001ensure those online can hear and please silence your cell phones. The next item on the agenda is discussion and possible appointment of principal for Hubble Elementary School and I will turn it over to Iris. >> Thank you, Chair Ponds. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, commissioners. It is my pleasure to formally announce my recommendation for the for the position of principal at Hubble Elementary School, Megan Reiner. Miss Reiner is not a stranger to Bristol Public Schools as she formerly served as assistant principal at Chippens Hill Middle School, assistant principal at Green Hill School, and interim principal at Hubble School from August 2023 to November 2023. Miss Reiner brings strong executive leadership experience from these roles where she led instructional improvement efforts, crisis response, staffing, scheduling, special education compliance, and schoolwide cultural initiatives. Her leadership contributed to
002Greenhill School being recognized as a Connecticut school association, school of the year, and a statewide winner for culture and climate. across multiple buildings and grade spans. She has overseen curriculum alignment, assessment coordination, professional learning communities, positive behavior intervention supports, restorative practices, and equity focused family engagement. Miss Riner's leadership philosophy is grounded in collaboration, equity, and shared accountability. She believes schools thrive when all stakeholders, students, staff, families, and community partners are empowered, informed, and united around a common vision for student success. During the interview process, which included two interviews and a performance task assignment, Miss Reiner was praised for her strong elementary experience and familiarity with Bristol and specifically Hubble School. her knowledge of our curriculum and expectations, her strong knowledge of evidence-based reading instruction, and her enthusiasm for returning to Bristol and working in an
003urban environment. Miss Rhina holds a bachelor of arts in political science from Rutgers University and an MA in counseling education and educational leadership from Keen University. I remember when Miss Reiner came to my office um to personally let me know when she was resigning to take a job in in Graanby. I had just started as acting superintendent and I told her she would always be welcome to come back to Bristol and I'm so glad that she made the decision to return. So I asked the board to um make the appointment of Miss Riner for principal of Kell Elementary School. Would Miss R minor like to come up and speak? Hello. Okay. Better than I thought. All right. Good evening, Superintendent White Commissioners and my biggest fan, my daughter Emma. >> I saw her getting very
004excited. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Um she really is my biggest fan and I'm hers. Um, words truly cannot capture how grateful and honored I am to have the opportunity of possibly uh returning to LNP Hubble Elementary School. After two years away and many uh meaningful professional experiences, I'm thrilled to return and fully invest in such an ordinary extraordinary school community. Having served the Bristol public schools for eight years, this district has played a profound role in cultivating my administrative leadership and I deeply missed being part of the community that leads with heart. Since leaving my role as assistant principal of Green Hills and my interim principal ship, we're returning to Hubble to collaborate, learn, and grow alongside the dedicated faculty, staff, and families has remained both a professional goal and a personal hope that is
005incredibly close to my heart. My leadership philosophy is grounded in servant leadership, collaboration, and transparency. And I'm committed to strengthening the partnerships that support every child's success. and I'm beyond excited uh to begin this next chapter um with your hopeful appointment. Uh I have so much gratitude and I'm I'm just beyond excited. So, thank you. It's nice to see all of you and to meet you and to get to know you better. >> Can I what? A motion. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? >> Mr. Chair. Yes. >> Um I wanted to bring attention to our uh policy 21000 with regards to the hiring committee for administrative staff organizations. Um could somebody please tell me who were the members of the hiring committee? >> Sure. I think we
006have um our head of HR here who can come and answer your questions. Mr. Joe Gabowski. >> Good evening. um the roles, the individuals who were on the committee. We had um two we had three teachers from the building. Two of them were BFT stewards. We had an elementary principal on the committee. Two of them um one of them was from the BAPS representing in the capacity of the BAPS president. We had a special education supervisor um who works at Hubble um or one of the schools that she works at is Hubble. Uh myself, I was on the committee as well as uh Carly Forin >> and that's our we had a board member >> who was a previous teacher. >> Those were all the people that were on the hiring committee >> that was
007on round one. >> And no, there was one more. Um the superintendent had a community member on that committee. Um Morris Patton. >> You said Morris Patton. Correct. >> Okay. Um my question comes in inciting this policy is that as a commissioner I have approached the board and the policy committee multiple times requesting that our administrative hiring committees have um could be considerate of minority party representation. Um that has not been taken under consideration since probably the last two years I believe since you've been chair. So, I'm going to reinforce again that um the we have a set of standards that are the minimum standards. It does look like you've followed the majority of that, but as commissioners on the board, before we pluck in random community members, when we have commissioners that are duly
008elected officials that are under state guidance to be responsible for the hiring of administrative and superintendent personnel in this district, I will once again ask that you kindly start considering allowing a broader spectrum of board members to obtain these high, please. We will take that into consideration. Thank you very much, Commissioner Ganton. >> Do you have any other questions? Okay. Thank you. So, a motion has been made and seconded. Are there any other discussion points? >> Okay. Oh, through the chair. >> Yes. >> I would just like to say um thank you so much for sharing a bit about yourself and um what brought you back to Bristol. I really feel like I felt your passion and your dedication. Um, and I really appreciated that. Thank you. Okay. No further discussion. >> One, one other
009quick question. I'm so sorry. I did write it down. It uh, was there members of the teachers you? >> Yes, there were three. >> Three. Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. All in favor? >> I I oppos. Um, I'm here. I just uh wanted to let you know I approve as well. >> You you uh Okay. Thank you. >> Sorry I got sorry I got here late. >> That's okay. Russ votes yes. So motion passes uh 7 to one. Thank you. Congratulations and welcome aboard. Oh, good job. Your mom did it. Okay. The next item on the agenda is discussion of regular board of education 2026 meeting dates. We all have the dates in front of us and I would be looking for a motion to approve. >> So moved. >> Motion's been made. Any second?
010>> Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Okay. Without discussion, all in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion passes unanimously. >> The next item on the agenda is presentation on roles and responsibilities of board members facilitated by Nick Haruso, junior associate executive director for field services and technology at Cabes. I'd like to introduce Nicholas Caruso. and have him kind of set the stage for us because I know this is kind of an onboarding workshop. So, I don't know if you want us to sit like this or if you want to change things up. >> Is it okay? This is okay. Um because I know it's streaming and that sometimes it's tough doing this type of thing in a hybrid situation, but I'll do my best and sorry to the ones offline or that aren't
011here. I'll do my best to keep you involved. Um yeah, so this is the time of year when I'm doing this pretty much every night. Um the new state statute that requires boards to um board members to receive training within the first year of their election. Um we take that pretty seriously. We had an all day session last week um that qualified for that. Everybody here by participating in this one tonight will get that credit as well. What I'm going to do, and I'm seeing some names that are different already. I pulled from our database who we think is on the Bristol Board of Education. So, I'm going to pass it around. If somebody's not here anymore, cross them out. If you're here, check it off so that you'll get credit. And if you're not
012on the list, down below, you'll see print name, sign, and email address. And then our our receptionist will work with central office to make sure we get all that information in our database. And please make sure I get it back. I walk out of here half the time forgetting these. So, um, I get worked up. So, um, oh, I was at Staples High School last week in Norwalk and or in Westport and that was the high school at Rock. There was actually a documentary about it where they had a whole bunch of big acts playing there back in the 70s and I just it was pretty exciting. A friend of mine actually went there and left high school at the age of 16 and went on the road and was touring with uh Buddy Miles.
013He toured with Hendricks. He was like really pretty cool. Um so that was fun. So um we're going to kind of go around real quickly and um I'd like you to introduce yourself, how long you've been on the board, why you chose to run for the board, and what you hope to get out of tonight. And Barbara, maybe we'll start with you and we'll go this way. I was uh privileged enough to get elected. I feel privileged to get elected in November to be on this board. I'm a recently retired teacher. Um I always had it uh at the forefront when I retired that I would um do this eventually and it happened to come up sooner rather than later. So, um, going through the process too, it's helped me see that this is really
014kind of where I belong. I believe in the schools. I believe in the staff, um, the families, community members, um, this board of ed. I think it's a great community and I want to be a part of, um, seeing us really move it forward in a really positive way. Um, and I, uh, I think the part that helped me get elected was no doubt, um, knowing, you know, having worked in Bristol for 16 years as a teacher and making connections with a lot of parents that, um, may not have voted otherwise or, you know, and decided to vote for me, too. So, that was definitely uh, definitely a pro for me. But, no, I need to know everything. So, you go right ahead. I'll be taking notes. Thank you. [laughter] >> How not to make
015a fool of myself in front of everybody. That'd be a good question. >> Well, I'm the one doing all the talking. If anybody's going to make a fool of themselves, it's going to be me. Um Jill, >> hello. U my name is Jill and I just what Barbara had said, I uh am grateful I was just reelected. Um, so this is my second term serving and what really brought me to Board of Education initially was my daughter. Um, she's in Bristol public schools and she's my heart. Um, and I really am so grateful for the support that we've received from our teachers and the staff at the school. It's something they're really passionate about. And then um my background is in policy. And so I think that's >> right. Thank you. [laughter] >> That's one
016one skill set that I bring and I I hope that I could help uh you know help in that area a little bit. Um and what I hope to get from tonight is uh a greater understanding of our roles and responsibilities and how we can work together um as a team. whatever that may look like. >> Thank you. I appreciate having the name tags on there, by the way. That really helpful to me. [clears throat] >> Thank you. >> Hi. Um Cara Ledger. Um I was also just recently elected this past um election, new board member. I am a lifelong Bristol resident, so there is that part of giving back to the community and serving. I have family in the school system, but I also was a former teacher in Harford for 11 years. and
017I did resign um just for a lot of different reasons, but part of it was just a lack of support in general. So, I feel like um being here and using that background and expertise to help support teachers in Bristol and students um I feel like I'm in a good position to do that and that's what I'm here for. So, um I hope to do that. In terms of expectations, um yeah, I guess just soaking in as much information that we can in those two hours. because I know that that's uh there's a lot. Um but I hope it just kind of helps me hit the ground running to kind of continue learning more as a board member. >> Thank you. In Westport, we played two hours and we went three. So it nobody wanted
018to stop. So um I have far less of a drive tonight than I did on last Monday night. That was an hour and a half back. So Maria, >> hi. Good evening. My name is Maria Simmons. I um have been on the board for I think is it going into my third year. Um my why is I think pretty simple just to serve. Um just I believe that in our role we serve all no matter just to serve. Um what I hope to get from tonight is um you know ways for us to build bridges with everyone in our um school community in the Bristol community and ensuring that um we stay anchored in serving and what does that mean? What does that look like? But I'm open to whatever um whatever you have to
019present and certainly interested in supporting all of our consumers. Thank you. Um, so I just finished my sixth year. I have two years left. And um, I didn't run because I had a deep yearn to serve. I actually was um, confused by people who worked for free. Uh, it didn't make any sense to me when I would listen to my friends who did this. But I in the wake of loss, I lost somebody and I was very sad and I was asked to serve. I was asked to run and I would do anything I could to fill my time. So I said yes, naively not knowing that >> to it, right? A couple meetings a month, no big deal. >> Yeah. No big deal. Um, but then once I once I started to participate and
020realized the difference that you can make and I understood quickly what service meant and I was happy that I was called um to do this and I have a career in education. So, I feel like I had a knowledge base that would be helpful. And I also um am very excited about having you lay out our roles better for us because I think um over the six years, we've had a lot of different mixed messages. And I think it's good to get grounded again with the new board, have a fresh start, and hear ways that we can really serve our community in the best way possible. >> Thank you. You don't get a pass. [laughter] >> You're part of the team. >> So, I was um appointed acting superintendent of May 2024 and then permanent
021in May 2025. Um why? Uh I was at the state department for 16 years. I worked in the turnaround office and I consulted with um district and schools in need of improvement and I felt limited in that role and I thought that I wanted to go back into a district and wanted to have more of a position where I would be able to have some power and more influence and and improving outcomes for students and families. So that is my my why. And so really um always welcome the opportunity to learn more about the board's role and how the superintendent's role is different and making sure that we're all staying in our lane and following appropriate rules and working collaboratively. >> Thank you. >> Hello. Um, I have been an administrator in Bristol for the
022past 20 years and um, I have only been on this board for about nine months. I am very grateful to have you here because I I feel like I I know what is happening, but sometimes I'm questioning it. [laughter] Um, and I really I love that we're doing this and learning and I'm hoping to have a big impact on this community. Um, as we say, half of the community went through Chippens Hill and I was there for like 20 years. So, >> thank you. >> Jen Van Gorder. I've been on the board, this is, I think, my third year, too. Um my why is I really um started paying more attention during co I was very upset with the um policies that our children suffered under um so that's what got me involved coming to
023meetings and really paying attention and I am hoping to I guess get some refresher learn something new today hope we can start to work collaboratively a lot of us are pretty sidelined with no committee assignment So hoping to figure a way to u bridge that gap. >> Thank you. >> Y >> my name is Kristen G Antonio. This is my seven and a half year on the board. Um I am not involved in education but my other than this and serving. Um but my lie is that uh at the time I was uh not serving when but I was sought out um after there was a vacancy on the board and I believe that part of the reason why I was sought out was because I have a um strong lived personal experience in special
024education. I have a deep understanding of IDBA ada. I served in volunteer advocate roles in both local and statewide organizations. I sit on the judicial branch of the state of Connecticut ADA board. I have been on that board for five years. Um I told the p the people seeking me out no when they asked me to fill the vacancy um more than once because I uh I did want to make sure that I had the time and the and the commitment for it. Um but after speaking with some people and um hearing the community say over and over again how the voice of parents in special education had never been heard on this board before in our community is um a steady membership of the board or being represented representative of that community directly. Um
025we have an identification rate that floats between 20 and sometimes 24% with a no end in sight on that. Um I also believe in um a healthy community needs to have a very highly successful um wellestablished top leadership with top talent type of school district that performs for its staff and students in order for it to make us an attractive community. And I believe in the public role of boards of education that's filled with community members um so that we uh hold our board in our district and its board leadership accountable to our children, family and community. So that's why >> and your expectations for tonight? >> Um I'll um I'm just I'm going to pass on. >> Okay, that's fine. It's no pressure. Um, so just very quickly so you know who I am.
026Um, I was asked to run for the board of education in Bloomfield in 1983. Um, yeah, that was seemed like a long time ago. Um, at the time I was working in the family plumbing business. So I was a plumbing contractor. So you don't have to feel guilty that you didn't come from an education background. I mean I had two degrees and I didn't plan on being a plumber but I got stuck doing that for a while. But it gave me the opportunity to be involved in the board of ed. And then when I took over the business, it gave me free reign to do anything I needed to to do on the board of ed and kind of let the business kind of go to the side. But I found my passion because I
027really believe very strongly in public schools. I believe very strongly in the work you do. And when I had the opportunity um 32 years ago, time really flies um to go to CAB and start working with boards directly. I've been doing this for 32 years and I am more passionate about it today than I was 32 years ago. I love this work. You know, I could retire. I have no intention to. I love doing this work so much and I'm hoping that I'll be helpful to you. Um, I also want to make sure you understand this doesn't have to be we meet tonight and then we don't have to see each other for a while. I'm more than happy to come back, work with you over time, you know, pick different areas. You talk about
028building a team that doesn't happen overnight. And while you might learn some things today that can help, it takes time. So, I'm more than happy to make the commitment. I I'm going to Winchester for the 53rd time in January. So, I again, I make a commitment. I stick to it. So, I just want you to know that. And Cab is here for you for that. >> Nick, thank you. I I just wanted to also say we have Russ Anderson on >> Oh, you're right. Thank you. I need to be reminded of that. Um Russ, you want to join in? >> Yeah. How are you? Um good. Thank you. Um yeah, so um I was uh as far as you know how or why my motivations were for uh you know for becoming a member of
029the board um I was I was drafted um I was asked to uh complete a term uh from another commissioner who uh who had to step down and um I'm going on I'm going on my fourth year now. Um, but I was asked to, you know, um, I was asked be uh, you know, because I'd expressed an interest in wanting to serve. Um, and some of that motivation did come out of some of the things some of the some of the things I quite frankly frightened me um, with policies uh, during the uh, the COVID um, era. Um, so that was that was a big motivation for me. Um but also another thing another motivating factor for me is uh I also have a have a child with uh you know that's within the spectrum
030and um you know I I found that you know although we've made a lot of you know great strides at you know from where I was you know when you know when our son was diagnosed and some of the uh some of the battles that we had to have um you know for for my son you know we've come a long way but I I still think that we still have uh some more more things that we uh that we can do to uh to make it an even better program uh for the uh for the special needs community in this town. Um, you know, I feel that, you know, we, you know, where we could probably do a better job is, you know, with with the special needs community is, you know, giving them
031a sense of community. Right now, at least, at least in my, uh, my own lived experience, I don't feel like we really add that. Um, you know, people, you know, that have, uh, children of spectrum tend to isolate and, um, you know, you know, either due to lack of support or just, you know, other things. And you know, again, you know, the schools uh you know, the schools come a long way from where they were, but um I I think we could do more to um help special needs community have a a greater sense of community. And that's really one of my other motivating factors for being here. Um as far as for what I expect to get out of this, you know, even even though I've been doing this for, you know, going on
032four years, you know, there's there's always something you can learn from, you know, especially with some of the new people that we have, some of our new members, there's always something you can learn. and you know uh um you know kind of grow and and and be you know just become you know just get better at what you're trying to do. Um you know and also I think you know uh you know trying to see if you know how we can you know how we can you know still uh you know uh get policies through uh through a mutual basis even though right now you know there you know uh we really frankly don't have a whole lot of representation in some of the committees. >> Thank you very much. Oh, I gonna have to
033go this way. That happened last night. I was aiming in the wrong direction. Oh, >> okay. So, I'm going to start with a real simple question. How many school board members does it take to screw in a light bulb? [laughter] >> One. >> Third best answer. I heard nine. Second best answer. They're both wrong. The answer is none. It's up to the board to say let there be light. Uhhuh. >> You set policy, you set expectations, you create goals, you set the high bar where we want to go and then it's the superintendent job as CEO to determine is it going to be incandescent, fluorescent, candle, solar, etc. And very importantly, designate the appropriate person to do the job. I was doing this for a much smaller district one time and I had done this
034and everybody, you know, we all laugh because it's kind of fun and I bet if I ask you a year or two from now, you'll all have forgotten because that tends to happen. But it's an important distinction. But anyway, the superintendent while we were in the middle of this workshop was writing feverishly on a legal pad through the whole meeting. And I, what are you doing? She said, well, I'm taking the minutes. And a couple things flashed in my mind. Number one, minutes for a workshop like this could say the board met, you had your appointment, you had the agenda, uh, the calendar that you adopted, and then you had a presentation on roles and responsibilities, and the meeting ended at 8:30. I mean, it doesn't have to be verbatim minutes about something like this.
035But more importantly, what actually cracked me up, I was really grateful. One of the board members literally stood up, pointed to the superintendent, said, "She's screwing in the light bulb." And she absolutely was. Have any of you ever sat in a meeting and somebody says, "Who's going to take the minutes?" Typically happens. Does anybody jump? Oh, me. No. I hide in the corner when I know it's coming because when you take minutes, you're not engaged in the work. You're focusing on hearing everything accurately and writing it down, but you're not participating. I want my CEO, I want my executive authority to be a full participant in the meeting because this she has to be reading you and listening to you so she understands what you're trying to accomplish. She can't do that if she's sitting
036there taking minutes. And so they acknowledge, well, we did it because we save 50 bucks a meeting. This was a number of years ago. Might be $100 a meeting now. I don't know. But the reality is they were hamstringing their superintendent and themselves because they weren't getting full participation. So that was an example of screwing in the light bulb. And that we turned it into a teachable moment. They decided, "Yep, you know what? That is ridiculous. We're going to get the person and when I went back a couple weeks later as a later as a follow-up meeting, I was in the superintendent's office talking to her before the meeting and she was sitting there typing up the minutes that she had handwritten two weeks before." So again, taking time away from her important work to
037be doing the minutes. So that's an example. Part of your job as a board is to enable the superintendent to do what needs to be done by providing her the resources she needs to get the work done. A big part of your work is to make sure not that you're I mean we did some ridiculous things in our board like you and I'll get to some of that in a little bit, but um it's really it has to be a sort of symbiotic relationship. We set a vision. We set our expectations. And then the superintendent puts a plan together and says, "In order to make this plan work, here's what I need from you." And so your job is to set the bar, but then it's also provide the resources to actually achieve it. And
038then it's your job to evaluate the quality of lighting. You part of each of every one of your board meetings should be talking about the student data, the expectations established through your goals. Um, I even think a great addition to any agenda and every agenda is just report on goals part of the superintendence report. It doesn't have to be a 45minute presentation. It might just be item three on the agenda. Tonight's directly related to our first goal. Uh, in a month you're going to see a report on the reading program we established last year and we're going to do a follow-up. But just so that you're tying your work to the vision of the district. I think that's really important. I just threw this stuff together recently when I was doing that new board member
039thing we did a couple weeks ago. Um, I wanted to start things off giving people a little perspective and these are just some interesting schoolboard facts. The oldest political institution in America are school committees. School committees were started in 1647. You're the oldest form of government in in the United States, which I thought was pretty fascinating. You're also the largest group of elected officials. There's 95,000 schoolboard members around the country. There's 13,000 school districts. So, and there's about 1,400 in Connecticut. So, we even have quite a few here. Um, school boards control more than 600 billion dollars in funding. Uh, and there's about 50 million students in public schools. Now, that's an important number because we often talk about public schools being under attack. And part of the dilemma is that people see this as
040it's public money and it's I'd like to think a 100% of it is being filtered through the system. They see profit in that comp, you know, they want to see they want business to take it over and of course they're going to get the 5 10 20 whatever percent. That's going to be money pulled directly out. I mean there's a number of charter schools now that are businesses. I mean, it's one thing when they're public, but some of them are businesses and they're running on a business model trying to make a profit. And so, we lose resources when we do that. So, part of your job as a board member is to be an advocate for public schools because we are the public in the community. You are the public in the public schools and
041just again something to be thinking about. And outside of Connecticut, I know um some of the boards I deal with are quite partisan, some are not. But in Connecticut, we're one of the only states that really has uh partisan elections. Most states, you get on a petition uh through getting you sign petitions, you get on the ballot, there's no party affiliation, and people just run. There's only one community in Connecticut that does that. Berlin um has nonpartisan elections and they're actually looking at charter revisions to change that. I'm not sure why because they've been bragging about it for years, but um it takes some of the power away from the political entities because these people are going directly to the people. Um some famous schoolboard members. Um the first one on the left, uh Sumpter
042County School Board, 1955 to 1962, former President Jimmy Carter was a school board member. the person in the middle, um, Calvin Culage. My comrades in the Massachusetts Association of School Committees say that Calvin Kulage was a member of the Northampton School Committee. Um, anything I found on research said he lost the election to the Northampton School Committee. Um, and then went on to become president. So, don't be distur uh disturbed if you feel challenged sometimes. You still have a chance to be president. And then um the uh famous wicked witch of the west um Margaret Hamilton was a member of the Beverly Hill board. Beverly Hills board of education. So um you're in good company. Some famous numbers. And if you think you know the answer is just shout them out. 58,42 pardon me students
043in Connecticut. Number of public school students in Connecticut, 1,544, pardon me. Uh, yep. School um school actually schools. It's number of schools. There's 168 school districts. There's 1,544 schools and programs that sort of fall under the opice of boards of education. um 53,371 certified staff full-time equivalent, right? 51. Nope, there's uh there's not 168 cuz some do multiple districts. I'm going to say it's probably about 120, but I could be off a little bit. Um I know region 7 there's seven boards under one superintendent. Region 4 has four boards, one super is a few, dilutes a little bit. Um 51 is the smallest school district in Connecticut. That's union. 2039. 2039 is the year that your current kindergarters will graduate high school. And that's seems like a long way away, doesn't it? It's going to
044fly by really quick. And then 20,22, that's Bridgeport. That's the largest school district in in Connecticut. Um, by the way, um, I would just mention in Union, they actually have five members of the board of education. There's only four teachers. They actually have more school board members than they do teachers in union. >> What was that? How many members? >> They have five schoolboard members and they have four teachers. So, there's more board members than teachers, which I thought was an unusual situation. Um, I got gleaned that from uh, Edsite. Edsite is a a website that the state of Connecticut puts up. Uh the state department of education. Uh the the address is up there, edsite.ct.gov. It is full of data. It is rich with data. The performance reports uh they print these up um
045for every school district. So you can find your data on there. Um download it. It's a PDF file. It has demographic data. It has student data. It has staff data. It has performance data. I mean, it's rich with all kinds of different things. Gives you a snapshot of some of the things in your district. And outside of on top of that, there's u report cards. There's all kinds of they're constantly analyzing data and and they'll post all this data right on their website. So, once you get hooked on it, you're just going to spend some time looking through it because there's some really good stuff there. >> Nick, what was the number? 2022. >> Pardon me. Oh, Bridgeport, though. >> Bridgeport. Yeah. >> Spending a lot of time in Bridgeport lately. They're um trying to
046get some things straightened out and they're doing a pretty good job, but it's a it's a challenge. So, I do this with every district I work with. Um there's 7,774 actually little smiley faces on that page. Um representing all the children that you are under your care. That's the number of ch students that are listed on that strategic school profile as your average daily membership. It's about a year old, so it's going to fluctuate a little bit year to year. Um, but I want to just reinforce that each and every one of those children, their entire future depends on what happens in these schools because there's lots of evidence that shows if you have a less than successful school experience, you have a much less likelihood of success in life. And the converse of that
047is if you have a successful school experience, you have a much greater likelihood of success. And so each and every one of these children counts. It isn't, you know, 7700. It isn't 70 se, you know, 7,000 plus 7,774. Each and every one, the parents of the four aren't going to excuse you and say, well, as long as you get the others, we can eliminate, we can worry, not worry about four. They all matter. And um it's really important because every decision you make not only is affecting them, but you're going to have about 12% coming in, 12% going out. So, you're impacting thousands and thousands and thousands of children. decision. That new science program that you were just talking about, the AP science thing that your curriculum committee voted on, sneak peek for those of
048you who haven't seen it yet. That's really incredible science and that's going to affect kids getting into college and their futures. I wish I had something like that when I wanted to be a marine biologist. I probably would be instead of doing this, but um that didn't work because I didn't have a class like that when I was in high school. So um it whatever the children's need is, that's what you they need you for. And when you're looking at data, you might say something like, you know, well, 75% of our kids are on mastery orif 70 60 um whatever it might be. We have to remember that means 25 didn't make it or 30 or or even 10, that's still 777 kids that we have to do better for. So keep keep in mind
049the smiley faces as you go through your work. It's important. So I gave you some stickers, um little sticky notes in front of you. each of you has one. Um I'm sorry for our our um board member that's not there. Um I don't know, maybe you can give us a number. We'll make one for you. Um but on you have two. I think there's a pink one and a kind of a chartreuse one. At least that's what fishermanmen call chartreuse colored fishing lures. So on the chartreuse one, I want you to write the percentage of students currently succeeding in Bristol. >> How are we measuring that? Somebody has to ask that question, and I'm glad you did. Hold that question. Write down what you think it is, and then we're going to talk about what
050you did to use that number. What What was the this the thing that triggered your number? So, I want you to write down the percentage of students currently succeeding in your district. I'm going to collect them. Excuse me. When you say succeeding, um what what do we uh like like um like a like a grade point average like you know like top end of the grade point average or you know >> well this exercise is to kind of get us the idea that we all have different perceptions on what success means and so I want you to whatever you think that number should be and then we'll ask you to explain why you chose that number just to give everybody an idea how we don't necessarily all think of success the same way and that
051one of the hopes is that after we look at this, we might start to make a, you know, look at ways that we could kind of unify that a little bit because if we have nine different interpretations of what success means, superintendent's going to have a hard time making everybody happy. >> And that's percentage based. >> Yeah. Uh could be zero to 100%. >> Currently currently succeeding. >> Okay. So, while I'm putting these up, if you take the other one, the pink one. I want you to write this. Write the percentage of students that you believe are capable of success. So the first one was what do you think they currently are doing? This one is what do you think they are capable of doing? last song. Okay. So, I'm going to come back Oh,
052this is what was this one? How many should What was the next one? And that makes me feel good because it you can't have the success you need unless you believe that every one of your kids can succeed. So, um, what were some of the incentives that give What was the reasons you gave the And you want to start because you you had a you were writing stuff feverishly down. Apologies for interrupting. Uh I they've been asking me to um to write uh what my percent I can't because my chat's disabled. We're having an audio problem. Hang on a second. Thank you. >> Yeah. Actually, why don't I ask you the the first one was um the number that are currently you want to give us that? >> Did we lose you? Can you hear
053us, Russ? >> Yeah, I'm sorry. I was typing. >> Okay. And capable >> 100%. Sometimes I'll bring that back the next time we get together just to remind us where we started with because as I see it, this is your work. How do we get from here to here? And so part of that is but let's go back to the question though. So Jill, >> so a feeling I'm a little bit different of a train of thought on this, but I had put that it's can't it's hard to for me it's hard to feel like I can measure someone's success because I feel like everyone's definition of success is different. So, it's important I think to incorporate listening and really meeting students where they're at and working together to achieve their goals. >> Thank you.
054Like I said, there's no right or wrong answer. It's what your perception is. So, thank you for that. Um, and I like it when somebody does something different because it gives us a chance to really explore that. So, thank you. Um, others, >> I was um I was just I just gave my number as like a rounded test score >> that you would see on data. So, I mean, I I look 58%. It's not great, but I know it depends where you take the data from and what tests and things like that. So, I gave a percentage. >> Thank you. >> I uh put 90% because I base the success on the relationship that kiddos make with the adults in the building. And um when we look at our climate data, 90% of our students
055feel like they have a trusted adult. >> So you're basing it on data. Perfect. That's good. Thank you. >> I'll join in. I also did 58%. So that's funny. Um and yeah, right. Um it and it's hard it's hard to gauge, right? What is what is success because it is different for for every child. Um but I I do also see you know the children who are disengaged right and it's hard I don't know I don't know um no matter how hard you know staff tries how you really capture them especially when you know they're older >> and part of engagement is a huge part of how we get from one to the other. How do we get the kids more feeling more valued or feeling what they're learning has value to them will be
056a challenge. We'll do one or two more if you feel like it. >> Yeah. I mean, I just wrote 85%, which might be high, but I was also wondering about the metric and I'm like, you know, it could mean are they meeting all the targets, but do they feel like they belong? Do they feel safe? Like I it's a lot. So, I just kind of threw a number knowing that we're not fully there and we have work to do. Um, that's where that came from. See in my mind what is important something like this is it gets us to realize that if we want to make true changes and true improvements we have to really decide what does success mean. Um, and Simon Synynic, who most people know, he did the famous Y presentation on
057a TED talk, um, made the comment that um, success is a um, state of mind, achievement is a metric. And so if I had asked, and we sometimes do this in in some of the work we do, what percentage of children are at grade level? That would give you a very different perspective because that's a measurement that we can all look at. Um and it also raises a question amongst you all is do I get this type of information through presentations to the board so that I will know that or do we have an like do we look at those numbers every year just to see how our ch how we're changing how we're growing because growth is really what we're trying to do. We're trying to get children from part A to part B.
058Um for years there was this sort of idea that um you know the calendar is fixed 180 school days everybody starts on day one everybody ends on day 185 let's say um but the the actual learning is is a variable I mean depending on how they're taught what their challenges are whatever what resources you have to bear to help these children they can go from very successful to needing to improve more so um part of that is like how do we figure out what kids need. How do we do that? The what we're now learning and CAPS did a really amazing white paper a number of years ago where they really tried to look at 21st century education. Remember when that was coming? We're a quarter of the way through already. You know, that happened
059fast. Um but I know CAP said what has to change is time becomes the um learning becomes the constant. Time becomes a variable. We expect every child will get it but we understand that some will get it in a different pace and then we have to teach to their pace. So um and it's a the bigger you are the more of a challenge that is but it's doable and so I think part of you as you look to how do we make ourselves a more effective board? How do we make the schools more effective? what how can we have one voice so that when we're looking to and and maybe to help in some of the you know people feeling they're left out if we're part of setting what that vision is and we're all
060working toward the vision it might make life a little easier and we could when I do this um part of what we used to do um the Iowa school boards association came up with the lighthouse study about 20 years ago now and lighthouse was trying to ascertain what do boards of education do differently in highly achieving high achieving districts that they that boards don't do in lower achieving districts. They weren't even sure what they'd find for research. You know, might be a dismal failure. We might They found some very concrete evidence that says boards do certain things in high achieving districts that there's actual um similar behavior, similar sets of expectations. And out of that, they developed a training program which Connecticut was part of for about 10 years. And so, we asked a lot
061of these questions and we really pushed boards to understand what you can do to make a difference. And some of it is some of the things that we're talking about, you know, staying focused, um, focusing on achievement, on growth, and supporting your superintendent as she makes those things go forward. That we got it. Um, just a couple more things and I'm going to switch gears. Um, there's a book called Schoolboard Leadership in America. It was written by a guy named Ed Tuttle. Ed was the first executive director of the National School Boards Association. He wrote this book in 1958 and I heard about it a couple years ago and I, you know, might be interesting to see what school boards were doing in 1958. My dad was actually a schoolboard member in 1958 and he
062was on the board that built like eight elementary schools within a very short period of time. Um, and so I read the book. I got it on Amazon used for six bucks. I couldn't pass it up. What I realized as I read the book is many of the situations they were dealing with in 1958 we still deal with today. Um one of the things that I always observed uh even from way back when early days as a school board member was that we are constantly dealing with social conditions that impact student learning. And so um you know the need for a strong family to support a child and if the family isn't there we still have to compensate because our job is to teach the children where they how they come to us. It's not
063go back home you know or have your kids send have your parents send the good kids to us and we'll take good care of them. We have to meet every child where their needs are and that's we know how to do it. I mean that's the other thing we know how to do. We can teach every child. The problem is the resources to do that. So there's a public will issue that falls into place. It's not a question of whether we can do it or not. It's whether the communities are willing to support that. So part of your job is to constantly be advocating for more for your kids. The difference now is scale. The economy of scale. Everything is faster, harder, more, you know, and they've added, you know, 50, 75 years of additional
064expectations on you that have nothing to do with your classroom instruction. So it's harder than it used to be. Did you have a question? No, I was going to say that you I mean now that I'm probably it's obvious to everyone that I'm the one who wrote 33%. My um percentile had nothing to do with the students themselves considering thinking that our students don't perform. But you started touching on it for me being um let's say a median medium urban district. We have far too many students that fall into at least one risk category and um we're not alone in that, right? But considering our school district is also an alliance district, that means twothirds of the other districts in the state are not. And that that's a performance goal, right? So, um what I
065think of is are we doing how like how are our students performing? If we were able to capture and eliminate as many risk categories as we could for students, that would allow for a 100% of the students to get what they need to be college and or career ready when they left here. And that involves quite a bit of um dynamics in how you deliver that education. But we are bound by a lot of um contingencies, money, staff, room, bill, >> contract. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. >> That's why I put 33 because there are very few students that don't fall within some kind of risk category that prevents them performing their best. >> I I did it in one district, frankly, it's a very high achieving district down on the shore. Um, you know, their actual
066test scores are in the 80s, 90% of mastery and such, but one board member put 10%. And she said, "Because we don't do a good enough job on the arts and and nobody can be successful without some background in the arts." And so it that was her truth. And I mean it's in some ways I think it's we have the luxury of thinking about that because we have the kids getting the math instruction they need the reading instruction. But the other side of that is she had a very valid argument. You know we we if we want to give children a well-rounded education. You know we don't want them to just survive. We want to give them something to to live for. And sometimes that means how do we do those other things as well?
067We can't just discount them. Thank you for that. And again, it shows how we can all look at it a little differently, but I think that perspective would be very important as we have a conversation somewhere down the road about what the district vision should look like or what it is. And we have to align ourselves better with what it what already exists because if you have a strategic plan, if you have a portrait of a graduate, if you have any of those things already worked on, how much of that is your work do you feel? And and it really should be your work. Um, the other thing I love about this book, it was full of quotes. I just picked this one out by Lafayette because I really like it in terms of decision-making.
068I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and out of all this, I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can. It's not all about data. And some of you are more more motivated by numbers than others. I was the other side. I was kind of like, hey, it feels right. Let's just it's we're ready. Let's vote. You know, I'm I know this is good. You know, in my instinct or intuition or whatever. And I sat next to a nuclear physicist. He actually wrote the computer programs that they used to start nuclear reactors and he's like incredibly genius and he never saw enough numbers to satisfy himself, you know. So we and we buted we were good friends but we butt heads because I need
069more data and I'm like what are you talking about it's so clear um and you all bring different perspectives and so how do we get to that point where we respect even though I'm looking at it differently I respect the fact that you come from that position and you're going to help us make a better decision. I put this quote on my tagline for my email because I love it. Great leaders don't set out to be a leader. They set out to make a difference. We follow people who are going somewhere. And if you want the teachers and the administrators and the parents and your your mayor and your city council or whatever to follow you, you have to really show them that we're out to make a difference. There's a lot of angst around
070social media nowadays. I'm really starting to get frustrated. But I all my friends are on Facebook, so I stay connected. But one thing I love is memes. And I've been working on this one um for school boards. Oh, the green. So anyway, I'm just going to go around the block here because I I just want you to get a perspective. Um starting lower left corner. How our community sees us. The Salem witch trials. How our friends see us. Washington crossing the Delaware. You fighting the good fight. How our parents see us. Jonah Var getting burned at the stake. Um in Bloomfield, we had the Bloomfield Journal come out every Friday afternoon. And my parents lived in town. I grew up there. So my dad would call me every Friday afternoon and say, "Did you see
071the journal this morning?" "Yep." "Oh, Claire really beat you up in a letter to the editor, didn't she?" "Yep." "What do you think?" Well, I'd be really scared if she said something nice about me. Um but it it bothered him because I was you, especially when I became board chair, I was beaten up constantly, often by my own party. So, I mean, talk about, you know, trying to do the right thing and getting slammed from everybody. Um, but you're in a real hot spot situation and you a few people have talked about COVID. It was never more difficult to be a schoolboard member than during CO. I mean, it was really hard because you're hearing from a variety of experts all saying this is the best knowledge we have and it could change dramatically because
072we didn't know a lot. We didn't know what we didn't know. Um, and you're right in the middle of all of it. It got very, very tough to be a board member, very tough to be a superintendent. You went from being an educational leader to trying to put out fires all the time because that's where we were. Um, how we see us, Mel Gibson, charging across the field in the Patriot. You know, we're just doing our best. How our staff sees us, drunken sailors. how legislators see us, trick-or-treaters, how our kids see us, who, you know, um I was really I mean, you have student reps, I'm assuming, and and I'm sure they participate, but it's mostly what I'm seeing with student reps is more had a football game we won, we had a dance
073at the school, etc., etc. And and I'm working with the Hartford board, right? I think we talked about this in that committee that time where they have and I just worked with them again a couple weeks ago and they're training these kids to be participants. I mean real participants and how to have opinions. The best part of the meeting to me always is we get them talking and they started on yonder pouches, believe it or not. And they had some and and in fact first the assistant superintendent said, "We just changed our grading practice last year. I'd love some feedback." And they gave her feedback, but it was really really good feedback. I would have expected the level of discourse they had coming from a bunch of trained educators. It was really that you know
074talking about formative assessments etc. I mean they really really were and they just it they didn't hear what they wanted to hear but they heard what they needed to hear and that's what they're trying to foster in Hartford and I know you're trying to do some work like that here. If I can be of any help by the way in doing that. I' I've done the Hartford Council three times now and really enjoying that work. Um, and then finally, actually, yes, you started your meeting tonight. The same way board members start all the way across the country. You said the pledge of allegiance, and I still get a little choked up when I see that because that's real democracy. That's where you are doing the public's will and you're doing it day by day by
075day for no re compensation and certainly sometimes under a lot of fire. And so, you deserve a lot of credit for what you do. I I'm working with a board that's very much on the left here. Um, you know, wrestling free-for-all. Um, and I work with boards that really all work together and paddle in the same direction. And, um, if you want to I'm hearing all of you say we want to make a difference. We want to impact the way our children learn. We will never do it if we're having chaos. Um, somebody recently at a conference I was at said drama is the worst um the worst thing for students. You know, board drama just does not help anything. And I was wrapped up in a lot of that myself when I was a
076board member. I was in the wrong party. I was one of two on five to2 board. And you know, it was a challenge and I had to I had to learn how to be heard too though. They weren't they wouldn't automatically listen to me. That bothered me. But I also and and they needed to understand because they saw a plumber. Remember I was a plumbing contractor. What's this guy know? you know uh so I had to make them understand that I had value to the board and then they also got to acknowledge that and it took a learning process. In fact, it took several board members had to change for it to happen because it was really bad at one time. So, but it can be done and it and if you want to get
077to that step above, it kind of has to. Another way to look at it is your tea more like ravioli and meatballs or lasagna. Same ingredients, cheese, pasta, meat and sauce. the same exact stuff. But when you put one together, um lasagna, you blend it all together, apply a little pressure and heat, and um something really kind of awesome happens because you get the ingredients sort of um like a symbiotic relationship. Everybody starts to feed off each other and it just comes up with something better. And so, um I actually had one board member say, "I want to be like the lasagna." So, um there's hope. I'm going to I was going to do that, but I think I'm going to do this one. I have to switch. Um, >> that's perfect. So, um, ju
078just as a a introduction to this, when I first started training school boards, um, I figured I better know what I'm talking about. I mean, I'd had the experience. I'd done it for a number of years. Um, I had worked my way up. I was involved in CABE. I was a member of the board of directors. I chaired the state relations committee, which was the state government uh liaison. Um, I was vice president of CAB. I would have become president if I had stayed on the board, but that's around when I left. And um, so I thought I knew it all, but I the state prints a book of state laws or they did. I think the last edition is like 2018 or 2017. It's 600 pages of state laws affecting public schools. and that
079was 17. So there's now it's probably if they printed it again it probably be about 800 pages. I know Tom Mooney prints uh has written a book that goes through those laws and makes writes them in at least lawyer English which is a little better than legislative English. But he sort of makes it easier to understand them but that's probably 800 pages. And so as I'm looking through this book I'm looking at laws and saying I wished I'd known that. I wished I'd known that. And so these are in essence some of the things I wished I'd known as a board member. And I want to share them with you because it really talks about your authority, your the expectations of what your role is and some of the different areas that can become conflict
080which makes your job harder. So, um, and because they're laws and words are matter, I'm going to read them and I know that's called death by PowerPoint, but I think it's important. I also, as I'm getting older, I become optically challenged. Um, and I don't necessarily always get to read the screen. So, I'm just going to make life easier for you. Um, there shall always be free public elementary and secondary schools in the state. The general assembly shall implement this principle by appropriate legislation. That's the state constitution language that gives um the state's responsibility to provide free public schools. And that was deliberate. Um it was intentional to make it a state law. Um the federal government when it was formed, they debated education. The founding fathers talked about it. Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, many of
081them wrote Adams. They all wrote about education and how important it was and um but they decided that needed to be a function of the state that the federal government was not going to get in the business of educating children. And I will add something very important. Um what they thought of as education back in the 1700s is very different than what we think of education today. Jefferson actually wrote that the purpose of education was to separate the um the genius from the rubbish. Those were his words. And back then, the economy they had back in the 1700s, you had very few people that needed to run things, it was mostly labor, a lot hand labor. And so they needed people that could do that, but they were only worried about educating maybe the 10%
082that ran stuff. And it was basically old white guys. I mean, that's who they were educating in those days. We now understand that it's much more universal. the needs of society require people to know a lot more than just the bare rudimentary uh skills but it's a function of the state and it's the general assembly's responsibility to do that you know they didn't write in the constitution there shall be school boards um and when you took your oath of office you swore to uphold the constitution of the US and the Connecticut and that you'll honestly faithfully and partially discharge your duties as a school board member so you're making a commitment to do the work of the for it. Not that anybody here wouldn't do that. Um the statute that gives you your actual authority
083because the legislature said we're going to give this job to somebody else is actually several pages long. That state law book that's 600 pages. This was I think 20 or 30 pages of 10220 which is all of the duties of the board. This is the first paragraph and I think it's a really important paragraph. Each local or regional board of education shall maintain good public elementary se elementary and secondary schools implement the educational interests of the state as defined in section 104A and provide such other educational activities as in its judgment will best serve the interests of the school district. And again when I saw this I'm things started worrying in my head because the first thing I saw was you have to maintain good public elementary and secondary schools. That's the first it's like
084a box of cereal. The number one ingredient is listed first etc. You work your way down till you know nasin B4C which is the last one at the bottom because it's 0.001% or something. This is what the state expects for you from you maintaining good public elementary and secondary schools. You run for the school board because you want to get rid of the football coach. You run for the public schools because you're not happy with the math program. There's lots of reasons we're motivated. That's why I started by asking you why you wanted to run. You had really good reasons to want to run. But in the state's mind, the job is to provide good schools. Now, you can disagree about what good means. And there's further legislation about what good means, and that's where
085the deliberative process comes in. When we agree on what good means, but that's the purpose, to provide good schools. You implement the educational interests of the state. You're a very unique board compared to other agencies in Connecticut because you are a state official functioning at a local level. If you learn nothing else tonight, this is a very important distinction because your community members and frankly most board members when they first get on the board, I'm here to represent the people. Well, yes, but the state expects you to be their agent that you are a state official. The decisions you make are answerable. I'm not sure if I still No, I didn't do it in this one. I had a a slide that I used in some places um where I actually start with the governor
086because the governor can mandate a lot of stuff. He picks the commissioner of education who we are we we answer to. He picks the state board of education who we answer to and the state legislature all have authority over the work that you do and they all can dictate what you do. So you thought you got on the school board you can do whatever you want. You can't. Important distinction. The other part that's really important I is does your um city council kind of let you do what you need to do or are they always trying to make you do stuff and I'm you don't have to answer that because there are some I'm working with a couple boards where they're like board of selectman saying you will do this or you will do that.
087The statute's very clear. You make decisions that are in your judgment the best interest of the school district. So again I wished I had that language when I was board chair facing a very angry town council. It would have helped me a lot. I mentioned the educational interests of the state. I'm going to kind of hit them just quickly. The first one, frankly, is just two words. Equal opportunity. You have to provide equal opportunity for children to receive a suitable program of educational experiences. Heard some talk this earlier about how certain we aren't sure whether we're providing all the resources we need for some of our children. Equal opportunity. It's that's an expectation. So, it's good to challenge ourselves and just say, how are we doing? you know, where are we in this in this
088continuum? Can we do better? We can always do better. Second, um, school finance, you have to meet the MER um or MBR. This is probably the biggest bone of contention for school board members. And I want to talk for a minute about how broken the funding structure is for public schools because this is the biggest dilemma you have is finding the resources to do the work you want to do. Again, 600 pages of law saying you have to do this, you have to do that. We'll talk about some of those as we go along. They have and and back to that other book where all the societal things that they thrust on you along the way. All of the years they've probably added, you know, 100 200 hours a week of stuff you have to
089do, but they've never given you one extra minute. They've never increased a school year by a day. They've never increased the school day by an hour. We're stuck in an 18 a n well 1850s 1950s um agrarian calendar trying to do stuff for the 21st century and it doesn't work and and we'll talk about mandates in a minute. So all of this stuff boils down well they recognized it in 1985 because we were in 1985 I remember the statistic that about half the teachers coming into the teaching profession were coming in from the bottom third of graduating classes. There was a real dilemma that we want the best and brightest teaching and we weren't necessarily attracting the best and brightest. Yes, a lot of really dedicated people who love teaching went into teaching. My sixth
090grade teacher had to paint houses all summer long to offset what he didn't get paid as a teacher. He was an incredible teacher. But just the incentive is lost when some I'm going to pay X amount of money for a college education and get $30,000 a year if I'm lucky, which is kind of what they were paying back then. Um, so the legislature recognized it. They said, "You know what? We get we're going to get your back on this. You can reopen negotiations. You can raise teacher salaries, make them much better, and we're going to pay for it." And very foolishly, we believe them. And we re we did it, and all the other districts did. We raised teacher salaries. And then for about a year or two, they funded them pretty close to everything.
091But now suddenly, oh, we don't have the money anymore. Oops. Again, not one mandate removed, not one expectation removed. And you know, they were going I think at the high point we were up in the maybe high 30s, low 40s in terms of percent. Their commitment was 50% funding by the way that state money would pay for 50% of on average of educating children and Bristol would get more just like you get like alliance grants and stuff. So there is extra resources for districts that have greater needs, but it was 50%. They've never hit 50%. In fact, they still are committed to hitting 50% someday. Um, they're trying to actually target it now, but it was in the 30s for a good part of the last 50 years or 40 years. So, no money, same
092expectations. So, that's dilemma number one for you because your community, it's it's somewhat ability to pay and it's somewhat willingness to pay. Ability to pay is a finite number. there's only so much they can do before they run out of money. But sometimes it's willingness to pay. And so that's where your um your um advocacy comes in really handy because the more you are helping them to understand what the needs are and how you're just doing what the law is expecting, the better it's going to be. Having that clear vision is very helpful for that because then you can align your budget to the goals of the district and in order to achieve this goal, we're doing this and this is why it costs what it does. Sometimes that helped us in Bloomfield when we
093did that cuz we got clobbered one year. This was before there was a hold harmless clause too. When they cut us 10% they cut us 10%. We went from 23 million to 20 million in one year and it took seven or eight years just to get back up to that 23 million. >> Nick I I remember I was superintendent at the time when they the funding had changed significantly. I was trying to but they didn't advise our district and I was trying to account for the reduction and um I was on the phone with whoever would listen to me and and and is it true that it was something is one of one of um a congress person out of like South Carolina or somebody that had proposed and then proposed removing the the hold
094harmless. It's never come back. >> Um I haven't heard them. I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying it, but um but there is a hold in Connecticut there's a hold harmless clause. So except for some very unique exceptions now where student enrollment really drops significantly um there is a provision to allow that but typically it's you can't get less than last year and there but there are far too many districts that only get the same as last year and we know that's a real loss because I know some cases insurance is going up 10 20 30%. um textbooks. I don't know if people even can afford to buy them anymore because they were going up 10, 20, 30%. Um when I was a board member, sometimes even more. So all these things piled up with
095no extra resources. And the other part that's important to know because that this is this double part of the double whammy in special education. And about 50 years ago, I think it was 75 when they came out with the laws that protected the right of ch rights of children with exceptional needs to get the services they need. There were far fewer children identified back then. There were far fewer li the list of things that could be identified were smaller. They've increased that over time. The number of children have increased over time. And um the costs of those services have increased exponentially over time. I mean there's a huge fight about even this legislature trying to put caps on what service providers can charge because it's insane. But here's the part that we don't talk about
096enough. When those laws were passed, the state go the federal government said we will fund 40% of special education. You know what percent they actually do pay? Yes. >> National level it's about seven. Connecticut it's about five. You can't do it you know and but because of the nature of the laws if a child has the exceptional need you must do it. It's not, you can't say, well, it came in after the budget, so we're going to next come in September, we'll take care of it. You immediately do it. So, the money that you allocated for other things is gone and it has to go toward those other things. So, huge challenge to fund your schools and that and partially it's because the promises that were made um or even the ability to make those
097promises was a little overblown, but they never and and it could be some crazy stuff. We'll get to that like two slides. you have to provide because of Chef versus O'Neal they um and this was specific to Hartford but the idea that children were isolated you know racially, socially, economically and that they needed to inter intervene with that. The lawsuit did find that and in Hartford they did it mostly through magnet schools, but every district is required by law to provide resources so that children have the ability to move um to interact with students and teachers from other backgrounds. And you have to report that on that strategic school profile, performance profile, whatever they call it now. That's one of the things you report on. And the state looks at that and and sort of
098I hate to use word judges, but they do respond periodically if they don't think a district is doing enough. And that's going to be different. I was in Chaplain the other night. There's 148 kids in the district and they're like in the middle of nowhere. They can't just take kids on a field trip or go or share programs with other schools. They're just too far away. So, it's going to be different in every district. And finally, and this is sort of the catchall that the legislature uses to make you do a lot of things. You are required to adhere to mandates, particularly those that related to education. The word they left out of the statute is unfunded because they don't give you money. You have to do this, you have to do that. And every
099legislative session, there's another hundred bills proposed that directly affect school districts. Half of them are mandates. And we do our best to fight the ones that we think will be harmful, to support the ones we think will be helpful. We have a standing policy against any mandate in general because it's just especially because there's no money. And in fact, our strategy is typically allow for a policy change rather than mandating something particular because then we can make it work for our district because usually legislators pass a law that'll take care of the one constituent that's got their ear and that'll take care of the one school district that has the problem, but the other 167 are paying for it. So, and and we try very hard and I encourage any of you who want to
100get involved in our legislative work. Um, we have a state relations committee, we have a federal relations committee, a government relations committee, all out there during the sessions influencing legislators and it's it's how I ended up here because I got very involved in that work and I found it really gratifying. And mandates are a lot of things, you know, even to things like professional development, which is how you get better. How you improve instruction in in a school district is through professional development. But the legislature, it mandates all kinds of professional development that has nothing to do with teaching and learning. But you only get so many hours and you could spend all of your time doing nothing but what the state mandates and not have time to help instruction. So it's again another challenge
101for a school district to to overcome some of those requirements. [snorts] Some of the reason some of the ideas that the state has talk about what good means because remember I said you could disagree on what good means. Well they try to make it easy for you. Some of the things you have to do you have to provide you know and this is all in legislation providing instructional books supplies materials equipment staffing etc. Uh equitably allocate resources among your schools. back to equal access. The idea that if you had I I worked in one district where they had two elementary schools and the one up on the hill excellent school. I think it was a blue ribbon schools really doing great. We don't really like to talk about the other one because you know they're
102just they're struggling. Well, if the state and those of you who worked in in um with the state in terms of uh student performance and school improvement that you can't do that, you know, and they so they had to start and the board didn't realize it till we started working with them. they were one of our lighthouse districts and they started to put the resources into both and they and the principal was starving for all that those resources and the minute he started getting them the school started taking off again. So um it's some of it's our own fault and then uh providing safe school setting and that's been changing over years. I think this part of the statute went in during Coline when we had the first real major school shooting and they were
103talking about making schools harder, safer, um locks on doors, bulletproof glass, you know, let's I hate to say it, make our schools look more like prison because we but to keep people out, not to keep people in. And now it's interpreted far differently. Things like social emotional learning, um you know, our children, do they feel safe in school? Climate is very important. So the legislature and the state department of education have improve or have added to the concept of safe school setting to encompass many more things than just um is someone going to come in and hurt our children but to actually do we do to we unintentionally harm them in some of the things we do as adults or other kids. This is all stuff you have to do. Your policies are as I
104said earlier we use that as a strategy. let us recommend a policy that will affect your concerns without necessarily making somebody do something. And so, you know, as whenever you hear of a real crisis or a tragedy um in any community, you'll see a legislator propose a bill to fix it. And many of these are far too complicated and one solution isn't going to fix it for everyone. But they feel I've got to fix it. And so, we have to go in and say again, talk about policy. And so over the over time, and I just pulled these out of that law book, you have to have policies on discipline, homework, um, drugs and alcohol, use suicide, reporting a bus complaint is not call your local schoolboard member and have them fix the problem for
105you. There's a process in in Bristol to if a child is having a problem in a bus, there's some your policy manual will dictate through regulations probably what the process is. Refer the parent back to the regulation. you need to talk to the principal or to the, you know, there's somebody that you have to talk to. Um, it can't be me. I can't be your advocate. I advocate for public schools, but I can't be a individual advocate because I'm a board member and our role is is kind of 30,000 foot. We have to, you know, we have to set policy. There are some unique situations where um there might be a legal implication. You might have to terminate a teacher, for example. Those are the extreme ones or or expel a student. they have a
106fed a federal right to a free public education and a state right. So if you are withdrawing them from school it has to be a very serious reason. So you you have very formal hearings there's evidence uh presented for and against you know the administration will present their case the teacher and or student would present their case and then you have to sit in judgment of that. It's a really tough place to be. But if you've been talking to the parent or you've been talking to the teacher or you're very aware of what's going on, it's very hard to go into that hearing and base a decision based only on evidence presented in that hearing. And that's the expectation. So if you walk into a and I don't think you probably do a lot of
107expulsions anymore, you probably use hearing officers. We didn't have them back then, so we had to hear all the expulsions. Um there's nothing worse than having to sit through those because it's just this the children may do bad things but they're really never bad children that it's the family conditions and all these types of things. And so you're trying to do what's best for the kid while protecting the whole protecting the kids protecting law and order. If you have rules, you have to expect the rules to be behaved. So um but the expectation is that when I'm in there, if I walk into a room and there's the kid that set my garbage cans on fire last summer, I got to recuse myself. I'm sorry, but I have I have prior knowledge to this situation
108and I'm I can't do it. And don't be afraid to do that because the opposite can happen. You sit through it and then for some reason it becomes a lawsuit and they say, "Well, we have a quote from you, especially now with social media. It's recorded somewhere if you said it. So, we have a tape of you saying such and such and we're going to use that to appeal your decision." And that could overturn the decision because you've shown pre prejudice or bias. Folks, it's really important, especially for you new folks, be mindful that every time you open your mouth, even if you say, you can preface it by, I'm only speaking as a member of the public today. I'm not here as a schoolboard member, you're wearing that schoolboard hat. You're just hiding it
109under another hat and it's it could bite you or it could bite the district and and have and if I don't want to throw a whole lot of scary stories at you, but I could. There's a bunch of them that have happened over time because people don't think about the repercussions of what you say. You hire the superintendent of schools. That's the most important decision a school board makes is the hiring of a chief executive officer. The superintendent has executive authority over the school system. Um, notice she ran the process for hiring a principal. She involved community members. She involved a committee, but she brought a recommendation to you. You didn't. And I'm grateful to see she didn't come to you with three and you get to pick because we did that once and we
110picked the wrong one. And the super superintendent even said, "I'm bringing you three. This one, she's been in the district a lot of years, so I felt I owed her an a um interview. I'm not necessarily sure she's the one." He even said that and we hired her anyway. And so for two years whenever we had a problem in that school and we had lots of them, we'd go to the superintendent cuz he's our chief executive officer said, "What's going on? you hired her. I didn't. He actually said that. Um, trust your superintendent. She You got to give her the tools necessary to do her job. And it starts with letting her pick her team. And if you have a problem with the candidate, you might say, "Could you come back with another one?" But
111you don't start you don't get to pick and choose. I that's really bad policy in my mind. Uh, the other part is you must evaluate the superintendent annually. The important language here is the PR the guidelines and criteria criteria are mutually determined and agreed upon. So you as a board can't say we're going to change the evaluation tool and we're going to do this or we're going to do that. You have to negotiate it with your superintendent. It's usually part of a contract and you have to negotiate contracts. But um most people use uh something derivative from the Cape Caps document. Cab and Caps together wrote a a evaluation tool a number of years and most boards base their evaluation process off of that in some manner but that is the second most important decision
112you make as a board is you the evaluation process because that's how we get better and evaluation isn't punitive it isn't like oh everybody start I I remember teachers that did that my daughter had one in AP chemistry everybody starts out with an A but by the time we're through half of you are going to fail that was what she told us on parents I and I'm saying if in fact threequarters of the kids were going to fail that class and I'm sitting and I'm chairman of the school board so I had to keep my mouth shut because I knew that would be the wrong thing to say but if threequarters of the kids in your class failed you failed you know because your job was to teach all of those kids that course. Well
113it was AP. Well you should you have an obligation to put children in there that have the ability to succeed and frankly a lot of kids that might be marginal can succeed if you teach them right. I'll get off the soap box. I'm sorry. we have to be passionate about this work, right? So, um it's really important that you do this annually and um it's it's the idea that we're here to make sure kids are learning. That's really the focus of our work. It's the superintendent's job to determine, you know, who else gets evaluated, whether through principles, through maybe curriculum people, um you know, um department heads, but you don't get to see teacher evaluations. They are protected. You are the employer. Um, you would only get involved with a teacher matter at the highest
114level after the superintendent's dealt with it. If there's an appeal process to the board or she brings you a recommendation for discipline of some sort, that's when you would hear it. And again, it's got to be a formal process. If the person comes in, um, I'll give you an example. This actually happened. I'm mindful of time. We're we're doing okay. Um, we had a grievance hearing and grievances are a little different because the the they're not usually a termination or anything, but it's whether the contract was violated. So teacher says, "You violated my contract. I'm filing a grievance. There's a whole building full of attorneys down at 21 Oak Street, and they are there to protect their their membership." So they will have a formal process. It goes through the administrators. It goes through the
115superintendent, and it may come to the board for a hearing. This one came to us and the teacher did not like her evaluation. I'm an excellent teacher. They gave me satisfactory. I'm appealing my evaluation. It wasn't grievable in our contract. You can't grieve an evaluation. So, it should have been a five-minute meeting. Everybody agreed five-minute meeting. We didn't call in the big the big guns from Shipman and Goodwin. We had the assistant town attorney there representing the board and he didn't know anything. Um, we had this I don't even know if the superintendent was in the room. I think it was just the assistant superintendent because it's a five-minute meeting and we had nobody there to tell us any different. So the uniserve rep, the teachers rep got up and instead of saying my teacher
116my client is unhappy with her evaluation, he pointed to one of the board members goes, "Mr. Smith, isn't it true that on April 3rd you were in the supermarket and you talked to Mrs. Jones and you said this is the worst teacher I my child ever had?" How did you hear that? This is verbatim. Doesn't matter how I heard it. Is it true? Well, yeah, but how did you hear that? We immediately had a reset. Luckily, our chair was an attorney and she Oh, stop. Let's stop cold. She called our friend from Shipman and Goodwin who lived about 40 minutes away and says, "You know what? I'll come down." So, we paid her time and a half to drive in from Canton, I think, to Bloomfield. And then, I'm not exaggerating, 5 hour year. And
117they were paid a lot less back in 1986 or whatever year it was, but it was significantly more than we were ready to pay. But we had to make sure every eye was dotted, every tea was crossed so that she couldn't say that the process was flawed. The outcome ended up being the same because the contract was not violated, but we had to ensure that that teacher's rights were not damaged in any way because a board member had said something publicly attacking that teacher. Then we had to pay time and a half for her to drive home. So the the point is every time we open our mouths in the public, we risk credibility. We sometime risk the board's process and procedures. And it's really important to understand the laws. And so I just want
118to point that out. Um the relationship with boards and teachers is a really unique one. And those of you have a lot of you have been teachers. So, you know, you know, I I can go in and I can talk to them because they see me as a as a colleague, but they still see board member. They they will see you as a board member. And remember, because they have that grievance process. If they're coming to you to try to get you to fix something, it's be and they're not going through the process. It's because I'm going to say this as a bold comment. They know they're wrong and they want you to make it go away. Because if they believe they were right, they go through the process. And I know that's harsh and
119it may not be 100% true, but it's more than 90% true. I bet everybody has to have a favorite statute. I'm not going to ask you what yours is, but this is mine. And this was a really important one, and it's one of only two or three left, but it's a really important one to understand because it gets back to the whole idea of money again. The state law says that each local board of education shall prepare an itemized estimate of the cost of maintenance of public schools for the ensuing year and shall submit such estimate to the board of finance. The money appropriated by any municipality for the maintenance of public schools shall be expended by and in the discretion of the board of education. First thing that stuck out in my mind other
120than the title they do not use the word budget. And I know the first time my superintendent came to me when I was a brand new board member and said we have to transfer money from this line item to this line item which you're allowed to do. But me said you can't do that. I raised my hand. That's that's it's a budget. And if you said you're going to pay it here, you have to pay it here. And that's what we think of when we see the word budget. Column A, what we're going to spend. Column B, what we spent, there's no column C because we did really good at budgeting. It's not a budget. It's an estimate. And I think as you hear the words, I you know, hopefully you'll start to think about
121that because if you could spend every penny on July 1st, the first day of the fiscal year, you could probably get pretty close to 100% exactly where you wanted to spend it, maybe 99%. On day two, all bets are off. A boiler could die. A child could come in with a $100,000 or five $500,000 expense. Um that's not in that estimate, but it has to be done. we can't say we'll we'll make it through the winter and buy a new boiler in the you know next year have to fix it. So the legislature and their infinite wisdom, and I'm saying that without sarcasm, they understood it's an estimate. And I think it starts when you're sharing this with your community, you know, in February when you sign it and you send it to the the
122city council, put that on the title, itemized estimate of expenditures or spending plan, the minute you put the button word budget on it, you're setting expectations that are unreasonable. And you can explain it, and I think you need to sometimes. Please understand the law says estimate and we are it's our best judgment on where money will be spent this year based on our priorities because again we're trying to align all this to that vision we're going to have as our overarching purpose. Um the more we can make that alignment to that the better and if we can't do that it makes it easier for them to say well we can cut here we can cut there but the other part of that is important is it shall be expended by and at the discretion of
123the board of education. We wanted to bring uh elementary foreign language in or middle school foreign language when I was on the board and it was only going to cost $65,000. It was an exploratory program. We'd have like a couple teachers with carts going around the school every day and we were just giving kids a taste of language so that they would be ready for it when they hit junior high. I can't explain why we had a middle school and junior high. We were the only one in the state to do that. But it wasn't for good reasons, let me tell you. Um but our our town council members were insensed by that. you're with all these budget issues we have, you're spending money on foreign language in the middle school. We're going to cut
124that money out of the budget. And they deducted an additional $65,000 from our allocation. So, we wouldn't do it. But we turned around because it is in our discretion. And we said, you know, we'd really prefer you didn't cut the $65,000, but please understand this is our priority. We voted for this. We are going to do it. So the $65,000 is going to come from somewhere else because it's in our judgment where we need to do it. So I think that's important. There's a community um actually I worked with them last week where the mayor said um you know and they had a deficit. We'll give you the money if you don't renew the teach the superintendent's contract. You know you can do it later maybe but not before the budgets passed. And the board
125said not going to work for us. She's really good. we have a lot of credibility with her. If we did that, we're going to send her a message we don't want her to have, you know. So, they stood up, but they had to negotiate getting some of that money because they were in a deficit. And you can't have a deficit, but that's sometimes you'll get that interference, but the board knowing it's our discretion, they had the um energy to fight back and to push back. Not going to happen in Bristol, right? You are allowed to transfer money. I mentioned before um you have it's right in statute that you can do that. And finally um boards get sued. Boards get sued all the time. Your legal expenses um are incredible and and lawyers are on
126speed dial on the superintendent's phone. Sometimes board chairs you just hit Tom or whoever you know just hi how you doing. Um the difference in most things if the board is making a decision based within its statutory authority. So the law says this is your obligation to do even if that decision makes a lawsuit as long as it was within your authority and the act was not wanting reckless or malicious. You are personally held harmless from any individual liability. But sometimes a board member steps outside of their role as a board member and they do something as an individual that can cause a lawsuit and there's a couple things that can k can kick in. The insurance company that would pay that settlement because there's often insurance to do that might say that isn't within
127the board's authority. That was an individual who had no authority. We're not going to pay for that. That can happen and it has happened. Um I know one board member um and this was a scary one. the sup and the superintendent probably gave the board too much information. At the end of a meeting, he called him into executive session and he said, "We have a teacher and I believe he named the teacher um has been accused of doing something inappropriate with the student. I'm investigating it and I will keep you apprised, but I you need to know this has happened." That board member went to the PTO meeting in that school the very next night and he publicly announced, "You got to watch out for Mr. So and so he's being investigated for XYZ." Now,
128first of all, your superintendent has a like a a golden opportunity, for lack of a better word, when you know something's going to be investigated, but they don't know it. There's a certain amount of information you can get prior to it kind of coming out. That was blown. I mean, this now they everybody's aware of it. And he sued that board member and he won. Now, they like a lot of set lawsuits, they set the settlement was um hit, you know, buried. It was kept secret. So, I can't tell you what it was, but I know we paid. That's what happens if you step outside of your bounds. And that's why, again, sometimes it's a loose comment. It might be just, you know, I heard something in executive session. Um, and sometimes it's not even
129legal necessarily, but my hometown of Bloomfield, they made it they just hired a new superintendent. She read on Facebook that the board was voting to hire her. She had not even told her board yet because she hadn't been told she was a finalist and it was out in the community already. she's going to get the vote and she and she called the search consultant said should I even take this job because right now I'm not sure who I can trust and they had to do a lot of work with the board to say we're going to let you be trusted because loose you know the old expression loose lip sink sink ships almost sunk that one and you know and it's it sets the tone because now who do I trust and who do I
130not trust and that's a ter I mean I I remember we had one where a reporter called me and said I heard this is it true I can't tell you that and I'm jury called every other board member on the board. I heard this is it true and then he printed when asked I asked a board member who shall remain nameless and he said yes it's true and everybody looked at me and they thought it was me and it wasn't but I so they don't trust me you know at that point they didn't stop trusting me and so how do we work better together when we don't trust each other so it's really important to think about the repercussions of what can happen and it's very different than it used to be because you almost
131had to write it and print it somewhere for somebody to actually be I will quote you nowadays. It's a video, it's a audio clip, it's it's it's everywhere. I I know one board chair was talking that their board had erupted in a in a chaotic meeting and they had called a fiveminute recess to let things calm down and the reporter and this is how the board chair said it. The reporter came up, put his phone down on the counter and said, "So, what's going on? What what's happening?" And the board chair was probably a little freer with his language about, you know, what's causing the chaos. And then he found out that the reporter had been recording everything and it showed up on his blog that night. You have to be really careful. You just
132you have to, you know, I a lot of boards are board members are now saying, you know what, I'm just going to stay off social media. I just don't want to put myself in that situation. Um or not going to comment on anything on board. You know, just it's just too much work. So, um just be mindful of that. Um, we have, if we're staying till 8:30, we have a few minutes. Rather than try to throw more at you because I've thrown a lot. Are there specific questions you want to ask or we want to talk about what we might be thinking about next? Like a next step we can either of those conversations. And this is a very short version, I have to tell you. So would the board be interested in doing a
133part two because we we have a lot more to learn. >> Would you all we had asked for Cabe to come do this a long time ago. So I think you know there was a there was a group agreement on that. But it's just you know this is a really tough week >> for a lot of >> trust me. Yeah. Me too. I'm out three nights this week on top of the day. So, >> so maybe we can pick a date. >> Maybe right now it's looking at no earlier than February anyway. My January is as busy as my December was, but I February, you know, it we're through the holidays. It gets a little maybe a little easier for some people >> through budget season. >> Yeah, budget estimate season. >> Yeah, you got
134that, too. I I would leave it to you when you're ready. I'm more than it's a phone I'm a phone call away or an email away. >> Okay. So, I will get back to you. Um, I'll put some Wednesdays out. It seems like Wednesdays are the only day that really works. So, I don't know if you have any Wednesdays in February. Maybe we could start with you. >> I'm I think I have pretty much all of them right now. I mean, if you wanted to look at something at least to put it on the calendar. I think we had also talked about maybe doing a Saturday because I have something with a Saturday in January that says Bristol with a question mark. So, >> okay. Yes. I think we I would say no Saturday in
135January. We already got to do a Saturday in January February. >> We have a January um budget meeting in Saturday on a Saturday. So would you prefer would the group prefer a Wednesday in February or a Saturday? >> Wednesday. Okay. >> So I can take uh this was January 9th, so I can free myself up then. >> Yes. Um >> I'm not going to break my heart about >> Is there a Wednesday with no board meeting at all? Let's look now. I think the challenge is going to be that we haven't approved all of our schedules yet. And we're looking to condense committees so that it's less on um staff, less on committee members, and those dates haven't been finalized yet. And I know um Deputy Superintendent Hawk just recently sent something for review to
136kind of look at meeting dates. Um so I mean we could tenatively look at us. Let me look. I making some notes. >> I'm sorry. Can you say that again? So, we received something about >> Yes. No. Yeah. >> So, um >> yeah, I'm just looking. Um >> I think the only Wednesday I'm tied up. We have our board of directors meeting on the 11th >> and our regular board meetings on the 4th. So, we'd be looking at 18th or the 20th. I think I'm I'm available. I think both of those. Yes, I could do either of those. >> Does anybody have a preference? Which Wednesdays again? I'm sorry. The 18th or the 25th >> again? Um because we haven't finalized the schedule and we're looking to condense committee meetings. Um it's >> I think
137is we're reconsidering policy the beginning of the month >> looking at trying to do finance and operations and policy at on the same night which would be the second Wednesday. Um and school family community partnerships and student achievement trying to move those to the same evening which would be the third Wednesday. And then currently we have safety meeting when it does meet on the second Wednesday. So that would ideally be moved to the fourth Wednesday. So >> I think the fourth Wednesday works the best because I don't think we have a safety meeting in February. Do we? But I don't know. >> So that would be the 25th, >> right? >> Fourth. I mean I'll pencil it in and if something happens I mean I want to do the work. I love doing the work,
138but if I get a call the night before say we have to cancel the meeting, I get a night home. So, it's okay. >> Safety um it looks like is meeting I mean again tenatively January March so February would probably be >> the 25th February may be the best date >> and we can even start earlier because we don't have a meeting prior. There's a student for that evening at 5:15. >> Okay. So, maybe we start at >> It would be really helpful if you guys could share the stuff that you're working on with the whole board so that we can have some feedback. >> This is all tenative, Commissioner Gantonio. And I think probably the only person that has this is me. I'm not even sure that Shelby does. Oh, that went to Parents
139Square and I I didn't get it through my board. This is for the students. It went out to everybody. >> Are we talking about the student board that that I saw in parent square? >> No, I think where she was asking is that a different >> Oh. Oh, gotcha. >> Oh, no. If there is some information about the student board that's been approved and implemented, we don't have there's been nothing. This is just Mary's group about redistricting that she solicited students to speak with the deputy superintendent and everyone got it through Parent Square, but it's not board related. It's not on our It's on our board. The reason I know about it is because my son Elijah is participating. That's how I know that there's a meeting and I have that's why I have it
140in my calendar. Okay. So, it looks like February 25th. How does that look for all commissioners? >> Okay. >> Good on my end. >> And do we want to look at a six o'clock start date or start time rather? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Through the chair. >> Yes. >> U Mr. Uh, Russo, one of the things that would interest me as a board member is having a deeper dive in one of these sessions about um, you know, what's really bad and not recommended about board members kind of acting outside of their roles. >> So, if we could include that in one of the sessions. >> Absolutely. In fact, the other because I had two that I could have gone when I split. The other one was mistakes board members making. So, um, we could
141talk about that when it's it it used to be things I did, but my boss was an attorney that said I couldn't admit to a lot of them. So, um, we had to change it, make it more generic. >> True story. Um, but it can be very instructive and help people out. So, um, if that's that's what the, you know, board wants to do, we can do that. As I say, I'm I'm capable of doing a lot of different work. So, we might want to talk a little bit about what you want to do next, but that's a a great way to sort of get another idea of what some of the roles are, where the guide the guard rails are or the lanes are. So, um happy to do that if that's what you
142want to do. >> I think that'd be great. >> Okay. Excellent. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And you're very welcome. >> Thank you so much. >> This was very insightful and very helpful. Really appreciate it. >> We look forward to working with you more. Um, is our ramp uh our other board members still around if you have any last comments? >> Are you still on? >> Yeah, I'm sorry with the time that everybody else has agreed to. Um, like I said, Mon Sundays or I'm sorry, Wednesdays usually work best for me. So, >> well, it's on my calendar, but like I said, if something changes, we can change the date. Um, try to be accommodating. >> Perfect. >> Okay. Thank. Oh, and I have to get that list back. >> Oh, yes. So, we
143still have another um item on the agenda. We will vote to convene into executive session for the purpose of discussion and possible action of the superintendent's polls for 2025. >> So, do you want me to >> Russ Anderson? He's in there. Second. >> And we're inviting Superintendent White into the executive session as well. >> Yes. Motion's been made and seconded. All in favor? >> I. >> Motion passes unanimously. >> Russ, do you need us to call you? >> Um, yeah. If you want to call my uh my personal phone, that would be great. >> Okay. Give us a a little bit to get upstairs. Five minute break or >> Yeah, sure. That's fine. >> I need a couple minutes myself anyways. >> You need to go into executive session. Well, I know, but we can
144we can vote to come out. I'm ready to vote. If anybody needs to go into executive session, we can keep executive session. Otherwise, we can vote to come back in right now and we can put it to a vote. Okay. So, maybe someone should call Russ because I think he hung up. >> I'm still here. >> We're going to vote. Oh. >> Oh, he's still there. Okay. Okay. So, can I have a motion to go back into executive session? I mean, to go back into regular session. So move >> second. >> Motion's been made and seconded. >> All in favor? >> I discussion. >> We need to have discussion. We just had it. >> Just had the the motion's on the >> Okay. Is there any discussion? >> I'm just going to say that um
145I appreciate the sessions being set up and I appreciate that the um superintendent had the willingness to hear from the board. Um, I still feel that the instructional improvement is not explicitly addressed in the goal. So, I can't support the >> I quick question. I'm sorry to interrupt because we're technically in public session. Are we allowed to have discussion? >> Yes. >> Right now, even though we're supposed to be in exe, we're technically in executive session in a public format. >> Yeah, the discussion about the goals should happen during the vote for the goals. But yes, you're right, Joe. >> Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we're >> the discussion right now would be about coming out of executive session. If you wanted to stay in executive session, we could have, but you
146you don't, right? You don't want to have the discussion in executive session. We wanted move to the vote. >> A comment about the move to vote. >> Well, no, we're not we weren't moving to vote. We were moving to come out of executive session. >> Okay. So, all in favor of coming out of executive session, >> I I >> I >> Okay, we are now out of executive session. The next item on agenda is vote to reconvene into public or I'm sorry, is possible action. So, would someone like to make a motion to approve the superintendent's goals? So, moved. >> Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? >> I I would just like to add um I've been bringing it up since I think our August meeting, but I would have liked to see
147a lot more about student achievement. I think there was one line item about um student achievement is mostly focused on um climate and that and that's good but um you know that's why I figured some of our focus would be the chair. >> Yes Antonio floor is yours. >> Okay. So, I did receive feedback from Commission and James. There is um goals that are on the board in room 36 that were on the board when we met in executive session last time and she did ask that I include those in the goals. So, I did revise those. So, all of these are re revised. So, So they are under those six success metrics. I'm not sure if that is where you were suggesting they be placed can shoot. Yes. So there's no there's no measurable.
148It's just um right. Oh, that algebra readiness. I track them. >> These were revi. They were just revised this afternoon after I read Commissioner Jean Tonail's feedback. >> Okay. So I didn't miss it. All right. >> No, this is revised. It is revised with those. Yes. So >> everybody saw the revisions. >> No, we just received them now. Just as she just handed them out. >> Thank you. Were there any other revisions or just to item six? Just item six. Thank you. Russ, we are um sending you a picture of item six so you can review it. >> Okay. Um item six on the um I I had it pulled up. I just got a >> It was um it was revised recently. So, you're going to get a picture of a screenshot. >> Okay.
149>> Was it was the the link sent earlier the this evening? >> There was it was sent yesterday, I believe, the goals and um >> Okay. Yeah. >> But this is updated. >> This is a brand new update. >> Okay. Are you sending to my work phone or my personal? >> I think Mr. Van Gorder is texting it to >> I I sent it to your your new personal. >> Okay. Waiting for it. [sighs] >> I I had not received it yet. Oh, there we go. grade three proficiency that uh language arts. Yes, English language business. Yeah. Okay. This is good. This is more in line with what we were looking what we had talked about the last meeting. It's >> [clears throat] >> Do any commissioners need any more time? No. Okay. Can I
150have a motion to approve the superintendent's goals? So move. >> Second. >> Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Other than I don't think they go quite far enough for providing a multi-year academic and operational strategy. I would have liked to have seen more of that. I'm not trying to not approve uh goals. We need to approve the goals. I just need to comment that I just don't think it goes far enough. >> Any other discussion? I think it's got I think it's got a you know it definitely has the um a lot of you know you know some of the stuff that we had talked about. Uh it does seem uh and maybe I'm looking at the wrong version. I don't know. Um I did get you know Iris's attachment. Um I believe it
151was uh it was yesterday. Um unfortunately I sustained an injury so I didn't have a chance to really look at it until this until uh later on this afternoon. So I'm assuming it was the most current one. Um it does look like you know some of the you know like uh the um the spirit of what we had talked about in the last meeting was attempted but it does seem like there you know some of the things were um did fall a little short on some of the uh you know on some of the uh at least on the data. I know there were certain uh like certain examples where we were going to um we were going to uh try to make sure that we establish some benchmarks on on where we were and
152I I I don't really I don't really see that language at least not in the attachment that I received. Um, but I mean overall I think it's, you know, it's certainly better than than it was at, you know, from the last meeting. >> I'm going to No, you go. Oh, okay. I was just going to say that I really appreciate that the superintendent had an audit done on HR. She had um there was an audit done on our financial department. uh there was data that showed a roadmap of things that needed improvement in the district and in my six years on the board I have not seen a more comprehensive uh goal setting that aligned to data and act it took into consideration the culture and climate survey results. Um, it looked at the things
153that our district said that the that the teachers that the people in the district said really they really needed change or they really needed things to be done in a way that looked at it from a systems approach and address the problem to stop it from progressively happening. Um, while I will always advocate for student achievement and I do feel like when all of these goals, which there's a lot of goals, seven goals are accomplished, student achievement will be impacted. Um, but I do appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into this and the alignment to the data and the reports that outline the the that need the need for change and I and I appreciate that. So, thank you chair. >> Yes. A few things that I appreciate. Um, I think and I have limited experience
154on this board. Um, and I know other people have more years than I, but in my experience, this is um, the most uh, comprehensive goal that I've seen and I appreciate that it is reflective of feedback that we had previously. There are deliverables um reflective of new and innovative practices, not just things that are already being done as part of a strategic plan or as part of part of um the district's uh five-year plan or you know these there are new and innovative things happening here based on uh feedback from the community uh quantitative qualitative um and it's interwoven to a direction that is anchored in mission and vision. So I like that. Um these are written in the in the format of a smart goal format. Um which is measurable. Um, and the uh
155baseline is not often going to be reported in the goal, but I would expect the baseline to be reported when Superintendent White um reports on the goal development, how the progress is moving um to show that there is um success or to show, oh goodness, we know we have to expand in this area. we really have to put some attention in this area because the goals the percentage is not increasing in the way that I had hoped and then of course we're going to analyze why. Um so I am actually very pleased with the goals um because I see that it's hitting a lot of areas that us collectively have shared concerns about. So I just I'm I'm pleased with the progress. >> Chair, can I piggy back off that a little bit? Um, I
156really appreciate one thing that also really stood out to me is I really appreciate how the goals are very connected to the work that um, and I feel like they're really aligned to a lot of the conversations and the work that we've been doing so far. Um I also really appreciate the report outs that we've gotten um about you know some of the things that you've been working on um reg you've been routinely reporting out on that at our board meetings and I think that really speaks to the level of transparency that you're trying to build. >> Thank you the chair. >> Yes. I just also wanted to add, I think I said this the last time we spoke, but I do appreciate the goal too with the student voice and a leadership and the
157staff engagement goal where you're having the student councils and the staff councils so you can hear their feedback and then you're going to deliver on that and then have the you said we did feel like that's key and critical to um so the students and staff feel like their voices are heard and connecting like what they say to action plans. Okay, without any further discussion, I would >> all in favor. >> I I >> I >> opposed. Motion passes unanimously. >> I I vote in favor as well. >> Oh, thanks. >> Thanks, Ros. [laughter] >> Sorry, Ros. >> You sound LIKE THE OZ. >> [laughter] >> A GREAT AND POWERFUL EYE. YEAH. >> OKAY. >> Oh yeah. >> Okay. With no further business on the agenda, the meeting is adjourned. >> Have a good night
158everybody.