed or strengthened in order um to keep being um, you know, the best that we can be to our students. uh in terms of what it is that they want from the board with the superintendent search. Again, um looking through the data and things like that, that is something that you guys can decide. I will just say um that you see the charts, you see what they're placing the the value on um how they want to be uh involved and really um just that it's going to be really important to be engaged with
045your community and staff uh trans as transparent as you can be. and then also um just really communicative. Um so with that, Madam Chair, I will uh stop for any questions. >> Any questions? >> Let somebody else go, but >> I think they're waiting for you. >> Oh, >> just about. >> Um just a couple things. Um, give me one second. I'm trying to find the page. Uh, there was in your notes. Um, sorry, this is very long and I only had a couple, but I can't find this section. um was in your comment section um about staff's comments regarding the process. Uh and that was the word you used in your notes and it said they wanted transparency and something with regards to the process, but I didn't understand from your notes what process
046actually meant. I know this is a little um vague given that I can't find the page number right now. I did mark it down. Um I don't know if you recall that, but um I'm just curious what you were referring to when you said process. Was that the process of selecting a superintendent? Was that the process of this survey? Um if you recall where I'm referring Ah, here it is. Um, page 18 talks about concern was communication and transparency uh and how decisions are made. Um, that's not the one I was looking for. I'm sorry. Ah, here it is. Uh, 22, the very bottom, page 22. >> Uhhuh. Um, it says, "Survey respondents emphasize the importance of openness and meaningful engagement throughout this process." I I didn't know what that was referring to. >> Thank
047you. Um, and so yes, the process is referring to the next steps that the board uh will take, whatever that looks like in in terms of the uh the next superintendent for your district. >> Okay. And with regards to the things that are not distinct counts where you have were they just all multiplechoice that you had provided to them is that on the staff surveys and the U community survey. I I took the community survey. I can't remember. Were there were there multiple choice or were there options that they could fill in their own things? Oh, there was there was a mix. Um, so for example, just looking on that same page 22 where it says, "How would you like the board to involve the staff in the process?" Those are non-distinct counts. They could
048select as many of those options as they wanted. So, um, you might have had an individual select, I want regular updates, but I also want anonymous surveys and I also want town halls. And so, that's what I mean by non-distinct counts. It means an individual could have selected more than one option. If it's a distinct count, it was more like a force choice. You had to choose one thing, something. Um so in this case, this was a multiplechoice um but they could choose more than one option. There are other charts in here that are also non-distinct counts um that came from open-ended responses. So, what that means is that we asked them a question, they provided a narrative, I analyzed what they wrote, and from all of the responses, um, a variety of themes would
049start to emerge. And so then I could say, oh, I can, okay, I can see how this is shaping up now. Um, and it's shaping up to say, you know, these things, these are the top, you know, three things that they're talking about again and again and again, whether it's the community we're asking or the staff. And is there a way that when we're looking at this we can identify which ones are multiple choice versus your summaries or not? Is there any way we can figure that out? >> Um I think so by looking at the appendix itself the the questions um there. So like for example uh if you're looking at like a page 24 uh the bottom page 24 of the community survey says uh what so okay the first one says identify
050your top three points of pride and then it says participants select from a list of provided options or add their own and then the one below that what additional supports or services would benefit families that's open-ended, although it doesn't say open-ended. Um, but the rest of them, like up above there are mostly your liyker items. Um, if you would like though, uh, I can certainly like break out for you, um, more explicitly which ones were forced choice versus mult, you know, you could choose multiple options versus open-ended. >> Um, I only have one question. Page 18, was that survey open-ended or or worse choice? Page 18, >> the district strengths, district challenges. >> That was that was open uh open response. So we asked them specifically identify up to two strengths and then identify up
051to two challenges and then from their responses um I was able to glean what the top five strengths were and what the top five challenges were based on what your staff said. >> Okay. Thank you. nature game. >> Hi, Julie. Um, first of all, this is great. Love it. Um, just two questions. How often should we do this? So, like if we did it again in the future, like how how often do you space it? And then number two, I assume you've done this with other districts, how do we compare? Are we the best? >> You're you're the best tonight. I I'll I'll have Brian weigh in on your first question, but I I'll answer your second question right now. And that is um yes, we do uh climate and culture surveys uh like this
052for many many districts. Uh the questions are not always identical. It really depends on what the district's goal is. In the case of your district, you wanted to assess, you know, how are things going? Are people generally happy or dissatisfied with the current direction of the district? and you wanted something that you could use as a starting point to have conversations about your next steps um in the process of su uh selecting or searching for your next superintendent. So the the way that the questions are phrased or the questions that are included um are specific to the need of your district. Um other districts have other needs. We have some that do climate surveys, but really all they ask about is uh PLC uh type questions and then some ask they want to ask everything
053and they do ask everything. Um and I would say that the patterns here in terms of the community um and the staff and the students being overall uh happy because that is what the data is telling us that overall they are happy. That doesn't mean that there are not unhappy people who took the survey. Of course there are, but like overall these positive perceptions, I do see that um I I think every time I've done a a survey, I can think of maybe one time, not in the state of Wyoming, um that uh maybe it wasn't as positive, but I would say as far as, you know, how does Teton one, you know, quote unquote measure up. Um, I think that your district is focused on the right things, especially when you see so many
054comments about student centered and then the community say, "Hey, let's focus on additional services for students above ourselves, things like that." That that is a really great thing to see. >> And I'm gonna Brian weigh in on >> I think it's important to remember that a climate survey is a snapshot in time. And so we could do a climate survey in November and we could ask the exact same questions uh say in March or or April. Um and you have different factors that are time related that can impact or influence surveys. So when you when you um do something after a stressful event or a stressful uh time frame, you might see more negative sorts of perceptions. And so um we certainly do recommend for those who do climate surveys to do them at least
055once a year and to stay at a relatively consistent time frame uh for measuring uh attitudes and perceptions. But more importantly, as Julie said, to use relatively similar language or similar questions. It becomes very difficult to measure over time um if you are not asking consistent questions. So, we did see one district that did this uh just after they hired a new superintendent. and the climate survey sort of became uh a uh a a base for them planning forward with their new superintendent. What are areas what are issues that we might want to focus in on uh to bring attention? Uh though I do remember from my time as a school board how I might have read this and I tend to think of uh oh what are the problems we have to be solving
056and and I do always caution boards that that's not the only thing that the that the the climate survey is telling you where you're doing well. It's also telling you you need to maintain behaviors in order to keep where you perform well. And so it's not just a list of problems to be fixed. Um it is also uh identifying the strengths and uh indicating what is it that we should do to maintain those areas of strength. Uh and so where you have a great deal of student satisfaction in some areas, you're going to need to want uh want to think of what would maintain that level of satisfaction. But in other areas, you might look into uh there was a question on the student survey that talked about uh I believe that my uh peers
057try their best. And that one maybe indicated that there's some room uh for improvement. There's some opportunity to encourage students uh to try harder uh in in their work. Uh and so you could have discussions about well what would that look like? um would that increase areas where there might be a need for student mental health services? And so you can use these pieces together uh as a basis for conversations to talk about next directions. Um but I think it always is uh relative to time and consistency in in using the tool. >> Thank you. Anybody else? Well, we really really appreciate a the speed at which you produced the survey, presented the survey and then calibrated all the information. So, thank you very much. Um, we really really appreciate that and um I think
058we appreciate the thoroughess. Um, is there more that you would like to present to us in executive session or do you think we've gone through everything we need to hear? Madame Chairman, when you look at sort of your question uh of how should we proceed, um there is obviously uh this sort of bifurcation of uh continue with uh our our current path um and proceed with a national search. Uh and so to the degree that you would want to talk about uh a specific individual uh very bluntly uh Dr. crisp. Um and uh continuation that would be something we could provide additional insight uh into but there is not specific data um that that we have a a need to to present. >> Okay. Thank you. Do we want to invite them? >> Yes. Nope.
059>> Oh, I didn't think so. >> Think we did them. It's just us. I'm okay with it >> with them coming. >> Yeah, I mean just for a couple minutes. >> Okay. >> Yeah, we'll just have them come log into that the that >> or are we are we moving upstairs? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Can I ask question? >> Yeah. Um >> we have one more question. >> Yeah. Um now I can't remember what it is. Um Oh yeah. If we if we proceed with uh WSBA, to what extent could you call it a national search? Yes, thank you. Um Madame Chair and members of the board, um really any search that we do uh would be a national search. If we were to want to conduct something that would be a regional search,
060our logistical process would be the same except we would express a preference um for potentially candidates uh from Wyoming or candidates from uh mountain resort communities. uh advertising uh candidate uh uh search uh trying to to identify potential matches with what you look follows the same logistical process for us regardless of whether you're seeking regional or national. Uh so when we did a search uh when uh Dr. Chapman was hired. Um, obviously, uh, she was a candidate that came from, uh, from Kansas. In that same search, we had candidates from Virginia, uh, candidates from other places across the the nation. If we were to do something that we called a regional search and said, "Hey, we want somebody with experience uh, from Wyoming." Part of the reason we would still cast a national net is
061uh an example I would provide to you from Albany County. Their current superintendent, Dr. Goldheart, was working uh in New Hampshire prior to coming to Wyoming, but just before going to New Hampshire, had spent time uh in Utah. So he really was a western guy who happened to go out east and worked out east for a time and wanted to come back west. And so you never really know the background of your candidates uh unless you look uh in in in a broad sense. And so uh our mechanisms would be the same. Um but we would if you chose to have a narrow focus uh create that as a preference of the board uh in in terms of uh the candidates that we got back and and how we managed those folks. >> Did that
062answer your question? Trusty. >> Um any other questions? >> All right. Thank you again. And >> Madam Chairman, I move we adjourn into executive session for the purpose of personnel and eventually. >> Do we have a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> All right. We'll see you upstairs. And um do you all have a link to the second meeting? >> Yes, we do. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you, Kate. Are you feeling all right? >> Uh a little woozy, but I'm doing all right. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Still eat sending me the link. Then I forgot that work.