001generator out there oh generators we good to go we're good to go am I okay here I I've been sitting a long time so if it's okay I'll stand if that's all right you're fine I don't want anybody well good to see you guys drink grandmother run my leader Services just want to acknowledge right up front there'll be other people usually with me Roger Wilcox comes out of Waverly he's on the proposal that you saw he's up with the MFL board tonight the other direction he's trying to get a lot of things done before Christmas and we're onboarding a new gentleman who's currently the high school principal at Grimes Scott Bloom who will probably be kind of a little Protege if you will throughout the process too if that's okay but we'll be taking the
002lead on every step in the process so I'll introduce those gentlemen to you when when they're here but we've got three of us hopefully working for you behind the scenes across our keys down to rise it is a work session tonight so what I hope to do and I certainly want to respect your time here because I know you have another meeting after this and everything else but pretty important because we can really hit the ground running this week on survey posting a lot of stuff over the holiday break which is the advantage that I'm trying to get you so work session wise tonight I wanted to walk through the process that we recommend I know sibliocheaton is going to be probably a little different than other ones that we do there's always some differences
003and that's okay my job is not to tell you this the way it's got to be my job to tell you some of the pros and cons of doing it different ways and maybe share a Horror Story along the way if something didn't go well but how we do it here needs to work for you I do want you to leave if you get hit up in the grocery store the gas station they say well what's to come and you know I want you to be able to confidently say this is what the process is going to look like this is where you're going to have input this is where the board's going to make the decision and hopefully save you some emails because after today we'll be able to get a timeline out there
004where people will take a deep breath saying okay here's the process here's the timeline we'll have somebody hired by February whatever really set you guys up for success that's my job that's my job and give you as many good candidates as I can to pick from because then we can be choosing but we gotta give the candidates and I will just be geez I shouldn't be as honest early but I'm going to be this year's been a little crazy around Metro areas we're seeing our pools about the same as other years get outside Metro areas the pools have been slow developing and you're not going to get sometimes the experience that you may hold I'm just being honest with you Ballard we just finished with 29. martinsdale Saint Mary's 25 minutes outside the Metro 17.
005and then with like the keokuks mfls we're sitting at seven or eight right now they're not closed yet but if we get to 10 or 12 we'll be doing good and I'm not saying that the pools are bad but when you look at the top they're not as deep as they were other years I'm just being honest with you because it'll be slow one two a week then usually you get four five six eight you know the last week or two so just being honest my job to get you as many as I can and I'll do everything I can to do that but this year more than others I've just had to tell boards you're not going to get six with experience where we might have had that two years ago probably get three
006with experience I do think though the good news is that if you have a good principal or assistant soup or a director that's been through the pandemic and really stepped up in a leadership role they're more prepared even though they haven't had the superintendent title they're more prepared than folks have been in Prior years so okay we good yep we're good I sent you some stuff in advance I don't know if you had a chance to see that or not that's kind of the way I do business because I you know the board of likes to operate likes to be efficient at the board table so I always try to send you stuff in advance unless it's part of closed session where I can't so that's that's how I'll continue to do it and everything
007will probably come through Kendra if that's okay just so we don't get in board meeting violations or anything like that I try to make sure everybody gets everything at the same time this is the process I'm going to try to facilitate for you as smooth as possible and one I just want to note one thing on here and that's something I think is kind of unique to us and it's starting tonight um we try to front load up here everything we do so and then kind of hold the board accountable and be objective throughout the process that's critically important because once we solidify kind of what you're looking for after the survey I will script questions I will rate candidates all those things back to those top priorities you say you want now you guys
008can decide are these game changers are these do you know the rules change who do we like that's all your decision what I'm going to try to do throughout the process is subjectively look for things you're looking for right you say oh I love that person I'll say great here's what they've done in this area or so once you give me that guidance I'm going to tell you those things are going to keep coming up throughout the process to just try to be objective in not only liking the person but also knowing that person is the right fit to move you forward okay and that usually goes back to interview questions screening questions how we vet candidates and then in the end when we ask people for feedback we don't say rank the candidates or
009who do you like no no that's your job we say rate the candidates based on these top priorities understanding vital Finance uh a willingness to be part of the community holding the administrative team accountable to high standards I'm just giving you some of the standards then you're getting feedback on those top qualifications that started tonight before we even know our candidate pool okay so that's that's my summary of this process and I think part of what I'll bring to the table so planning kind of stage one tonight we'll start talking about salary and benefits tonight because when I recruit candidates that's usually question two hey I'm humble you called me thanks you think I'm a good fit because of whatever yep what do they offering and I don't want to lose somebody good I also
010don't want to get your hopes up for somebody that's not going to work in the end and so we'll start to talk some of the generalities about like what you're willing to offer tonight I ran some data for you we'll look at it we're going to look at a little bit at the stakeholder survey hopefully you've had a chance to look at that if not we'll look at it tonight that's a good way to go out and get a bunch of input have us do the analyzing for you so if somebody's mad about something that's fine it's all through us and we're looking for themes what are the themes that persist I bring it back to you as a board in a report and then you guys say Okay based on this feedback from 100
011200 people what do we think as a board now or our top priorities based on what we've heard from others because it's your job to hiring the superintendent but it'll really give you a lot of good data and I have some candidates now that will actually wait to apply until they see what the survey said and I don't make that public until I share it with the board and then I say are you okay with me sharing this and they say yeah and then they'll say okay here's the challenges here's the perks here's what the board's looking for and then they kind of self-identify if they're a good fit or not that's what we want them to do so we'll look at that survey because that's something we could get out this week or right
012after Christmas or sometime in there what kind of uh numbers are you seeing with those surveys coming back we see a big splash at the beginning and I don't know what it varies and it's not just the school or District size because honestly sometimes the smaller schools have almost better participation okay the big thing is you've got people bought into the process and giving feedback right away and it's a little twofold because we're also telling them here's the process even though we're asking further feedback here's our process so here's at least our timeline and so it's kind of a that's what's going to right away save you emails and we can pivot there if you want to go there now and look at this really quick I was just it just came to my mind
013so I thought I should throw it out there yeah I mean I can I was just looking at what was down at Fort Dodge the other night getting their process started again and you know fairly big district and I think we we finished like 264 responses and then you have some smaller districts um like we just did finish Ballard two superintendent searches done this year already and Ballard had you know it's a 3A district and I think we had like 400 some odd so part of it's how much you push it and you know I'm assuming there's probably quite a bit of Pride around here and people give you their feedback okay yeah we'll look at that here in a little bit but you will really will get a nice report and some good feedback
014on it so first I'm going to pause on this one here but this is kind of the proposed timeline I penciled out for you and I did that for a couple different reasons number one I wanted to leverage Christmas break because we'll see more applicants over Christmas that's why I wanted to get up here this week so leveraging that and then some weekends after that and and there's a little flexibility to this but if we can for sure run at about that length you're going to have the best pool quite honestly I've been an extended in about a week or two than I normally would just because I know things are slow um so but that has us perhaps screening the end of January or early February and still getting somebody hired by midday February
015for sure that's still a nice timeline you're beating the second wave of superintendent hires and you have a nice should have a nice couple months transition with Jamie is that kind of what you were hoping were you hoping to go faster slower that's look reasonable yeah very much so are you ready for the hardest part of the meeting can we set dates to get them on everybody's calendar because that's literally the hardest part of this let's do it can we do it okay if you're good with I said planning between here and you know what is it the 19th we're getting that knocked off so right on track there I have a posting on my website and I'll get it out on all the other outlets by probably Thursday national and local so I'll get
016that taken care of so we really will have it posted about the 20th 21st through January about a month which would be good so I'm looking at perhaps the week of January 30th you guys normally have board meetings the third Monday third Monday looking at the week of January 30th and this meeting would be about an hour and a half meeting to go through all the applicants with more information than you've seen would be confidential references social media and then Roger and Scott and I will actually put them in an order for you kind of top down on how we think they fit what you're looking for about an hour and a half meaning we can either attack on to a meeting that you have or if you want to come in another night or
017even during the day whatever works for you we'll try to get here for an hour and a half well I'm going to chime in first um our vacation starts Wednesday the 1st and goes through the 10th of February so my only availability will be unless I do it zoom and I am more than willing to do it Zoom would be Monday or Tuesday the 30th or 31st I have to wrestling Monday Tuesday it looks like um but could do earlier but I don't I don't know how that works for others earlier during the day or earlier the week before oh during the day but but what does the day look like for you guys because I'm wide open so 30th or 31st would work for me I can make pretty much it really worked better
018for me because I got wrapped both 92. referee okay I used to do a lot of that actually I take that back I do have a game Monday night too so but I mean until a different calendar what what what does earlier mean like what time it doesn't pop up for me where I'm at but or assuming you're away I am well what would it have to look like I am away I know that how long in the meeting what'd you say does it work to do it around noon or in the morning right away I can do a noon I'm in Fort Dodge that night so that would be great because I just buzzed down a Fort Dodge that night I'll make it work since I'm going to be going on vacation does that
019work for you guys or not yep actually on Monday or Tuesday either one I can't either oh so Monday Monday the 30th is that okay so I call that our candid presentation meeting and that will be a closed session and I will go through this with you guys in that packet we'll kind of show you how to post each meeting what was that meeting called candidate presentation yeah let's take over the applicants yep okay 30th item down at noon perfect okay let me process that so what that looks like throughout the application period from after Christmas through just January 22nd every Monday through Kendra you will get the candidates that apply and it'll be a slow Trickle resume cover letter reference letters so you'll see them as they apply every candidate okay so what that
020is after that is we're going to bring you a summary of every candidate I'll show you here in a minute we're going to by that time have run their social media so you can see if there's any issues out there in social media and we're also going to do licensure checks by that point so we know if there's any licensure issues that's what we bring you in closed session so you'll have seen him once this is the second phase of information on the candidates so that's the 30th of Monday so now we're going on vacation here with Kevin and doing that Kyle I'm sorry notifications to meet you as a basketball I'm back on the 10th that would be screening so that would be if you guys say hey we had 16 applicants we wanted
021we've narrowed it down to these five we'd like to get it down to two or three we during that meeting it can be a little longer we spent about a half hour with each candidate on Zoom live getting to know them I'll help you with the questions and we narrow it down to two or three I'm sorry I'm back on Sunday the 12th well I thought it was Sunday the 10th so what about the week of and I could zoom at any time during those 12 days if need be the dates one more time if you will uh the first of February to the 12th of February Wednesday to that following Sunday got it if you wanted to do something right away then very quickly after that candidate presentation I'll set up a zoom that's
022not a problem okay yeah and I can do that it's it's via Zoom so it's easy to add you to that okay unless everybody wants the zoom I've done it that way too where everybody's on zoom and I just facilitate it and we score it either way works um what works for the rest of the board pretty wide open you want to look at the week of the six through tenth or wait till the next um probably sorry I'm just looking at my calendar here to see what I can give you for a few times to probably the week of the ninth or in February now the sixth I'm sorry sixth I'm sorry okay okay I have the sixth open seventh actually open we don't have the eighth open I do have the ninth I
023have the sixth open that's Monday the sixth works for me I'll make that work I don't have a set schedule are you sure I'm going to Arizona so as long as it's warm I'm good okay do you want to do an evening then or earlier you tell me candidates will usually kind of pivot to what we said we can go early if you want to and what exactly that's our screening where we might have six or eight on the screen for about a half hour interview and then we pair it down to two or three for finalists so that you know it kind of depends because if you had six semi-finalists that you want to get to know 30 minutes it's three hours plus a little deliberation time um so it can be our longest
024meeting yeah yeah but it's better to do it one night I've done it where you do it two nights then you're starting to wonder okay what about this one what about this one and then so I even if I have to bring your Red Bull or something that's better better than one night and that will be an in-person meeting you tell me whatever you want to do with me I say would you rather it be an in-person meeting for you guys yeah okay I say we do in person what time do you want to start that one it's up to you guys I can I can be pretty flexible or something like that again or not let's uh is nude okay again or something like that or he's just enough we would have we would
025have school would be going on so we have to be in the boardroom I don't know I don't know how long do you think that would last try that meeting I think we better factor in three three and a half hours for sure does it matter for the candidates or to you if it's during the day or after no I prefer not starting at eight o'clock because that'll be pretty late night but yeah and four is fine yeah I I can always massage candidates a little bit if one can't do this one they'll find a half hour later in the afternoon sometimes I run up against board meetings that they have and worst case scenarios I've done it where one candidate can't do it everybody else does and I've pre-recorded it for you asking the
026same question because I don't get to ask you questions I mean it's literally asking the questions getting their answers but it's live so if we had one out of six that couldn't make it I'd probably pre-record it for you and say plug them in where we had them so you can judge them all the same that night I'd say either is fine you guys just decide if you want to do what do you think I'm going to be on Zoom so okay you guys do what you you want to do noon I'm fine with that I don't I mean to me if you do especially if you're doing it I wouldn't want it to start it at five or six and you know yeah I just couldn't do it a little earlier well it would
027be better for Trent too because I'm sure you're going back to Des Moines all right if I can yeah so but don't do it for me I mean whatever works for you know I'm just thinking too it's like that way something comes up for somebody at night too but I mean no I don't know that's fine you shoot for I'm gonna block off noon to four and then if we had to move it back or something comes up footwork then we have that flexibility that sound okay and that's also a closed session on the soon yes yeah candidate requests once they apply okay the last one we're going to want to pay attention to um our school calendar a little bit because that's when we bring two or three finalists to campus and I'll show
028you some schedules tonight to see how that looks but we'll want to make sure a couple things Kendra number one we maybe reserve some spaces that are good interview rooms number two you think about maybe reserving some subs in advance so you can have work some teachers involved I know how challenging that can be now yeah okay whatever date we set okay so that was the sixth process this we we say we screen six we get it down to two or three I'm calling them on my way home saying we'd like to invite you back as a finalist working on a press release the next day to name their names public because that's the first time they're public and then finishing the interview questions all that jazz making sure their spouses and all that are
029interested in the job as well and then getting ready for those formal interviews which is more of a full day and I'm going to show you real quick before we set this date what that usually looks like here's my most pop I've got a bunch of skills loaded for you excuse me this is probably our most popular schedule which is why I'm pulling this one out notice it hit we have three candidates here and notice we have mixed interview teams and I'll explain that here in a minute so we start with the mix team second we have a tour and then the board so I always put the board last because you technically don't have to be here till 12 30 and then you're here at the board meeting so you can see all the
030data from the day and Roger and I will be sitting in the interviews so we can bring you information and data from all those it's pretty efficient and you can have about 50 people involved all in one day that's nice we just got done with Ballard we had 68 people involved one day had hired about two hours into this board meeting done they got their top person so pretty slick and I'll show you why here in a minute and I do one of these are like one year that doesn't go as slick as it's supposed to but we'll try to make sure everything goes well so again this is our most popular schedule but I'll show you a bunch of other schedules tonight too because how it looks here can be different than other places
031too but pretty efficient you will not have to fifth Kendra all I'll need from you is copies and post the board meeting when we come we set stuff up we'll facilitate the day we'll keep it on track we'll make sure Candy gets where you want we'll bring the water so when the board comes in everything will be set up I want you focused on the candidates we'll take care of the rest that's what you paid us to do okay so now I say that all that just to say what date do we want to interview these people who wants to get out of Valentine's Day foreign probably looking towards the end I'll be honest I'm down at the aesa conference uh the 14th through the 18th I'm not State wrestling State wrestling team I have
032February 21st open I have February 22nd February 24th 27th so the board would need to be here 12 30 through the end of the board meeting it into the evening yeah yeah if all goes well it's by 8 30 we'll have somebody at least a verbal acceptance okay if it's clear if the data is fairly clear there's Middle School wrestling on the 21st yeah on the Middle School and then I have the 22nd open but then the 24th that'll be the aauer State and not done for that too it's the 23rd look like what which day is today 21st I can't do the 23rd oh the 22nd yeah 21st 20 seconds 22nd work for you guys it's Wednesday so Wednesday shouldn't have any school activities at night sounds like we got a date 22nd that
033works that's not getting too late too far I'll have to look my other postings here let me look at that here just a sec just to tell you what which ones we might be up against here um we said the 22nd right foreign so I'm just looking here I'm I can only tell you the ones that I'm leading or our team as leading I can't tell you other firms unless they get on their website but um Central City over East and Northland a shared one is the 23rd so you'll beat that one Clark is the 20th Clerk of Osceola way down south Fort Dodge is the 13th probably won't be competing against that one kyota February 2nd that's a high school principal superintendent May compete but I doubt we're going to beat that one February
0342nd Benton Community January 31st probably not compete with that one either 3A District by Cedar Rapids Kia the 19th of January probably not competing with that one either way East there's not honestly there's not many North Central or Northwest Iowa this year so location wise I think you're going to be one of the only ones up here rock Rock Valley Rock Valley yeah we don't have that one nope Greaves Richardson has that one yep so I I um I think you're gonna be okay but here's my promise to you if you if there's a candy you're really excited about and I know they're in the mix somewhere else we can always reconsider that to get a first shot at them you know and say hey we're going to slide it up because we want to
035first shot up Joe Smith whoever being on the other date being on the sixth though too you ain't gotta and you can maybe move it up a week but not much more than that anyway right well the one thing we we've considered and we're doing a few places this year like we did at martinsdale we're doing an MFL probably we'll do a Keokuk is we scrap the screening and brought in four candidates because we could bring in one extra Dale vetum but there was kind of three or four that surfaced and we're like well what's the point of screen at five can we get it down to four because we can still interview four and save a couple weeks yep and I took money off so it was a win-win for them too saved me
036a trip we could decide that later yes 100 I meant I I would rather set the dates and plan on everything because if you get five or more I still think it's good practice to screen down because inevitably you're going to screen somebody that looks good on paper and you're going to screen you know get to know them and you're going to be like we don't see them wearing our colors okay at least we didn't spend all day with them but you can still get four finalists in a day and run a really thorough process Trent would you go through once you start getting us and I'm saying that now maybe we're going to get to it later once you start getting us resumes and stuff like that to us as board members you want
037to go through the process I've been through it several times as far as what can be done what can't be done because those names have to remain confidential yep so yeah go ahead yeah so this is I just want to process this because you get we're very transpondent about every step of the way but we do have to have confidentiality or you will lose somebody good and it's only happened to me once but we lost a good candidate Banker called another Banker in another town superintendent didn't know it and all of a sudden he's asking at a ball game literally heard you applied so-and-so and superintendent was very upset hold his name off because they hit a button on my my application that says keep my materials confidential and we have to yep okay and
038I'll put that on every email reminder that goes to you just so you know thank you so so back to your point Kyle um this is what you can expect through US throughout the process okay every week from next week next Monday through January 22nd you will get a weekly email from my assistant Amanda she will send Kendra she will send you their applications resume cutter cover letter and recommendation letters that they produce we usually expect three so you'll get those on every candidates they buy and I promise it's going to be slow maybe one two two one six at the end that's just how it's going right now so you'll get those every week after it closes on the 22nd I need about 48 hours to pull their narratives and I only ask them
039one question why is the sibling superintendent position a good fit for you and I want you to see verbatim What the response is because some will copy and paste from their cover letter and you'll see it some will have one line and it's like they didn't put in a whole lot effort and some will make the case about I got family there here's why I want to be there I want you to see it the other thing I'll do there is I will highlight in red disclosures if they got no wi and they've been dismissed from a job you're going to see it in red it's going to flash at you so you see all that information phase two after it closes it's also your check that throughout every week you've seen every applicant because
040if you see that list and you're like oh I didn't see this candidate well we'll double check and make sure you got them now okay then the third phase is when we're here we set the date where we're back in person and in this one in closed session I will tell you more than I will write number one I'll tell you that because I know a lot of these candidates personally I'll bring you their social media I'll bring you a licensure that we've done at this point and I'll bring your reference summaries that you haven't seen because those are calls we've made and I'll bring you those on a piece of paper I tried about every candidate with Lisa Ramey there's that Sai sometimes Lisa bartusic at iesb even if they're not a reference I
041vet every candidate and put them in order for you that I think they fit so then we walk through that process that looks like we slide ahead here this is what I bring you on every candidate every candidate you've seen him once actually you've seen them multiple times but I'm going to bring you a summary page like this top down name current role how much they're currently making so we keep that in mind overview of experience then I pull out bullets here that I want to reinforce for you this is why I think they're a good candid these are things you you said you wanted I pull those out here's their licensure again so we don't forget now you're starting to see reference comments that we've got that are positive and in Gray is anything
042that's a concern that we want to bring to your attention like for example in this one just telling you they got political posts about a presidential candid candidate a local rally I'm not saying it's good or bad I'm just saying it's out there if you make the scan to the finalists just know it's out there so we bring you any concerns or things we want you to think about in great and then you as a board have a conversation and direct us yes move this candidate forward no don't or we need more information that's about an hour and a half to go through them and and better but we try to you could not look at a whole lot and have a lot of information on one page and that's that closed session meeting see
043here I'm jumping around a little bit I hope that's okay that's probably my fault it's just okay I've done this enough times that it's in a small town it's so easy to talk to somebody who knows somebody that might be in that area and one phone call just is a disaster or can be just a disaster the good news for you as a board is with our process honestly we're going to find more than you're going to find social media licensure we're gonna it's in our best interest to tell you everything so I I don't want you surprised by anything number two you have a couple weeks there where you're going to go from semi-finalists to finalists fair game that two-week window fair game it's public so you'll have a chance to do it just
044let us do our job ahead of it okay posting here if we can go there now I took a good shot at because I knew we wanted to get rolling so I took a good shot at Printing and I'll make changes to this but I want to make sure and I know we have to update dates after tonight I want to make sure that this really represents the first blush you want candidates to have about your District now it's not I mean there's they usually go to Iowa report cards they'll look at your finances all that stuff but I the first blush I want to make sure is what you want represented for your district and I'll make any changes you want and I printed that new folders did you double check on those items
045that I yeah I think you emailed me sent me that today yeah um I'll update that I missed that number of students and things I wasn't sure how you figure the student teacher ratio is it strictly students teachers or I'd like to I go to niche.com and that's what it told me it's not scientific it's just what's out there okay but I will update it with whatever you sent me because it's probably more accurate I just took the number of students we have divided by the number of teachers and it's more it's more like ten to one ten to one I'll use that okay but there our classes aren't that small is why I wasn't sure what numbers you use so I was just out there on the internet seeing what I can find about
046the district trying to highlight things so I take no credit or denial I just want it to be after you internet feedback on that were those percentages pretty close pretty close if I gave them the correct ones okay and the students are quite a bit less 689 is our current that's when I first started reading that I read the first paragraph oh I better keep reading then because that number seems seems a little high yeah and I'll get that update I just didn't have it on the way up dated for you the Facebook is correct the Twitter this Twitter is correct for the high school it isn't used that much the Twitter that's mostly used is attached to Mr Craig so we wouldn't want that one so I think this is the best Twitter to
047use okay the one I have listed already okay what else foreign just look at the qualification thing but maybe that goes in that communication skills part but just being able to communicate with I think teachers and the everybody Maybe everybody I think a little better I really like the strong communication skills and the ability to promote a positive culture we need that right now and I'll update those again once we do once you kind of solidify your survey I will update those but those are just some general things that tend to be out there just knowing your District a little I thought I'm going to put these out there and see what you think General enough that you probably need them but more data to come too and then the contact people down at the
048bottom I see Roger's name on there the Gary and the Shane they're going to be no I will take those I'll take them off okay no not I probably won't put Scott on because he's still working out sorry about that no that's with the human resources experience part um what two candidates think of when they when they see that on there is it just hiring people or okay yeah and that's when I wondered about if we leave it on but it seems like it's kind of a hot button in the small districts anymore because recruiting and retaining staff is such a big deal but we can gladly take that off too or Define it further it's been different in the past I'd say it's fair to leave it on there or we can pivot it
049to say recruit you know or Market the position or Market the district or attract you know we can make that less about HR and more about selling District too I mean hiring teachers and staff and getting them to stay is finished you know the same as it is everywhere so yeah it's a tough time right now yeah you guys I don't want this to be mine I mean I want to be your first impression of what my makes people excited or look a little further and then they'll dig from there but I want to make the first wash to be real positive and what you wanted to say well I think every one of those bullet points is a desired qualification if they're like any videos that highlight the district or Community infographics or anything
050else but if you do share that because via social media in the website you it's easy for me to sell it if there's videos and things that that I can share above and beyond just a posting okay if there is anything I've even had some districts and I say this not knowing if you have this or not but like Carol for example they have a great Studio that does their ball games and markets things and sells things and so they ran with when we did their superintend search they ran with it and created a little video that was a little hype video almost sharing it to candidates and I put it out there in social media and a lot of the candidates said we love that we felt like we got to know the district
051and it you know the students did it it was great so I don't want I know people are busy so I'm not asking for extra but I'm just saying those are little things that will separate your job from others any of the Vlogs that we've had recently would they be something that I'm just thinking out loud there's great stuff in the Vlogs I don't I don't I don't yeah probably not something that potential candidates would and they if they search simply oh cheating they're going to get those anyway so and they will especially as they move forward they'll do more homework so I will get it updated with timeline that we solidified tonight and the data that you sent me and I'll then I'll send it back to you in one more blush then I'll
052need you to post it on your teacher Iowa each Iowa website with the date yeah everything else I'll take care of okay while we're here I popped up the survey slow but it'll pop back up so the survey if you want to use it will be something we can even get out whether you want to get it out this week before the holidays you want to wait till after the holidays completely up to you but if you want to use that that would get us feedback and I'll walk through this still toggling but it should look a little nicer than that and I by the way I see two logos I see a round logo I see that logo I see this off your website do you have a preference to what you what I
053use to that so what this says at the beginning is just that you know we're working together and the purpose of the survey to give people's feedback for the board we produce a report at the end I'll update this timeline so that's the part about us communicating to your stakeholders here's the plan then below that this is going to look better here once it's done spinning a bit this is just a Google form so whether somebody does it on their phone or their iPad or the computer it's the same and I will send you a Word document on this that has a customized URL so it'll probably be like sibliocheaten soup survey and basically that link for that document send it as many places as you normally would for something important because it's all going
054to Route them back to this okay then what I'll do every couple days Kendra is I'll send you an update and I'll say here's here's the 85 responses we have this week here's 120 this week we might want to blast it to students or we might want to blast it to parents because if you blast it a couple times then you're going to get at your point where we have saturation on the survey nobody's going to take it if you send it out three more times but I'll give you an updates so this survey will take everybody one of the first questions we ask them is check which groups if it's your affiliation here you might have teachers and parent for example so they can check more than one box and then we go down
055here strength points of pride looking for themes again that I can share with candidates challenges or areas of improvement don't worry about somebody that's really upset I'm looking for themes okay then we go down here to the most important professional skills these are related to the Iowa standards for school leaders that you've probably seen so they're a little bit standards language if you will if you want to tweak any of these we can but that's what they're related to and there's kind of a long list here we're looking for the things that kind of surface and even though we ask them to prioritize the top three I will report to you back probably the top six or eight wherever there's a natural cutoff then the next section I have is the top personal traits and
056again it's always kind of telling if people are looking for more of those personal things that is a priority or more the professional or if it's kind of a balance most people want somebody approachable and you guys already talked about communication usually at the top top couple of top two things and then why do you believe they're important and this is kind of more for us Consultants is like okay why are these things surfacing help us understand that and this is always a good question what advice do you give them I always get the better school lunch and more snow days from your students every time but other than that there's really some good advice so what I do is I take that probably won't see it you hire a new superintendent I make sure
057they get it and then we go through it with them again in the summer when they're creating their goals for the first year so that's what I use that for kind of short and to the point but I'm telling you I'll be able to produce a six eight page Report with some pretty good data from it so the responses go to you and we always have had people ask if they're Anonymous it is completely Anonymous through US unless they put their name in are you a Google school yeah okay so I'll tell you this because somebody will ask see right here where it says not shared because I'm signed into Google it will prompt me for my email I still if I was to take this survey I still wouldn't know it's me unless I
058put my name if you're a Google school this will show up to them as well it looks like it's required it's not it's just showing that only happens if you're signed into Google so if somebody else goes to this on their phone they won't have this box and I've called Google I can't remove this this is a Google thing because I'm signed into Google so if somebody it still doesn't get send their email address to you it's okay nope we always have people ask that yep I actually have uh the Donovan group who are partners of I they actually do all the data analyzation for me so it's not even me doing the I mean I look at a lot of the feedback but I have somebody else do it just so it's more objective
059and then they produce the report and then I obviously proof it and everything before I bring it back to you so I'm telling you it's vetted a lot of different ways to bring you back themes and say Here's what here's what came out of it the other thing that will come up and I'll just tell you and you guys can talk about it sometimes I'll have a board say we want all the data and I'll say no problem I can give you all the data but the minute I give you the data now it's subject to open meetings and everything else so then you got to decide okay do we want the data to see everything or do you leave it with the search firm and then you're not subject to having all there you
060still have the report with all the themes you just don't have every single person's comment it's not that I'm not willing to sure you just have to understand it's part of open meetings and you got to keep it on file and all that stuff then if somebody asked for it right pros and cons how many districts ask for that information um probably about 40 percent sometimes all principals ask for it hey you know it said something about you know principles with discipline I want to see exactly what the parents say and I say well I was a principal I know that and there's valuable to see in those comments if you don't read them before bed but the but the truth is that this is for the board just to say these are themes this
061is not meant to be a you know climate survey thing that's not the purpose so I'm very transparent but you just have to understand there's pros and cons to having all of it so any I know we're going fairly quickly here but any comments you feel good about the survey what's what do you want to do for a timeline to get it out and get feedback I think it looks good I think we should get it out before a break yeah I don't I don't think that's going to hurt anything I just want to know where it's going to be so every time I see somebody hey did you fill out the survey if not go to there you go thegenerals.org and fill it out I can have it ready more time you're so busy
062Before Christmas they won't look at it but but if we get it out now and then we'll get it out if we wait till after the holiday then you're not in school either so we can leave it open I had it I think open through the 30th yeah I think we can do it later Wednesday and we'll figure out I'll have Tony help me figure out where to send it and then we can send notices out through GMC we can put it on social media too yep yep I'll give it to you and then whenever the time's right to get it out get her out once I see it starting to come in I'll give you updates about every three days perfect okay because December 30th looked like a good timeline or you want to
063leave it open longer than that I don't know why that's a Friday um that's only two weeks should we go until the six that way that's all I'd like another reminder when school starts sound okay January 6th okay perfect any other feedback on this other than the dates I need to update and maybe the logo if I can get a better looking one just to go back we decided on the 22nd for the interviews unless we need tissue yeah yeah okay formals yeah okay moving right along here's a good example this was Waterloo survey report themes and I put some comments in there that kind of represent areas of improvement so again we're looking for questions then tied back to these this is what the board solidified then notice approachable was the top thing that
064they were looking for so the board once the board solidifies that then I'm ready to make this public okay I'll be brief on this recruiting wise here's where we normally recruit we have some some new diverse sites that we're using a lot of candidates now the good ones are it's going to take a phone call or a tweet or something to get them I'm just being honest with you it's taking more to get good Candace look because they're not looking they got a good board situation going and their family's content it's a lot harder to get somebody to jump for even twenty thousand dollars but that's our job and we'll try to get you the best pool we can with that being said I will email your principals I don't know them personally but I'll
065email them and I will say do you have good candidates that you want us to recruit because sometimes there are networks and have bumped elbows kind of a few folks my email and my phone is on the back of your folders as well call me text me email me you have somebody you hear somebody let me know and I'll reach out on behalf of the district and recruit them for you okay so that's where we'll recruit the only ones not on here that sometimes comes up with the board is the Des Moines Register and I don't think it's worth the cost anymore expensive it is and that's not where candidates look anymore teach Iowa is the only one I need you to post on I'll take care of the rest okay well outside of Iowa
066I mean we're close to Minnesota South Dakota here that yep so where I get the most traction nationally is aasa because that's kind of your American Association of school administrators best traction handshake through like the University of Minnesota I use Mankato is on that list and that's all their alumni so you know as long as they're connected in one of those two places we'll catch them if it's anybody that has a connection to Iowa usually they're looking at my website or social media and connected with them that way and we do have some um one of our finalists at Mason City uh a year ago was a good candidate reach out to for you from um from Minnesota Brian I'm forget his last name another good candidate that's well I better not say too much
067but good candidate who's working for Mason City right now lives in Minnesota will probably be a good candidate yourself yep we're batting about 30 percent uh no that's not true 13 33 is female candidates we've hired it's about 12 or 13 out of state candidates so we'll get some um School finances the biggest challenge kicker yeah yeah now we can teach them that but that's the hardest that's probably the biggest hurdle they have moving into the state screening I'll help you with questions and all that stuff again the pre-rescreening is on paper again this would be our 30 minute zooms and then the formal interview so different phases to that really as candidates get more move forward the other thing we cannot de-emphasize in this market right now is making sure their families committed and
068they're committed I was just talking to a candidate on the way up here good candidate he said I might just throw my name in the hopper if I'm 70 and not enough for your job uh 70 and I said don't do that they're no courtesy interview if you wanna do a courtesy interview get in touch with me we'll set up a courtesy interview but if you're going to apply for a job you better be 90 sure it's a good fit and then let the other 10 percent flush out as part of the process so this is this is big and that's on me to make sure they're committed their families committed what's on you is to make sure when we get down to finalists I tend to cater to their spouses and their kids because
069I've lost I haven't lost a super top superintendent candidate on money in the last four years I've lost two with spouses not being on board and that's something that's hard for me because there's not a lot I can do I'm counting on the candidate having the conversations with the spouse so what we can do though is you know if I say here's our three finalists I'll say hey guys can you help me set up maybe a realtor or they have kids can you have Coach show them around or their spouse is worried about a job is there anybody from the chamber that could talk to them so those type of things kind of last minute because it's usually in the last week we're pulling that together to make sure that day you get who you
070want okay stuff we don't know now but in the end will make a big difference screening there that was up in Algona one night just to give you an idea what the screening kind of looks like I'll walk you through a process where you actually score candidates that night and have a discussion about who you want to move forward summary tables there we looked in already when we get down to hiring I mentioned this and I'll just mention it one more time I helped do the negotiations should be pretty smooth because remember we flipped it and we said okay the board's offering this range with these benefits congratulations on being a finalist if you get the job offer what do you need to accept the job and as long as they're doing their homework they
071will tell me I need Family Insurance and I'm expecting this and if it's reasonable I'll be able to save you some question marks when we make that offer so you right now we have little to no negotiations if we do it's on maybe a one or two little things it's not on trying to figure out if they need Family Insurance or not or trying to figure out if you know you're going to offer relocation because we've talked about it ahead of time so that that's been good by the way I skirted over this but after every board meeting I will give you a hiring timeline because we want a real transparent process and we've talked about that so like there's always an outcome after a meeting so after today I'll put together that survey I'll
072have it to you tomorrow and people will see here's what came out of the meeting here's the timeline let's go after the next time we meet remember that will be candidate presentation we can't give names yet but I will say the board met with the search consultant here's an overview of your candidate 16 applicants this many had experience these two had a doctorate two from out of state or whatever here's the next steps in the process I will give it to you and just ask you to prove it and then you can share it with your staff and your community keep them updated everything's transparent so after every board meeting give me 48 hours and I'll have some sort of update back to you all right let's so on this schedule let's talk am I
073doing okay for time and your board meeting is 5 30 5 30. perfect I'll deliver so notice on this schedule it's pretty efficient we can have literally 50 people involved tour guides are critical because sometimes things come out of Tours that don't come out of formal interviews um you probably want your outgoing superintendent involved somehow because it's a red flag if they're not and it's part of the transition process so sometimes they do the tour with somebody else or they pass them off or sometimes they have a 15-20 minutes with your finalist and then they go on to tours but you're going to want them involved probably somehow some way not that we go get a bunch of feedback from Jamie or anything like that but it's part of that making sure it's a smooth
074transition okay mixed interview teams so I know that's a little different but here's why we do that and it's really to set the board up for success what I mean by mixed interview teams is that instead of having your teachers in one group and your support staff and your administrators and your students then you leave with one group saying the board better listen to us because we were clear we wanted this person instead I'll get all their questions separately that they want to ask I'll put them together the candidate might be up here interviewing but they've got a student a parent a teacher administrator Community leader student parent you with me they have to have a little perspective at the end of the day and so when they fill out their feedback to you which
075kind of looks like this be on a Google form they fill out feedback everybody we ask them to fill it out individually first not who to pick but how do they fit those desired qualifications again and then what what's the strengths what's the weaknesses what else do you want the board to know and they will tell you they will tell you clearly and then we ask the group collectively after everybody does their individual feedback we say now what do you want us to reinforce or what would you highlight about these candidates to the board and then we we have a kind of a group to dialogue and inevitably what happens is somebody that loves somebody else and you know we go perfect the board set up for Success because they're not leaving thinking it's one
076person they have to have a little perspective plus it's very efficient notice we can have a lot of same amount of people involved three candidates all in one day and Roger and I will be there to facilitate the day so once in a while somebody will get off and ask about age or marital status or critical race Theory that's what I had last year more than once we will enter we it's not our interview but we will stop it at that point say that's not an appropriate question okay so how do I bring you that data that night so that same night where we're facilitating everything and watching all the feedback come in that night I will bring you data I will bring you so everybody's in a mixed group I will run those numbers
077for you and you can see this was four candidates obviously but you can see even though they're a mixed group what did the parents say students say teachers say about how they fit what you were looking for and like at Ballard the other night we had one person that surfaced nobody knew it board saw it surfaced with every group and the board agreed slam dunk let's get it done and then the narratives down here will be Roger and I'll be watching this all day and we'll try to pull out you might have 50 people's feedback and we'll try to summarize that by okay candidate three here's the strengths that were perceived all day here's the concerns on one page then if you want to get in and look at every comment verbatim fine but we're
078trying to synthesize a lot of data for you that night okay it doesn't mean you have to make a decision that night but you are going to have all the data to make a decision if you want the other thing I will have for you is this is called an advanced insights profile I'll have it's about a 72 page report on every candidate it assets their disk which is their observable behaviors they're cut off a little bit but it's their motivators what drives them and then it goes a little deeper to what they're called their Dimensions like some emotional intelligence pragmatic thinking systems judgment I will give you and you'll probably forget about this but they actually complete this when they apply it takes about 30 minutes I kick them back their report and then
079we forget about it tell your finals then when you name your finalists I pull this out I usually send it to you in advance if you want to see it and then I summarize it at the end of your formal interview so you can see how they would be every other day outside the formal interviews who you're going to be getting then whoever you hire I give you their 72-page report Kendra then you get to take it and then in the summer when we do our onboarding day we compare yours with the new candidate so you can complement each other and profile and style which has been kind of a game changer because it helps you kind of objectively get off to a good start with them and know what their blind spots are so
080you can say oh this is a gap for em oh are you good at this good okay now we understand it usually saves learning some things the hard way so that's a nice piece of that puzzle and we don't have the summer date set yet but I think it's going to be July 18th that will bring all of our new superintendents and business managers together let's call it our big onboarding day so that's another thing you'll see on your just your finalists and I'll summarize it that night and then last but not least I this is something new we've done you want to make this you want to make your new hire some energy right different chapter but you want to make it a positive and so at the very end I give you a
081press release naming your new superintendent once they've told their board and then we create a video that actually is introducing this is the last one we did last year Tim salmon but actually introducing your new superintendent to the district and community and it's just a nice personal introduction they usually share some personal information some excitement we put it out there on social media and share it and usually say share it with the staff first wait a half hour and then the larger community so we'll produce that in the last 48 hours from your formal interviews to announce making the announcement every a lot of things happen quick but you'll get a nice video on your your new superintendent too when I go into preparation stuff here and just like I said onboarding first year goals
082advice from the survey their success will be mine you know 10 years from now hopefully you'll be calling me back saying hey that goofball that was up here that snowy night the brass popcorn you know he did a nice job so we'll have him back if it thinks well that's my goal sorry no that's fine I was just some different things this time than what I'm used to the mixed interviews I'm anxious to see that in action because the reasoning for what you said is you hit it right on the nail when they come out of those interviews if it's just one group there's a lot of well this is the one that they have to hire they better not go on anywhere else and I think that's awesome I'm looking forward to that we've
083had good success with that here's what you have to do as a board to be honest not looking at your phones that day because what we're telling them is this is your one area for feedback put it in here you want the board to see it the board's going to see it but what people will still do good intended people is better still so if you don't then it doesn't really matter what we're telling them to do you really got to keep it to this is your Avenue because you have remember you've seen them on paper you've seen confidential references you've screened them you're comfortable with these three people trust the process sometimes everybody says yes and then we get there in the board and then you know one of the board members will say
084well I've had three people say this it's like okay because they will good good people will will do that but again they've seen this much of again that this you know that offers this much so yeah we'll set you up for success but it's efficient and it's a it's a better process matter of fact I have a lot of superintendents that get hired that they don't love that process because they also can't tailor and answer to what the teachers want to hear here we've been thinking they have to just you know speak but the funny thing is they'll get hired and then they'll call and say now Trent how'd you set up those mixed interview teams we're hiring a principal oh here it is speaking of that that is honestly probably your homework we're going
085to talk salary and benefits now but that is something I'm going to need you to do and I'm going to give you some guidance I think it's page 17 and the book I gave you that you guys I just gave two packets up here but these are some key questions to think about here and picking your interview teams yeah I'm sorry I just gave them a copy of this because this is more about setting the board agendas and stuff right there Kendra what page is that again next page so these are some questions because I don't know the right people have in the interview teams all I know is you want to be very intentional you want to have try to get in uh representation from your different communities and your different buildings and I
086know this question too if you had two mixed interview teams like you have in that initial schedule and you said how should I stack that team I would say it's probably something about like this you probably have three or four students two support staff couple coaches that could be athletic or instructional coaches two or three administrators directors and then you know say four or five community members that's kind of the proportion of your mixed team you're looking for now the names you guys got to help me plug in and that normally has something to start thinking about but don't promise somebody to be part of it what you want to do is have one person start to just track the names so if somebody says I want to be part of the process great contact
087Kendra she'll get you on the list and then at one of our closed sessions we go through that list then right after that I'll give you a draft email to say hey the board would like to formally invite you to be part of the interviews on February 22nd here's the schedule that they've set if you can allow that time please get back to us and confirm your spot on the interview team but we do it at the same time for everybody and I can one thing I failed to mention um do you want me at the closing of the survey that everybody takes do you want me to put a prompt on there that says if you're interested in serving on the interview team email somebody or do you or do you guys want to
088single-handedly pick the people you want to invite because that's one way I can give you names but sometimes boards say no we want to generate the list I think it's good to know who's it yeah put it out there because it doesn't secure them a spot but I mean depending on how many people would reply but at least it's given people the opportunity if they are interested on being involved is that what you guys what were you thinking he was like an absence how many do you select uh Tran well we can have the yeah well we can have about 20 on each team it also includes your staff I mean I'm talking like stakeholders yeah you can have up to 40 total yeah I thought you had five spots for community members community members
089oh I'm sorry yeah stakeholders but yeah maybe community members you have four or five each but that'd be eight eight or ten total okay so maybe we put out there that's how many spaces we have if you'd be interested here's another one somebody would say students are good to have on teams especially secondary can be okay but some words will say we'd rather put more community members in than students fine who do you want feedback from when I give you that data at the end of the night I just want you to say we handpick these people we gotta listen does that answer your question yeah I think as long as the board has the final say I don't mind having the people that are interested because there could be somebody out there that's interested
090that I didn't even think of it but I see the name and I'm going oh okay they would be really good yeah and get all five of our inputs in that can we just go through that at a board meeting you know where somebody hits you up yep email get them on the list then we go through it together and then again I'll give you an email send it out here's the schedule because some people you might want on there too and it doesn't work that day okay so again we pull up an alternate or somebody this is the one thing about the guidance on but I don't know people around here you gotta you gotta help me generate the list of the people I mean I think we could come up with a pretty
091good Community list but I hate to forget somebody yeah that would be really really good so that's your holiday homework so I don't care if you put the prompt in there and then we can take a look at our homework session who's going to keep track of the list you're good at doing that aren't you you good with that Kendra yeah that's funny last name again r-e-i-t-e-r writer any relation to Russ nope okay I don't I don't know who that is I should pretend the independent sweetheart most writers felt the same uh you mean okay our e-i-t-e-r at thegenerals.org yep how does that look guys okay and this again says to be considered so there's no guaranteed I like it but that'll generate you a pretty good list right there and by the way this
092doesn't change the confidentiality because they don't get this until they hit submit so then it's a prompt okay uh last but not least can we talk salary benefits here quick yep here's what I got so far put together I think I emailed it to you I'll just start with this I know Jamie's at what 132 or 134ish and does that sound right yeah it was 134 or something I'll look here yeah I looked 134 here's your average in the state last spring 162 obviously large District down to small District but just so you know here's what I ran for you this is a iesb data based on your enrollment this is last Spring's numbers too so this would be again not his current salary probably probably last year's and I just ran this with 10
093larger schools 10 smaller schools the ones with two districts are the ones that are shared so you should be at least two years ago because that only says one year of experience and he was first year it might have been two then yeah because so consider this then you know at least a year too old um your average size School similar is 147 703 and I know that's more near you're paying him but again he didn't have some of the experience either when he came in so I'm going to recommend and you guys can tell me because I don't know the rest of your benefits package either Family Insurance a lot of these things are very different across the state but I think you're going to have to be right around this to probably attract
094a decent pool it's 134 950 so almost 135 right now it's um full Family Insurance okay and then there's an annuity there's a 2500 annuity um life insurance I think is a hundred thousand policy which probably should be updated to the amount of the salary but that's what it's at right now okay um cell phone Vision Dental they have to pay for that as of right now it's offered long-term disability just hitting the big ones are you comfortable with at least a two-year probationary contract two or three year if we wanted two last time I'm good with two but if you say one it's we're gonna talk their probationary three years in District anyway unless they're a current administrator in the district so and that we can't change that with probationary two of you guys
095thoughts yeah I'm fine with you um location I don't know if you need any relocation last time I think 25 00 or something I believe that was the number can I just say negotiable and then depending on where they're moving from because you might be able to get by with less or more depends how far they're coming from I just don't want to offer it if it's something you don't want to do and and then salary I guess would be the other big question I'll get asked between now and the next step and you're okay with the range I'm good with the range yeah because some of it would have depend upon their qualifications or experiences right A lot of it should okay you know in a Range like this if they have no experience
096they're going to know they're towards the bottom unless they have a doctorate or something then they might come in and say well I got a doctor and I'm expecting 140. but if they start to get three five seven years of experience you know you're going to be paying more for it though I'm comfortable with that range so this range that you're okay with too or yeah I think that's pretty good range and if somebody you know if I have a really good candidate that uh says well I'd have to have 155. and I I wouldn't let him go but I'd come back to you and say hey I got a pretty good candidates 155. I'm not going to publish that but is do we still want them in the mix or not is that a
097game changer or not especially if I can say they may not need Family Insurance or you know they they wouldn't care about you know I try to negotiate both ways to try to get them in your pool but I I've come back and ask you that yep everybody okay yeah okay I think the last thing I have I know gladly entertain any other questions or feedback but your contract language I haven't reviewed your contract but anytime you have a superintendent transition it's a great time to update contract language I only asked before February 22nd that we get it done with legal if we need to or I can give you lots of sample language so that we're just getting down to numbers at the end we're not talking about oh we want to take mileage
098out or oh it doesn't have superintendent evaluation in it or something like that that should be in a contract so happy to help you with that maybe good to run it by legal if it needs to be but I just did the prompt to say let's get that updated before that final interview day you guys know the things that they come up you know in the last couple years or not that need to be looked at so good idea I can always say if you're looking for model language I got 50 contracts I can pull up depending on what you're looking for and probably save you some money okay thank you I think that's all I had tonight I feel good about it can you work with Trent on that if I would my to-do
099list is uh getting the job posting back to you right away with the updates making sure you get one more look at it then we'll get it out there and teach eye on all my websites and then the survey I think we get that out here right away this week I'll get that updated with dates and everything get that out there soon and then go to work recruit for you over the holidays that's the biggest things I need to do for you right away uh the big thing for you guys quite honestly would be let nothing bad hit the news in the next month and a half that's kind of a joke but not really because that takes away from your pool and number two it would be start to think about your formal interview
100teams you can you'll get that shot from the survey but if there's other people get them on the list and really think about that as always my my email my cell is on the back you know call me text me with questions if Laurel calls me or texts me I'm probably going to respond to everybody and just say hey we talked about this so everybody has that information so can probably have a good holidays too get some down time and enjoy it and then we'll be back and get this tied up uh sounds good any other questions or thoughts some possible pool um say there's eight people how many people have experienced you think I don't know eight top two or three I mean you're talking about true blue superintendent two or three and probably
101one of those three will come with a little baggage yep just being honest and you'll have to decide is that a big deal or not or what was it we'll try to dig into it but yeah that's I'm just being honest with you but again I really do think principals directors assistants have oh um not at all yeah some of the rigors really and are more prepared than they have been in the past I really believe that nope I just I just think that's what we'll get but okay thank you have a great holidays great to meet you guys I'll get you a lot of information here soon and uh keep working for you thanks Jeff thank you good to meet you thank you all right I'll call our work session complete you know I
102always like to have these in person if we can so no problem anything comes up just give me a hour foreign is here