In-Person Special Meeting - City Hall Conference Room Monday, February 24 6:30

001good evening um this is the in special meeting of the Board of Education it is Monday February 24 and the time is 6:43 you're at City fall room 305 in attendance and jennif prz board chair we have Joseph P extraa VZ Robert trer F here Andre wison Willie Medina Albert benan and online we have Christine bz Dr Aver joining us um uh the first thing we're going to talk about the first item on the agenda is um an agreement on the dates for the full board trainings um there's a minimum of six sessions including tonight's so um I'll just repeat the date that we selected um Last Week Tonight was the first meeting uh we have one for Saturday which is March 8th um you need to resed that one yes we have to need

002to resed that one um we have one from March 31st 21st May 19th and June 16th um so we just need to add one more for now and then we can talk about the other dates if what was that April date again D April 21st 21st any suggestions I 17 is a no no [Music] Mar you do all March 17th it's a holiday but that works for me is everybody else March 17th for alter day that replac in eight right repl eight yeah so they'll all be Monday nights which will be I think easier and we can always understand that the state was insistent that there are date scheduled but they are I believe they're fine if we have to reschedule as long as we follow up with that yeah you said March 17th yes

003March 17th not available not available okay evening dates are they 630 they're all 6:30 it's time to get for um all right March 17 there's a no no can we do two in April April 7 there reason not to move s is everybody free A7 yes 8 April 7 right yeah on a Friday oh sorry a Monday April 7th you understand have to be all of these like one or two you can I I would if his schedule requires him to be elsewhere it's it's board training I think I knowing Dr raver he'd like to be present but um that's really whether out or not a question screen oh miss back is April 7th okay tentatively if I have something change with of work work PA priority so I think this is like we have

004attended to schedule I can repeat the DAT for everybody tonight February 24th first one we have March 31st April 7th April 21st May 19th June 16th yes March 31st will be the second training April 7th April 21st May 19th and June 16th J yes I don't know if you want to make a note but I'm definitely going to be away the 18 to the 26 of June just n FY that doesn't affect but I know when you if you resed anything you know okay so age on that take a Venda that's discussion agre those are attentive dat we'll leave it at that and should we need to change them please reach out to me if you're not available for days and we can bring it before everybody to um open a second dat so I

005just want to make it clear yes if a board member cannot make any of these given dates that you just made that date would have to be rescheduled do because being 100% atten yes I just want make everybody understand we we got some clarification on that they were insistent the first meeting had 100% participation they're going to allow some latitude on the other ones if have but I think the wording I saw was they want to see the commitment from the board so if half of you didn't show up they're probably going to P you for that but if somebody have to work commitment or they're not well or whatever um they're they want to be a little more understanding of trying to align schedules for n 10 people um 12 actually um because we

006all have to have that night free so there there will be some latitude um I don't know where they draw them land again we're we're here to do the training we don't regulate what's going on right no and the only reason why I'm asking is because like you know she's not the only one that's busy I have a very sched too I'm not retired yet you know so I just wanted to know like if any given day somebody emails her hey Jen you know I can't make uh April 21st start all over again from the beginning like yeah you don't have to worry about that I would say you if you can't have a forum however for a no that's different yeah but even if three for so say I don't know what criteria they're

007going to use but the attorney mcken did say that there's somewh some well the bottom line is is everybody should do everything that they can to make it in person so we can just get to S you know but I do know that things do happen months thank you we're gonna turn over to Nick and jod they're gonna provide our first training yeah I so um hello again a brand new board member you find it in person Advance the correspond few times we'll be fighting that new board M trat you this week but the 26 wasn't yes Thursday yes THS good that out of the real quick um ah here we go so normally for a training like this we would want to spend weeks preparing just like we want weeks to be prepared and

008this is all kind of F into everyone's lap kind of quickly so we've put together what we think though for this first session in particular because the state's very careful to write specifically what they expect out of everything and um and it's actually going to be up here so we can go over Des it we're going to do the best we can to follow that but um for example roles and responsibilities which is one of the things they wanted us to talk about tonight most of you have heard a roles of responsibilities workshop at least once some of your multiple times me repeating the same stuff and you'll get this stuff later in the week to um repeat the same thing that's a couple things one it's sticking to law words Etc whereas what I

009wanted to do tonight is something that we talked about with boards in fact I was in Stanford Saturday morning um talking to them and I used the same presentation because they said we want we're a good board we want to get that we want to really figure out how to lead this District forward um so I use this and so think this is a maybe a better step in the way of how can we actually effectively govern this District we're going to also talk about um bylaws Jody's gonna read the conversation on that we are actually I think I put this in oh and ground was the same that we had the last time we want to keep this positive we want to be talking about what's happening in the future um it's not really

010an opportunity to keep going backwards but I and I I think you'll see the conversation will have will lend itself to thinking forward so I'd start with that um and we just try to respect each other we're aiming for this I'll paddling in the same direction I was in um this is talin about three or four years ago there was a huge conflict between the talin city counil or town Council and the Talon Board of Education they were having all kinds of conflict they weren't getting along well so they sat down together as as two groups working together and they came out with a working agreement so basic and I have a copy of that came all the way down here BR thank you I was superintendent but basically they just some ground rules that

011they came up with and they have these laminated on walls everywhere in town in the city Town Hall and then the board office building um but you know agreeing to engage with each other in a respectful professional open-minded manner listen understand share and share Etc you can read them um I'd like to think that it's in fact I think the state is sort of expecting at some point in the near future that you come up with this sort of set of expectations for yourselves that you'll hold yourselves to that'll be one of the expectations as the state has and I want to um I I brought this is jumbo was like the most famous in the world and that was part of um contribution to the world of circuses um we brought this in because

012we always want to remember there's an elephant that it isn't just that you're doing this training because you want to get better although I know you all want to be better and I don't mean we want to be better we want to be the best board stat our face were more challenges than probably any other District in the state anything you can learn from us to help you govern better simp be worth it so but we all always want to remember that there's people looking over our shoulders and they're um looking for a trip or a fall or a stumble so we want to do the very best we can for you and um we hope you'll join us with that and work together with us for this I lose focus there we go um

013so tonight we are going to talk about roles and responsibilities but a little bit different going to kind of talk about the difference between governance and management um talking about focusing on student achievement I know you have some incredible Financial issues and burdens that you're dealing with but the reason we're all here and the reason you the work you do today really has to as much as possible focus on your students and where they're going to be in 5 10 years um fixing a school district no matter where you are takes years the decisions you make today may not impact students in a classroom for two three years down the road so um how do we focus on student achievement in a way that will benefit everybody again that's part of what we're going to

014talk about tonight uh collaboration um we're going to do a little of that we actually have a session lined up later on that's going to be about the board superintendent relationship and so we'll focus on that more in another session um we have Dave Irwin who is part of your support team from the state department who's a retired superintendent and teaches other superintendents to work um he's agreed to be part of the train with us um we we also have when we do the financial part and Aaron um who is on the team as well and is expert in school finances anybody I know uh we're reaching out to him to see if we can get him to be part of that so we'll have the dates already lined up but you might see some

015shifting of who's available and what what when they will be here so yes well I didn't mean for you to stop your sentence but I I did have a question okay so well because I made this up to that point well when you say part of the team are you referring to the team that we were just informed of yes that sort of leadership team that's coming in I forget the title that they dat them yeah um but they they're the people that I know two of the four um are going to be doing everything in the best interest of your your District I I only know the other to my reputation I believe that would be the same with all of them there's no um you know agenda with them so we try to

016talk a little bit about the Corbin stuff Jody again it's going to talk about the bylaws and and whether it's written in bylaws or just some understandings with each other about how we're going to um work as a board and I as I said a couple of already said this this evening that things were already starting to be a little different um the state in their written expectations I think focused as much on how the board acts and what are doing that they want to see a coalescing of people working together and again I'm not the one that judges that but they're going to be looking at that and how effective you can be as govern a governing board we'll talk a little bit about effective meetings and we're going to set you up to

017do a board evaluation uh because that was again one of the expectations and writing by the state um this is a little different than the one we typically use with boards the one we usually use with boards is something that's great metric year to year to year this is kind of a pre or post and it's really going to deal with more um well we're going to hold that to later but it's really more how prepared are we as a board to function together so this is more about you as a group than does the board have policy manuals does the board do this does the board do that this is going to be more about when we work together how do we see each other and so that'll be something that we'll have for

018homework for the next session I just want to say very quickly the commissioner says that it's a technical assistance team that's what she call and that's the one I wish I had remember because since that okay and again this is what the state language said um valuation instrument that be used at the initial training to assess your current functioning and to set up some goals for the future that's going to we're going to give it out tonight and we'll have it back in that the beginning of our next session we'll start by talking about that and then hopefully from that come up with a couple action steps that you might want to do to try to meet that if you find that there's some shortcomings you want to address but again all this will do

019is help you identify what you think and then it's up to you to come up we help try to facilitate that but it's really your ideas and it's your thoughts that are going to be the ones that are going to do something we going to get a copy of that yes I have I've got the Powerpoint I've got copies of everything that yeah sentence that that you just slide right yeah it will be it's in the PowerPoint and I have we have it that's okay thank okay so um another thing in fact we can hand this one out right now again ability head Jo yes ni I'm trying for a while yes you imine we're looking for and not backward and when we do this performance self- evaluation and from what date are we looking

020at evaluating ourselves because it's different from November to December we it's one it's not quite the same kind of thing where we look back or look forward it's really your impressions of things I holding this at the end just park it for now um this is just again something that um this was from Ellington where they developed V this as a community then a lot of this stuff isn't just the Board of Education saying we have to talk about civility communities are doing that and you again you might think about doing something like this but bringing others into the fold you know make it about the shared government in in the c community for example um but I just share this because again jum over here for a second um the state's looking at seeing

021Civility and [Music] um I'm not judging commenting raising other than they have observed a need for some improvement so and if you're doing that already perfect we could always do better so let's uh I have to click in here so we start yeah if you just click in there it should come up to the next screen which will click that's not did you try clicking just inside the yeah goes next okay so M let's um we're just G to switch that one for a second yeah I have a hard time adjusting to the technology and S my apolog okay so um some of you have heard of the lighthouse project before um there's a program that was developed by the ion school boards Association the original research was about 20 years old and um but

022they look to determine where boards make in terms of improving student achievement because up until then there really wasn't any good solid research that looked at the effects of how boards operate compared to how students were formed and their study was is still being referenced all the time out of that study oh we're not in oh here we go perfect thank you um out of that study that came up with a couple different things that they noted were very important one was that there specific conditions and belief that exist in high achievement school districts regardless of the demographic student regardless of the economic situation in communities some work harder than others obviously but that there are there's research shows that if boards act a certain way there's much greater likelihood of improving student achievement and

023that's why we're all here the other thing that they determined and and that's a whole that's like weeks and weeks and weeks of workshops and that's we couldn't get done in a year we used to actually take two years to do this when we did this the district um but the other thing they came up with is that there are five very specific roles that boards play in high achieving school districts and it's a really good model for boards going forward so again instead of like you know here's what the law says here's this here's your Authority here's not you've heard that stuff before um we wanted to make this real and give you an idea of the potential if you do things a little differently perhaps um that you can achieve even more and

024so I want to go through this um this evening boom okay so wish I had a flip chart oh well it's too late no problem um I want to talk about building a house for a minute because um there's certain things you have to do when you build a house and I'd love for you to sort of throw out some ideas what are things that we need to do when you build a house you have a go Foundation foundation stol design design PL yeah yeah sorry framing framing yeah electrical insulation walls all of that stuff you have supplies materials budget budget absolutely and got to have the lands absolutely so um you caught most of them this is kind of my list you start with your blueprints you play u construction plan is a little

025different that's like a follow checklist and I'm going to go through that in a second um having adequate materials checking the work daily communicating with your subcontractors a lot of communication and then um there's a learning curve now um about well I lived in New Jersey for a couple years out the college back up to Connecticut and um with some help from my folks we decided we were going to build a house uh we found this land dirt sheap it's almost a but um and um we wanted to just build a basic starter home so and I my brother's wife's uncle built houses and he actually built one for my brother and he built it pretty cheap so I went to him and I said could you help us build a house he goes why

026don't you do it I've never built a house before he says you got all the resources available do it yourself so he gave me a set of blueprints for a house similar to the one we wanted and it worked for us he gave me a construction plan it was a paper spreadsheet because they didn't have Excel back then it was 1979 I think when we started um and it had everything you needed to do to build a house starting with purchase of land it was you know getting permits site workor because you have to dig all the land away put foundation and put the dirt back cement work every little component and there was a column for what you wanted to do calendar like when you would do it um what's it going to cost

027you know you could fill that thing out and know pretty much everything you had to do and once you had to do it and I did that we bought the land in August I spent a month or so um going through that list of hiring subcontractors and got it all together we broke around October 25th I think it was we moved in in January on January 30th so just like three months basically two two and a half months um nonstop and um the other advice he gave me was in back communication he said you want to get a job really done well show up every night when there's a crew on the site show up with a couple six packs of beer and they all to your don't do anything for you and they did

028I mean it was amazing we ended up by doing everything had planning and organizing getting everything lined up materials was all ready to go just had a a push a button and it all started to happen it went really really SL we were only $1,500 over budget when we were done and for building in house that's nothing um the job was that in fact a lot of the contractors because we spoke every afternoon the Mason for example I'll put up a chimney for $750 1979 prices but probably be 10,000 now but 750 he said but if you give me, 1500 I'll make this whole wall really beautiful Roman brick we'll put a heator on fireplace to whole bit because we were talking he tried to listen to my needs I explained myself to him we

029got there the the upshot is for a starter house we were going to live in for about five years we ended up staying in that house for 25 years because we got what we wanted the first time because we did all the the hard work up front just straight in here AR we um my my brother built a house around the same time they wanted to move out of that small house had and his wife inherited some property it was on a pond where I know somebody caught an 8B large amount of bass on there so I was I couldn't wait for him to move in there so that I could be in his backyard every night but um now the difference was he went out to dinner with his wife's cousin the son of

030the other Builder he built houss too they sat at the the table in the restaurant and she sketched out on the napkin what she wanted to house to look blank you can probably see where this is going already that was the plan they talk about oh yeah but we want this in this room this in that room but that was the plan so you know I show the picture of the framing in here here's an example of what he had to endure for this for this time it took him almost a year to move into the house too by the way walking around the brand you know called me they're frame in the house you want to come up and see it so we went over there we went to look at the house and

031my brother's looking around goes something's off he goes where's the stairs under of the basement they tell me you want stairs in the basement my brother should have been in the in the Navy because he can swear like a saem but um and he was right that night that afternoon um that was just one example of dozens of them throughout the year one day he called up screaming they painted the house screaming yellow I mean not B Camaro yellow almost the chrome color yellow um everything when when he finally moved in we had Christmas Eve at H's house and again they they did not spare a penny they put a lot of really nice stuff into it they had this beautiful kitchen with 10ft ceilings or 9ft ceilings and all bit but every time someone

032used the upstairs bathroom You' hear you had to stop talking because there was a pipe coming out of the ceiling in the kitchen and then over to the wall there's nobody in planned for pling pipes to be in the wall they sold the house within 3 years so all they put into it all the and my brother could not tell you to the to even within a $1,000 what he spent on that house he has no idea what he spent on that house that's the difference between working planning thinking through holding yourselves accountability you know checking with the work how are we doing and that's what we're going to talk about this evening I'm going to try to give you some ideas on how you can better hold people accountable hold yourselves accountable and and

033make this stuff worked keep losing focus F okay so um this is on right here PL everybody and I mentioned the lighthouse project came up with five goals of the board and what's interesting is that there are lots of different places that have organized like there's the eight characteristics highly effective school boards uh Franklin cubby has great boards which has five components to leadership the key work of school boards once off of five components um there's lots of people that have studied governance and Leadership and they almost look exactly the same in every case um the one difference is um while RSS setting clear expectations is Number One Vision all of the things that we're going to do um as being the number one important thing Franklin cabi says that the first important things to

034understand your roles but the second one is Happ in plan Vision so we're going to walk through these individually and talk a little bit about what the impact is for you and I'm trying to watch time because I only started a little late I want to make sure we have time to do the different things we're planning on tonight so I may work through some of this a little faster I'd rather everybody talk a little bit but um I want to make sure you get all the stuff that you tun to here so um but setting clear expectations when I talk about expectations goals Vision any of those words that we talk about to express what we're looking for I always use the word clear before I use the word so it's Clear Vision clear

035expectations um clear goals and the reason I do that is because I've seen boards and I've done goal setting with boards at dusens of times you write these really fancy goals on the wall or wherever you put them but then you have nine board members with a different interpretation of what that gold and then you ask the superintendent let's make this goal operational well if nine of you have different idea of what success means because you have nine ideas on what the goal means Dr Avery is going to be pretty tired of trying to figure out how to satisfy nine people when you have nine opinions on what what success means and so it's really more important to spend that time clearly articulating what you that and even to the point when you vote on

036things to say before we vote let's make sure we all understand that if we vote Yes this is what's going to happen or if we vote no this is what's going to happen so that we understand right up front we want make sure everybody's set up for success and not deliberately setting somebody up that you know I can't possibly win this fight and that's not been a work and it doesn't allow you to get the things you want done because that's the other part of this this becomes operational holding the system accountable we have to look at data we have to and we're going to go through each of these independently so just sort of setting them up um are we looking at the data are we setting our expectations because part of that Clear

037Vision is what you know this is what we expect but a very important question is how we going to know how do you know if we're going to get there and how are you going to be able to tell us so that we know we'll go through this again in a little more detail in a minute building public will so many of the things we all have to do and I was a board member for 10 years so I went through this myself um so much that we try to accomplish if we just go ahead and do it without involving our community there's a greater likelihood they're not going to bite into it that we need to have ownership in it so how do we involve the public before there's a problem um so that

038they can help us be ready for the solution because too many boards will sit there and go well we had a problem we had this so the superintendent came up with a plan and we're going out it toate but there wasn't any expectation from the community about we didn't even know there was a problem and um we'll follow up on this a little bit more in a bit and then finally and they were pretty good at that I've been out here A bunch myself over the last couple three years learning together as a board team board superintendent team and again the question about Dr raver coming in the more the team learns together the more effective the team you can be so I'm glad you're here um and um because he needs to hear what

039you hear too he needs to know and and push back frankly if I'm saying something that doesn't work here in richport because we can give you best practices we can tell you what we think is the best way to doing something but if you've found a way that's working better for you um f that gives us something to take back to other districts and share upon the first one setting clear expectations uh for the people that probably can't see this clearly on screen how you doing on your unspoken objectives by what I'm referring to the goals I have in mind that I've never mentioned how are those going I'm totally nailing them if you don't have clear goals how do we know if we're getting them and anybody can do anything they want and why

040meant the go maybe not so you don't want to set yourself up for this kind of situation so shared Vision that's your blueprint you know here's what we want to do typically what a board is going to and it have you're looking for goals that have systemic effect your superintendent will have more targeted um goals perhaps um but your need is to make sure that we set high expectations for the system system what can we do um part of the conversation may involve when you have to start making cuts and the importance of every component of that District so that we're balancing the needs all the way across the line as we go through it's not it's such a a challenge to make decisions like that um my first Year's board chair um and this

041was 1991 a long time ago some of you may not been born yet um got hit with a 10% budget gun back then there was no state law that said you had to hold Tess and maintain at least a minim them from last year we got cut 10% off a 0% increase we laid off 10% of our teachers we laid off every pair of professional we cut out all books library we had just instituted a plan to re rebuild our libraries of books within 10 years then we were even more ex we're going do it five years and we didn't around a minute 10 year planning because we couldn't do anything at first year I understand how tough it could be but we tried to make sure that whatever we did would not hold us

042back year after year that we had to maintain the momentum that we were trying to have I guess I might as well just wave right um this is right off the sheet so I don't need to read each one you have them in front of you um but the idea is really more than anything talking about we can do better we must do better and we to communicate with each other we have particularly um and not just the board amongst yourself yes your staff needs to know what you're thinking and I'm sure many of them do they watch your board meetings and you're at your board meetings you're sharing what you're thinking um so getting them on board is really important and we'll talk more about that when we get to that fourth item I

043can't stress it over and over I realize you're in a financial crisis right now I know that I I can Envision trying to do the things doing and and frankly unless there's some State intervention I'm not talking about leadership but I'm talking about money I don't know how you do it and and I think they understand I don't think they are willing to commit to it but I think they understand it I guess um I know we we're going to go through this and hopefully as we go through this we're going to talk about this what you just said because I've heard this discussion for years longer in some ways 40 well no my diet started in 1993 um I started working for the AFT Connecticut in 1989 I um so but here in bridg

044one um you know I notice it's the role of the board on this up there but it's the role of the board for improving student learning well as um Senator Austin said so clearly last week and I know she's not always on our side um but in this particular case she could not have articulated the conundrum or dilemma more clearly how are we supposed to improve student learning we don't have the resources to do it um and so you know that's been the con room for decades um and I remember when Fran none other than Fran rinit was superintendent here and she was born and raised here in the Brier panch um and for her Paul Dallas and Paul Dallas bought textbooks they were cutting edge textbooks in math that were proven within two years

045to not be Cutting Edge textbooks in that but she was locked in to the contract for years thereafter and we therefore as a district were locked in financially meanwhile we didn't have the money anyway to do anything and that just continues to be the cycle of not only do we not have the resources but we get caught in situations where our resources are squandered in bad ways crippling us even further um and until we get out of that cycle of dis of of economic dysfunction you can't turn around and say and and then you know in the hearing last week at the end I I was listening to teachers throughout that hearing testify about the teacher retirement fund the teachers that do decide to stay in this system stay at their C at their own

046cost um and so you know I I'm not sure that there's a magic formula that says teach better teach in a way that nobody's ever thought of and and then we use a system that we can argue is not the right way to measure so and just Within These parameters I just want to say that I'm going to listen and we're going to have this discussion but the state department event is asking us to um come up with miraculous ways to perform a sorry I'll leave it down not um and and we aren't going to solve that issue in this train in this in this room I got tonight and that's also not our role to figure out that Mir Mir but you're absolutely right although part of it is to maintain what our priorities

047are so whatever we have it is putting a patch on it or putting a bandaid on it we have to figure out how with all of that there's no argument that some of that stuff has to take a priority right now but we never want to lose sight of the fact that whatever we had whatever we do right now can't affect just tomorrow do it has to affect two years 5 years 10 years down the road and I'm hoping some of that will which is why we root that hearing on Thursday could and and the more people that do things like that uh the better yeah so um again I I don't want to go through this too much the other place that we want to make sure that we're talking about reflecting expectations is

048in policy and Jody's going to talk about bylaw tonight but he will be also coming back and talking about policy because that was another requirement in the state to had that conversation you are under contract with Cade to have your total Landing rebuilt and actually be talking about that later so steal his Thunder let him talk about it so anyway first expectation set in clear expectations that's the first role and we are at some point in this training going to be talking more specifically about that what that would look like here we're not going to do that tonight but we're going to set up for that in another one of the sessions he'll be talking more about setting Vision talk about you know when you have a goal who's it for who's going to do

049it what's the outcome etc etc um those are things that you work in conjunction in conjunction with your superintendent who's working in conjunction with staff your big question just like if you know Simon synic there's the why there's the how and and the when those others really are the superintendent's responsibility but it starts with figureing out what do we really need what is our why what is it we have to do in each of these more homework Jody related to that five rals we created um a little worksheet with each of these roles we' come up with a question and these five questions are something that you should ask for every time board has something to consider starting with what are our greatest hopes for this District what is it we're expecting you know if

050you're talking about readings what do we expect to see out of reading um if we're talking about a new facility what do we expect to see what is the what's the um benefit of this how are we going to do it really important question to ask and it's the first one on the list and so if you're debating or looking at a specific issue you start Mak five questions and try to um pinpoint what it is in each starting with Clear Vision second one is create conditions for Success it's one thing to say and you've heard me say Let There be like you know how many school board members doesn't take SC light B none it's up to the board and say let there be light so um the board says let there be light

051and then it's a superintendent's job to figure out is it going to be incandescent fluorescent Etc um but it's not enough to just say let there be light the superintendent is going to have needs to make that happen whether you need if it you use the light metaphor that we need electricity we need lighting we need Bulbs Etc Etc um but he's got to come back to you if you want this to be done here's what we're going to need to make it happen and it is one of the obligations of the board if we really want it to happen we've got to come up with the resources to make it happen there's actually and he had to be an educator um he came out and don't sit down JY wait just wait can just

052leave just wait there a gentleman who really who's really well known in education govern um circles his name was Richard Elmore he's written extensively on school govern School Bo actually helped with that Lighthouse study originally and he came and I say he had to be an educator because turn uses like and that's a lot of syllables now it's working sometimes okay reciprocity and accountability this two words to sort of supplement all of that you see in the writing is pressure and support the board creates pressure by setting expectations we set the goal we expect results back in terms of reporting periodically um how we going to know what's what are we seeing help us understand but the object of all that pressure is nothing if you you don't also provide the support to do it

053creating that safe space to experiment you know Mr trer you were talking before about letting teachers come up with new ways of teaching well if a district is so starred for resently it might be a little hesitant to do that so how do we think bravely and maybe you can do it cheaper as a matter of fact but you have to create that environment that allows that and sometimes that's the board that does Bo say we're not we don't want change or we're not comfortable doing something without a lot of research behind it that's what you're going to so part of it is being bold being supportive of um those initiatives but it starts with time con make the connection for me here's what we wanted to do here's our vision here's we plan on

054doing it here's you've now expressed to us what we need to do to provide support for that it all ties together it's really not linear as much as kind of I call it Birds nness it's just all the pieces are combined and are inter wolfing with each other just really hard to talk about if you don't make it liter but you have that equal and complimentary responsibility that you have the capacity for what I ask you to do really important this is also on your sheet basically um making sure that your board actions align with that this is kind of the work of the board you know setting the vision all those things set up for it but the decisions you actually make dayto day when you're talking about changing where the money gets spent

055or even creating that fiscal plan I don't like using the word budget an itemized estimate of expenditures but um whatever you want to call it you need to align that and that should also be part of our vision so it's one thing to and again I know you're in a hard place right now just trying to balance ones and zeros and things but how do we make sure that that is aligned with our expectations it's all based on that Vision by the way I'm I'm walking through this a little quicker because I don't want to spend the most time on this um I spent three hours doing this in Stanford by Saturday so you can make this a much more interactive thing I'll try to get some places where we can talk more but I

056want to get through this first then the big question you want to ask second one on a little cheap what are we willing to support to ensure the expectations that best what are we willing to support if you have this really high high level expectation but you know you don't have the resources you have to think about okay does that mean do we set it up for failure because if we don't have the resources it will fail or is there another alternative I give you an example of that from maybe about well it started about 20 years ago um there was a district that every year they fought over whether they should have all their kindergarten that and the folks that were thinking about money it's twice as much money literally um we need twice

057as many teachers twice as many classrooms Etc um we can't afford it and the other half of the board saying but we know that if it's done well and that's a big qualifier it can cut back on remediation afterwards there's a lot of things that it helps especially when we talk about children needing to read by the end of fourth by the end of third grade or in fourth grade um the more we can apply early the better so there there are times when we want to get that stuff done um in this case though every year been proposed it every year it failed and for 10 years they didn't have all the kindergart but guess what they didn't have anything else either because that was their Vision was the kindergarten not literacy numeracy Etc

058and the superintendent tried to break that cycle so they actually did a retreat with all their administrators I had the pleasure of facilitating that it was really informative for me but I I started by saying we're not here to talk about Solutions today we're here to talk about what the problems are so if you say out a um a solution I'm going to stop you I want figure out what the actual problems are so I opened it up to the floor firstand up problem is we need all the can that's a solution what's the problem we need more time s like a solution what's the problem took them about 45 minutes to an hour to figure out that it was literacy in numeracy all the administrators in the room agreed that in our district literacy

059in numeracy and the problem we need kids with better math skills better reading and writing skills wow so now because that became the focus the board set a goal for literacy in numeracy they didn't get all their kindergarten for probably another three or four years but they had literacy and numeracy programs from that day forward so they started attacking the problem rather than getting caught up in a solution so that's why I say if your goal is to do something it maybe we have to take smaller incremental steps and again that's the challenge to your superintendent to bring you those ideas you still shouldn't be talking about how we do this what kind of teaching do we do all that even if you're a classroom teacher in your day job you shouldn't be setting curriculum

060and expectations in the classroom but setting keeping that high level um focus and let your Administration do that work with STA and the more inclusive that process is the better can't do it without accountability sort of leading through you know what do we want to do do we have the resources for it how are we going to know in my mind if I ever get back on the board and I'd love to do it when I retire but that might be 20 years from the um the idea is that you have to help me understand what it is how we going to first of all what's the expectation but how we going to know how will we know that if we implement this program that the reading or mass for or whatever will achieve the

061goals or the expectations you've set in your proposal and when it will it be reported to the board I want that right up front I want to know that are she getting regular reports and they don't have to be 45 minute detailed presentations might be part of the superintendent report that and I just want you to know we just got a that Source back we've had a 3 or 4% we'll be talking about that later in the year when we give you on it but we did have some success because the decision you made or just as important what happens if the decision we made it's it's not going really the way we expected it well you shouldn't have a superintendent afraid to bring that news key because we're all working with the best intentions

062if we messed up come back to you and say this isn't working the way we want we' like to adjust a little bit are we okay for that so that we this um laye free zone and we can talk about because I've seen too many districts where if they know they're going to get beat up giv you bad news they're just not going to give you bad news I was working on District which was an alliance District this we went in and shoved them some of their data and one board member looked at said I've been on this 20 board 20 years why didn't I know this until now you know because the superintendent was afraid to give information that if they had addressed it might have held casid for that last 20 years so

063how are we going to know um you really want to get to well s stole my thunder you want to create a blame free zone you want to use data and we didn't have this in our plan but we could come back and talk about how to look at data more effectively as a board you know what does a board need to look at we've done that for a number of years back to your sort of pressure and support monitoring progress regularly and again that's really an important part of being a board is not just saying what they be like but help us understand did we get the the loons that we wanted you know um remember when I was on a building committee for a school we had two the committee tour the school

064just before it opened and one committee look at those light fixtures they're really ugly can we do something about those a wire exposed I just don't think but another person who wasn't educator in her day job walked around going look how well lit this room is look how even the lighting is I can put a piece of paper down on this desk and there's no glare you know who do you want it to be when you're looking at the results of a project like that at your level it should be do we have an environment that's conducive to learning or are there issues with that um if we get tied up in the way the light fixtures work we may get bogg down with things that really aren't necessary Sledgehammer or flashlight what do we

065want data to be do we want to illuminate what we're doing do we want to be able to shine a light on the things that need to be shined up or do we want to beat somebody up so bad I have had superintendents on numerous occasion Say by administrators will not present to the board they refuse because they know they're going to get beat up when they stand up in front of the board and that's not a place you want to be you don't want to be that Bor nothing says you can't ask tough questions nothing says you shouldn't push bet holding them accountable you know pressure and support but how you go about doing that can have a profound influence on whether they're going to bring me this something that they you need to

066hear my favorite question again I'll go on the board just to ask this question every time about me to but I would say and hopefully what happens is as you keep asking these questions Administration said oh you know what anytime I present in the board I know they're going to ask these questions so I'm going to answer them before I walk in the room they'll be answered in the presentation every time I'm going to share another document in a few minutes it does something similar to that um I did bring it okay um what will we accept is evidence of prodcts so we want to know and we want regular reports on these things and we ask for that upfront this rep we'll get a report on this in six months one year or every

067six months thereafter whatever makes sense for that particular initiative building public you can't do any of the stuff if your community is not behind you you just can but what do we have to do to make sure that the community supports this um about seven years ago I think it was I noticed on the front page of the Harford cor back when they had a newspaper instead of just online um there was an article on the front page it said Harford was closing I'm going to say 17 schools um it was part of a plan it was all this was the final result the board voted to I'm going to say 17 schools it may have been a few less than that but I think it was 17 not one out cry now one group

068got up and started screaming about closing all these schools and that's unusual because usually we have our neighborhood schools um and I know some you been dealing with some of that here but they did all of the work UPF front they got the community involved they didn't go to the community and say we study this we have um half empty buildings we have we can't equate the amount of money into the facilities we'd rather put it into teachers so they did all that work up front they had community members involved and they didn't say we think this is the way to go they said help us solve this problem here are the things the challenges we have let's work together and come up with it they could have written that report on day one and

069they probably it would have probably looked almost exactly to what they got but they recognized that the community was see own it or they going to hate it and they chose they wanted them to own it and they did and they got it done with no outcry whatsoever so that's an example of where we use our community we help them you know we use the three eyes we talk about community community involvement most people never get past step step one in four we use um social media we use press releases we use our communication it's all one way we're disseminating information we've got great schools we just passed this test we got awardwinning program in arts whatever it might be but all our communication is one way and the research shows that when there's when

070we involve people that we have the feedback as part of the initial discussion um focus groups whatever you might use you get a better product and you get more ownership I've seen too many superintendents go through all the work we and they work really hard they come up with the plan that is the right plan but they spray it on everybody and then immediate push back we all we all reject change if it's imposed on us without any P without any say so part and this is probably where the board has the most impact that if you communicate collectively as a group um to get people to understand what you're doing and why it's happening and get that feedback you're much better shaped and then invested because good communication isn't so you know too many

071districts well in the smaller districts it might be the high school principal those a couple reporters they're sort of our Communications person or the Middle School um media person is really good at websites so they're going to handle the social media but they're not professionals and the communication is so sophisticated now um just look at the way especially with all the disinformation that gets out there on a daily basis we need clear Communications that is professional so um it might be that you have and I know this is a tough thing to say when you're dealing with money issues but if you're not investing in communication and I'm not talking tons of money but you might need a in fact assuming you have somebody in bridgport that handles Communications um but even too do your

072building principles have they ever received any professional development in communication because that's a skill they need does your superintendent feel the need to you know I might want to touch that up maybe take a course or something to get better um but be cognizant that the more we know the better we can be so how do we invest in some of this stuff to make it happen creating awareness of the need we want people to understand we have an issue not we have a solution start with what's the problem get people to help solve that for with you a word that if we had time we would have spent more time taking like getting words urgency comes up a lot we have to create a sense of urgency I can't think of a community that

073has a greater need or set sense of urgency than yours in terms of the needs and all the things how do we communicate that in a way that people will come in and support us um you have to give people the chance to feel hope that there is solution that we can make this happen if we all like mind and want to work hard together so we can make a difference and in all of these things there's there's a component in every one of these alignance with policy because in this case for example do you have policies on good Communications do you have policies on on looking at data do you have policies on um you know your role as a provider of resources you I'm sure have many these but once last time you

074looked at well I know J's going to be looking at re are absolutely um the question you're asking is what will we need to do to gain community support for this work and back to our worksheet we're going down the line when there's a proposal and we're asked answering these questions it's going to help us Focus what we need to do then finally learning together as a board team I cannot say you know anything bad about the fact that I have been asked to come out of here I think this is my 16th oh sorry it's my it'll be 14 um soon but um you're looking for professional development for the board for the team and the more you because when you're getting that um support collectively together um it's a better experience for everybody

075and you get to walk away from this all hearing the same things and all sort of hopefully coming to some similar conclusions um you've been doing this establishing learning time working together um I don't know terms of opportunities where because a lot of what we've been doing is me coming out talking about stuff um but where you have some sessions where you just sit down and maybe there's a facilitator I love doing that kind of work where I keep my mouth shut and I encourage you to talk to each other those are the conversations that can help move the school district forward when we start to see common around with each other and um be willing to lead but also allowing others to lead that our job is to create a good leader creates other

076leaders and and works collaboratively when it's time to follow you follow um one of the things well Joey I'll let you talk about the policy stuff I was just going to say there's a sort of expectation of deliberative policy development we're not writing policies to satisfy State legislation or you know something else that policy is all we got to rewrite it but when we have intentions when we have a vision for something how do we codify that in policy so that remains after we're no longer on the board um and simple question but what information does the board need to ensure the right decisions are made how are we going to you know what do we need to know what is it we need to know um doesn't hurt to or if one of you

077has an idea maybe we should have a workshop on this or that you know share it and and talk to the chair and say you maybe we should do this and and it's tap somebody else there are lots of places you can get professional development from but to see if you can continue on that you know you're or you're governing a learning uh environment so why not also set an example of be learning team so in a way blueprints the plan construction plan is you know the way we articulate it um and also providing the resources so that's that continuity um or accountability um checking the work daily there must be analysis there must be assessment from time the district's doing it all the time and you don't need to see every single test result

078because that can be overwhelming and it allows for micromanaging sometimes but to note I I really want to know more than anything that my administrators are looking at that data and they're informing instruction through what they learn from those that data not necessarily that we need to know all that but we do have to have enough of an understanding that those assessments are being done and they are affecting how children are learning in the classroom you've got that sheet you've got that sheet and the other one I'm going to give you right now this one's developed as part of light house as well a lot of it was done in Iowa but um we all take any of the lious documents and embellish this back page is really the part that's most important the front

079page just explains it but um what I often hear is board members say you know I got a presentation on this but then we spend 50 20 minutes an hour asking questions and sometimes I know I always ask the same questions some employ members have a certain thing that they're always trying to understand when they vote Yes or no so this is a way of codifying in this case seven questions and you'd have the option of doing know making your own or using something like this but the administration gets a copy of that and they tell everyone who's going to present to the board these are the seven questions that are going to be answered in every presentation does mean you have to bury people with data but that with you know and these are

080samples you could say I like these what we want to use you might say to maybe the policy committee we want to change a couple things around but the idea that everybody there's no secrets there's no surpr we know we're going to ask these questions every time and it helps your administration because they're not in some cases frustrating because they know you ask the same question every time in this way not here right so I take that as a tool that you can use I think it does help boards function um a little more a little more easily during board meetings because those are things you don't have to constantly be harping on now um before we could get I'm sort of stuck on a time thing because we had um another hour and a

081half roughly in this first section any takeaways anything that you um think needs more exploration or waste of time um bu and feed that shy hold on R stubborn I'm not going to say anything until I hear somebody say something something about all just feedback on what we just went over hopeful not I think it's duplicative like this before it hasn't been done so at least for this initial S and we haven't done that we had this critical failure I think that everything that you talked about is um necessary and I understand the blueprint but without like a bare minimum line of respect for one another that's what I think the challenge is with through and you know kind of carrying out what it is that you just spoke about so that's so one just

082one of the expectations of the state was that you come up with um this evaluation that we're going to talk about at the end of the session for your homework but that from that you develop some plans or some action items which could very well be some continuation of a conversation about how we get there because I I think think everybody would agree that uh the way things have [Music] been doesn't necessarily sustain oh I think as I said in the first board meeting when we were asked up in January to meet with you uh members of the State Department of Ed for what we thought was going to be a Fray discussion I spoke to the assistant I think or Deputy superintendent bling on his name right moving in more more constructive and um

083so we're not for the last year had begun to take the steps necessary to move us in that direction and believe that we are now moving in that direction and having more constructive meetings and beginning to take those steps I spoke to him again at the second full board meeting um he he himself had watched the videos of our meeting and understood my comments and uh that was the gist of my statement to the full board was that we had taken steps to correct the problems and while we were addressing the needs this will be helpful but we are already moving in that direction we so weing be I'm going to need the one that says effective meetings next okay was this um a wasted time for you tonight just check it because um I'm

084I'm trying I didn't want to just go state law says you have this and you have to do this I try to make this get beyond the bare minimum and talking about what fors do that are really need B changes you wasting time you're here to help us everybody need help it's like we doing baby baby step as a father we I know everybody here parent um we we show and we learn and we help our kids grow up right not because we got title position or you in college you got degree this you know everything we have to listen have to uh learn from others you know and the most important I will say listen others you can learn and help others so for me it's amazing I'm listening to you just because I

085didn't say nothing and just get all your information you know me for so many years I like to listen so it's a great it's great um you're doing this for us because you know we need to learn we do have to understand we have to communicate and we need to respect each other that's why we got elected for the community they trust us so same way you know you trust us we trust you but we try to do the best we can for for this you things I was just about to say I agree with Mr benan um I don't think anybody around this table thinks that this is a waste of time for you or for us um I think that we are all different people we process your information different and if we

086may not have anything to say right now you know things will definitely come up throughout your presentation um so just because we're quiet right now just for me like being on the board for the last two years for the ones that have been on here as long as I have I've noticed that you know the information is processed and then questions will flow you know along the presentation so I agree with Mr benan definitely not a waste of time um I think that everybody's here because they want to be here and I personally welcome the help of the state of Connecticut I really want to know what are other districts doing around the state that's working you know what are they doing that's working and what we can incorporate um you know to curtail it

087to what Bridgeport needs so definitely not a waste of time there's ton of us in the room and and for me the Bible says there wisdom in the Cil Med so no one here I think is a unuseful tool including you gentlemen but this is definitely helpful and I see a lot of things that can be highlighted that think that we can actually Implement now um and I'm hopeful and now always stay hopeful but it's just for me to be able to to build something um in East that foundation and sometimes we need to get to the basement to get things out before you rebuild because then you have the same stench in the bottom and it's that thing you know there say saying out there that One Bad Apple Sports a bunch you know

088and but I don't think that we are in this room whatsoever in every capacity in this room that we're not useful tools for this process it's just a matter that we see ourselves as they useful to and we give ourselves an opportunity and I think that might be something that we got to grade oursel honestly that we haven't been useful for each other and that will be something that we can all see that we can grow as a as a unit as a board and also as a district how can we use ourselves you know for our talents because every single one of us has a talent has a gift and until we realize that we can be useful for each other and put that in the table I don't think it's going to be

089harder to process until we get those people out and new people come in that are willing to do that work that kind of work to use each other for our best of our abilities you know um because we're all useful in this in this state in this group I I believe that wholeheartedly it's just a matter of trusting each other and wanting to say let's move forward um as far as wanting to be here I wish we didn't have to be here but since we are here we take full advantage of it and I think it very beneficial even though some of us may have heard the information before for first second time or whatever have you I think it's very important to put the accountability piece there a lot of people watching us now

090so the public is tuning in right now learning what board should do and then they can hold us accountable later on down the line because ultimate accountability is to the people who elect us well I I just wanted one small caveat to that because unlike other Municipal Municipal officials your primary charge is to implement the educational interest of the state so sometimes that interest doesn't necessarily duvail with the interest of the community and so that's and that's a dilemma because if you feel I don't want to do things that will harm my community members and yet you are obligated to do something to satisfy the state that part of your job as a board is to balance the two and figure out how do we make this work the best we can right and that

091goes to the communication piece if you communicate with your constituents and build a level of trust with constituents they'll be more app to have the Buy in if you included in those conversations and why it's not in the best interest it's interesting you mentioned that point about we're here to facilitate what the state wants us to complete as a task but yet that set forth mandates that they don't fund and this is one of the biggest thing that we got you know the elephant in the room again you know besides the one that you have in front of you that's the that's the issue you know what I mean and then you have people making statements as you know maximizing what you have when you got great Advocates that literally State well you can't maximize

092something that you already are short you know I need $100 to pay my bills I only have 90 but then somebody's telling me do this can I borrow 10 I'm already short 10 to pay my bills how am I not going to give you 10 when I'm already short um and that's you know that's the predicament you know that we're in as far as brisport is concerned so it's just it's crazy that we got and I've never heard that statement before so that's an interesting statement you said we he to do what state is calling us to Che and but yet they don't it was a material like you said in your slide the material to build a house with only four Stick so forth yeah I would agree with on this like you know

093I think this is like useful information even if we had it before um you know we talked ni about you know looking at what other districts we're doing that are doing well so that we can kind of you know we don't have to reinvent the wheel here like there's districts doing things really well let's see what we can do to ctail it to what we need but also you know actually not sit here and do a training again but actually Implement what we're doing so you know my take from this is like I'm I'm processing like you said a little longer but it's because I'm also thinking about how we're going to start implementing this before July 1 like you know just because we have these training doesn't mean we're gonna hold off everything and

094then after July 1 we start actually we need to start doing this stuff now and so um that's that's where I am right now like taking all this information and also just because we had this training board doesn't mean that you know we've done anything with it and that's what we have to do now is do this something with it one of the things that um and think Jen you and I talked about this that there's a potential that these are the six mandated trainings but if the board finds that this is particular area they want to follow up on in more detail we can do that too so you know and it might be that maybe it's after July 1st when you finished all this but to continue this work and that's you going

095start having conversation about okay how are we going to do this how are we going to do that um we're agree you know now that you can always pick up the phone and we respond so we do the best we can I'm G to segue oh tools one I mentioned earlier there's three things we were going to try to accomplish tonight one was sort of the sort of rough overview in a different perspective of the role of the board secondly there was a request by the state to talk about effective meetings and Robert sches um I don't want to focus too much on Robert sches because um Robert jwes is designed to help the flow of business but robertt jwes can also interrupt the flow of business and it's used in a different way and

096I think it's more important that we talk about why it's important that our meetings run smoothly and sort of some of the discussion about that um we can talk a little bit more about Robert Jules if necessary but you know and observed a couple of your meetings um you know and sometimes the argument about whether something is in order or not becomes more it takes control of what we were trying to accomplish and so I think starting with idea that the meeting is to help us get our work done and if we're going to get into even if we're right is it worth all of the fighting to get a point get that credit for having the right Point um or is it more important that we use these rules this procedure to allow the

097work to get done because at the end of the night somebody's going to probably feel angry because I lost or I won or I felt I lost or I won someone might feel better but did we get the work done that was supposed to get done then we find ourselves stuck again we have to do it next Meek so I want to talk a little bit about meetings in general and kind of what the purpose of them are to get us started in that conversation that's okay so even though this says Roberts Rules of Order we're going to be talking about um meetings and we'll start with good on Mark TW well it's ATT tributed to Mark Twain I've never seen the direct quote school boards of groups that take hours to produce me un

098and um that's been around a long time and unfortunately I've seen that happen a number of times so simple why did the Bridgeport Public Schools exist teach children teach children produce the next generation of functional adults into society not just merely teaching him but actually being prepared to to actually make a living an actual lifestyle not live in poverty not to continue the cycle of relying on public resources you know education here is supposed to prepare the Next Generation to overcome whatever their parents obstacles were and actually prepare them for generational wealth and actually becoming somebody um if that's what any school district exists to do when it comes to it what do Bridgeport Public Schools exist I won't say my honest answer because we're live in public but I don't feel like we produce

099that goal for our students here at Bridgeport instead we produce a working class for Fairfield County and that our kids are set up to fail and it shows in the data I used to say that I my idea of what school districts are supposed to do is creating the next generation of school board members because um although this board was kind of unique because when I usually when I start I say you know why do you want to run for the school board and most people say I had a great education I want to pay it forward to the next Generation but when I was here in Bridgeport I've heard a lot more of I went through the Bridgeport Public Schools I had of that experience and I don't want that to happen to the

100Next Generation and I heard that from a few of you so that's a different response but it's urgent it's more urgent and so um the but the idea of lifting everyone up and um it's super critical anybody else to like kind she said to build the Next Generation to build the community economically to develop you know um you know better leaders so next question why does the Bridge Port board of education exist to educate our children to to be better leaders for tomorrow for the future of our our city support and Trust in the superintendent the one employee that we've hired to move whatever vision and goal that we have forward we want go beyond that the simple and I'm happy to do that I think wisdom's broader answers the job is to teach our

101children the school system is to teach our children so that they can Thrive and Sude succeed in our society and realize their dreams uh as all children should be allowed to do in our society that's what a public education is to me um uh and so our job is to ensure that that happens we exist as a body to to bring education forward in our community that's why we exist I read it again and then I kind of like wait a minute ask why do we exist and we were elected to do this to this job to move the district's education uh platform forward to the next generation your answer right back answer carry out the education mandate to the statement part of it that's in their eyes that's the most important part of it

102I don't think that um most if that was all it was I don't think with e school boards you know that you could have people paid employees get those directives and make that happen the difference is that if you want to um bring on all these other these aspirations that you've been talking about um that's why boards exist and you know periodically over the years there's been moves to say we really don't need school boards to get in the way the part of the problem etc etc and yet um there's quite an amount of evidence in the last five or 10 years that's been done a lot of people going for graduate degrees do these research projects and they they find this stuff but um that school boards can't make an incredible difference they don't

103always make an incredible difference but they can make an incredible difference and so whenever there's an outcry that you know it's a um it's an agonism it's just outdated it's out um the research to say the opposite that without a board of education really leading and governing you can't have that stuff so you know you're stuck in this morass because there's this money problem it's kind of hanging out there over everything and yet to be able to govern and and even if it's one step forward two steps back but at least we're taking that step forward that if you keep doing that maybe then it's two steps forward one step back but then you have to be unv lenting in in your energy and your passion to do this work and that's a word that's

104not always used but the best Schoolboard members have passion for their work one of the big reason as you said that question why does the first war education sense because the parents because without parents we not be be here I feel the parent out there they want or you know us work very hard to whole team modifications to be sure our school didn't have good you know present and future to be ready you know because we without parent you know this they're the one to elect us they're the one to trust us to be sure you know we can give you know help any give whatever we have to do to our children get to F home so I'm always say without our parents we cannot get for now we go to a logical question

105from there how do you do your work what's the vehicle by which the British cour board of education does its work sitting in a board meeting researching before the board meeting meetings absolutely but that's a good good point to doing the research ahead of time we you know when before electronic um agendas we all had the board packing and I don't know if you ever noticed but board packets are usually glued shut they seal the envelopes you know why they do that because at the beginning of Schoolboard meetings very frustrating sounds opening up that board packet have the meeting if people and your you know your staff Works hours to prepare for a board meeting put those packets together is an incredible amount of work um your central office basically stops dead for a day

106or two before a board meeting or or subcommittee meeting for that matter it takes a lot of effort to prepare for a meeting they have to orchestrate it they have to figure out who's going to present when how long is it going to be it's not something that we just throw everybody in the room and say let's make it happen there's a lot of preparation and then if you don't even prepare and do that research do that you know read the packet um we end up not doing anybody a favor because then we had one guy who never read the pet and every time he ask questions that were answered in the T and the rest of us are sitting there for an extra hour at a meeting and finally I this guy Jim who's

107on a friend of mine on the board he finally got to the point if you read your patent you would have known that and he said it every single time and after a while I just shamed the person into certain to read pack but really really important to to approach the meeting because that is the place where you do the important work in the district so um what is a meeting simp start what's the meeting assembly of a quorum discussing business at a board yeah it's it's group of people getting together in this case if you're going by the legal definition of a meeting under Freedom of Information Forum hosted meeting etc etc so there are rules governing when and where you can meet um and what you can talk about in some cases but

108um it starts with we have yeah go ahead oh we have this requirement or this need to make decisions and so that meeting is where we make our decisions yeah it's just focusing on the business just the achievement not sure why you use the word achievement versus business well L of boards never talk about St achievement I got that I understand that and and thanks we suff in that TR the past year but yeah my past two months yeah so I pleas last year um so I'm but the business because the budget's another aspect of it and I wouldn't call that an achievement but that's part of that obligation to provide the resources you know what what we want I I understand that's part of our duty by law so I'm just saying I I

109wouldn't but but the Public's perception of the work you do is really focused primarily through what observing your meetings I mean they see the results and and the votes if they read the agendas or the minutes for example but the public display of your work is your needs I I agree but if you use just the word achievement I would have said business focusing on business of the board which would include achievement and budget and whatever else but again if we kind of go back to that first presentation the boards that have the most influence on student achievement make that the focus of the of the meeting the business is there to support that okay okay um how do you um how do you what's the roadmap for your meeting agenda agenda most important thing

110that you've got in a meeting is the agenda the purpose of the board meeting is to complete the agenda I mean ultimately that's really what you're supposed to do well on that not if in the agenda you're not talking about is not lying to talk about uh achievement then you can't talk about achievement because the agenda rules what you talk about in in the leeting correct but you with specific things regarding achievement on on the agenda that's I'm saying it's not in the agenda you can't speak about it you have to put it on the agenda that's that's which blue exactly that's our blue that's our guide so if you put it as a subject we got no nothing else but to talk about it true that's B every line item on an agenda is

111tied to achievement why are we voting on this business item is tied to achievement so whether it's a professional development because individuals are behind or may be helpful that's all tied to student achievement and so when the board isn't asking how does this relate if they don't see that to student achievement that opportunity for discussion is always there to discuss how it will impact student achievement why are we V voting for this new online curriculum tied to achievement what's our current test status so it's really everything is focused on achievement it's really a successful board that's going to ask the question that ties into it and does the research to know the history of it so every item is focused on achievement why why do we need to buy this this new online program how

112much is it going to cost how much impact will it have um how many students will it impact so uh what's the data on it how many students have used it have the test scores gone up since using it what's the feedback from the parents and family but if the board is not actively focusing on achievement and asking questions tied to that it doesn't seem like it's a tied to student achievement at all but just business so I agree with the identification of focusing on achievement I just would emphasize student achievement I think the emphasis is the important part I I know board CHS that uh Gary brochu who has been an attorney for a number of years was the chair of the Berlin board and he worked with the superintendent and nothing goes on

113the agenda unless we can make a direct connection to student achievement and um and yes that's a goal and sometimes there are things that have to filter through that maybe are a building issue whatever to con's point you still can make the reference to this is how it impacts achievement but that was the focus of the board and I guess back to the argument if you want to be that board that is rising above just paddling against the tide that's one way to do that by focusing and and asking those questions that Christine mentioned you know how does this connect show draw the lines for me so that I understand it because if I don't if I can't make the connection to how it helps kids that's what's going to trigger me to say maybe

114this isn't worth having at the board T and that that's where you get into the the comment you made earlier regard regarding data as as the search light right so so meetings you would expect there to be board meetings that that aren't just simply adopting the textbook but you're getting data back from the math department on the on the on the student assessments what it means and for you and for you to be able to ask questions about how that data connects to the book itself and did you make the right decision are there other decisions you need to make as a board to to facilitate that continued that that continued achievement and growth is part of your qu the questions had is some things that literally align to that like you know to that

115thing so that's an interesting thing that I think that good tool in a sense that oh we can implement this exact me right now and it's a is one way to get that moving forward absolutely you could just adap you know share that with Dr angry he's got it but just to say we love to see this start to get implemented and and he's going to work with his administrators when you these are how we're going to start preparing for board meetings um but it's the maybe this should say emphasis on achievement rather than focus on achievement I'm not sure if semantics but in student achievement yeah um and then in terms of um some issues around me try to highlight a few I don't want to lose the time with Jody because um one

116of the expectations State EV to have a conversation about invital us tonight and I want be good fun and again my my time will just be could just be 20 minutes because we're not going to we're not going to um go line about line could go over your bylaws tonight the idea tonight is to look at what it says about your bylaws my immediate assessment of your bylaws good for they they they um they're in place since 2019 you are better than 90% of the districts in Connecticut regarding having updated bws DED February 13 2019 no 2023 2023 the ones that have posted online or okay so you are top 100% of districts in Connecticut that have updated vials so but but that makes a question so do you thought you had the most current

117copy and he doesn't obviously part of his review of the plan is whatever you get going to be 2025 but it's going to be based on something that we already exist so we're going to figure out again we're do tonight we're going to figure out what ground level is is engaged with a policy update custom policy update I can just take like five minutes I can give you give it right back to since you mentioned it yeah um so can I just finish this other discussion first when you have a meeting if you are focusing on achievement emphasizing achievement if it's not on the agenda per se does it make it old business or under the superintendent or important we can ask questions about them if an item has been passed if you have and

118you want to know more about say you know haven't heard anything in a while about this matter that we passed in October can we just ask the short answer is yes there maybe some question as to how the line of communication because every District's a little different but I that's a valid question for a board member to ask it what's where are you you know and we did now they but again if we're doing this the way I'm envisioning it trying to when we passed it it said we're going to get reports quarterly six months a year whatever then your job as a board say I'm just reminding us that we said we were going to have this report so you're holding people accountable at the same time you know trying to allow for that

119conversation um the process and procedure shouldn't be so stilted that a board member can't call the board chair and say we we haven't done this in a while can we get a future agenda item that does such and such um and then she's working with Dr Avery on the agenda that should be sort of a natural thing now it might be that that particular data isn't ready yet so we're going to but we will put it on an agenda in April or you know so you plan ahead um but and some boards actually have a calendar and they put right on the calendar we're going to get a report on special every third meeting in April or we're going to have a report on uh teacher evaluations in July um so that we start to

120plot out not only for us but for our Administration sake so they're not because if if every time there's a meeting someone says well what's this what's that he can't plan but if you start to say i' I'd like to follow up on this and with the understanding maybe it won't be the next meeting but it might be a quick five minutes we'll be preparing something in more detail at a future meeting but just you know this is where we are you know 10 seconds a minute um but the idea that you start you're focusing on results the superintendent is focusing on results we have better conversations and that's part of I think the protocols and the the 9000 Series where we start to talk about what's that chain of command look like what's that

121chain of communication that look like you're nodding a lot you no I mean but but there's there's still a lot of greatness in all of that you're saying until we get thing worked out you're never going to be able to do any of that because it's everybody's all up different places about what they want they want what they want when they want it and it just has to be done but there there's no time to get everything done because right everybody wants what they want when they want it and they want it now well well here's something and this might be a question that you put in your back pocket although it has to be used judiciously um is that the of the board because if you have nine board members and they're all calling

122you I want this I want that I want this um especially if it's not just a quick response or if it's you I'll just have you know Danielle send something out to you it might be this is going to involve research it's going to involve some work um it's okay for you to say uh you know what why don't you talk to Jen we'll talk about putting it on the agenda and if the board votes for that to happen it'll become my work and that's a message really for the board as much as to you because they need to understand that I shouldn't have the ability to just walk in and say drop everything I want this um some superintendent it's a board member I got to try but that's not fair to the superintendent

123it's not fair to the work that you're trying to get done because he's got a I think I used to be a PL and I could plan my first call every day my second call never went as planned because an emergency came up something else happened and I had to stop doing what I planned on doing to do something else every time you make a phone call and ask for something that's A disruption somebody told flone yeah as a person I know I know I ask you for things but if there's something I asked for that it's cumbersome it's not fingertip ready or something like that and you don't have the capacity to do that without sacrificing some other work I would be acceptable to an answer that that's more I'm ready to do right

124now um it's going to take away from all the resources if it's the as he says the will of the board and bring it on the agenda and then we could discuss it as a board and if it's important enough to the board maybe not important enough to you at that time which is acceptable there could be disagreements but five or six members of the board find that piece of information we want to move on immediately or whatever have you then you take it directly from the board not from me just directly asking you for a piece of information that's hard for you to get does that make sense it makes sense it doesn't work that way but it doesn't work that way so I'm just ask why well again we're talking about creating some

125bylaws down Road and that may be one that needs to be looked at a little bit what's the need when you want when you need something what's the line that you can't cross or can be reminded that's the line and I I can't do that and sometimes it's an example um District years ago um a board member who had no experience in healthcare by the way put in a request to the superintendent I want a copy of every nurses incident report for all of our eight elementary schools for the last six months now that information would have to be redacted first of all I mean you can't share student data health information any of that stuff so it would all to be redacted and the super and they had a weird policy said any request

126for information had to be followed up within uh I think it was two weeks so it couldn't happen so I ended up going on a Saturday to talk with the board about that because it blew up and um finally they acknowledged that one he didn't have the right to do that because it wasn't a piece of paper that existed that he could just asked for somebody had to do research somebody had to do all this work and that's when the board came up with that ground rule that anything that involved anything more than something already in existence hadn't go through the board now here's the thing that made it kind of real to me actually had a good point they had really bad budget time they were cutting everywhere they could so they said we

127have eight elementary schools why don't we have four nurs that will put them in the morning in one school the afternoon in the other school let's try it and he wanted to know is it working that should have been a two-minute phone call you know can we have something on with a report on the success so far or lack of it for the last six months that would have been something I'm sure the superintendent would have understood prepared something for that but he was going to do the research itself I don't know what he was going to get out of that we just LLY through it but the point was um they needed to hear that and the rest of the board had to empower the superintendent to be able to say that's got to

128go on the agenda or or help me understand what is you really trying to understand and maybe we give you that we've already kind of talked about this a lot the idea to keep the focus on student achievement it's really and that's part of the chair's job I want to remind this why we're here um and it just has to be what we do how do we relate it you can also put time limits on the agenda items you know 10 minutes 15 minutes the superintendent can to some extent control the presentation if you have a staff member you can say you got 10 minutes that's it and if they're going if they traditionally go over it well have a conversation with them and they won't do it twice maybe but you might take another

129hour asking questions and digging in but that's on you but you can set some expectations for the the meeting that will make it easier it's also easier for your staff because you know they're not trying trying to guess what's going to happen so a little more about meetings most Gatherings of the board are called meetings by law um if you are bringing the board together to discuss business you're subject to a bunch of different laws primarily Freedom of Information laws um and it's the chair's responsibility to see that that's done appropriately now we all because it's our meeting we all can help govern ourselves if I for instance I know if I'm chairing a meeting and I don't hear somebody over here talking to their neighbor I can't call them on it but you might

130see in said point of order we you know I can't hear or you know we got people talking on side our conversations need to stop it um so part of the responsibility of the chair for all the extra money you get for being a chair part of that that role uh there's special meetings special meetings can be called at any time and again I'm not trying to get into like 20 hour notice and all this stuff but just basically you have regular meetings you have special meetings regular meetings are on your calendar January 1st through the year people know that you can always like the third Tuesday or whatever it is is the night the board meets and they can anticipate that if I vote I can have an opportunity to look at the things

131on the agenda and talk about them special meetings can be called for anything the biggest difference with a special meeting is you can only talk about what's on the agenda in a regular meeting you can add things to the agenda through a two two3 vot but in a special meeting you cannot deviate from that agenda if you start talking about something that's off the off topic you have to be called out of order um and that's just the way whether it's a workshop a retreat grievance disciplinary hearing any of the things that aren't a regular meeting they're all special meetings I've been to Retreats of school boards and I'll walk in and I'll say do you have a copy of the agenda we don't have an agenda it's just a retreat did you post it

132no it's just a retreat you got to post every meeting um if no business is being done I mean when I approach something like that I'll still do the workshop even if it wasn't CL because they're just listening there's no passion taken somebody wanted to an foi complaint that probably win but um the reality is the commission's not interested in punishing our mistakes they if you do something in error they might look prescriptively and say well you shouldn't have voted in an executive session so at your next board meeting put it back on the agenda V ons again that's the kind of stuff the commission wants to do they're not trying to punish people for maybe honest mistakes if you delicately do things over and over again they might intercede a little bit more oh

133I should also point out I don't remember if there's a slide on it but there are also things that aren't meetings we have meetings and we have non- meetings this can get exasperating but non- meetings are meetings let's see the way I'm saying if you have a gathering of the board that falls outside of the Freedom of Information commission like hiring a superintendent for example um that or I think even evaluating the superintendent technically um I'm not sure about that one but hire an executive contract negotiations are not meetings under the eye of the law if you're negotiating with your teachers union that is not a public meeting it is not a meeting under the Freedom of Information commission a lot of boards just go into executive session for those types of things but the

134reality is it's a non-media and you're not subject to fi we've talked about the agenda that is the way you govern your meetings the agenda is the work of the district the purpose of your meeting is to complete the agenda that's why things like public comment all these other you know having students participate as as part of the meeting it's all real good stuff I mean it shows your community we have students who are talented they're going to sing or they're going to present about what's going on in the schools um we want student voice at our meetings all that stuff's important but the reality is um the reason we're here is to get the stuff done on the agenda and so that we have to sort of pace ourselves to make sure that all

135these other things don't take so much time that that we don't have time to do our work the work is why we're here um but I are we I want to make this valuable and this is kind of te stuff and I don't want to spend a lot of time on if you don't feel this is helpful I think sometimes it helps to just get a refresher but I want to we only have so much time together that I want to make sure that it's valuable to you maybe I'll throw the question out a different way if we were if I walked in and said we're going to talk about feedings right now what do you want to talk about what would I hear okay are you still read you want me to go a

136little bit further I'm hearing no I think you should we have a new member and so I don't want to take any assumptions although I feel way I think what the benefit of having a new member here well I'm actually going to speak to her later in the week and do like the roles and responsibilities that I've done with all of you so she's going to get some additional training this week but um I'm happy to keep going like I said some of it there might be some nuggets in there that didn't think about or whatever I just want to maximize the time we have for you you sure at least go through it there t to be a lot of discussion me personally because again you might find a nugget within it um that's

137my opinion nobody thing okay and a lot of this I've already kind of said you know one of the most important things about Robert jwes and again I am not a firm believer that we have to be so formal with Robert jewes that we stifle ourselves um sometimes and and again I've observed some of your meetings and sometimes the Robert rules takes over rather than what we're trying to accomplish and and you're not unique to that that happens in a lot of places but um we have to sort of check ourselves a little bit and say what's the reason we're here and it's to get stuff done and if we're using Robert rules as a tactic so that we don't vote on something or we interfere with that process it's not helping the greater good

138it's not getting our work done um agenda items or time limits already talked about that uh me by accident I told you I like working off my laptop don't I I think we're almost there I'm sorry come on we want to start the meeting on time I used to when I was chair the minute I Forum at if meeting started 7 at 7 o'clock if I had a quum we started if I didn't have a quorum I'd make sort of a little bit of a production when the quum member came in well I'm glad so we finally got a forum and I apologize to everybody who's been waiting for the meeting to start but that again that's part of the chair getting the meeting started um we can see minutes you start at 7:02 7:15

139whatever but we want to try to start on time particularly since you have cameras with dead air we're not meeting right so or Worse the cameras on the crew the group all sitting around talking that could be just as bad um limiting time consider this you in public comment you limit people to three minutes yeah we do too yeah two minutes that if you can't say something succinctly in two minutes everybody's eyes start to blaz open over anyway I would say that sometimes we as board members we should consider the same rules for ourselves or at some level of you know because you know what if if somebody goes on too long in public comment your ice cream kind of blazs over you try really hard to keep listening but it's hard to to remain

140focused you know they're doing the same to your colleagues are doing that to you too we're not going to win a filibuster by talking more so consider that um you know keeping your own conversations as short 68th as you can it makes the meeting flow better and it I mean I used to just say I'm voting for this because I'm voting against this because or I'm not ready to vote because this is what I need short Su um and then get an answer or whatever and done rather than you know just going on and on I see board MERS f a buster literally for like 10 15 minutes and they just get every put mad at you when you do that um we talked about limits on um staff presentations and the board packet needs

141to be done adequately and in front one of the other things is um and this is a debate that boards have all the time I don't want to be buried in the board packet with a lot of data so share with me at the board meeting what I really to know there are other superintendent say I'm going to give you all the data but we're only going to do a five minute synopsis of what we what it symbolizes or what it means and then if you have individual questions about the rest of the data we're happy to answer them so that we're not spending 40 minutes on a presentation that maybe some of us are really into it but the rest of us are like how does this relate to my vote or is it

142going to really impact that the hard part is when it's about student data some things you have to hear whether you want to hear it or not some of these things you have to really kind of Gran yeah um I would add one word to the superintendent was prepar this has been it's not not directly on current superintendent but through every superintendent has always been a PR uh problem with timing this sometimes they before the me have dropped 100 and something Pages or something like that and that's not that's not a way to govern because as I said before we you have to research what we're doing and we have to know what we're talking about I mean if we if we get a $100 100 pages of data a day or two before the

143Mee nobody's reading that whole thing and if you vote on that without extensive debate you're not really making it informative too right absolutely and and that but that J he's writing stuff down so I know talk about this B I'm taking new B yes it it is you know I hear from superintendent sometimes somebody dropped the bomb um I I hear what Joe saying there's been instances and I'm not saying this is the particular instance but per se there was a contract um that was uh 110 page contract I'm not sure or I don't understand I want somebody to explain to me that it's the board members I believe you guys should understand or be told the gist of it but they're not don't really need to in interpret it like w don't we have

144legal isn't it up to the administrators so I'm always confused as do a board member need the actual full contract I've had even just on and I'll go to like field trips I've heard people say well where's the certificate of liability insurance in the field trip packet is that like in the board packets is is that a necessary document for the board members or shouldn't we trust our administrators cross the tees and Dot their eyes yeah you don't want the board shouldn't be involved in actually looking at contracts that a superintendent is hired or his team is hired to oversee you have business managers people in the business department who look at contracts you have a board attorney or Corporation councel can also work with the superintendent to review those contracts the superintendent can report

145back to the board has been um we engage in a contract with this organization to do this kind of work um but generally speaking I would have from my experience as a superintendent um the Board of Education didn't review a contract I had like Sandy Hook promise or something that we were doing with if you see something say something that wasn't something the Board of Ed would actually look at and review it would they charge me to look at review it I would report back on what we're doing that was reviewed by the board attorney and everything's been checked those well I don't know if anybody's been paying attention we just recently invalidated several employment contracts because they were not done properly um C count City bylaws City bylaws City Charter State Statute requires that

146we approve contracts over a certain threshold as part of our educational mandates one of the things we got to do is create the budget stick with the budget not spend money we don't have these contracts have Cals inside them that spend more money and when you say got to trust your administrator trust trust trust trust again you got to remember where we are you got to remember that you guys got 169 districts maybe you got three or four who have Unique Systems where Administration has abused the process so this District I'm going to be clear on record any contract I vote on I want to read it is completion but if I understand um right yes yeah under that circumstance we would have been informed of a contract that had been refuted by the City

147attorney and pass through certain approval steps none of which was done I'm not I'm not trying to resurrect so we in reviewing how to cify in our bws process need to make sure that we do that properly um so that it's consistent with City policy and I'm not trying to have the argument now no and so I'm just saying the argument as in what's the best way to handle it we don't want to see I've had this discussion with Danel recently every student permission SL presented in the P don't want to see them you know there's 120 kids going to uh Nature's you call it classroom I don't want to see that in the package I don't have to see they all signed it um but we do want to know that the administrator in

148the school and the administrator who oversees that section had made sure that so there's got to be a checklist that says you know we have 120 approvals signed by the parent we have X number whatever else needs to check check check check check this has all been done properly okay we're going to approve it in the contract there's going to be a checklist of some other sorts check check check check this has all been done so we are approving an agreement whether it's to hire um you know Jane Smith for this position at this salary with these benefits and we may have questions about the benefits or about that position um for this school for this program you know this Catholic former Catholic School to be used as an extension of this program um you

149know under these circumstances so I I get what you're say so so and so we don't necessarily need to and that's something that Will's committee will work with um Jo at that some point to look at whether we could shorten that um and put put it into our packets or not we're not going to resolve that tonight I see that um you have to ensure that these all these various checkpoints are in place and you also as a board you can when when your superintendent reports to you that you sign a contract with with an organization your question should absolutely be does this tie the district or the board any um liability does ittie District any finances where if it does where you getting the money from the budget those are all reasonable questions but

150I don't think you want to sit there and actually well I think what Joe's saying is said we're not going to ask he's not going to report we sign this contract he's going to report I'm proposing that you sign it we reach this agreement and we're going to question him about it before and if we votes approve then he's going to sign that's that's what I'm saying it's the short circuit that it gets shortened that way and so leaving come back I want trying to get to another question which is that when the superintendent I've heard this at at C meetings the last two years C conferences superintendent does submit a report in advance to us though before a meeting typically yes that we get to look at before so that we're prepared with questions

151for the superintendent of his or her report to us in advance that's normal right if I if I didn't if I didn't send my board information to review with enough time to review it before a meeting I would hear about it okay thank you and it' be an extra hour report me just one quick one one s there's a difference between something that's signed and a hard copy that has to be scanned in and a contract which is already prepared on electronic devices to just hit separate button to send not having this we're not going down into deep dark basements and pulling out files everything is electronic for the most part so it's not a big heavy lift to get a copy of a contract into the portal on our I but again you're going

152to have a discussion of bylaws and this will I'm sure going to be a topic that you talk about I think it's really more there a process in place that protects us from things that they not protected in the past not necessarily the board is going to do more scrutiny and read every kindar P practice yeah all right um can't really see that till Darth Vader talking to his offic I find your lack of faith in Robert rules disturbing and this one I call it closing arguments early edition of Robert's Rules of Order Ming Rock um I I don't want to get into we can talk about history the idea was people have been having meetings for years and they've not always worked that well so Henry Roberts came up with his version before that

153I think they used one that was written by Thomas Jefferson originally in Congress um but Roberts rues designed to ensure the rights of the majority at some point we get to vote but it also protects the rights of the minority um so that everybody gets to be heard and uh defend defends the rights of individual members so we're balancing a variety of different things when we talk about Robert's Rules but but the reason they call them rules and the purpose is to get the work done it isn't to be formal I've seen some board music through you madam chair to the you know and just go on these long lengthy things and if you don't do it right somebody calls you out of order and it's not getting the work done small groups have a

154different set of Robert rules basically they have for small groups much more simpler rules much easier the purpose is uh you treat one item at a time we don't have three or four things on the floor at the same time we're building on one thing and that's it um we extend courtesy AFF fairness tall we take turn speaking which're approved by the chair to speak uh the majority rules at the end of the day somebody votes everybody votes somebody wins somebody doesn't um but we're trying to guarantee the rights of everybody and I'd say beyond that this is practical not rules but um I always found that when there's a particularly contentious issue and it's getting ugly that we have to remind ourselves that you know if we do Prevail we don't want to go

155make the other folks feel bad we don't want to make it a personal thing I've seen some boards where I don't agree with you you're evil you know we're seeing a lot of that on the national level kind of people you know are being demonized on whatever side you're on and it's gotten very personal but we have to stay stuck on what we're voting on and it's one thing at a time and the rules allow us to move from piece to piece or within that but it's always done in an organized fashion um I'm going to just go to there's two basic kinds of motion some that affect orders some that U handle substance so we're either voting on something that is one of the reasons we're at this meeting so we're we want to

156pass things we want to vote on things we want to give permission to do things those are substance those are that's the outcome of that is something getting done by the school district the others are order so we're either following the plan we're following Robert's Rules according to order or we're out of order because we are no longer following the plan we're either talking about something that's not on the table we are not talking about something that has anything to do with our work and again that's some part of the chair's responsibility to say you know you stay from what the topic is you straight from the motion and I really want to pull you back um and frankly if and I got distracted with an item shair because I'm checking to see what's going

157on over here and I'm not hearing this every one of you it's your meeting it isn't the chair's meeting it's your meeting so anybody can call a point of order and then it's up to the chair to rule is that a valid point of order or is it not a valid point of order and then we go on from there and if it's out of order you stop just stop and you keep going on what you were doing before that um lots of procedural meetings also meetings can be debatable or not debatable there's a whole bunch of rules when C to Robert rules this is not the three-hour version of this tonight so I'm not going to go through that with you there are tools available um oh does the chair have the final word

158somebody could be on the decision of the chair and that's a motion it has to be seconded and then there's a vote if the board feels that the chair's decision was inappropriate you you so appeal it's a colletive it's a CL be peeled in the sitting of the chair so um lots of different motions these are mostly procedural but it start it gets too complicated for for 10 minutes or so um but the main motion is the corner cell that's debatable that is what we are trying to do now if we light the motion but maybe instead of six months we want here we can amend the motion that requires another motion and then you but you par the main motion you're now voting on the amendment and you can vote Yes or you can

159vote no if you vote Yes it becomes part of the original motion if you vote no it doesn't become part of the original motion then you would still be voting on the original motion I'm getting tired just here myself but you have action motions these are things that cause something to happen May motion subsidiary motions you can amend you can also have division let's say we want to have this program and we want it to start by July 1st somebody said I want to divide the question so I want to Mo move separately on whether we do it but I want the time to be a separate discussion I want to vote separately on the time because we may want to marry that so that's called dividing or division um I wish I had time

160to show you this because this is one of the worst meetings ever it really is it's horrible but uh if you go on YouTube and search for Carpentersville um the title is called the most outrageous government board meeting ever and there's a Carpentersville has a bunch of them uh no that's I think Indiana maybe or Illinois it's it's a Midwest Town um they talk that way too y'all don't it's amazing but it's I get I just I sto dead in my tracks when I watch it so um you hear that here's a simple meeting you call the order and this would be a very valid you actually a meeting could be called the order you vote let's say your main motion is to adopt the minutes you vote if it passes great if it doesn't

161well that you'll deal with that however you may not you might not have minutes that year but you can call the order vote to approve the minutes in adjourn if that's all you have to do your minutes in Connecticut only have to reflect action of the board so perfectly appropriate minutes would be the board came to order at seven the board adopted the minutes at 7:05 and we record the vote or whatever board adjourned at 7:15 and that's perfectly legitimate now most boards want a little bit more um so that it sets the record straight but you don't and forget the boards that have like public comment forbing every public comment that doesn't have to be part of minutes it's action of the board but in a simplest meeting you come to order you have

162a motion you vote motion you vote motion you vote a Jour it never stays SLE this is this is what can happen and I had a lot of fun putting this together but it was took me a few days so you here's your agenda agenda item one this is all agenda item one by the way agenda item two would be the second page so you might not have a motion there might you know in a school district often the superintendent does a presentation or one of the staff does a presentation and at that point at the end of that presentation the board may decide we're going to we want I make a motion that we adop this then it becomes a motion but you might not get a motion and at that point the chair

163goes in the absence of a motion we're moving on to the second things but I want to still talk about no there's no motion on the floor there's no discussion so we're going to move to the next item on the agenda if you do make a motion um you might go to an amendment it might fail it might pass you can have subsidiary Motions like motion to tables in other words using procedure you can make a whole lot of things happen and again this is the short version so I can't go into this in detail but imagine if you've got 10 or 15 items on your agenda and the potentials for all this it's really incumbent on the chair to understand the rules and everybody can pick up you know like the um idiots guide

164for Robert jwes or one of those things they're pre we have one uh in our book story then that's a guide to Robert's Rules that's that's pretty decent so there are options for you to learn the rules but the big point I would say and the point I think that the state has D in the pasted and I again at the last couple meetings I didn't see is is prevalent but that the rules are being used to disrupt rather than to achieve and our goal is to get our work done and so some of the Tor system you know we're going to do this work and we're going to everything is is in our effort whether I'm voting for or against it's my job to help the thing especially as board chair I used to

165make sure that the would even if I didn't agree with the motion that they were heard that got on the table and if the board will it then it passed and it wasn't my responsibility to see even though I didn't like it it wasn't my job to make that not happen it's my job to facilitate the work of the board get paid twice as much as everybody else um I really want us to talk more about what Jody wants to talk about i' probably get you some copies of this card this is a like all the different rules and I I'll make sure'll set make it up so I don't forget tomorrow I think they come in our back they do but probably picking up crumbs too is so interesting story about that Illinois school

166boards Association first printed this about 20 years ago and we were real excited about it and we have a a code in the State Association still without guilt and so we duplicated it we replicated it what we didn't see at the bottom was this little thing from notes and comments on Robert RS by John Ericson well guess who we had come and a presentation on Robert's Rules and these were in our packet and here's the author of the book that includes this card seeing caves all all over this card um he actually took it with great humor he was flattered that we were using it in fact he signed some copies I didn't he could have gotten very upset um this Workshop by the way was about 5 hours long I wasn't kidding when I

167said this a long version he did it in such a way it was all really interesting and really exciting he used a lot of humor which you need when you talk about Rob rules but it's very intense it's um but the purpose of it is only to make our life easier not to make it harder I know this kind of we flashed through this stuff but I'm again hoping that there's some takeaways from this and there's always the opportunity to follow up later and ask other questions if you would I'm exhausted I got to drive I'm going to sit for a minute you go ahead so um I I I think I stepped on a mind field before saying that the these these bylaws that were adopted in 2019 are are your vence one of

168the things I'll say about C's project with with bridport for head is we're engaged in policy work with you guys and the idea is is to is to double set so one of the things again every district has its own um Legends and narratives one of the things we heard about Bridge boort talking to various board members is that there are different policies for different schools and um for example I remember when I was a superintendent I asked the question or or someone mentioned a science teacher mentioned me during budget time that we needed two additional sence school and so I talk that first what why science teachers your class sizes are 18 have highest classic 22 seems like it's comparable to English classes and math classes and other other classes the person say well

169the science department has a policy that we can't more than 14 students in the classroom because of safy issu thanks department has a where that so I to point out that when you use the word policy you're using that word it to me it expresses that the Board of Education adopted a policy through deliberation it's in a manual it has an adoption date and that's the policy if you as a science department set together and discuss what's in the best interest of children what you know there are some issues around of safety those are all management requests that we can make to the superintendent or to board we develop a budget but use word policy when I think when I think very specifically that this is the policy on the Bridgepoint Public Schools not a

170school not a magnet school or a charter school in Bridgeport but this is bridgeport's policies that were adopted by the full Board of full Board of Education on a specific a and man so looking at so so what this is a process so the first part of the process in working with the superintendent and Olivia and the office the superintendent's office was to identify because we're going to look at all of your policies we're going to provide you model policies and express where where you you may need additional policies where you might want to resend certain policies so by the time this project is over you will have a good Court policy manual that expresses the board's will in terms of what you think are the critical issues on the third four public schools and

171that's going to take time that's not going to happen the year that over three years and so the first part of the process having been superintendent gone through this on the other end superintendent the last thing I wanted was all nine Series so land on my desk and for Bo who me to figure out how I'm going to get this manual as the boy's hands and review it and board adoped a reasonable amount of time but we discussed if um jump if I get this point first meeting we had was what are the clinical areas what do you need to get adopted and so we identify two critical areas one mandated policies federally mandated or state mandated policies then required be in your board manual that aren't board man the second was to to identify

172mandated policies that you have in your manual but they need to be updated so working with again your superintendent we share with with your superintendent the SE super office we Shar um from from our initial review that there were a number of policies that need to get that that aren't in your manual that need to get in your manual but through adoption when I and there there are several of them but looking at the critical ones that need to be there like tomorrow and I didn't me I didn't write this down someone said that we we we can start doing this now this is one example we start doing someone said I didn't that name but someone said think you start doing you want to have a title ey policy and and and with all

173read that so not going to talk about why or why not your Bo manual needs to have a title N9 policy and the title n policy that I spent all sum of writing the 2024 Title 9 regulations for getet that all the work I did over the sum of writing writing policy to to comply with the now all withdrawn and we back to 2020 so um and and we so we shared with with superintendent office updated 2020 policy that is compliant with the 2020 2020 regulations my suggestion would be there I'm a big believer in deliberating you know I think that 98% of the policies that you get I want to make you should be doing two readings we should be thinking about it should be reviewing it having discussion about it you know if

174you're dealing with a policy around dress code you want to bring your principles in you want if you're dealing with a policy around health issues you want to bring your nurses in you want to understand okay you see cage model you want to see how that model can is toit Bridge Port so bu particular a model policy but you need to deliberate on how to make that model policy complying with for law but fit with for seeds and that FES deliberation I N isn't one of those policies my suggestion would be it's one of those times you can weigh your two reads and deliberation everything just get your policy approved in your packet get the training going I I'm going to guess you probably are even doing the training and and and and people are

175being training schools but you want the policy because if there were to be a a complaint made through title n you don't have a the first question OCR the the Civil Rights will ask have a policy in place you want to say yes to that second question I'll ask is is everybody trained and if everybody's trained but there's no policy you'll get dat on that it's just not kind of climate for living in right now you want to deal with OCR and complt that could be handled through a so there are this um superintendent has this report there are things here that provide a bit of a road map to to move forward and getting those policies in place mandated policies and again start with title n you also have some policies that are in

176place but they need to be updated to be compliant with state law and things like for example Recruitment and selection non-discrimination alcohol drugs to Tobacco psychotropic drug drug use there are a variety of policies that just superintendent knows this staff can will be bringing those to you want we have mandated policies um once we once I hear that these policies it's not going to happen overnight it's not going to happen over a couple months but it's going to happen over the next be wonderful if you get all these mandated policies in place by the end of the summer I think that would be a great goal again sometimes you're going to be look at this and say you know what this is mandated policy the words smth it should understand let the superintendent or member

177of this team come and share with us what this policy means and and let's just get it adopted so we can move with the training and get everybody aware of the policy is and then we will be really much closer to having a district from Bridgeport other school district policy with all the mandated policies in place but that's work that you've already engaged in and that's what I wanted to say I mean we will um it's I will hear from you that perhaps this policy document that I have on bylaws that that says Bridge Board of Education bylaws policy series 9,000 adoption February 13 2019 this is not your most updated polic on bylaws send them to me and we'll I have I'll have Danielle work on it because she's been right verifying itre she

178has I so I think this is again I think this this is really level setting exercise that in my view what I want you to understand is that there are when I do projects for Boards of Education there are policies that I look at that that are written in 1996 in 1992 so I don't want you to beat yourself up over that the fact that you're doing this work in my view is is really is you ahead of over half of the districts in the state of Connecticut not every district has a title 9 2020 policy adopted there but I'm still getting calls about the 2020 policy it doesn't mean that the post got a complaint that you be off the hook because other districts don't have it but it means that you guys you

179can't beat yourself up over this this is a great opportunity for you guys to really level set become a reach for just and have your policies speak for every child in Bridge board and I will help you I hope you superintended we we talk all the time to continue to be strategic about how he works with you you know you're hearing things like he's heing things you don't want you don't want to report day before a board meeting and then have to act on something so he knows he's sensitive to giving you time to think about and review something thing and and understand it and be educated on it before you before you cast your critical vote um and he's he's going to provide with you some strategy around this this is really not it's

180not one of those things you really need to deliberate over this is something you're really do to deliberate over and and and get things that you don't have to in get the things you do have to deliberate and the time deliberating and be strategic about which one you start with get the muscle memory around I mean conf addressing conflicts working through today um do you have a policy committee yes the policy committee is the first place so that's the place we want to start all of this and and will you're working the superintendent to develop the schedule for getting policies adopted mean all that is workable doable stuff and then Willy comes in and says my committee met and and and we're prepared to share this policy of the board you trust this guy you

181trust his his deliberation with his group and and that you ask questions of him and he'll he'll give you the answers and that be your first read your second read done you get your adoption and then adop get the adoption date send it to everybody that and have a great got person so so that that's the news around policy work J do you have that list to show us he went through the update list real quick I I um it's something you're handing out to us not it's something that's superintend yeah to get it as soon as I get to the policy committee I'll I was going to give it to you we haven't had a polic meeting yet and that would be appropriate Willie and look at it talk about it because again I

182think more important than the actual list is the strategy for tackling list L of them he he identified like five critical ones that off I was asking get so yeah and the other thing I wanted to share just I want to get you out the time is the actual bylaws themselves specif specifically the state doesn't really reference the they know that you're doing a policy so you can kind of cross that off your urgent list in terms of to do it you're doing it because your board that needs to do it you believe it's important to have it but what the state is saying however in terms of my training with you is that to look at the five the 9,000 Series look at its outcome the outcome must result in new updated board bylaws

183to the extent necessary to this critical piece to ensure that they include methods for three report Board of Education to resolve board disputes manage board conflict and address violations of such bylaws by the board or its members so if if you don't have anything in your bylaws that gets to the issue around conflict resolution I want you to start thinking about prior to my coming in and talking I'm not going to come and talk about hly with you talking I'm going to come and talk about bylaw specifically so as you start looking at your bylaws as you start reviewing your bylaws what you want to ask yourself is okay these are really great they help they guide our work together as a board do they address ways of if there is a conflict if there

184is a violation of the BW what's the board's Behavior what does the board need to do to bring in that person who violated the B laws what what do we do when we have a conflict what do we do when for example someone looks at your takes the Parliamentary procedure that where Robert's Rules and uses them more for power than for facilitating discussion and takes a a half hour conversation and and does the an hour um or or whatever whatever you're dealing with it in mind that's causing frustration angst and keeping you from your work what tools do you have in the bylaws that help you facilitate through that so you don't to bring your Corporation Council in and deal with legal these are your mils but how do you want to operate board that's

185what I'm going to spend my time with so if you have ideas if you have specific B that you'd like to include that interested or if there are already bylaws that exist that you think could make sense to include that kind of language on conflict resolution that also be appropriate and you can feel free to share that with me send that to me have to review it I could be a critical friend what I don't want is to come um one of these Future Days and do a three-hour workshop with you around the wonderful wonderful world of BS this is an opportunity for us to really create them and to say to the state that we have the BS in place we address these critical issues around conflict deal with conflict dealing with um violation

186of B laws there and these are the B laws that address that and this is the and Bo develop them my pressure and twisting of arms do that so that's kind of I guess that would be your homework for some as as I will look at your new bylaws I will look at them to see there's there are specific bylaws that might help you along as well I heard some things around um bylaws that may um for example you have a student representative on the board yes student representative great for keeping a board on this so non voting non voting non voting but if you have if you have a policy on that or mylaw have some ideas about it you have time limits for board members receiving information from the superintendent timely fashion process

187for contract review by the bo so there are some things that I've heard you say mentioned today in in in Li's presentation then I'll go back to my my laboratory and see what's in CAG bylaws um model model bylaws to see if any of those might be helpful and if I can see anything I will share that with the superintendent will then share them Willie to to sorry Mr Med it's fine please fine um to to to to begin that process to see if there are bylaws that aren't near bylaws that that may be helpful in the some of the things thetive here so any questions on that or seem like a fair process forward I don't have a question but I have a comment that I'm I'm glad you talk vs and this is

188something that I when to start as a board member six years seven years me and we're talking about B how to update talking about forers um chairs that we are bringing to the war BR so many years we need to update this we need to update it you know and then trying yes we're going to do it we're going to do it we're going to do it and I'm very glad that now they want to update it you know the way it's supposed to be because you know it's good to you know things change so things have to be upd I know Medina will be top of that and everybody but I'm very glad we talk about that because I'm waiting for that so many years updated yeah yeah I heard word opportunity passed around

189tonight expressed in various levels I think this is doing great so um sir said you had homework you actually have some homework um I'm passing one of the expectations from the state was that you participate in a board evaluation that will be used certainer as a measure for the progress you make up at the next six meetings I found this one very way on my computer I hadn't seen it a long time but it's a traditional board s evaluation is the board has a policy the board does this board do that this is really more of an assessment of your meetings the way you govern yourselves for example and I want to explain how to do it because I had remind myself how to do it we have I think it's 11 11 statement first

190one for example I'm just walking through the first one um there's a statement one statement to an each statement one uh for the first one is it seems that there are people on the board even me who spend a lot of time and energy doing things that are not consistent with what I believe is our made purpose the downplay or Overlook important parts of our total objective they direct their efforts at things that aren't very important that's one end of the spectrum the other side statement two is the boards basic overall objectives are clear to be all of our board efforts are directly directly related to accomplishing our goals whenever a question arises about what needs to be done we are able to set priorities by referring to our basic objectives now here's the the

191challenge there's five categories the first one I'm just like one so that statement one um I feel that we don't necessarily um stay focused that's us i' put one or Circle A it's more like one than two Circle B so it's maybe a B minus um it's right in between it could go either way that's the C D it's more like two than one and then e just like two so you're going to look at these and then try to judge where do I think that what we are as a board like you to get them back to me either maybe through Danielle or um I don't have an electronic I haven't figured out a way of doing this yet or it would be easy to do I'm trying to work on Excel but it's

192not there yet um so if you could or maybe to Dr ay's office just get him back to us before our next meeting and we'll spend the first 20 minutes or half hour going over the results and then at the end we're going to want to do the same thing so we could show the both the state that some of this stuff has made a difference I suspect some of you might have already be doing it a little differently might have ear to I have a question so I'm obviously new and I don't have like as a board member I've only been part of one meeting how should I fill this out from like a parents perspective when I was review when I was on the outside looking in at these meetings um I just

193want to make sure that I don't like skew any SPS I hope you have an opinion however it was based whether it's experiences of and you haven't had the opportunity to work collectively with everyone so some of these May and you could either leave it blank in the middle but I would if but as you're looking at it if you feel uncomfortable responding Happ l i mean it's really us your judgment you're a member of this board you have a right to participate so I would say answer them as truthfully or as honestly as you can either as a parent or as a board member your observations what you've seen on the board whatever it is but um you can explain that in your observations we'll have three we'll have three board meetings before the

194next training so might get and then everybody have it done by the 24 the week before the week before should be and then s like you bring it to the 24th meeting that we have 24 we have it SC it for and then by then I'll figure out the way of collecting it all and aggregating it so it'll be able here by the meeting by the 24th meeting yeah don't wait till the 23 you can just scan it and then email you can do that too any observations as we close um comments well I listening to what mariss asked Jen's response um there is an implication in the response that we're basing it on the last two months as a board the last few months has important I was saying that from Mar she's only

195been on for month so IOD maybe ours should be on the time we've been on I understood so that was my comment is that for us the focus is on the immediacy but there is a past and there's sort of a lot of these are reflective so however you feel right now is how you're going to answer it it may your reflection may be based on things that have happened but I well what I was getting at was the state's actions are based on the past but what all they look before is growth right and so but they ignored our growth is my comment and I feel like we are growing um and that was my that was justly what I wanted to say was I feel like they have ignored our grow and we

196are going I have I really not had conversations with them to know what they're looking for other than the instructions that they ordered not directed to you no comment this and observation but all we can do as the best we can yes okay I guess um the absence of any other comments you want to busy yeah yeah I just wanted first of all I was you said before I don't want you think and I know everybody say the same thing this is not W this is help us a lot and we I'm I'm very appreciate that you guys prob help us to be support appreciate that I just hope that out of these meetings that we able to start being accept criticism from each other be able to take it learn from it and move

197on not take it as an inso and we have to be able to to to accept all types of criticism we we deserve it yeah so hope hopefully that you know when we start talking or wa able to pinpoint what we talking instead of because I was I was always the type of kid in school who got mad when the teacher punished the whole class for something that one person did and I used to always say why don't you know and I used to get in trouble for that so but now I'm older where we could actually point to the person who is a problem and we get and hopefully if we do point to you or if I'm point to that I could be able to accept the criticism and be able to um

198make so better and the only other thing is as a caveat um this all happened very quickly as you all know it's kind of one minute they say we got to do this next we it's tomorrow and so um this first while we tried to make it real and make it applicable I I didn't have the time to put into it then I would like to like an extra couple of weeks so I apologize if it didn't meet expectations on the other hand I think it gave you I'm trying to get you to think what's possible rather than what's the mechanics of all this stuff because many of you have heard that um and and that that hasn't changed much but I think you jelly around thoughts Concepts vision is the way they really get

199to the next St thank you L we had to do this here like three weeks so yeah a motion is there Journey at 92 thank you I hope they two minutes