Special Meeting of the Board of Education Monday, April 7 6:30 PM

001Good evening. This is a special meeting the first four board of education. Um today is Monday, April 7th and it is 6:40 p.m. We have quorum in attendance. I am Jeff Red the chair. We have Alberta Benan, Joseph Sakalca Estraa Mennez, Robert Traver, and Andre Woodson in person. And online we have Aha Cassier. Um today's agenda item is um we're going to be doing a third full board training session facilitated by G K and we're going to be talking about the board superintendent relations and continue last week's discussion after this train. Yeah. Turn it over to Nick. Thank you. Um, seems like I'm always back in Bridgeport because you feel like that every day, don't you? Um, so tonight before we get started, uh, some of you have already met Dave Irwin. Um, Dave is

002part of the technical assistance team. Um, you wear so many hats. I I might, in fact, if you want to introduce yourself. It's great to be here in this role and and I've worked with Nick and I had the pleasure of working with Jody. So, anything I can add tonight is having been a superintendent superintendent work in various districts in Connecticut for 25 years. So, it's nice to be down here. I did some work in Bridgeport uh years ago. Uh KAPS, the superintendent group offers coaches to new superintendents and uh I was assigned to work with Mike Dani when he was here. So, I was working with Mike And then Mike had asked me to do some coaching with Joe Riola, though I know some of your folks. And uh I teach at Sacred Heart

003University and I've had the pleasure of having many of your students and training to be superintendent. Nick just spoke in my class a couple of weeks ago, but over the years I've had Selena Morgan, I've had Melissa Jenkins, I've had uh Felicia Parent, I've had um I have Chris Johnson right now, and I have Roas. So, we've had Bullpro. As Nick said, I' I've done a few different things. And what's a little different is I served on my own board of education for four years. I live in Middbury which is Smarter Regional School District 15 and it was kind of interesting uh you know superintendent in the district by day and then twice a month at the board meeting. So some of the issues I was facing as a superintendent especially at the beginning of

004the year with buses and bus routes I was getting as a board member getting letters from parents can you fix these bus rooms. So, it's nice to be here working with Nick and Joanie tonight and it's nice to be here in general and Royce and his team have made us really feel good the three of us from the state. So, we really do appreciate that and Albert made us lunch today and it was even more extra special. So, thank you. Thank you. It's his birthday. Thank you. It was really my birthday. Thank you. Yeah, we should have had a cake. No place you'd rather be. My only You wouldn't know what to do if you weren't working. You're right. I wouldn't. So, u tonight we're going to explore the board superintendent relationship and reviewing your

005assessments. There was and just in general, having been around a while, um there's seems to be some issues and just in terms of who does what, etc., etc. because he could fine-tune that a little bit, make it a little easier to have the lanes and people talk about staying in your lane. Um what do those lanes look like for here and how do we maybe help you get to those places? So, we're going to explore that. Um sort of what's the optimal board superintendent relationship look like? What's best? And then how again assuming you want to have all those components, what better way to do it than perhaps we might be doing it now. Um, we're also going to try to remove some of the confusion of the roles between the board and the superintendent.

006A lot about relationship is really understanding of who does what. Um, and we recognize that there seems to be a greater sense of distrust and I'm using that word carefully with the superintendency. I'm not saying person that seated as superintendent. Um, I get a sense that you trust Dr. Avery. Um, and so it's not a matter of who is there at the moment, but the position because there's been such change and dramatic swings that there may be that but that has to be established if the system's going to work properly because you have to have trust in your chief executive officer to do the things he needs to do so that you don't feel that you have to do them for him. We'll explore that a little bit which will also include lines of communication,

007stay with the lanes and then depending on our time um I I they did get the draft of the the goals if we have a little time to discuss that tonight. Um and then hopefully you'd have a chance at your next board meeting to actually put them on the agenda and vote for them. I I think that's what the state is looking for is to see you adopt them. We can talk more about that when it's appropriate time. So, um, I'm gonna turn this over to Dodie. We're going to give you a little work. Yes. So, just just, um, to activate your thinking in regard to that relationship between the superintendent and and the board, um, in groups of two or three, very informal. This isn't you're not going to be reporting out as groups

008or anything, but just think about how you would describe the optimal relationship between the board and superintendent. So just to activate that thinking wasn't something you thought you would be asked when you first got here. So take maybe four or five minutes just to talk to a neighbor, talk to two neighbors and just in your own ways identify what that optimal relationship is. What do you want to see in that relationship between super and two groups of three groups? Three groups of two. Three groups of two have been challenged. He's still on mine. Oh, that's right. What's it? Huh? We have Kesha online. Okay. Um, let the record show that Mr. Medina has also been joining us online. I guess I can chat. Couldn't you guys? No, the chat's closed. Oh, question. Yeah. How do

009we stay in compliance with FOIA having side conversations? You're going to share this again. I hear you. No, just so the large group discussion will basically give the community an opportunity to hear what your thinking was. Sites and foyers deals with action and you're this is a workshop setup. So you're just talking to each other. You will report back. Um I've never in 31 years nobody's ever asked that question before and this is kind of a standard practice for trainers all over the country. So, um I I would absolutely understand if you felt you couldn't participate. No, no, no, no. I'm just wondering if this portion would be qualified for an executive session and you want to go to executive session for this. This is not evaluation. So, just take three minutes. Yeah. And just

010activate the thing here on this topic. Yeah. It really gave the flagship bunch. So there is only approve the budget. question is just something we people hearing each rather than awesome. Yeah, I don't think we're supposed to handle that. Strange question. It was your birthday 99 years in Peru. like a [Music] $3 shoulders. stay my father when he was this age was an old tight chair that's in one No adult onset. He was just obese and sedentary. It's miserable. Yeah. Let's take one more minute and finish up. You don't want anything in here. I just wanted one for myself. Yeah. It was more like that's very nice. job. We're gonna do this. 10 more seconds. Finish up your last thought. So, we're looking at the optimal relationship. This is in a perfect world. would you

011want to see as a vulner having a a professional relationship with your superintendent? What are those characters? Effective communication. Effective communication. Let me push you on effective communication. What is that? being able to like you not necessarily we have to agree on everything but we're we're talking in a respectful way assertively um active listening open style that f position in a corner somewhere open body language when you communicate with body language say a lot something say more than a simple word yeah you say yes, I agree. You're like this doesn't necessarily communicate you're agreeing, right? So again, the the nonverbal and inverbal communication, which probably isn't great on the fly either, like as you're going to a meeting, all I need to talk to you about what's going to happen today, that doesn't necessarily fly

012before. One of the other thing is very important for me is always important is the respect each other. If you don't have to respect each other, how you going to communicate? How you going to have be a team or team player in keep forward? So, let me push on that. So, respect each other. Yeah. What do you need to do to communicate respect? Doesn't matter if you agree with let's say you say yes and I say no. You don't need to um go, you know, off the line and not respect me. You know, you can tell me Mr. Bennett, I don't feel right, but let's find out. Let's sit down. Let's talk about it. And I will listen to you. I'm a kind of person I like to listen. I like to listen that the

013way I learn and then in the end of the day maybe we can figure out everybody at the same page what respect you know not with attitude this is the way if you don't like it what no because I will flip right the way people know I will flip but I would like to talk let's talk communication respect me respect my decision I respect everybody decision comments both doesn't mean we're going to be enemy so so agreeing and disagreeing on on an interpersonal level is a big part of showing that respect Okay. What about beyond that interpersonal connection? What if, for example, you and I disagreed, we we hammered it out, we resolved it, we we agreed to disagree respectfully, and then um one or both of us went out to the next circle and

014shared that disagreement with others. I was going to add to that. or that like once you had a disagreement agreement or disagreement on it you don't have to keep just bringing it up down the line of this person did that even though kind of end it there we don't agree on this issue but we don't have to hash it out to everybody else and make and and that in that case you're making um you're kind of uh causing more like trouble in that exactly and the Oh may not have been part of that conversation and they've heard about conversation but then walk with a different understanding of it than the two people had origin and then the next concentric circle less so and so by the time it comes back to you as to what

015that understanding was like never had that stage it showed me that you are you team player so I cannot trust you what does this mean whatever we talk I'm trying to trust you but you And when you very hard respect and trust that on our end we be chatting about the availability of data and it's really at what point is it too much to reach out to the superintendent in asking questions. Um, from the perspective of if I was a superintendent and I had nine board members asking me questions that might seem like too much. Um, but from the perspective of a board member, we want to know these answers so that we can make an informed decision. So, what is the happy median? Part of that is understanding each other's roles that you have

016to answer to your public, your constituents, the people who voted for you to be on the board and also the superintendent's roles that are being your CEO to operate the district equipment into your policies. Important that was within the context of having open communication. Yeah. And it's important to have but there has to be a balance. and and that's you know when it goes to the respect and trust that they were talking about in the other discussions and that's a general but from my experience one one of the most interesting things is it seems like the more vehicles we have to communicate the less we communicate some of that is there I used to say if you can't write an email in two sentences pick up the phone and call the person and don't text

017people important things. You know, call people and it used to be even before you call people, try to meet with people. That interpersonal meeting where you get to see people's responses and the reaction, their face should be interpersonal. It's so much different than you just texting someone. I would get a text from my board chair and it would say, you know, bring this to the meeting. I'm thinking, oh gosh, she's pissed at me, you know, dewoff, you know. So I'm think I'm carrying this baggage around thinking I didn't do something. Never told to do something to sex and and then I see her at the board meeting and she had a great time in Paris. I was visiting my family and it's like how did I interpret this so badly text a lot? Yeah. Um,

018as far as trust, trust is 100% okay, but so is verification of that trust. I've always been a trust by verifying person. Blind trust has no place in governance anywhere in governance especially in a city like Bridgeport depend no one know who the superintendent is you put Muhammad Gandhi in front of us but we as elected officials as stewards of the taxpayer dollars need to verify the information we're getting sometimes and I heard you kind of refer to data and and certainly you're talking about not blind trust you're talking about earned trusts and and um so I agree If anybody that's trust or verify or or building enough level of trust where you have the open communication to push back or your job as a board member is to push back on what you're being

019told to ask questions and to to have those conversations but to do so in a respectful way and and not to do it with certain agenda but I just need clarity on this vote on something and truly understand it before I vote on it. Jody, I don't know if I could be heard. Can I just call my Yeah, Willie. Yes, I'm Willie. I've been having my hand raised for a little while, but I didn't want to skip over so many conversations. We're gonna call you. Oh, no problem. I had my hand raised when Albert was speaking. So, with that point with uh May I now or No. Yes. Go ahead. Thank you. um I you know to work on a couple of the sentiments have everybody all the colleagues have said you know when it

020comes to respect and and and I like the point that all of you have raised and Jody your your interpretation of what they said you know and I think I I I can definitely grow from that a little because for me I use my experiences with everybody as a learning experience. So I might say to somebody like if me and Joe had an issue, I might say to Traber, uh, you know, Traver, you know, me and Joe talked about this because I felt this kind of way with this situation. So me and him spoke, you know, and I do that kind of stuff. I use my experience with other people to to to explain myself and maybe some people might take that the wrong way that I'm losing uh confidence with them or that I'm

021just uh complaining. Uh, and it's not the case. I just use things as an example and maybe maybe other people might take that as I'm trying to you know spill the beans on somebody else. Uh but the same word with respect is that you know not all of us come from the same backgrounds um and not anybody from the you know for example the superintendent but you know we need to respect each other's roles um because I think that when I when I speak I would like to have every word that I say um like like Jen said active listening that I can get a response on what I said whether is an opinion that you have or a uh a affirmation of that you understood what I said but something because if I'm speaking

022about the sky and then you start talking to me about the grass we're not you didn't you weren't actively listening when I'm you know speaking about the sky and you come with a response about the grass and that's the only thing I want to make sure there's a balance on you know respecting each other's roles because we are accountable when I speak I like to speak be behind the name of my my family name, my my leadership name that I have in the community and the community that elected me. So when you for example do something against me, I take it personal and say you're doing it against the community or you're doing it against my family because you're trying to, let's say, throw mud at my name, but you don't realize that you're throwing

023mud on other things, you know, that I'm tied with. And that's just me. I I that mutual respect has got to be there. We have to hold each other accountable in a respectful way and move forward. Thank you. Thank you for that, Willie. Thank you. One of the things I um I think that's in talking respecting each other, listening respectfully, all those things um when we start to talk about data um if we're ever going to fix the things that are most challenging, we have to have difficult conversations. And there's too many school districts where you shoot the messenger and they're not willing to share data because they know they're going to get beat up. So data is should be thought of and I think I've said this here before a flashlight versus a sledgehammer.

024So if as we're asking questions, it's not because I want to play gotcha and you know you want I I know as superintendent you want to play gotcha. So I'm hesitant to give you data because I feel like I'm handing you the weapon to stab me with. So, it's like it there needs to be this understanding that we we have the freedom and the the lack of fear that I'm going to tell you what you need to hear because we can't fix it if we don't have these conversations. But if I if I feel that I'm this is being used gotcha, I'm less likely to do that. And I think that's really important. Jenna, sorry. Yeah, I was going to add to that. Um and and sort of that trust but verify there needs to

025be reciprocity as well. So, you know, we're talking on behalf as on behalf of board members, but we also, you know, we want to trust and verify this superintendent, but he also has to trust us. And so, if we're going to get this data information, you know, maybe this is like misinformation right now and then go and share that. There needs to be a sense of trust there where he can provide that with to us without knowing it's going to be lasted before a meeting. So that you know to be worthy of trust you have to give trust. And so it does it's not a one street. It's not a two-way street. It's not going to exist. Anyone else? And I feel you have to own it. Just because you got a title, you got

026a position, you got a bachelor, you got a degree. This mean people have to respect you. Just mean you have to own it that you know people they can respect you. You communicate with people but respect. Trust me the people respect you. Not because you're going to fight it, you're going to talk to people the way you want. We're see a lot of initials after I think there's an element of fairness too. And I think the communication piece, and I've talked about it over the years, is for the superintendent, if board members are asking for information, it's usually a great rule of thumb for communication that everyone gets that same because it wouldn't be fair to the board member that didn't get it. So, I think that's a sign of of trust as well. Everyone,

027maybe Joe didn't ask for it, but it's going to be helpful to him or he's not even going to look at it. But if if you know, does does Royce have a favor? He's given them that information and that that's not that's not building up the trust, I don't think. Again, someone might raise an issue with the superintendent that others may not have thought about, but receiving that information now everybody's on the same page, same level, and can be as inquisitive. And it's really the philosophy too that that I think they asked me to participate a little is that no surprise philosophy. You don't want to be put on the spot at a meeting. You don't want your superintendent to put you on the spot at a board meeting, nor do you want to put

028him on the spot or spot, whomever that case may be. I always said if you have a question that you don't have enough information on, please call before we get into public because it doesn't look good as a unified force. I know there's roles for board and there's roles for superintendent, but if it looks like there's one unit that's pretty good at kids, I think that gives you a real strong foundation as a school board and superintendent in the district. how I always tried to encourage you baseball team and well the manager is not really a player so we don't really you know he's going to do what he has to do but we don't need to make him part of the conversation except when he's doing what he's told to do or asked to

029do you don't have that same effect of being a team so a superintendent is still a member of the team a non- voting member of the board but every bit as important to the the effect if there's no trust between the board and the superintendent how is the superintendent going to implement your build from his work as your chief executive officer Kapp. Um so so before we we move into those roles the board and the superintendent are any other thoughts around this is your chance to define that optimal relationship. Actually, right. So, Jennifer, I think that I think the relationship is us as board members bringing what the community wants us to want wants to be done and then taking that to the superintendent and letting the superintendent and his staff do their job and

030execute all those things and and and like I said that even at if you know if it costs $20 million, if it's under the budget, you know, and it's and it's his idea, we should let him do Not that we shouldn't question what he's doing and like if he's spending $20 million at Sesame Street or something like that, you know, that's ridiculous. But if he's spending $20 million in the district, he know we we shouldn't be impeding his his his what he thinks is best. And your your point about around about around about around about around the community also is you're providing the superintendent information about the community that can open some pathways for the superintendent to do the work. That's what hap that's what didn't happen in the past. You know, the the the

031board didn't feel that they had the the the information. So when it came time, you know, even though even though somehow the community was informed on, you know, all the stuff that was that was that was happening before, you know, they, you know, they come in and have information, but like that's where that that's where the trust came from. The soup the breeders went to try to trust people, bring people in the office and but when they didn't like the plan, everything grew up and it was all out in public. So, you know, if hopefully we learn from the lessons from that time and even if we don't agree what the superintendent is doing this time, we like you said, we can keep it in house. Agree to disagree and you know, let the let

032the superintendent do the do. That's a great point. And again, there's a slide I'm going to talk about. It's called it's called the PEL framework, PELP, um public educational leadership project framework, and it gets into that. various relationships, one of them being the community. But you know, but before I forget this quick quick story because I I'll forget when we get to that slide. There was one when I was in my previous district my first week after I was after all began um a board member came to me and told gave me like a list of about a dozen people I should get to know handed and and the these people weren't necessarily on legislative council but the mayor but these are all movers and shakers people who knew the community people who cared about

033the community and in his view would provide a broad perspect perspective for me to help un for me to understand the community what what activated the community what the hopes and dreams in the community were. So again you have such an invaluable resource to the superintendent to talk to the superintendent about those people those opportunities to to help him or her get ahead ahead. I think that's our job. It is your job and and and make that point when I show you that slide when when when you're gonna see a bunch of things in that slide. Some things aren't your job and some things are that's a big part of your job. I mean that's a huge asset you have as a as a board. Yeah. Just um touch back on partnership for a minute

034to have a good partnership we and understand our roles. We got to understand that yes this isn't this is a partnership. This is the partnership of 51 to 49 because board can never forget that we hire the superintendent, we evaluate the superintendent, we approve the budget and a lot of times that may be ruling by a plurality 54 vote or whatever whatever the vote of the board does. Even if this in a disagreement with superintendent, as long as we're empowered under the law to carry that out, that's the rule out that's the carrying duty. at 50 51% 49%. It's not a 50-50 relationship. Let me take what you just said there. And again, you can you can verify this. We you and I were in the same network and worked with the same people. The

035way it was shared with me as a superintendent was the board knows the superintendent walks into a desert knowing that the board can fire you basically fire you anytime or but but also conversely the superintendent knows that he or she can leave anytime. So you have that tension between the fact that I can leave and the fact that I can be nonrenew a ying and the yang really makes it makes for a good balance. So that's that's a tension point that's really important to understand but also could be a really strong tool for for board let's because we're talking optimum optimum is there's enough trust that the superintendent you'll listen to the super the board says we want to do this we want to go here and the superintendent I'm not sure that's a really

036good idea let me explain to you why I don't think it's a good idea and you listen and you hear and then a majority of you still say we get it we appreciate why you feel that way we've listened to our community. We've listened to the data the way we've heard it and we want to do this anyway. If there's that trusting relationship, he can buy he will know enough from your cogent arguments about why and he's going to accept that and he will unless it's something really bad and then he might say we have to part ways but that as Joan said he gets to make that decision. Um but if we have that respectful communication then it's not my way or the highway. We have tried to figure out what the best way

037of doing it is. A majority of the board, whichever way it is, have decided this is the direction we're going to go in. So, we all will accept that. But part of why we accepted is because we had our voice. It's much easier to say I voted against it, but I respect the five. So, I'm willing to support it and move forward. I know it was made with the best of intentions. It's different than we got the votes. The heck with you. And that's that. So again, optim optimum is we respect each other. We respect each other's opinions. Our chief executive officer has given us his professional observations about why we shouldn't do it. But and to refer to this is what the board wants. That becomes my job. But in fairness, you hope that's

038not always the case, right? Because if it's always the case, then something is is tilted in the relationship because if if employee is coming to you all the time and thank you for your input, but we're going to go in a different direction. Not that it has to be you don't want to be a rubber stampboard. We'll do anything that the superintendent wants, but I think it's that give and take. And I I think there's power as Jody just said about that story, you know, about when you went to the district and my self-evaluation. One time I put down about communication that I had met with the man. He was in his 80s, but he was the former mayor. He was a coach. He was around the town. And one of the new board members

039said, "Well, why the hell would he put that in his evaluation?" And the board chair said, "Because he knows exactly who to talk to to get to know the feel of the town, the feel of the community. He can give input. You know, talk about the old days, but talk about what landmines not to fall on." So, I think those are key points what you were saying about the community. And I I I wouldn't want to have a relationship with somebody and knowing that they could leave at any time where I can get rid of them at any time. That's not a that's not me. That's not a that's that's not a healthy relationship. I I I I wouldn't want I wouldn't want to be over somebody knowing like I can I can get rid

040that's that's that's not healthy. I I don't think that's I don't think that's a good way to do business. It's the only position in the hierarchy of education that doesn't come with a tenative position. So the superintendent knows that and the board knows that and I think that's something that people self-conident and hope you're working with a good board. Being in Bridgeport we us as a board we should have like some type of thing written down as a we we have we should have a three-year commitment to our next superintendent. We won't make any moves on you. You won't make any moves on us for at least three years till we get something because one year is not enough to to to judge anybody. Six months is not enough to judge anybody. I would I

041wouldn't want him to leave and at a at a when a when another search comes and stuff like that. It's time to move the handle. You he said something really really important though. I I don't want to minimize the point you actually made whether you you caught the point or not. If you're focused on whether I can leave or whether they can leave or they can fire me rather than we have a vision of what we want the Bridgeport public schools to look like and we're all working towards it and we will play our respective roles in doing that based on that and I full understanding that that vision has yet to be written and but I think it it reinforces the need for it at the appropriate time and we're working on that but

042um but that's that's what keeps it being worried about my job or or not caring about my job or whatever. You're absolutely right. That shouldn't be what motivates us because I like I said I seen sometimes where like I watch C-SPAN and I seen Supreme Court and I wonder why you know they got nine justices and I know I know the balance of you know 63 54 I think it's 63 and I see sometimes it's 72 or 81 and I'm like why you know why is it like that? If you listen to some of their descents, they say, "Look, I see this. This is my point. I disagree here, here, here, here, but in order to move forward, to move the country forward and to make progress, I'll vote for this to keep the keep

043it going." And, you know, it's not like a It's not like a personal thing. It's not, oh, I I got to get my point across or or I'm going to blow this thing up. No, I I'll let you know my opinion, but I'm gonna vote for this to move move the country forward. And we got to have that type of attitude when it comes to some things. You know that, you know, like I said, they're the experts just we may not agree with them, but let's vote vote this way to move it forward. I state my opinion and let you know I didn't agree with Joe states his opinion all but he he he he let you know how you feel. I think that's important. Whether you vote for it or not and sadly that

044doesn't apply because those guys are witches for life. Um, and we're not in that position. And so we're not going down that rabbit. So we're not we're just not there. That's you now you got into apples and oranges and but it's quite the point about whether or not you can the balance that has been described. Yeah. is a balance that exists in every district in the state. And it's a reality that a superintendent can choose to leave if they don't like the situation and a reality that a board can choose to dismiss if they don't like the the superintendent. And it's just the nature of the beast. It's the only untenured position in the educational system and that's the way it is. And I don't think that regardless of what we think that's going to

045change and It's just that is the the given and so we want to work towards that's what this training is about developing a more harmonious board that's going to work towards making a more harmonious system and I you know you've heard me say what my belief is I'm not doing anything different what's going to go a long way to helping that is giving us more resources to provide better education to our kids and not fighting over the so it Let's just keep on with tonight's lesson which is so really how to be more harmonious within the and I hopefully become out of the legislature with a little more money to be able to do it effective harmonious equals effective governance and and so so I want to finish off this this segment just briefly going

046back to Al Albert's comment regarding respect but also the idea that we we come in with an ability and a willingness to Because whether you're a superintendent, a person with a lot of initials at the end of your name, a person who ditches for for a living, what whatever your occupation or lack of occupation, whatever your standing in life is, if you're on this board, you're here to learn and whatever whoever your superintendent is or his or her team is, they're also here to learn. And so as a learning institution, centered on learning, you have to model learning, but you also have to access the learning that's available to you. So, so again, that that's what breeds respect and and and good communication, your willingness, and your interest in learning and getting connect with learners.

047Yeah. I'd like to just say that I would hope that you gain so much from this which was kind of mandated to feel that learning has helped us be more a more effective board than you want to continue doing some things after the fed that this becomes part of who you are as a as a board and we're willing to continue helping you with that if you see value in it. Can I can I add one thing there which we get overlooked in sometimes people on this board are elected to represent the community in some way. Part of it the answer is yes. Yes. And and they are here to learn as Jody just said I agree and that's what we're here for and hopefully learn to be a more effective one. That's what we're

048here for. Um, and the better we can do that, the better for the community. Um, but there's an attitude that needs to be sort of dismissed in modeling the community. Ours is a different community than um a community in Upper Fairfield County. It's a comm. It's a poor community. And so, as people are elected to board, we don't all have a bunch of letters after our name. And that is a reflection of our community. And the members of our board without a bunch of letters after their name reflect our community and respect an important part of our community and are just as important on our board as everybody else on the board as they continue to learn like along with the rest of us. I think the what's interesting is again having worked in the

049district where it had a a legislative council didn't go go to referendum larger suburban district. The difference between the legislative council both the board of education and the legislative council in a sense represented the community. The legislative council which was the fiscal authority of the town um was represented the community more directly. It was it was had the districts each district had its own legislative council member and they were directly responsible to one another. The board once the board gets elected by members of the community it it is it is doing the state's work in educating the children and it's also it is working as a governance board. So in a sense that level of representation is still you're still representing the community and the state's interests but you're doing so as a governance board.

050The legislative council was more like a a loose loosely knit group of people who voted on tax levies and various Well you're you're you're pointing out you more immediately reflect the district of the town. I get that. Yeah. We were we were elected citywide, right? I get that. But they still are a reflection of the fabric of the community. T that's totally true. Okay. Uh I handed out a little while ago and I said you didn't have to fill out. I saw some of you were doing that. Um but you'll see in front of you this little worksheet like if you haven't already filled it out. Um have you all done raise your hand if you did it? Good. Good. Because instructions. Yeah. Um, so so all right. So take five minutes, fill it out.

051Now, what you're looking for is on each particular task, is it the board that makes that decision? Put a B. Is it the superintendent makes the decisions? Put an S. Um, if it's both, you can either write the word both or put SB. Don't put BS. and let's take a few minutes and then we're going to talk about it because sometimes the answers aren't that crystal clear and they can board some conversation. So, please take that time to do that, please. I apologize for those of you who are coming in from online. That's one reason I really don't like doing this stuff in a hybrid environment, but um you could certainly join in in the conversation when we get to the the conversation. U Mr. Woodson was nice enough to take a picture of this

052form. So, I've already downloaded it, printed it out, and filled it out. Thank you, Awesome. Does that get to Willie? Presidential to you. Thank you. It was just a board member. Definitely like attention. like an actual sheet would be really small or kind of tidy. which is why we have enough for this. This is kind of Nick. Do you want How much more time do you want? I'm watching people's hands and I still see people um most people are pretty close to the end. So, how you doing, Willie? Uh little short-handed but dealing with it right now. I don't have other device with me. So, but I'm working on it. Okay. I had them send it to me in a text, so yeah, it's not not easy to translate it in from paper to phone.

053Excuse me. you wouldn't mind if you're watching us because I can't see your hands get ready. I very much appreciate that. Thank you. Um can you slide up over to Yeah, that's good. And you need to make your move. That's good. Thank you. Okay. I think are we pretty much set. All right. So, um it sounds like lots, but I'm going to start with number one. We're just going to go down the list. Um and give it after Anthony. Recommend personnel for employment. Sue. Yes. You say two. Sue. too soon. Sounds like a plan to me. Set goals for the school system. SB, that's a really good answer. One could say board, but I like SB better. Evaluate principles. Superintendent set policies for the school system. sword. Well, let's talk about that for a minute.

054Is it I would think like policies like legal talk involved like uh policy different there's different components to the process but in the end who sets the policy policies that go in your manual they're all voted on by the board. It's his job to recommend. It's a hard job to set. Little clarification. Are we talking about empowered under state statute? Because some of our board rights we empower and be deferred to the superintendent on but you you still establish the policy to give him the authority. Okay. Gotcha. So it's still the board that has set the direction. Um your policies anybody needs if there's a question about how should I behave or what action should I take? It should be guidance in the policy. is cuz uh like in particular suspension expulsion policies we've embodied

055in the superintendent's office and preferred and not even we're not going to even get into that is that to no I I just want to be clear because if if we're talking about state statute or what we do don't want to have a disagreement later that oh we sat here and said that the board got a vote on suspensions and expenses when in fact is a separate policy. So I just want to make it clear that teachers administrators have to follow the laws. So whatever the state statutes are, some of those laws are embedded in your policies, right? All policies are adopted by the board by a majority vote on expulsion if they go to the board. If you have a hearing officer, you don't have to. If you have a a group of three

056members of the board, they have to verify that the child has been designated to be we as moving on. Hire the CFO CFO. I'm thinking about super policy. Let's uh what what were you thinking? Well, we didn't say We approved the contracts. So in essence, but but you defer to the superintendent to bring the intended correct the position. He actually hires the person. Yeah. This board recommends the hire to the superintendent. The superintendent's final decision whether to accept that recommendation or not. At least that's how it works on this board. Technically speaking, just to clarify, so this is depends on policy, but many policies are written where the board authorizes the superintendent to hire teachers. Statutoily the board is required to appoint um administrators. Most boards will allow the superintendent to um recommend that administrator

057to be appointed and because that administ the superintendent is evaluating the administrator. So the board wants to hold the superintendent accountable for hiring his or her team but you hold the superintendent accountable for the effectiveness of that team. So but the board technically has to appoint the administrator through the recommendation of the superintendent. Some boards will require I want to see three finalists for the position. Other boards will say other boards will say give me person you want and we'll bring them in talk to the person and but we'll the idea will be we'll appoint based on your recommendation. May I ask you we'll get our policy and yeah I think we need to help us help us fix that. Help us on our policy. I think we talked right talked about that policy policy.

058Um Joe you probably know about that item. Uh it is basically re the superintendent recommends I mean we bring us to bring us three candidates. Yeah. The board will recommend before before this change in state statute all nine of us went into executive session and we scored them and we recommended a final candidate. Uh but since executive session is limited to personnel and personnel should have been recommending a candidate but the superintendent always had the authority to at least under past practice to supersede that recommendation and choose on their own but then they totally own that candidate in their evaluation. So anything that that candidate did wrong is like the superintendent is doing because they did not follow the political recommendation. It would be just a technicality that the board would just act on it

059act on the recommendation of the superintendent to appoint um Francis Mayel as the principal of Jackson High School and then the board would at that point take the recommendation and the policy would support that superintendent came with one. Sometimes the the cave model policy basically gives it makes it up to the superintendent to to bring one member, one person or more depending on the superintendent's um design. But I wanted to add that that's where I think that we need to clean that up. Yes. because we have had this policy that we recommend and the superintendent then goes ahead and chooses who they who the drug but then we've run into this complication on the contracts that we need to clean up uh approving the contracts um and so we just need to clean that up.

060So that's something that um you and I can talk more about. I don't want to get us stuck on this. No, I want I'm happy to leave it right there. Obviously, there's some conversations that have to take place because and CFO is really a central office position and should be treated differently than like a school administrator. So, yes, I would agree with you about that. So, that's why I think Jod's going to be helping with the policy to the need to tighten it up. It shouldn't be that complicated. No, it's usually a lot of what they said. It's usually the reverse. It's usually the superintendent recommend you could have input recommends the candidate to the board. You have the right to refuse that candidate if you don't wish to to put that candidate in. That's

061good. He or she could recommend another candidate. The only thing that's in the statute is you cannot pick somebody that he has not recommended. So if it's not his re, it could be his fourth recommendation. And again, there's the issue with the trust. Like if he recommends three to you through a process and you're negating all three, it's like uh oh, I'm in a little trouble. They're not trusting who I'm recommending. They're not rejecting a candidate. They're rejecting. Yeah. We hadn't talked about. Yeah. So that's I just wanted to interject. No, that's that makes sense. It's like the picture. We just got to clean that up. Yeah. I mean, you're on the right track. Just kind of juxtapose, I think. Okay. So now, who expects school buildings in campuses? S. SMB. Did you say SMB?

062Collaborate. Uh well in the past they've done uh the walkthroughs together. Okay. So so clarification might be good because um in terms of you do walkroughs, you get to look at the schools and such but I see inspect as a more formal inspection and I and that probably is it should be the superintendent. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I've seen some board members try and one almost fell off a roof one time. He was 80 years old. He climbed up the ladder and got moved to inspect the repair and he almost died. I I I put it as s with a parenthesy and I I'm not referring to this past year where we did the the whole reevaluation of our buildings. But you know, you get a call from somebody who says, "Oh, you got to

063see this some board member goes running down and that needs to be you know called Frank." It should be a call to the superintendent. It should not be. But I guess superintendent's responsibility helps. That helps it too. If you're getting that call and you relate to yourself, who's who's going to distribute the resources necessary to make the repair superintendent or his staff? Joe, you have your hand. Yeah, I was totally sued until I just heard from Mr. Woodson. There are cases where we approve the final sign off on school buildings that is up to up to par before we get our 5% reimbursement to hold back from the state. It has accepted by the board. We have we have walked through a building. But anything I vote anything I vote on in particular, I like

064to have as much data as possible. Look at the data. Walk through. Well, I'll give you I'll give you instance on that though to be quite frank. Um I've I've been involved when I was on the union side with walkthroughs and they aren't worth it. I mean the they just getting teachers getting staff involved. I know when they did the walkthrough with say years ago the the staff walked through and said, "Oh my god, you kidding me? You got a 36 inch rail up on the second floor there. You got to raise that rail and you know the the idiots that built the building, they needed to raise that rail because the kids be flopping right over the rail." Um, and what you said is critical, especially you're you're in the midst of considering a

065large building project renovation that together working with the superintendent making sure that you have staff on very eloquently. Did you realize that we have a school, it's a great neighborhood school, but it's 111 years old. We've got this and why and when this breaks, it's costing us more money. I think it's not that the board is necessarily in charge of that, but it's going to make you speak more enlightened for your community. Absolutely. Thank you. Um, this will be a I think that's going to be a fun one here. Um, investigate citizens complaints. B. I heard an S. I heard a B. The citizen complaints to the board member. The board member gives it to the superintendent to investigate. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, you've been talking a lot more, which I really respect because

066you add a lot to the conversation. I'd like to hear why you won't be. I will be because superintendent got enough on his plate. You don't need to have angry citizens, you know, why you're going to understand in a couple minutes why I'm glad you what you said and have too much on his plate. But in terms of for liability reasons for actually creating a plan that can help that parent, referring them back to the superintendent or to the administration is really appropriate. Um you might hear them the key word is investigate and that shouldn't be your job to investigate and most likely he's going to say to you if you bring a kid I took care of Mr. Irwin when he he had it complained to you and I took care of this. Thank

067you for letting me know that. You're going to check with Mr. So and so to find out give me got taken care of. Always going to give me a call. That's the trust. You're a person of your word. It's the trust. You don't have to say I got you or you didn't call back. Oh dement. I didn't call it that person that and he's delegating this to a staff member who knows like if he's doing it himself there's an issue here. And that's exactly what I said early in lunch right when he told him you know thank you. I tell him the situation he take care of it right away. You know, that's what I say good parents. Now, the language on this next one is a little This we modified from a national one.

068I probably should change the language a little bit. Adopt salary schedules. It is the superintendent negotiates, but we have to approve the the key word I think is adopt adopt the board. The superintendent doesn't adopt things. He might recommend it. He might even have executive authority to do certain bills. But if there's recommended well you do all the critical work though working with the team and attorneys and all that study data on the system student achievement. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. board I one that I don't think board superintendent have enough time to spend the time they should to have these conversations they can look down and not study achievement of individual student that's that's a very key question right there because I think what's happening everybody's so involved with the work and both sides are not

069evaluating the data because when you bring that both perspectives in the that's holding people accountable in the system. So I think that's important to be able to do because just because the superintendent is saying this is the data this is what it says you talked about you know also verify everybody's verifying that data so that we can say together are we seeing and hearing the same thing when it comes to low performing math scores right and so we both will have our analysis of of why those scores are low and then we come together as how we're going to fix that I can give recommendation on how to fix it. You may be able to bring recommend on how to fix it and then we hold each other accountable to kind of get it fixed.

070And so it's a it's a team effort, but we don't do that enough. Sometimes we just the district just gives it from the superintendent's office, but we don't educate the board enough to be able to understand how to bring it back to life on both sides of it. Right? So again, that's that's a huge one, you know, that we both have to be able to do that. But if you don't know how to do it, I have to teach the board how to do it, right? And that's what we don't do a good enough job on either is teaching them how to do it and how to analyze it and what it means because it's not their work, it's our work. And we can do it with our but we have to teach you guys

071how to do it because what what doesn't work, and I've heard a couple superintendents say this over the year, that's my job. that's not yours. When it comes to achievement, that's my responsibility. You got to make sure the lights stay on and but that's not true. That this this is our work. This is the this is the purpose why we for which we exist. And if we aren't talking about student achievement back on the killer beast again, we're not we're not spending time on stuff that's going to make the most difference. So thank you for the the other point I would make regarding the superintendent's responsibility there would be identifying the critical student achievement data. The board should be aware there's only so much time if there's a lot of data a lot of data.

072So what you don't want to do is over inform the board on things that don't matter. You see it's important that your your team is able to make an argument as to these are the critical pieces of data that the board needs to review that that will help create the levers for the kind of improvement efforts. So last one, Joe, then we'll go to the next one. Then I think to that point the board should familiarize itself with ed two two websites basically. Ed site for student data. We can look we can learn learn how to use that. Poke around a lot and um also school state finance. Those are two things that every board member should be familiar with. So not what happens when we're talking individual students or teachers. Definitely. Besides, I'm sorry.

073I'm excuse me. What was the what was the answer for number nine? Number nine is uh student uh superintendent and board. Oh, no. For study data on student achievement, that's both. The next one, number 10. The next one on number 10 is superintendent. Gotcha. Thank you. Okay. Identify procedures for electing student body president. No, please. Superintendent certainly administr depending on the district I would say always administration superintendent and when we're talking administration it really is under the superintendent's umbrella. Okay. So just but if there's confusion it helps because now we get to talk a little more. That's fine. And if you have student board reps there's usually a board policy that Dave could help you because you want to put a policy in place if you have students serving on your board. approving the district

074typically through a recommendation but definitely the board that's state block determine the length of lunch periods superintendent oh wait that's board okay it's actually recommendations from super about the Superintendent does the work. He comes to the board and says, "Here's the recommended schedule." And the board has to vote on it. It's all about student lunches. Yeah. We just lunch period. How much time? Just got to stay ming. Well, they changed it, right? Yeah. 30 minutes, right? Yeah. State banding. Suspend students for three days. Superintendent. Approve field trips or in this district. In this district. You want to hold that? field trips. It actually depends on overnight field trips. Overnight field trips board. You want the board to approve overnight field trips. They're going to the Beersley Zoo. He's not going to be We used to

075be if we're doing day trips should be appealing. Even New Haven was approving every field trip. They had a separate subcommittee only for that and it met monthly and they finally got rid of it because they realized they were not serving the best. I didn't think I was in the policy with the field trips. Well, you know, but that's an important connotation because if you're if you have a policy that reflects what does a good field trip look like, is it consistent with what's being taught in school or is there an academic reason for it or even whatever. If your policy clearly articulates what a good field trip is, then you let the administration make that decision. Does it comply with the policy or not? You have one conversation rather than five a month. Yeah.

076And if it does and you get that complete, they doesn't policy say it should be tied into the curriculum or should they say they're always could you check on those next time? I always had one board member with field trips, overnight field trips um who would always ask the same question. They were directly related to the policy. Student shop wrong ratios. Yeah. And you would like there like two or three questions that had to do with the policy and my answer was got it, got it, got it. He would approve it. Yeah. that that was his interest. Um, determine rules for student dress codes. Interview football coaching applicants. Did I hear Sue? Good. Establish evaluation process for staff. Yes. Did I hear you say state law? Huh? evaluation process. Yes. Yeah. I put superintendent. I

077put super making me change my mind. Those of you who said both what's it had to be approved this year with the new plan, but it had to have the input of the teachers group and the administrative group. They had to carry it all the way through and it does and then they had to present it for board approval. That was the the guidelines when they did the numbering system before that they changed it through work at the state of the board establishing it. Wouldn't that be the super? Yeah, we were at the beginning to establish it and then we got it approved by you guys following the guidelines. So five foot adopt the budget for the system give directives to employees as superintendent Never happens here, right? Nothing from Well, we'll move on. If

078we're talking about optimum, then do we really have to adhere to that? Very important. Okay. I recommend companies to perform services for the system. as long as they're following the contract that you don't have to that you can't outsource. You have to use bargaining unit people first. So you could expect your chief officer to know that and say you can't do that because you violated the contract by hiring subcontracted employees. How about school redistricting? Board does the work though. Yeah, there's a different role to play in it, but ultimately the board does have to vote. But the actual in the trenches one through the year recommend candidates for positions. I'm sorry I I'm sorry to interrupt you again, but I could I couldn't hear you. Um number 21, was it both or was it the

079superintendent? Superend. Thank you. You're welcome. Uh we did redistricting uh recommendations for positions. I heard superintendent We got termination hearings. Okay. Well, I'm hearing superintendent and I'm hearing both. You know why both? Our contract has no board involved. I said I I say both because um under state statute we've got they got the right to come before the board for termination in some cases. Under contract, they got the right to come before the board for certain cases and terminations. So that's a good example of where a question might not be clear enough because they could be interpreted in two different ways. If you're having a termination hearing to determine the initial termination, that would be superendants. If they appeal it, that's a separate issue. But it's good that we acknowledge there's like a second part

080to that where the third step. Third step of the agreements procedure for a termination or just for agreements. Grievance. Okay. Well, we were this was specific to termination, but yeah, [Music] the super would recommend that the board consider termination of the candidate and the board could teach future could request a hearing and that's usually that's when the board would hear it. But review student records. No reason for see student records in an expulsion. You might have some angling but that's an abal part of that formal process but other than that really not observe teachers giving instruction which prevented I put superintendent but there is always the dog and pony shows that walk around at the beginning of the year or some other during the year where you walk into class and it's put you're doing

081it's not it's not a formal observation. Well, that's I think that's incredible. It's not the formal use of the word observation. By all means, we invite you to see some things going on in the school. Not formally. And number 20 25 is he's part of that's part of, right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You can't establish punishment for major student offenses. Let's elaborate on that just a little bit. I'm seeing a couple recommend the policy and we adopt it. Yes, policy. Okay. So, yeah, I it should be in policy. So, the policy would direct the administration for instance for this type of offense. This is the code of conduct. If you're looking at suspension, expulsion policy, due process, you're looking at the the um code of conduct restorative practices policy, then that's all the policy level

082would would create with administrative regulations coming on a case by case basis. I would say the superintendent in terms of actually rendering a decision of that particular student. Yes. Unless there's a request for an expulsion hearing outside of the hearing officer, at which point you would have a different role to play. Terminate the principal. I put for termination to approve it. Only if the superintendent challenges it. I mean only if the principal challenges it decisions in it comes through. Okay. So through an appeals process it comes to the board. Okay. But but if you terminate the board would have to have that on their records. They would have to see it through a a board meeting otherly to terminate the teacher. Action provide adequate resources for student success. Hi Nick. Um I'm sorry to keep

083interrupting you guys, but when you have the conversations about whichever number you guys are talking about, it's not clear as to what it's supposed to be. So can you please repeat, you know, for number 27 and number 28, can you please repeat for me what that is again? Established punishment for major student offenses. In that case, it was um through policy, which would be the board. The policy might identify it. Um, so that's a board decision, but if you're a PE um dealing with a particular student through the policy, that would be a superintendent's decision or administrative decision. So the answer is both is both for that one. Well, the answer is really kind of board for the specific question, but it also reflects that there's a different layer that's the superintendent. So, the board

084would establish the punishment through policy, although that could also end up in regulations, which would be the superintendent. This is one of those gray ones that come up from time to time, and it could be done differently in different districts. But here, it sounds like in most cases, once the board has crafted the policy, it's up to the superintendent unless for some reason he needs to come back to the board for further um support. Okay. So, then I'll just put both B and S, right? depending on what it is. Yeah, that's fine. No, no, no. S and B. Yeah, thank you. Well, I'm I'm putting BNS because I already filled mine out, so I'll just put the B next to it. Um and um number 28 was what was what again, Nick? Served ain't the

085principal. No, I know what it says, but what what was the um consensus on that? Both. Both. Both. Okay. Thank you. Recommendation by the superintendent, action by the board. Provide adequate resources for student success. Board well the state statute says board, but I say state government and local government to provide resources for us to fair. Board the simple answer is but the complex answer is it depends. Thank you. Okay. And I think we all are sympathetic to what's going on. Okay. Um recommend non renewals for teachers. Superintendent. Superintendent. And if you're going to nonrenew this year, they have to be done before May 1st. Yes. You have to have the notice and the board action has to be taken prior to May 1st. Let's make sure you know that. Yeah. They changed that rule over

086many years. It used to be March 1st, then they changed to April 1st. Now it's May 1. If you miss the deadline and your budget goes south, you can still do it, but then it's not considered a non-renewal anymore. It's considered a termination because you've missed the May 1st deadline. Good point. Just little technicalities. You don't want to get oh yeah, I didn't do this and then I go through more rigomearole for a dead for a termination rather than an unrenewal. Well, just to give insight from a superintendent perspective, we are talking to administrators in December and January to make sure that they have all of those things in motion and so that when when if a teacher does get a renewal notice, it isn't lightning on a sunny day as the others, right? They're

087aware of it. They know why and they are prepared to give that. Actually give it site Bridgeport we have a very complex process of weeks of discussion between the union and HR on whether or not non-renewal is justified whether or not the s the district has provided sufficient support to justify a non-renewal andor whether or not they ought to be renewed and given additional support and a chance. And that's why you want to have this conversation before have a chance to work on whatever skills are. We're getting down to the wire here. Establish procedures to implement policies. Superintendent. Procedures. Superintendent. Superintendent. Procedures. Procedures. Procedures. Create structures for systemwide improvement work. Superintendent Approve. Remove books from school library. That's one of those sticky ones. Sticky one. I put students approve on say you don't you don't

088like it. We like it. It stays and vice versa. Right. probably in most districts it's policy because the policy might say as long as they're approved by the library association or whatever medium screens them and kind of takes the approve remove out of the day-to-day decision- making but rather it's the policy doesn't reflect the policy sadly the final say is political yeah textbooks the board has that they have the right to do textbooks that is in the statutes The board has the approved the adoption. Finally, approve the payment of bills. Policy approve. Well, that sounds easy, but there are districts that still don't pay the bills. I was just I move to pay the oil bill. I second it. All in favor? I I move to pay the light bill. All favor. It took 45

089minutes of their board meeting approving bills and a year later and we had a conversation about it. A year later they were still doing a year later they wrote the policy to change it but they hadn't voted on it yet. Um they were too busy. I called them we had retreat. I called them. I says you're voting on this and the chair says the budget party says it's already paid by the time we open. So yeah. Yeah. And if you want to spend time on teaching and learning and learning about curriculum and learning about student dating, you got to take this other stuff off the place. And that's really the point that this one tries to make that really should be administration. Um, some boards will adopt the check register things like that, but really

090approving the pay really should be superintendent or business manager. That was a lot. I I but I hope that some of this conversation was helpful because it serves tries to articulate some of the conflicts that can develop with these things. You can see where the S and B come into play. There is that teamwork because it's going to take both. Well, didn't that last you're right the size of the bill? Yeah. In play, etc. The question I have for our two online people, can you see the screen to build that way? Yes. Yes. And Willie, can you see the screen where it says instructional core? Did didn't think Well, this we only added this this afternoon, so um we didn't have time to um get it out there, but you can always take a screenshot

091if you had to. He's going to talk about something. I only learned about this today and I wish I'd learned about it 10 years ago because it I think it would change the way I look forward. Well, it will change the way I look forward. You just said it. We can we can get a copy. Yeah. Not a problem. In fact, I'll make sure you get a copy of the whole presentation. So, so last Monday night you guys said something that was to me was really critical to your work and I'm going to see if you remember what it was. I'll give you a hint. You said the most the most important thing that happens in the Bridgeport public schools happens where? The classroom. The classroom. And to me that that that all weekend I'm

092thinking that Being a cave now for a couple years, I'm I've made that switch from superintendent to board them to board and and then over the weekend I'm thinking how do I switch myself back to superintendent and and and and talk Royce's language and talk um everyone's language and remember what the language was. And so I thought about this PELP framework and PELP is public education um leadership project and they developed a visual that just about every superintendent in the state of Connecticut and part of the network that Dave and I belong to. It was drilled in our heads and what it basically says which I think is really critical is this is the instructional core. the center of it. The instructional core has has teacher um content and student a as an interrelated pieces

093teachers knowledge and skill students engagement in their own learning and the academically challenging content and I heard one person on the board last week who talked about that that that around the students engagement high level learning learning. That's what we need to to be doing in Bridgeport. That's what kids deserve. And so this is the instructional core and and the way it was drilled in my head which which reflected my work as a superintendent was this is in a district with all the noise with all the stuff going on in in in Bridgeport in every district in the state of Connecticut around the world. This is what this is what we're here to protect. This is what boards are here to protect. This is what our our superintendent are here to protect. Our administrators here

094to protect. This is where this is the this is the core of of of all of that happens. This is why Bridgeport Public Schools exists because of this core here. Highly trained teachers, highly engaged students, viable content, high level content, content that engages cognitively. your your all every single child in in your in your school district. And so I wouldn't go back to Andre's point earlier. So you look at all these other factors here. This is the instructional core theory of change is again that that's gets into language I was talking about last week around if we do this right then we get this result and all your different theories of how we get what we need or your strategies or your or your goals. You get into strategy here. Then you get into the

095community, the culture, the structure, the systems, the resources, the stakeholders. And then you get outside that core. You get into you get into um what is that? Um what where is that? Regul regulations and statutes. What what what's imposed upon the school district? The contracts, the funding, the politics. Again, this is stuff that superintendents do in laboratories, right? And I'm giving you the give you the magical moment, the insight into the superintendent state gate. But what I I want you to do is think about this as a board member. Where are you coming when you look at this structure here? This is you're not in this you're not really necessarily in this instructional core. You're perhaps looking at I'm giving feedback on the curriculum that comes to you. You have some insight into the teachers

096that are being hired, but you're not hiring the teachers. You're not developing the content. You might be approving certain curriculum and certain adoption of textbooks and things like that. You're not putting students in classrooms. You're not telling which classroom they're going to be, what level they're going to be, or other things. So, where do you come in here? I'm going to go back to Andre's point. One critical area for my from my experience is culture. You have a real insight into the culture of Bridgeport. You can help the superintendent understand, help his team understand what is what's important to Bridgeport. The stakeholders, the communication you have from stakeholders and communication you share with stakeholders. That's really a board area there. resources. Definitely resources. You're can getting the state what it does does or doesn't do.

097You adopt the budget. You get the resources for your superintendent, for his or her team for for all of these things to strengthen this the instructional core, this the structure, you know, where the buildings and the facilities and the systems. And when I think of systems, I think of this being more superintendent oriented where you're thinking of the evaluation system, the the curriculum, the assessments, the facilities management, personnel, talent acquisition, budget development and management, management of your budget, the policies and regulations of course would be board and superintendent. So that that's where you get the systems. But but just just again, we're going to refer back to this as we as we do some more of this work, but to me, I think it's all about protecting this instructional core and thinking about what your

098role is in protecting it, what the superintendent's role is in protecting this instructional core. Joe, yeah, I just got to make a point. Systems and structure um could be thought of about more of getting to that core because I mean when we talk about protecting systems I don't want to get into the space where we're protecting racist systems and structures which is I believe the board's purview as far as it goes into funding it goes sometimes sometimes they could even go into curriculum with the euroentric um curriculum um so these systems and structures I think we as board members need to challenge not in the superintendent or superintendent role but in getting to that possibly some of those things in the center which may not be for our community. We got to be wary of

099protecting the system over I don't know I don't know if I'm articulating myself well enough to I think you I think it's a great point and again I think part of part of systems is is looking at things beyond this the systemic aspects of this the typical like again the curriculum the facilities management and looking also beyond that in terms of what what role there are aspects of when you're looking at curriculum looking at instructional practice ices, looking at where students are placed in schools, looking at data around advanced placement courses. There are things that you want to ask yourself as a board, are we giving access to all of our students to to the best to um the best of what this instructional core can offer? and and and the current federal environment. I

100find those kind of scary that we might have to protect one of our courses that we passed as a mandate for graduation. I'm not going to say it out loud in case Donald's listening. You don't have to read read my I I just wrote a policy highlight. Um um so the most recent highlight is I just got it sent out this afternoon and it deals directly with the the the um compliance letter that the commission of education of Connecticut has to sign off on certain pieces of it related to title six and non-discrimination. So you'll get essentially ground company from again it's I don't want to go down a rabbit hole but your point around systems is really smart because it is sometimes you're dealing with things beyond what we think of as systems in

101our in a more traditional sense protecting our kids from some of the outside of the systems or our own thinking that that impacts our systems. It's a great point. And I think what you said is right on target and you're backing that up. But when you mentioned some racist stuff if you if you're noticing that in in any of our curriculum because it really would touch on students content and teacher that's a that's a conversation you need to have with the super just looking at these books these textbook they're not representative of our culture. I think that's a legitimate thing that affects content. I do I don't quite well. Yeah. Yeah. But you've been as you said at work before but I think that's part of it. I completely agree. It might be something we

102didn't talk about 10 years ago but used to be in a for today. We we did in Bloomfield. Well yeah as part of our role on the board we had to adopt the science textbook one and they walked through how they chose the one that they did. The committee was there. They handed out copies of the books and one of our board members was looking through it and this is Bloffield. 96% of our students population at that time was African-American. Um, one of our board members said, "Why is it that the only picture of a person of color is a janitor in a science textbook?" And did you think about that when you chose this textbook for our students? And they said, "Well, um, not really, but thank you for bringing it to our attention."

103So the obvious question was did you look at any others that were more reflective of our population that would still meet the uh the needs curricular needs of that book and they did have another one. So they would went back to the committee reviewed it that with a different recommendation that would not have happened without our board of education. So there is a connection. Part of it is protecting that core, but it's also adding some accountability to that core. And it's just easier to correct to defend it. And again, I guess my my overall point is that it to me it's a real shift in thinking for boards to think of the instructional core as something to protect. and and and so and when you think of your role in protecting this instructional core, you

104can think differently perhaps about these various things that you think about the stakeholders, the culture, the structure, the systems and the resources. So, so your role is really critical in creating that kind of barrier and supports to preparedness. picking a new superintendent. I think the culture is incredibly important to know the culture of the community you're going into. The person whom you hire needs to have some knowledge base. A couple of you have said the importance of your community. Things like that. You know, it's a simple thing, but if there's a picture of of a person hanging on the wall, don't take it down until you know who that is. They could have been an icon in the community, but that culture really can. And I think whenever you're considering people for employment, especially your

105top person, the superintendent, they should have a little bit of a knowledge what's going on in the culture in the community and and is this a culture that I feel good about and do you feel good about asking them into that culture? But I'd also ask in my mind culture also includes the the school community, which is different than necessarily the city of Bridgeport. that culture is important but the school consume but there's that culture of learning that has to exist and are we which gets back to your core because that's really what that culture is about you had a question you had um when we talk about that and everything please correct me if I'm wrong um we supposed to have a policy because I know I like to follow the policy you know

106when we have a policy policy like you you know you keep doing it whatever we have to do we have to follow the policy because without not doing that and you don't follow the policy, you don't understand the policy, how you going you're going to keep working with that. Yeah. In in my view, they got policy, they don't like to understand, they don't like to follow. Let's put it this way. But they know it's there and they don't know why to, you know, listen. Yeah. So, that's one issue. You don't follow the policy, you're going to grow up, like you said. Yeah. Again, looking at your bylaws, I I think what you want to do is in reviewing your bylaws, ensure that they while they may not speak directly to this, ultimately you want you

107want your bylaws to not get in the way of supporting this. And the other way I think about this too is this is more normative. This is more like a norm that I would think about, more of a a framework for thinking about your role as a board, but that doesn't necessarily have to be referred to in a bylaw. I I would just in reviewing the Bible is just make sure that there isn't anything in there that would detract from or interfere with or contradict this. And there really isn't in my view. Okay. So I would think this is just a a framework way to visualize your role. We talk a lot about what your role is and and what the role of superintendent and what board is. This gives you kind of a a

108way of visualizing that framework and a way of thinking about this instructional core as being something to protect rather than something that you necessarily are here to um enforce or or provide input on on a daily basis. This is again the the teachers, the students and the content the content that that's where you want to trust the superintendent and his team to ensure that high level learning um highly engaged students, highly effective teachers, that's his job to make sure that that's that's all working. Your job is to protect it and keep it from harm. Oh, well actually I think I was going to do the next part. the chair. I'm going to move this out of the way for a minute because look at the sheets again. Wait over here for now. Want those higher

109Nick? We can tack them in if you want them so you don't have to. Yeah, let's turn them. So earlier we talked about what's the optimal um that talked about that optimal relationship. Some of the things we talked about effective communication talking in a respectful way uh active listening body language non-verbal and verbal behavior mutual respect agree on personal um on a personal level. Respect and trust um a lot of that pops up a lot. There's back love both words pop up a lot availability data talked about that um what's that happy medium between data and um too much. Yeah, thank you. Can't read my own handwriting sometimes. Um trust but verify flashlight versus sledgehammer reciprocity and um what the community wants. So those are things that you talked about that have to exist if

110you have an optimal relationship. Now what are some of the board gears that might must align? So in other words, if these are the optimal, what are some of the things that you have to think about in order to achieve that here? Are there places that you're doing well or are there places that you know I'm reading those assessments from or there's some comm community uh some issues with some respect, not everybody, but there were comments made. Um, a couple of things. Several people talked about needing data, and I think Dr. Greg's got some ideas to continue to work with you, but are there some things that you should be looking at now that might help you get to that optimal? As you look at that list, are there things that you could maybe leverage

111or talk about as a group that might or what are some of the things you might consider needing in order to reach that optimal? I think we're just going to continue on the new track we started beginning in December with the change of leadership. The communication is much more open. I mean this the state has mentioned that some board members think that this isn't saying that this is helpful and I think part of the reason is that the misperception by the state is that we are growing with the growth guns before the state even got involved and we are growing exponentially. We are communicating more not because the state came in with a big stick over our head because there was a change in leadership and a change in the fundamentals of the very the

112board. So So what what what are the structures of the things that as a board of education you control that can help create that optimal relationship? What are the things that that within your your your control and your domain you have available to create that optimal relationship? to allow everybody to speak to every to hear what people are saying. So broaden that a little bit. Where do you do that? Full and open discussions at board meetings. Board meetings. So meetings are a critical area that that you have at your disposal and and and previously everybody wasn't allowed to speak at committee meetings. only one committee allowed everybody to speak. Um two out of the three committee meetings weren't allowed to speak. Now everybody's allowed to participate and speak at all committee meetings and at um

113board meetings in also. So we have full discussions. So so the board meeting and h how it operates how it runs the committee meetings how it runs but also with committee meetings what other what other decisions of making power do you have regarding committees? Um, yeah. Can you rephrase a little bit? Well, you you I'll give you a hint. You you you indicated at the last meeting that you can range from 12 of these kind of to three or you know, so so and each committee has a charge. So as a board you can determine what committees you have, right? what their charges are because that those committees are doing the work of the board. We need to we need to repair our bylaw our policies on how we set committees. Um we we went

114from one extreme to another and now we're somewhere in between and we need to clarify that policy. Um that we discussed last week. Um but um right now we have um four committees and the policy committee that you're working with needs to clarify that policy because it is unclear and it what it was before got abused into one direction. Now it needs to be clarified as to how it should be functioning and that needs to be taken care of this spring. Um but um we we're we're in a functional round now and as we work on prep preparing these policies, you know, we can do that. But right now we have four functioning committees and those four functioning committees allow for full participation by anyone who wants to participate and um you know that includes

115you know you know uh the agendas for those committees what's discussed on those committees and participation in those committee meetings. So to tie this back to the topic at hand too, the relationship between the board and the superintendent, this can be a sticking point between boards and superintendents because just like your superintendent is responsible for providing the research, the information um the work that the committees are doing um whether it's your regular board meetings or committee work, it's an awful lot of pressure on the superintendent. So it begs the qu which I think something Jordan was alluding to and and you said yourself what's the purpose of these committees? Are we are we creating work for this sense of creating work or even if it's important work is it taking our eye off the prize

116a little bit because we're spending all that extra energy on something that may be not as important as something else that should be being done and I think that's part of fixing through the bylaws and whatever how to articulate that better. I I and the answer to your question from my point of view and others may have other points of view. I'm not claiming to be an expert is clearly not um because I've listened to you all articulate your experiences where you had more committees. We used to have it sounds to me from talking to Joe who's got six years or with four years way too many committees for the size of the board. I believe you, Nick, you mentioned nine committees, one for each board member that should be able to chair. Yeah. Um,

117that's way too many. Um, we were up in that ballpark, too. Um, I don't know what the justification was, but we were up at nine. Uh, we went down to seven. Um, then we went down to three and we didn't even let everybody be on committee. Um, so somewhere in between makes sense and that needs to be discussed and resolved in creating a policy and how we get there because there was disagreement on how we get there. Um, so I I'm not claiming to have the crystal ball on that, but we need to figure out how we're going to get there. Um, so in what makes the most sense. Um, and so we will we will do that this spring hopefully uh in in a way that makes sense. and then how we function. And

118it's someone new to me because it's my first time chairing a committee on the board and I'm sort of getting my rhythm getting finding my my rhythm now. I chaired three meetings. Um and I have a a liaison or a staff person. I mean we have a board leazison but we have a staff person who's assigned to work with who I'm coordinating through Danielle with the staff person Dr. um Saki who I work with and we've we're sort of getting our rhythm on setting the agendas and coordinating the staff people and so we're getting that down. Um so it's it's getting there you know that's functioning. Um so that's it. You know, I think the hardest one to me was chose because of the, you know, the finance committee because we got to get come

119up with a budget with the deficit, all that. The urgency, you know, you Willy's now got this humongous task Jod saddled him with of fixing all the policies. Um um but it's getting there. So Kesha, um I just wanted to go back again and um say that there was opportunities to ask questions on my committee. I keep hearing that there was only one committee that was allowed that everybody was allowed to ask questions and that's just not true. So I want to say that first and foremost. Secondly, um and this does relate to what you're talking about optimal relationships. We still have a board member that is on his Facebook page, going on Facebook and insulting people on the board. Um, and so when somebody insults me, um, I don't just sit back and take

120it. I come back and I come back stronger and a lot nastier. Now, I'm trying to work on that, but there's only so much that a person can take. Um, the last thing that I'll say about optimal relationship is I think it's also important, guys, for all of us to admit when we're wrong. Nobody knows everything on this board. And that's been a huge problem for me. People think that they're the the lawyer on the board. They think they're the superintendent. They think they're the CFO. We hire these people because they know their stuff. They know what they're doing. So respect again like you said in the beginning Nick respect is earned. You give respect, you get respect. But don't expect all of us to s to take things laying down and and we won't

121respond because I know that I will respond. Every single time somebody says something about me that is untrue, I will respond back. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I I think it's important that we get the committees correct because the committee is where the majority of the work goes. If we're not doing work at committee, we're having six, seven hour regular board meetings discussing things for the very first time. Now, I don't think we had enough committees. I do think in the past we had too many committees. I think we need to find that happy medium. with you guys here may maybe you could suggest the number because there's certainly like the finance duty have a lot um the student services have a lot that sometimes there's

122referrals that Mr. Travers committee can't get to within a month because of how how much is responsible under his committee that's falling under that perview. Do you have anything beside the bylaw that has that defines committee work? Is it currently? No. The bylaw is really the only correct. You trust the superintendent Danielle to talk to me about the commert in front of us. What would you guys suggest the optimal number of committees be for a board of our size? I'd say again just a number five or six. So I said three. Well, one I think I can let you guys know that you know Christine when she made that that was a recommendation from K. That wasn't like she just said, "Oh, it's going to be three." You know, a lot of a lot of

123the stuff that she done and was done during that time were recommendations for Cave. So it wasn't just a tick everybody off here. Yeah. I'm not I'm not trying to look backwards. I'm trying to how how are we going to move forward or so we have four five and three three four five add to that four standing committee. We don't call them standing committing committees what Jody was like sharing last week was that adop. So there there are times where you may need a hop committee to maybe to do these goals and validations right if some someone were to do something like that. But realistically I I do think um we we don't do business like all the business active board meeting we do in committees. We don't bring to new for the most part

12490% of the things that brought are brought to the the that's a terrible number but um but most of the items that are brought to the regular board meeting haven't already been discussed in committee. So to say that we don't that our meetings are long that's just because we have a lot of items on the board meeting right up right but uh in deference to um sorry I'm picking off this trainers committee but you got instruction and support services that's covering a lot I think maybe the support services should be struck because we we used to look at suspension and explosion rates on a monthly basis we used to look at bullying reports we used to look at this and that over time this is this is the student that we want to see and

125we also want to see the academic data and we al also wanted to discuss that but having all that encompassed in one committee is is just a lot that cannot get to that was the teaching and learning committee before though and there was a teaching and learning committee along with the students and families committee and that was spread out and the contract and the contracts were spread out between all the committee students and families would take um nutrition contracts teaching and learning to take textbooks and what have you would be expert I think it's a further conversation probably. Right. We're not going to solve that, but Well, that's what I wanted to ask is are we is this tonight's goal? Yeah. Okay. Just trying to capture some of the Right. And just two points of

126clarification for Andre and Miss Casemir. Um Cave also recommends a chair not chair a committee. I have two. I know. I know you have two now and Christine took one of her three. EPA recommended that they don't take any. Um and um and there's more than one board member currently posting negative things on Facebook. So let's just avoid that. Yeah. Right now it's going to sidetrack us. I know. So that's no point going there, right? So let's just stick with the positives here. He asked me what He asked me what my I it was my turn to to speak and so I spoke. So it's okay for me to speak because I have a right to speak just like you do Mr. Traver. That's all. I didn't raise that opinion. I just said okay. Yeah.

127We can both stop. I have a right to speak. Next word. Nobody else. So I I guess I want to go back to the idea that whether it's four, three, two, one. I mean I I tried when I was board chair tried to get it down to one committee. We had a finance committee which handled buildings, budget, all of that stuff. Um curriculum, we disbanded the board subcommittee of curriculum because we were spending an hour and a half, two hours on a curriculum committee talking about something and then the committee would come to the board and spend an hour explaining what they spent an hour and a half on. said since exactly what's happening that's where the clarity needs be so it could be you know effectively committing any whatever where how many the board

128wants to choose but when you do the work you bring the you bring it the the other board members have to discuss and understand what what the actual um approval is at the committee level when it goes to full board because But we have committee meetings and they're like four or five hours long and then well maybe not not long but then it comes to the board meeting and then we spend another four or five hours in a in the in the board meeting and nothing's being done and on top of that you have presenters at these meetings teachers staff members they're presenting now twice and some of them are waiting oh absolutely 10 o'clock at night to present so they're they're on the board and they have to prepare all that. Yeah. So they're

129stepping away from their daily duties to create this presentation for the board. Um I if in my mind that and I think in the if I remember correctly in the goals your performance goals number five was review board subcommittee structure to ensure effective use blah blah. So it's in the draft of what you have for goals already. So I did say we we're going to look at it. Um but in our case that works for us and others you know and again we have different ideas on this that's because we're all have come at different approaches. I say three teaching and learning finance which includes anything to do with infrastructure basically and teaching learning infrastructure and policy and in my mind if it can't be done in one of those then we look to policy

130because that's the other thing the board should be doing. Look at all the work our committees are doing. Instead of spending hours approving something over and over again, can we draft a policy that says if these conditions exist, this is what we do. So the board's making one thoughtful decision to create a policy takes it out of the need for the board to vote on. So what are teaching, learning, infrastructure, policy, and finance? Would those be would you Well, infrastructure in my mind is finance. the finance commission. We have them separate and mostly because this year we're doing the the facility matching plan. So So but that yes committee on on buildings and communications one yeah and and a lot of boards have that but then you have to also be very clear because in

131some boards communications was I'm going to send out a newsletter. I'm going to do this. I'm going to have a coffee or lunches or whatever. It's got to be focused focused. So again it's really I think you look at it from backwards forwards. What are we trying to accomplish? How do we do that with an infrastructure that supports the work without making more? We we just for your just in case this would help. We used to try when I was a super most of my we try to have the committee meeting an hour and 15 minutes before the regular board meeting. No work. It won't work. It depends on the topic. No, but then but the superintendent wasn't required to be at all. I had an assistant superintendent, so he took two and I might

132have taken probably one or two. And then for the business ones, we had a director of finance. I was always aware of what was going to be going on, but this way it kind of maximized the time where you didn't, you know, and then you would roll right into the board. I think if you go back to the first day when you gave up that that paper that says this is what the superintendent's team should be presenting and when they're presenting something, right? because all the questions that the board members should be asking is on that paper. I don't have it with me, but well I I actually have copies of that buried in here. But you know, I think if we just collect that longer faster because those an if you look at those

133questions, they answer a lot of the questions that we would already incredible helpful tool. Yeah. But that's excuse me to that point though. Sometime some sometimes questions are asked to inform the community of the answer that they wouldn't otherwise have but not every not not often but there sometimes you got to ask questions you know the answer to bring the point towards the community to have them understand it because they're not there to ask question. But the trick is to make sure that everybody knows ahead of time that you're going to ask the question because when I do the you heard me talk about mistakes superintendents make. I also do want to call mistakes board members make and dropping the bomb is number eight example where you're deliberately holding the question until the board meeting

134so you can make the superintendent feel stupid because you know you did this well or you said this or why aren't we doing this if the purpose is to make sure people know a question was asked and answered then you call the superintendent say Tuesday night I'm being asked or Monday night I'm going to ask you this question I want you to be prepared to give a good answer because my vote depends on it or or and I guess I only push back slightly. I do agree that the community needs to know questions were asked and answered, but the purpose of asking questions first and foremost is to help me make the decision between yes or not. Yeah, I do mostly mostly with finance um around um why don't we have this and I know

135I know either Dr. Amy or Mr. call say, "Well, we don't have the money for it or we're not being provided enough resources for it." And those or our our research showed that this isn't as effective as something else. And again, it's up to your community. Yeah. It's not that it's not including them mostly in my opinion, not sandbag. And that's feel free to reach out after the meeting say appreciate that and I'll be open to construction. So, as we as we because I'm trying to move this along a little bit and I'm appreciative of all of your input on this because that's how we make this stuff work. Um, some of the things we talk because Jody and I brainstormed a little bit, you know, having communication protocols. Do we sometimes it's by law,

136but it's beyond that maybe meeting norms. Um, even signing some sort of agreement to say, you know, we promise to do this when we run our meetings, we will all listen respectfully. we will not respond etc etc. Um, but by establishing those meeting norms, then you're saying to each other, in essence, if one of you violates this, and that's a point of order. We have meeting norms. You are violating it by being insulting the meeting or you've gone off topic or whatever. Call attention to it. The chair could say, "You're right. Let's move on." So, sometimes just having these protocols because a lot of what I keep hearing is the way we talk to each other. Well, you can you can't necessarily write a law that says we won't talk. We'll be nice. But you

137could say when we recognize the improper behavior that we call attention to it and the chair pulls us back. Unless it's the chair doing that, then the rest of you have to bring her back. Um through your meetings, we talked a lot about how meetings can be used to be more effective. Budget big driver obviously because that sets your priorities and again acknowledging the challenges you have here. It doesn't negate the re the rationale that you have to use that to be help you effectively move the district forward policy. That's what it's all about. That's how you govern evaluation. We that hasn't really come up much tonight, but that's really an important part of how you make sure the district moves well between a superintendent evaluation to and while you don't evaluate teachers, you do

138have to sort of have an understanding how teachers are evaluated to make sure that that is going to be done effectively. And it and it keeps going back to committees because I think there's an acknowledgement that that work needs to continue and it might be joining helping through drafting policies. He's got lots of different examples, but it might also be that you want to spend a session outside of the training just to say that's been recommended. Maybe this is something that probably needs own time. take an evening or well I won't say Saturday but I'm there if you need me but spend a what do we do in our different committees and make a a chart and say okay and event I know you have a lot but maybe some of them should be ad

139hoc and they've got a sunset on there's a specific reason we exist when that done that is done we stop we have a sunset and then those those regular um standing committees you get a better articulation what the expectations are of the committee it sounds like that something that you would benefit um on a governance level. Yes. So um just just as a I like to think visually and and so that's why I shared with you that coherence framework but but the next slide thinking back as a superintendent and every year seemed like there was more and more to do often I felt like this guy the you the guy trying to balance all of these different plates. So each plate is another initiative and another initiative and I think as a board talk to

140members of your staff they feel like every year we don't get rid of anything we just keep adding and adding and adding and all the superintendent tries to do at this point is ensure that plates don't fall and to balance them all. So, so that's one metaphor which is you don't want the the second is the place better. Now, if you're I'm trying to get to but here we go. Yes. Siv Oh, I thought you were just lady of the NBA. You hear people complain the plate spinner. So, he's trying to spin all these plates. Now, this is the guy you hear stories about. I'm so busy. I can't even go to the bathroom. This guy can't go to the bathroom because if he goes to the bathroom, the plates falls. He's constantly spinning plates.

141That's all he's doing. When we start That's totally Dr. That's Dr. Avery right there. That's totally Yep. You feel like this guy every day? Yeah. And there's actually music that goes along with it, which is sillier than the actual video. You'll be dreaming about this in your sleep tonight. All right. So, you get the idea. The next and and this is the metaphor that I would argue is the better metaphor, which is where what we're all trying to do. This is so now instead of it being plates stacked on top of each other and and your superintendent spinning plates, what you want to do is look at all the various pieces that are there and figure out how to put it all together to create one plate. So to me, Jim, my view is this

142is the better metaphor. But thinking like a superintendent, you got a guy who's spinning plates, you got a guy who's every every year a new initiative. I used to be afraid I used to be afraid going to the commissioner's um speech every year because I would always feel afraid. I would walk out of there. It was great to see everybody. you know, Dave and I would reconnect and but I al also would hear about five new initiatives and then I'd have to think and I'm driving home thinking how am I going to share these five new things for for my teachers, my administrators, my board members to think about and I felt like the guy with another plate, you know, five plates and again so it forced me into thinking about how do I translate

143the plates and the spinning plates into language techn can help my board, help my community, help my students, help my staff really look at it as these are different pieces strategically that if they work together, they can put it all together. Didn't always work, but sometimes there at least if we didn't create one plate, maybe we can create four plates instead of the 40 plates that were stacked up on top of each other. This this is sort of like that initiative. So maybe we can bring that together. And these three initiatives are sort of like that initiative. We can make big another pay out of that. So it help build coherence to the district. And teachers get frustrated by that too. Oh boy. They get frustrated by it. Yeah. We hear Yeah. They're holding him

144too. But you see the darn superintendent making us do this and it most of the time it isn't. It's it's the you know it's the stuff that we're asked to do that we have to do to make this work. Right. Exactly. And not to mention we have an issue like a situation like us when you have multiple superintendents and you have new disc coming in each time. Yeah. So I think I feel for the teachers on that sense. Yeah. Albert. Yeah. Looking that play like you said before was that that great but that play broke. Whose fault that the play is broke? You can try to put it together but the piece is not going to be the same. It's not going to match again. So whose fault that the play is broken? I think

145it's just the wind came in through the window and just knocked the plate off. It was no one's fault because I know it's not going to be the same. You put it in blue bag and that's what we going through to put everything together. I not it's not easy but like I told that to everybody know that he's not alone. You know, we here to die 100%. You know, together we can make the difference. But uh yeah, it's not going to be the same because you know what happened? It's the trust and it's very hard when you trying to let's see the teacher trust us back again. Yeah. Because they see what's going on again and again and again. Like I Mr. S said before about the state came, you know, came over. People go

146crazy because the state is here. For me, it's phenomenal. It's amazing you guys are here. It's amazing you guys came to help us because that's what we need. That's what we need. Help us. And and and on the thing is it's not only Bridgeport have the situation. People think it's only Bridgeport, right? It's all Connecticut that has some issue about lay off and budget and everything. People focus the world big city. You know, we we know that. We understand. I'm very glad they know that. But it's the trust sometime and that the play that's why I'm trying to put it together so teachers, staff, parents, student understand that they're trying to put it together so they can trust us. they can understand we're trying to do to best we can. Yeah, that's a great point.

147I could promise you if I showed the slide of the of the way to holding plates or the plate spinners, there isn't one board or one superintendent who wouldn't be able to relate to that. But you did give me your your insights gave me a better metaphor. So rather than it being a broken plate, maybe we look at a puzzle piece of a puzzle there. I was just I was just gonna say that I always use a giant jigsaw puzzle and it's it speaks better to the holistic approach that we need to encompass to keep everything in mind. They will make decision decisions got to be this decision affects the budget that decision affects teaching this decision and it's all a holistic thing and if we got the down view we can't just worry about

148the edges. So, we have the best metaphor and my and my my editor here just made that promise. We're learning too. Puzzles don't have blame. That's right. Unless you sneak one key out. Yes. Thank you. Um I also think that it's important um I want to go back to what Mr. Benahan said when he talked about how we have all levels of education on this board. So we got everybody from like I guess not a high school diploma all the way up to a jurist doctorate. We have different strong cultural differences on this board. Um I don't think it's necessary to have the last word in every time. Not every time, but if we're having dialogue and I have one opinion and you have another, it's unnecessary to keep going back and forth and back

149and forth because that makes it seem like you're trying to shove your opinion down somebody's throat when you keep having to have the last word. That's something that is also completely annoying when it comes to communication because it's doing the opposite of what you think it is. actually, you know, now I'm really not going to listen to what you have to say because, you know, you're acting like a toddler, like you have to have the last word in and and and I'm different. My culture, especially if my culture is different than yours, that means I process information different. That means that uh my critical thinking is different. But again, we all have to come to a consensus um you know, as far as you know, the be what is best for the kids and the

150staff. That's what what the bottom line is. So that I would like to see a lot more of just like not so much having the last word in and being open to other people with different ideas who have who are part of a different culture and different socioeconomic backgrounds. Thank you. Thank you. Um I want to go past this to a second. Um you talked about trust before. I may have shared this with you in the past. I use this formula a lot. Um, sometimes I call it the success equation because it works either way, but when I get called in to work with a board that has trust issues, I start with this formula. Um, and I got this by um, I was working with the board and they had one board member in

151particular that was troublesome. And we were there on the Saturday for the whole day talking about how to bring this person on board and they were part of the team. And at one point she said, "I have to work with these people, but I don't have to trust them." And in my mind, I'm sitting there going, "Wait a minute. How can you work with somebody if you don't trust them? You might sit in a room together and you might even talk at each other. you won't be talking to each other, but how do you trust? So, I figured I've had to learn more about the word trust. So, I read about six or eight books on trust. I'm going to learn this. I'm going to write my own book. I'll go on Oprah. I'll make

152a lot of money. I can retire. None of that's coming true. I'm 71 years old. I'm not any closer to retiring than I was 5 years ago. But that's beside the point. But I did from and half of those books were terrible. People write books on trust because nobody's going to hold them accountable to it. So, but I got this idea from one of them where he talked about the transaction of trust and I I play it out this way. If you have a clear vision, now I know that's lacking here and that's that's a target for this board moving forward. But if you have a clear vision, if there's an action plan, that's really your superintendent's job to create that that is directly related to the vision. So if he says you've got these

153three goals if we implement this plan with fidelity we are going to achieve these three goals and then if you get results you've earned trust you get trust if all these things are in line when they're not in line and that in a way that's walking backwards when there is no trust we break this out and say okay where what's missing well we know there's a clear vision missing in Bridgeport there's probably nine opinions on this board about what success looks like right now. And that has to be corrected if there's going to be success. With that, the superintendent and his team can create that action plan and you'll start to see results. You will if everything's done with fidelity. So, we're going to focus um and and I originally planned our next session to

154start the conversation about district goals in talking to the person at the state who sort of he wanted to know what we did last week. So I talked about his expectation and so I think that becomes our expectation. We and we could try to do both because I think there needs to be some articulation of what you believe the Bridgeport public schools need to do. Um but is these sort of these goals that we talked about the last time based on that evaluation that assessment need to be talked about and need to be voted on and then to start making on a plan of action to make that happen. So when your um acceptance of that that will kind of be our plan for the this is the second third the fourth session will be

155on that and then if we have time we can start to also brainstorm a little bit about what that district vision might look like. Um but that's jumping ahead. So if we go back, what we want to do is prepare the board to adopt these goals, right? Board performance goals at the next meeting. Well, can I clarify? Yeah, let me I'm going to say we just Okay. So the this the commission's office wants them next week, the 14th. Oh, the 14th. We don't have a board meeting until the 28th to actually vote on this, but in talking with Nick, we come to a consensus here on them and with the assumption that on the 28th we'll be actually voting on them. Um, and I did speak to them about that. I said, "Listen, they've done

156the hard work already. At least my" and again, this is my interpretation what I heard. It's open to because they're going to be yours, not mine. Um and and you you had a couple of really good other goals, but those were more like district goals. They didn't fall under the purview. So I they're sort of saved for that later um when it got to some of the other things that were on here, but these are the ones directly related to the things that came out of that assessment. Now, um have copies of them for you. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. I should have done that sooner. online. These are the ones that were sent out last [Music] week on the first, April 1st. So as I principal life so some of some of this is

157my interpretation um I as one is sort of a recommendation again these are going to be your goals um but that first one which I think is important for that formula for you for the Birchport public schools is to establish district vision for the Bridgeport public schools. I personally see that as two steps because a true vision is a strategic plan where you get your all the talk you've had about getting the community involved that gets your community involved. It's strategic planning is a strategic plan is not more important than strategic planning. The process itself is just as important as the document it creates, maybe even more so because that's the people who are willingly participating in this that bring together that shared vision and that's much more powerful than just write. Anybody can write

158goals. Um your last strategic plan was basically the superintendent presented you with some goals and you did some tweaking on at least one of them. Um but it really wasn't what I would call strategic plan. It was called that. A strategic plan is a process and I think you really can't do that until you have a new superintendent in place. So I think that's one of your goals I think would be to establish a strategic planning process for the next year. in my mind that so the performance goal is establishing the district vision short-term establish some sort of district goals to do this year that will get us through so we can ask the superintendent to do that you're smiling you have comment no if we're able to hire superintendent that would be the process

159permit So yes, I but I suspect and I have no I I'm not at that level of conversation with anybody. Yes. Whatever decision is made is going to be by July. I think I I could be wrong, but I know our work had to be done by July 1st, I think it was. Um and and D, they've extended our work. Originally we thought so too but we're kind of tented it till December but we you know we don't meet regular but we can talk to them certainly about it about some of your concerns anyway. I'll leave we'll leave it at that. Just go. Okay. But well, but it is important because if if but I I see this twofold, but I would I think it's in the best interest of the district to have the

160new superintendent or the permanent superintendent because might be somebody who's not totally new to the system. Um but the permanent superintendent to be part of that process and you could start that. So, you know, I wouldn't first week in a superintendent sits in the office. you know, you have to give it some time, but there could be still the effort to make some shorter term district goals so at least we can start putting something in conversations, forums, things like that. And that and that would be a session. Um, focus the board's attention on enhancing student achievement. Back to that um instructional core. Um I again I think that's a goal that has to be determined but in in essence by stating this is one of our performance goals that we are going to do this

161work. When you're writing a goal if you're writing a goal and you already have the answer on what we what we're going to do it doesn't necessarily make for a good goal. We we set the expectation and we work at it. This might be an ad hoc committee to do something with the goals or it might be part of your policy committee. Although you don't want to distract from the work at hand because you've got a a schedule. Um ensure fiscal responsibility. I took this one um writing under Dr. Ingre's um um language develop and implement a comprehensive budget plan that ensures fiscal responsibility and sustainability for the next five years. Also aligned with what the state's expectation was. There was a second bullet, review and update policies that outlined the board of eds oversight

162of the operational budget as well as grant applications, expenditures, etc. So, I took that language basically right out of what the state's expectation was. If it depends on you whether you want to keep it in there, improve the working relationship of board members and superintendent. I think I've heard that again tonight. We'd have to figure out a way of of doing that better. Um, using the culture word again, create a culture where constructive criticism is value used as a tool for growth and development. Promote a collaborative and respectful atmosphere among board members. Um, educator stakeholders to achieve common goals and address challenges effectively. Not trying to solve it tonight. We don't need the solutions, but are these does that relate to the goal I've heard? And then finally, um, and we sort of reiterated that

163again, um, tonight, review board subcommittee structure to ensure effective use of board staff time and effort. Now, that's what I captured. I put it down. Um, they're yours. So, how do you feel about that? Are there things you need to change? You want to just leave it like this? I'm I'm okay with that. That's why you guys are here to help us and you know guide us the way to go. We're glad. Yeah. And I know you always got right and and I'm I'm very glad you guys here because that's what we need and I'm okay with that because you know this is the way we can keep going positive in a good direction. Yeah. So in terms of setting goals a lot of times these are timesensitive or should be time sensitive. three. Um,

164so I know in the past when we've we sent the training to the state, our our timeline for the training because they because it was so specific, it was rejected at first. So I also want to be mindful of that from the past. Um, and if we submitted this, would it be rejected because there's no uh time attachment to it? No. So like should we as a going back to that question is should we actually say you know within one year we want to make sure that we have you know yes plan or something action steps yeah yeah in light of that do you think based on the fact that we we're talking about policies and obviously that's something of concern in terms of the mandated policies one one goal could be to adopt the

165mandated adopt and update all mandated policies by December 20 before then. What's that? Before then by you pick it. I'm trying to be I know to you but but come up with a date for that and that way it sort of communicates to the state department of education that you're moving forward and have a plan for moving forward to get those policies all up down. Sure. That's something you gave. Yeah. Sorry, I'm side conversation. He has said he's saying by the end of the school year, but because we only have May and June, like we have a meeting this month, but then we have May and June. That might be too much. Like maybe that that might be I mean we won't be able to see maybe but by the beginning of the school year

166we can throw in a extra meeting. I might find a lot of view something I think about. because you have that's another thing go amended. So what you might do is as this goal is developed a timetable to be established by the policy committee. Does that make sense? Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense because they're the ones that are going to be doing the work. And that was one thing they did reflect to me is I'd like to see a sort of a calendar for adopt like for going through the policies and I know that's part of the work you do is plotting down you need it too and I could have had that Mr. Mr. Medina, anything? Yes. Oh, is that something that you can do this upcoming meeting since you do have

167um time to revise your agenda where you can add in um a timet like a group time table? What kind of time table? I'm sorry, you got cut off. Um we were just saying that maybe we should uh approve approve a timetable for a set uh I can't speak right now for accepting these u adopting these policies and um one of the things we said was maybe that by the end of the school year might be too not would not be manageable but by the beginning of the school year might be more manageable. So if in your committee we can add that to an agenda item this week so that the committee can adopt a timeline for a for completion of the policy. Absolutely. If you want to send that to me, we can send

168it over to Danielle tonight and she could put it in tomorrow and revise it. Absolutely. All right. I'll let Danielle know. Danielle's right here. Well, I hear you. I'm not there. So Yeah, we'll get the words together and we'll have her put it in. All right. Thank you. Perfect. Team work. But to your point, to your point, backwards, um, you know, basically establishing that short-term district vision is a matter of setting and collecting, brainstorm ideas. Um, what I'm finding is like you did last week, you plug it into um, AI and it comes out with really well-written goals. You do you do the hard work. You decide what it is you want to work on and then the AI takes the stress out of it. May I recommend a recommendation? I think we can do

169a thought exchange with the board in like my cabinet. We can kind of come up with some things to be able to kind of at least so that we can AI can do it for us, but I think we need to add add value to what we're that's meaningful for us. Sure. And we can we can write goals around that and it can help us do that. So are you thinking thought exchange before brainstorming or taking same thing the brainstorming on through the thought? Okay. Yeah. Um that's a great process. You can get a lot of get that started you know tomorrow as long as you have the the technical capability to do it. I'm still lost watching that get done but it that would actually be a great way to do it. Yeah, Joe

170has a question. I like the idea is just that if we're going to debate back and forth the goals and stuff like that, that could become problematic. If it's a one-way survey of information to be prevented presented before the board of collated data that's received for discussion rather than discussing the thought exchange back and forth between us as a board that may be problematic as far as it's under our care and control. it's under our bank and we may run a foul of I mean a one-way collection of information is fine way change ideas are created people can comment on that but I think part of that is that board members try to limit that to have you thought of this or that to respond in a technical way but not you share a really

171important thought that you know you do have FOI to worry about but This is really a matter of collecting data, not analyzing it and making decisions. Just holding opinions, right? Certain opinions and evaluating ideas. Yeah. What do you think about it's not voting? It's it's club. It's it's engaging in the discussion. Yeah. I'll get with the team. We'll we'll bet that out. Okay. How how can we address coming up with some short-term possibilities of goals or topic areas? Not creating the goals, but saying maybe it's, you know, um student improvement or, you know, district improvement. That could be a a a focal point. Then we can write a goal around what we want this district to improve upon and what areas it want as a goal. So So how about this as a thought? If

172you did the thought exchange amongst your staff and the board's left out of that conversation because you're they're the practitioners, you know, as part of the conversation, we bring the board together for a workshop. That data is shared with all of you. You respond to it, add your own ideas and comments. Then we can either weight scale them or do some kind of creative way of of um prioritizing them. And then from that we asked chat GPT or whoever I like Gemini that's pretty good um to have it come up with a draft of the goals but you're doing the hard work. And again I like I also like the idea that the practitioners are adding value to the conversation. So if we can't do the full-blown product exchange that might be a way of

173taking advantage of it to get staff input because that can be very valuable too. Would it make sense since since these are the what the board has can share in terms of its area goal areas looking for example at number two where the board wants to focus attention on enhancing student achievement that that to me is a a laable appropriate goal for the board. Maybe where your team can come in is say the board has expressed an interest in developing a goal around enhancing student achievement. Please determine three key areas um that would help the board understand the best leverage points for improving student achievement or something like that where you're getting the expertise of your cabinet, your staff. Help direct the board as to what are those key areas going to be student achievement

174like ninth grade algebra. um going to see a a 10point increase in 10th grade algebra um achievement. So like you know so so let because it's 9:15 um our next the fourth session is set up to do goals. So between now and then I don't know if there's two weeks is enough time. Fourth, we're doing finance next. Finance is the next one. That'll be the fourth and then the fifth one will be the goals. Fifth will be the goal. Um so we have a little time to What's that? That's perfect. We can Okay. So now So if we That's true. So if we give that as our deadline, we have time to get the thought exchange and we can focus more on Jen's questions about let's let's flesh these out and that could be the

175really the the critical work for that night. Meanwhile though, we should still adopt them as we've done with the addition of the the one that you've got so that we can send it to the state and say we're going to be meeting on um May 19th and we'll finalize with an action plan etc as best as possible and and I'm comfortable asking the board to do the action plan because this this is your work. Um this isn't the district goals where it really depend on the action pay to come from the superintendent. This is your work. So you need to make that commitment to what the deliverables are going to be and what the expectations are. Is that does that work? So we can deliver up to the state as updated as updated tonight um

176with the timeline of May 19th. when we start talking. Yeah. Yeah. The to be determined parts where they might say, well, why haven't you guys come up with something there? Because well, in my mind, the goal is an important thing, but what are we acknowledging? I think we need to do some work on what does that look like? They want they want to see um something that can be measured something like that. Sometimes you wonder how that you know do we it might for an agenda item might be ensure that every agenda has something on student achievement. Could could we say for number two for example since TBD could we say um through thought exchange the superintendent will develop recommendations for the board in key key achievement areas I mean I think it needs to

177be something else instead of PBD right we're doing in order to get that you know looking forwards May 19th to have a final goal in this area something otherwise they're not going it's coming Yeah, this is nothing. So, so would that be appropriate? I think that's very appropriate, right? And then for number five, I think that's like we talked about it quite a bit today. So, I think that's a that could be a priority item as well. Uh but maybe right now we're dealing with master file master bance have the triage a little bit like maybe this is something by the start of next school year we have I you guys added to that but if we can number five maybe by the by the end of summer we can have I I think it's

178establish working sessions for the board to discuss and u make changes to the committee structure right I think not making this making the changes now, but you're working towards by the beginning of the school year have a new structure to uh for subcommittees uh for next school year. Something like that. Something very general. No, we'll we'll um rewrite the the board policy on committees. Yes, policies board policy on committees. Yeah. Which will make them happy because they'll see keep going back to we need policies. So that could be the the short term of these work. Are you good at writing this type of stuff down? I'm I'm making a lot of notes, but I'm going to look at this tomorrow morning and go like the screen writing stuff like what did I say? I don't

179have those with me. But anybody can feel free to email me any thoughts on any of this so we can see how it fits. I will next um you guys have a week off of you in two weeks. We'll come back for the finance session. Most likely I'll be here. I'll put a notice up, you know. And uh I think they're joining you else. So will the revision of this document be emailed out to everybody, Nick, or? Yeah. Yeah, we'll we'll work on it tonight and hopefully emailed it to you by day tomorrow. All right. No, I just want to make sure it gets sent out. That's all. Yeah. Thank you. As well as this presentation, right? I can say you know guys, thank you so much. I appreciate it so much very well. All

180right. I think all in favoring your birthday with us for my birthday with you guys. Privilege. Thank you.