001I noticed there's a lot of milling about here. We are going to start at six o'clock. So, if I could, and since six o'clock is already in our rear view mirror, I'm gonna ask the board members to assemble. Assemble super friends. Mics are high. Darcy, I'd like to welcome and call to order the board of educa special board of education meeting of May 7th, 2025 for the Selen Area Schools Board of Education. Uh, I'd like to ask we're going to stand as able for the pledge of allegiance and I'm going to ask one of our favorite school bus drivers, Rebecca, to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Told you I'd do it. for it stands nationy and justice for all. Please be seated. Although I rarely ever have to tell people to do that.
002Um public comment section. Oh, do we have any public comment? I've received no papers or documents. Apparently, we have no public comment section, so we can charge right ahead. I'd like to uh entertain a motion to approve the agenda as printed. So move tiss supported by all in favor please say I. I oppose. Great. Thank you. Just checking that we actually have a quorum and that there are seven people here. Thank you. Um, we have scripts in front of us and I've been uh so please note members of the audience that we do have uh feedback forms available and there are QR codes on the feedback forms if you wish to submit yours electronically. When we're all done, please hand your uh feedback form to uh anybody uh at the front desk, any administrators who
003are still here at the back of the room. Uh in addition, on the Selen area schools page, there is a button that says superintendent search uh uh if you want to find the feedback form there if you are at home. We will be accepting them at up to 30 minutes after the um the last presentation. I just wanted to say this is my ad ad liib portion. I did my first superintendent search in 2003 in Gilbert, Arizona. The superintendent had been there for some 25 to 30 years. I can't remember. We did deli studies. We asked the members of the public to provide create a profile and in the end everybody just said we want the old superintendent to come back. Well, it wasn't happening. He was never coming back and our superintendent is leaving
004us as well. And change is hard. We understand that. I also want to tell people in the community that this school board has done a huge amount of work in preparation for this. We have read resumeumés, cover letters, uh letters of reference from all over the state and in fact all over the country. Uh and we come to this task with great seriousness. Uh so with that said, we will now proceed to the interview of Rachel Coowski. I have messed up your name more times. Rachel Kowalsski who will be as Kowalsski who will be and maybe you could provide us with an an exact pronunciation of your name which is not that hard. I just she will be thank you for being with us today once you're all settled in. And we all got to
005shake your hand last time and so we we're all best friends now. I hope I can do that. Of course. Let's check that you are uh miked up. green buttons on and uh so thank you for being with us today. So following the interview questions, you'll have the opportunity to ask us a question or two as time allows. So pardon me. So I I like a little clarification first. Jay, I was expecting a special note regarding the presentation. We just know we're going to go right into it and this is based off my question. Thank you. Just to be clear. So would you please Rachel? Sure. If you don't mind me calling you that, Dr. Kowski. That's fine. Thank you. Uh, please share your thoughts on creating a support creating and supporting a positive culture
006for school employees that improves staff retention and recruitment. Please also discuss how you might implement your plans in Selen Area schools. This is one of my favorite tasks to to have some brevity and some um 8 to 10 minutes. So, I'm going to do that. I do not have a clicker but it sounds like I have a friend over here who's gonna um advance for me. So we can advance the next slide. So when I took a look at the question from you all I really thought about culture and that's what drove u this next little bit of presentation through the lens of three things retaining recruiting and reigniting. I want you to notice too before we advance that the word retain appears before recruit because I feel that that is incredibly important and any
007good plan um you must must put your efforts into retention. So we could move forward to talk a little bit about some guiding principles. There's three things that help me address this question for you all. The first is that I'm a teacher. I taught for many years in Florida. I taught diverse students and that's what centers me and I was able to share that a little bit with some of your educators today. So at my core I'm a teacher and that's a guiding principle that um takes me through my work each day. The second is that I lead through delegation and trust. I believe that the people closest to the work is where the work is and they need to be supported and empowered to do that. And so I think you'll see a little
008bit of that come through today um in this presentation. I only have the data available to me. And so I know you have great people because I got to meet them today working on these things already. And so I'm um confident that with some new ideas and some and the great work that's already happening, we can do this together. And lastly, the data. So data does we say data driven uh decision-making and leadership. Data does empower me and empower people around me and I support it. Um but it is not the only thing. And so those are some principles that guide that guided this. The last thing I would say is that I have data behind this work. So I often um want to think about how this resonates with me. I put some data
009up here that we've accomplished as a team together in Colon. Um I have some of those team members here with me tonight actually. Um and so I've included some data about how this connects to retaining, recruiting, and reigniting passion. Thank you. So the first thing I thought about was retention and as I looked at um this is all publicly available data and that's what I have as an external candidate that those are the things I have um in front of me to talk about. So the first thing that I looked at as an opportunity um was as I look at your year-over-year retention of new teachers, it's around 54%. that spoke to me as a a very important area of opportunity of which I'll talk about some ideas in just a moment. The second piece
010of da d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d da me was quite challenging and something that uh Carol and myself and the team uh can certainly look at together and that was the rate over five years of new teacher retention which is 16%. And so some of things that I wanted to talk about in terms if you could advance the next slide. Um some things that I would think about in terms of that data and how we could support um some changes in those areas. Uh number one is I'd like to look and collaborate with our core team and our administrative team on
011um looking at perhaps some new teacher coaches. So this was a model that I saw in OciOla County that was used and very very successful. Um, I think the teaching and learning department is doing such incredible work. Um, but to perhaps look at some opportunities to have some new teacher coaches that don't necessarily even focus on just instruction, but just the day-to-day of new teachers and what they um what their challenges are. A couple other things that I think about um in terms of this area is we've actually used a team-based mentorship approach. So, we know that by law, all of our new teachers have mentors and um in my current capacity with our principles, we've shifted to more of a team- based approach where they have multiple mentors to go to. So, I have
012teachers in Colon that have access to teachers at at two other buildings. I have three buildings in my district and that has been really powerful for them to be able to reach out um to more people for more support. Uh and then there's a couple other things I would do in this area and I'm listening. I'm learning the first few months. Um the first one is just a data deep dive to look at behavior data um alongside our coordinators and our teaching and learning team to see if there's maybe some areas of opportunity where we can um look at restorative practices together and how um that data looks different in new teachers classrooms versus some of our veteran teachers. And then I gonna come to recruitment. So, while we'd love to retain every single amazing
013uh effective, we don't have highly effective in the state of Michigan anymore, but very effective teachers that I know exists in these buildings because I met them today. Um, we need to think about recruitment. So, if you could take me to the next slide and some of the data pieces. So, there's a couple things I noticed about the data for Seline. Um, I know there's great work being done here, but there's a couple things I would look at. I think that we need to look at some leadership pipeline opportunities. We have a large number of uh new teachers that came up in the data and we have a a large number of veteran teachers that work for us and do great work for us, but we have kind of in the middle um according to
014your data some teachers that are midyear that um we don't have as many of them. And so that's really the time when sometimes some of these folks get that itch to uh capitalize on their midcareer um perhaps get an advanced degree and to maybe job shadow some of our principles or some of our instructional designers. So that was one area that I think we deserve um to pay some um attention to. I want to pause too. I think there's another thing that speaks in this area to me. Your community has expressed there there was no internal finalist in this district. I hope to be here a little around 8 to 10 years in this role. When I leave, it will be my legacy that you will have internal candidates. That is important to me because
015we need to make sure that we're working together to build leadership pipelines to make sure that there's sustainable practices and institutional knowledge in in this district to help our community and our students. And so that's one um pause I wanted to to briefly tell you how that fits in the big picture. Um so again um recruiting um in terms of maybe looking at some fellowships opportunities to bring in great teachers. Not that we're competitive with our other districts but maybe there's some mid-year teachers who are just amazing um and bringing them in to perhaps have um some leadership roles or be teacher leaders here. Lastly um in terms of this question that you've posed to me I would talk about reigniting. And so if you can switch to the next slide, I think. Yep. Thank
016you. Um I'd like us to look uh systemswide at investing in people. Um this connects a little bit with uh recruiting. So some limited recruiting we might do of mid-career teachers. But here are some other things I'm thinking about. I have a superintendent advisory committee in my current district and I would continue that as a platform. I would engage in secession planning with our team within the first six to nine months um of joining your great amazing core team administrative team and you all alongside you um to look at per perhaps should we do be be doing some more work in secession planning here in Seline I also believe that there's some opportunities to reignite some of our teacher leaders to perhaps tie their goals uh we all have to have yearly goals right and
017So could we come up with a structure where they're actually aligning their potent their leadership goals with those and then are we creating job shadowing opportunities for them to see the work that our principles do, our instructional designers do, our SCCL coordinators do, um our director of safety and security. Are we creating those pipelines so they see that work going on? And so that would be um in the area of reigniting. I'll lastly say for this um something we've done in my current capacity. I can't take credit for this. I learned this from another superintendent near Detroit. We've um we've done choose your own path professional learning days. The research and data says I have a strong background in professional learning. The research and data says that if our educators, they're adult learners. And when
018they have efficacy over the things they choose to learn about and the paths and the professional development they have, that's when it really, really takes hold. And so we wouldn't change, we maybe would look at this, we might not like this idea as a core team, but the potential to allow to have our teachers, educators, and staff look at their own professional development pathways Those are some uh data points and some ideas that I think address your question. So, I appreciate the time that you've taken to listen. Thank you. With a whole minute to spare, I appreciate that. I I'd like to turn it over the next questions. Uh well, first of all, thank you for your presentation. I would like to ask Vice President Steen to do we want to transition the the podium
019or do you have any questions about Okay, thank you. Did I miss that? I must have missed that. Do we have any questions? Does the staff have any question? Does board have any questions about the presentation? Brad, I have a simple one. Can we get a copy of the presentation just so that we can review and revisit in just about 30 seconds? You can have one. Yes. And you'll have a print. They'll have a printed copy in just a moment when I share my plan with them as well. Are there other questions from the board? Jason, uh, some of the data was interesting. You said that was all publicly available data for Selen area schools. the 16% retention rate after five uh after five years. How does that compare with other districts in county and
020southeast Michigan? I wish I'd used my last 60 seconds because there was a couple of things I should have pointed out. Um one is that I put my colon data in there. Um and so I it compared to I believe it's 39% in my current district and I've been there three years. So I did put that data point in there. Um I will um tell you that I went to Royal Oak and it was similar and so was Okamus schools. Um I did decide not to include it just because it didn't really provide any differentiators and data. Um sim it was similar. Um so I think I'm a systems thinker. I wonder if there's some other things that work there. Um that we're not retaining teachers in the state of Michigan over five years. And
021uh we have to consider CO and some of the other things that played into it. But um like I said, I believe Colon was around 39% if I'm not mistaken. And then I looked at some of your other the districts that Minutu would use to compare and they were similar. I'd like to be cutting edge and maybe try to solve the problem and then we'll tell them about it. Hearing no more questions from the board right now, I'd like to ask Vice President Stein to uh read you her question. Am I trans transitioning over here. I think that that's right. And I think that Jay wanted to move the um podium so folks could fully see you. I don't know if Jason can. All right. If we did this every two weeks, it would be
022a little smoother. But yeah, thank goodness we don't do it every two weeks. just just so you know we want to have you have people at home hear you as well. Thank you. So, I was just saying that I've um have prepared a 146 day entry and transition plan for the board and I've prepared that for you. And to your question, Brad, at the very end, you can see the power the slides from the slide deck. Okay. Are you all set? I am. Okay. Welcome back again um to Selen Area Schools. I hope you had a good day on your tour. Um I was given um so when I look at questions I try and sit here at the board table I try to give others voice um and when I was given the special
023education question um we went through a couple of drafts and I decided instead to have a special education parent in our district um write it and I tweaked it just slightly but it um it gets to what we all want to know right um I will say that I asked students what they wanted to know and all they wanted to know was about snow days. So, um we're gonna we're gonna stick to this. Um so, thank you to the parent that that wrote this. Um talking about special education, if you can use some specific examples, that would be absolutely wonderful. Um what strategies would you implement to ensure collaborative solutions between families in the district? And then also with today's evolving climate and education, how would you reassure families of students with special education needs
024who are concerned about losing access to these essential services? What steps would you take to ensure continuity, compliance, and trust? I want to just have a clarification. So the question in the interview guide is not the same as the one you asked me. Is that correct? You were given a copy of the interview guide before right now. Just this is on the table right now. So, I just want to make sure it's different than the question here. It is different and we were just given this interview guide a little while ago. We've gone through several drafts and we um I didn't see a revised one. Um so, if you can generalize in special education, that would be great. I did want to lift voices of our special education parents in my question. I think that's
025so incredibly important because this is an important area for me and because of the data that I provide in the plan. I'm gonna ask you to repeat the question because I I believe that this deserves a full response. So would you mind doing that and I'll take some notes. Thank you. Absolutely. Um so the first part is what strategies would you implement to ensure a collaborative collaborative solutions between our families and the district? How how do you work together within special education? And then um as you know there are evolving things that are going on in the world of education right now in the United States. And uh our families would like to know how do you reassure those families with special education needs who might be concerned about losing access to these essential services?
026Um they're looking for what steps you might take to ensure continuity, compliance to the law, of course, and trust. Thank you. Well, I first want to acknowledge um and represent that the area of special education is an area of growth that I not a new area of growth that I'm going to have. It's an area of growth that I've been able to grow in tremendously over the past three to five years in the state of Michigan. I've been presented with opportunities where I saw students who were underserved. Um, I saw uh practices that were not inclusive to um creating environments for for special education students and I address and I address them and I continue to address them and I'm going to talk about some examples. How I would bring families in the district together
027to collaborate around this is because I lead collaboratively. I'll just start with that baseline. As I look at the data from your community, you are looking for a number one collaborative leader and you are also looking for a situational leader. And I've I talked about my that in my first interview. I presented um you with some information about that tonight. Special education actually calls for a situational leader. I have the great um admiration to have led in a district with 3,000 students near Detroit where we served um a substantial amount of special education students and that department did not exist in central office. So my when I went to collaborate with my counterpart I would go to the high school. That was something that was really important for me and the rest of the central
028office team to bring us together um over that. Um currently I uh have engaged a special education workg group in my current district as we've seen um that there's definitely some areas of opportunity to ensure that our not only our students but where the rubber meets the road the teachers can be more supported in these things. Special education to me is very personal. Um I have individuals that are related family members who would be um our special education students here and abbleism and watching um some things currently that I've seen in in my own life. I I know how important and how real this is. Um but it's the right thing to do. So I guess I would take you there. Assuring them that these services will be continued. we will because it's the right
029thing to do, not because we have to. So, you know, we we may get an EO that impacts our ability to do certain things, but we will always um create these inclusive environments that are properly staffed and properly supported and properly led. I met your executive director of special education today. She's fantastic. And you know where I met her? In a school. That's where I met her because we know that is where the the power is and where the work is and where the support is needed. Um I would I will always comply with the law. Um we you know certainly have to sometimes be thinking outside the box. Uh I will tell you in our current my current um setting we have a shortage of special education teachers. Um, we have, myself and my
030team have looked to incredible ends to locate teachers who are willing to do this work but uncertified. So, we've had to look outside. You don't have that problem here and I don't anticipate that we will, but just know how important it is to me that I live this every day. Currently, I did in my last district in Clintondale. um making sure that we have people in front of these students who care and are on trajectories to have everything they need to to have um in order to support those students. And so those are some thoughts I have about special education. I would I would end with this. Um I don't know if any of them might be watching the live stream. I have the incredible fortune to be one of the first uh of two
031um MASA Horizons plus special education teachers. Now, uh, Dr. Kulie and and my colleagues teach those sessions, but I have in front of me every month students in Horizons that they're going to be the next future assistant superintendent over special education and directors of special education. And I hope there a couple of them might be listening. I have learned so much from these individuals. They are incredible people, incredible professionals. Um, and I and I know that I will continue to learn and grow in this area from our from our team. Thank you very much for your response. Thank you, Treasurer Gerby. All righty. How have you led your school community through crisis situations to ensure two two major outcomes? number one to ensure student safety and two to protect the classroom and maintain continuity within
032the classroom. Thank you. I have the great fortune to work alongside an amazing team and group of educators currently. Um so you're asking about my current district, I believe. And so I want to tell you and share with you that we have had the great fortune to put things in place um training in place that we have actually not dealt with u what I could would consider I think where this question might be aimed a crisis situation but I will talk about some things uh there are there are cousins of crisis situations that we've worked through. Last year in May, I think it was a year ago tomorrow, uh we had a tornado that uh struck Colon, Michigan, uh myself, my team, uh we were all on campus, right? And it was five or so.
033In fact, um many of their children were still on campus. We had dismissed, we had effectively communicated um to the parents that we were not doing after school programs. wanted to make sure that we were being proactive in making sure there were not athletes and our afterchool care program on campus. However, some of us still were on campus. Um that tornado did not hit our campus by the way, but it did uh did impact many families in Colon. Um we uh how I have led our school community through this are a few different things. Clear communication. Um upholding that for my team as well. I'm not the only communicator on my team. I we're all empowered to be those chief communicators with our school our school principles and our central office team um to communicate
034you know where the meals are going to be. We serve lunches the next day. Our community leaison, our high school principal um got together and served lunches the next day in our drive-thru. Um we reached out to families that were impacted. We had uh athletes go out to homes and clear trees off of building off of homes. Um, and those are the things that you do as a superintendent. You build those things before it happens. You don't just react when it happens and like figure out which is the best team, right? Is it the cross country team to go out there? You have those things in place and you have those people in place that when it does happen, you can rely on your team um and your community to come together. I would just
035end with um re recently in March, we had another very close call um and another tornado that struck very close to Colon. Um we immediately reached out to families. I was provided that information on the spot by one of my colleagues who's here this evening. Uh we reached out to those families, about four of them that were near where that trailer park was. Um and we made contact with three of them that night. I made contact with them via text, one via phone. Um, and the next day I heard from the fourth family despite trying to reach out the night before. Um, but my point is you have those things in place. You know that the information is there and you can grab it and you can hand it and you can use it. Um,
036and you you can't be reactionary in those moments. You have to have those things in place and know they're in place. Thank you very much, Secretary Burwick. Thank you. Um, last week, uh, you spoke of providing the same instruction to students across several schools, but adapting it to fit their particular needs, essentially meeting students where they are. Can you please, and there's like three parts to this, describe why you think that's important, provide some detailed information on strategies that you've used and is that a are there strategies or is that a philosophy that you would continue here in Seline? Why or why not? Thank you for that question. I talked to I didn't get to give an intro. Hopefully I'll have some time to wrap, but I'm going to take the opportunity to spend a
037minute or two and and provide some thanks um as it relates to this question. Um today I had the opportunity to meet some in just amazing students um who are supported by the most by incredible educators and you're just as incredible of the in the ones that I work with currently in my current district. Um, and so I would say that, you know, I am very stu student- centered and I've shared this with the during our open house tonight. When the rubber meets the road though, our staff is the one with our students. And so um, making sure that, you know, across the board, they feel supported um, in their roles and they have the tools that they need to be successful. Um, so I think this question's a little bit different on here as
038well. So if I could just Rebecca, you're asking um, regarding inclusive environments for teachers. how I've done that in previous roles um and strategies that I've used is that kind of what Okay. So, a little bit about my experience and I'll continue the hopefully the nar you know the the discourse from last week is um that I joined two large districts in Florida supporting teachers. They we've always had a teacher shortage in Florida. There's still a teacher shortage today. Um that systematic problem hasn't been solved. But what has been addressed are the instructional resources, the program specialists, and some of the work that I did with my with my team there to support teachers who came from Puerto Rico, who came from um the South America, some of them, because they wanted to be part
039of the educational system and to serve students um in Florida. I always keep in mind to meet our educators where they're at. So that they might have very uh different exper diverse experiences than someone who was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida, but we would adjust and that kind of speaks to that cultural competency piece is understanding how to serve people who don't have the same backgrounds as me. They did not they were not born and raised in Oakland County, Michigan. Um and so so some of the things we've done um to do that is within our curriculum and instructional supports in both Ocil County and Orange County, we actually created like addendums that were for teachers who um were second language learners. So we had professional development um changes that we made that we
040weren't just doing the core the the standards and the pedigogy but we were coming at it in a way that could support teachers who h who weren't used to some of those terms and some of that um some of that educational experiences as um students in the US. I would say also that to to talk about currently in my work um we don't have a very diverse staff but I do have members of my team who are not they don't look like the many of the teachers that have been there um just like for students you create and you elevate and you sustain environments where People can have psychological safety. They can be themselves. They can be supported through um instructional coaching, through um their principles, through central office staff who maybe um need to
041meet their needs in other ways, but you make sure that people have what they need to be successful. Um, and so I would say that, you know, you invest in that through your budget, through professional learning, I think is one way that you do that. Um, and so I I think I captured most of that. I'm sorry the question isn't the same here. So um, apologize. There was one part of this question though. It asked me how I would um, see Seline moving forward with this. I um you know looking at your data, you have a a a retention issue with teachers um that are not white. That is a piece of data I chose not to put in my presentation with 8 to 10 minutes, but there is data to support that some attention
042needs to be paid to that area for sure. They also happen to be new teachers. So, thank you so much, Trusty Austin. How would you better understand the culture of Selen Area schools, double down on the strengths and manage possible changes? Thank you, Trusty Austin. This is a great question. I'll draw some in um inspiration from the parents, community members, community members. Um I met some great athletic parents also. I don't think see them here. Hopefully, they're watching the live stream um today. to better understand the culture of Selen area schools. I intend to live here. Um I did I moved from Royal Oak, Michigan to Colon, Michigan essentially. Um that was a big change and so I do feel very strongly a um after today and after the last week of research that I
043will be a resident here with my husband and my three labs. I haven't had I haven't gotten to share that with you yet. So I had to tee myself up. I have three. And by the way, um, your friend Hank, um, he knows about them. So just just and he knows about Wicker. He smelled my three labs and our facility dog at Coen High School. So I would double down on the strengths by relying on the amazing team that you have here through del through situational leadership. I know that you have individuals on this team that I'm going to learn from more initially than they will learn from me. I am here. I am humble. I'm I have the humility to say that my tour of the district alongside Carol and Cara and I know
044Miranda and um Jacqueline um also you know took my my counterpart the other candidate around with them are incredible leaders and in the in the in the short in the short term initial term the institutional knowledge they have the new perspectives that I believe Carol brings with her also um are going to be incredibly important to continue to double down on the strengths. The strengths are well identified. The strengths are living in the kids that I saw today. I'll tell you that your students So, here's one strength. The ability of your students to elevate their student voice is something I've never seen before. I spent a lot of time, you know, Windmir High School, uh Dr. Phillips High School, um Harmony High School, that's hopefully someone's listening from there. Um, these are huge schools in
045Central Florida where kids elevated voice. We dealt with uniforms, all kinds of things. And here's what I will tell you. I met at Heritage today, a fourth grader who was lobbying to have her new fifth grade teacher be a student teacher that she had last year. She I made the mistake of telling her that Carol she asked what Carol and Cara did and I give fourth grade terms. So I said, "Well, Carol helps hire your teachers." Well, she went right to Carol. Um, and she said, "I need," and I'm not going to say her name because I don't want everyone to put the pieces together, but a Heritage Heritage fourth grader. Um, and she is going to be a future lobbyist. And I'm telling you, we're going to see her together, right? go to school,
046do some polyside, probably a major, and we're gonna get to see her lobby for like special education 10 years from now maybe, right? Uh so to double down on the strengths, I'll rely on the team already in place. Um my ability to um I'm not a I'm not going to be just delegative model. Uh I definitely situational leadership has always worked very well for me um to assess people's strengths and what style um of support they need to better understand the culture. I will continue to learn more about Seline. I have balanced very creatively the work that I'm currently engaged in. It's it's Mayber by the way. So being in part of a superintendent surge and holding up and being part of my team right now has been difficult. I will transparently say that some
047of the conversations, I believe the reference checks you've done, they have been so impressed with you, so incredibly impressed with your questions and your ability to see in me what I think you were wondering when I sat down this table the first time, which is why Seline, I'm not from here. I uh saw this opening as a potential to really really dig into my strengths and to acknowledge the amazing work that's happening here right now and complement it with things I do really well and people told I know people shared those things with you. these interviews are, you know, the nice thing about the the in between between one and two is you get to do that work and then on the back end I'm hearing about the incredible things that that you're saying and
048the community is saying. So those are some things that I think about when you ask me about understanding the culture and I'll continue to do that. I've also laid out in the entry plan um some very specific things as well. Managing possible changes is really I am anticipating another question similar to this. We have got we have got to continue to try to build consensus. I talked to several parents with some very hard questions for me today. They were transparently the hardest questions I've as I've been asked as a candidate ever. And I was like just fueled by them, right? In this way that I want to make sure my leadership matches what you need. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that we won't always agree. You You all and I won't always
049agree. And that, you know, that's going to be really special, too, because I'll get to learn from you. But we've got to be able to manage possible changes through consensus building, through listening. I might not I might not agree. It doesn't sometimes matter what I believe personally. It's what matters to kids and what the law says and what the policy says. And those are hard things. And I've talked about some of those hard things in my first round. Um, but managing possible changes, meaning you're getting the data, you're bringing people to the table, you're building consensus when it's possible, but it's not always going to be possible. And so, we're going to have to do the best for kids, and we're going to have to leave unfinished business sometimes to the table. Thank you. Thank
050you very much. Uh, I'd like to pass the next question over to Trusty Gold. I was going to um ask about cultural competency despite my uh question on the paper, but I think you uh addressed it and I appreciate you doing so. Um so I will ask the paper question of what kind of communication situations cause you difficulty and give an example. That's a hard question. Oh, um, I don't avoid it. I'll talk a little bit about it, but it's not avoidable. Um, it's when, so this is the most difficult situation you find yourself in when you're contacting a parent. So, and I can think of a couple cases where this is teacher related, but it's this is the worst feeling in the world when you're contacting a parent about something that happened to their
051student that you if you had been a better leader, right? Reflective leadership, you could have prevented. Now, I say that to mean you are strategic, you're looking forward, you're being proactive, and not everything can be prevented. And these things usually exist in the forms of bullying. Uh things said to students that do not align with your expectations of students and or staff. Those are the most difficult conver communication situations I've been in. They're unavoidable. But I would end with you do it with empathy. You do it with a constant commitment to do better every single day and model for your team how to do better. Right? because we're all working together and I'm leading them and modeling for them. But those are communication situations I've been in that are very difficult Jason like Dr. Gold
052I will I will stay on script because I I like my question so I'll stay on script. uh describe how you feel your interactions with students have helped to foster a culture of academic and interpersonal growth in the student body. Do we have all night Jay? No, we don't. Um the students that I um supported via via their teachers in Central Florida were quite frankly at the beginning some of mine. Um, so I spent about three years, three or four years where some of my freshmen were still in those buildings. A couple of them had moved because it was a district of 65,000 students, but I taught at one of the flagship high schools. So get to seeing um their growth and through the curriculum that I had helped their teachers develop the professional learning
053committee communities that their teachers were really leveraging and getting into was really exciting because you see that growth via instruction and via curriculum. How I've currently done that in a smaller district and can be scaled. I know that that is some a question I'm trying to answer answer for you tonight. Right. this is something that can absolutely be scaled are f are modeling what you expect to see from them. I tried to get to this story in my first interview and I had about like two minutes left but I I really want to go back to it at Colon Junior Senior High School about three years ago. Um you know I I inherited a a diverse a a diverse team with diverse amounts of experience. very quickly um it became clear that we had some
054work to do with our student body. We had um few systems and we needed to really look at those systems and figure out you know what's matching the handbook where are we having restorative practices right that those didn't exist. Um but also holding the bar at at at bad behavior pointed at teachers and and sometimes other students. I know that we've done that through modeling how um kindness look what kindness looks like what inclusivity looks like even when we don't agree with people we or they live you know on another side of town um because some of the teacher a teacher that was there three years ago for a very short time she ended up going back to another position because of some of those things decided to sub to guest teach for us about
055three months ago. and she wrote me an email and our principal an email talking about this environment for these kids and the way that they're talking about their classes, the way that they're talking about their classmates, the way that they're talking about their teachers. It's not all changed, right? Kids are kids is completely transformed. I didn't do that work alone. We did that with our educators, with the hardworking high school and and middle school teachers in that building. We did it with families. Some of the hard, you know, to go back to Dr. Gold's question, some of the hardest conversations I've had were also with, listen, we're partnering with you as a parent, and these are some of the things that, you know, we we need to work on collectively together. Um, so I've done
056that by fostering environment where I'm always upholding to the highest integrity, um, modeling that for my my team. But students see everything. They see how you talk to their parents at a um, swim meet. They see how you act when you're on your phone in the back of a robotics tournament. Um they see those things and what my students and um all of them all 560 some of them but um more recently just my AP gov kids who took their test yesterday. They they always see that out of me and my team. And so that's how you create that environment. And I promise you I'll end with this. This is scaled. This doesn't just exist with 565 kids. This is done across the board. Um, and I'll continue to do that work here. Thank you
057so much. Uh, could you please uh tell us about your vision regarding early childhood education in Selen Area schools looking to the future? Yes, please. Um, I provided quite a few pages on that in my entry and transition plan. I had the amazing experience to talk to Cara about that today and get some more information because that'll be what happens right the whole month of rest of May, June, July and ongoing as I'll get additional information, additional um institutional knowledge or data that will continue um to support me and our team in in thinking about changes. Um I would say that you know I do think that G in your data your GSRP is very much underutilized. I would balance that with now understanding that you do have some private um you do have some
058private partnerships that support our amazing educators with their ch children during the day. So that makes helps me understand a little bit more of that bigger picture. I also would say this my vision I don't have a full vision right now to ask any superintendent candidate to give you my very specific vision would mean that I wouldn't come and I wouldn't listen and I wouldn't learn. But I would think I would want to share that your data definitely I would think points to a little bit of underutil underutilization of GSRP. I will share too that you have some attendance um issues also in some of the DK and K programs. I think it's called Young Fives here. Um so that was something that I picked up on and I'm not and I think engagement is
059something that we need to be looking at for early childhood education. early childhood education and the vertical alignment to our our um kindergarten our three K through three buildings is something that intrigues me about Seline. Um I love the concept and the structure that's been put in place with community education and that partnership is looks to be amazing and and well um crafted and well supported. But I do wonder if there's some areas of opportunity to look at um where those things could perhaps connect and vertically align a bit better with kindergarten. Um and lastly, just to kind of go back to our conversation today, we know the aspirations of the state of Michigan currently to have universal preschool. This is an area that to be a leader during the during a time when we
060could offer universal preschool would be amazing. But I know given my background working um with legisla limited with legislators but more with DOE folks in Florida, my current work um being a little more connected um to MASA and some of those opportunities to talk to thought partners. We know that it's a vision. I also manage GSRP right now and I don't know if it's going to be a reality. So, I also don't want to put us in a place um should I come here where we're doing something that then we have to change later. Um I also have a family member I connected with over the weekend who taught early childhood in Seline. It's a um her last name is not Kowalsski, but had a great about half hour conversation with her. She's no longer
061with the district. She's doing something actually outside of education. Um, but she spoke a little bit about some of the um areas of opportunity to to create some better connections and um and I know you have uh some upcoming retirements and so at some point, you know, our team can take a look at where those opportunities lie, but it might not be this year and we may need to wait and collect data and get a lot of input on where we're headed because to give you my vision wouldn't be fair. Um, this is the vision of of all of us. All right, the next question is about school finance. Um, maybe Brad's favorite question. Um, so you mentioned Miranda Oley earlier who was one of the individuals doing a tour. Um, she's a wonderful department
062and and we thank her for her her great work there. But we would like to know how you might work with Miranda and team and what your experiences are specifically around school finance and um if you can talk a little bit about your budget development process that would be wonderful. So I really want to hit home some points here that I wasn't able to fully kind of connect I don't think last time. Um I will start with the um you know idea of in when I was in big districts I worked as part of a team to put together very very large budgets. So I was not responsible as the you know Orange County superintendent or Orange County um superintendent of teaching and learning to do that. But all of the pieces that went into
063building that budget I was a part of. So you know you're watching what other departments what data they're bringing to the table, what professional learning they're financing at millions of dollars a year. um and where those things fit in terms of the long-term plan and the strategic plan of the district. So, I think those are really important components to think about is that I do currently manage alongside my um our partners with Sturgis Public Schools our budget that is small. It's 8 million, but every dollar, believe me, it's that time of year, right? Circles under your eyes counts. Every dollar counts. But the more of how I would like to answer this question is this. When I look at, and I've described this in my transition plan, when I look at your budget, your budget
064amendment from February, you know, about 80% if you really boil down to it, these are these are human capital. This is human capital in in needs. And that's what I'm seeing. Now, you know, I don't have the internal ability to know exactly what sometimes these added needs are and things like that. And that's okay. But I would I would remind remind us to think about this scalable um way of which I've worked in Clintondale. Um we redid the master schedule like the third week I was there with our principles to to rightsize and and what it did was we had to bring teachers to the table. We had to look at certifications and say, you know, we're really thinking about bringing back band. We're going to have you be at the elementary in the morning
065and the middle school in the afternoon. We cannot sustain a full FTE for this. That is a lot of budget development. It is the core of a lot of the budget development is making sure that I know our teams. I have um great there's great principles already in place here that know the capacity of their teachers, their pair educators and all of the support staff in their buildings and looking at ways to build a human capital piece of the budget where teaching and learning is involved, where Miranda's involved, where I'm involved because I know that someone at um the middle school mentioned that they might want to, you know, do a sports um esports class that maybe, you know, we don't have there yet. I know we have one at the high school, but maybe
066we do something um to that extent. Another area I might be going a little off, but I want to bring it I really want to bring this home in terms of a lot the budget is mo a lot of it is human capital, right? You have a great bond plan. I've reviewed it. The amazing bond work you've done is incredible. Sustaining that, making sure it's visible to the community is really important. One of the things I shared in my transition plan is I see these great great advanced placement scores. Some amazing work that's been done for more than a decade in advanced placement. I looked at your course offerings. I had a great tour with Cara today. I do think there's some opportunities here to look at preap. I don't see that yet in the
067schedule. I don't pretend to know if that's been talked about, but where I'm going with this is are there teachers at the high school that maybe they're underutilized and maybe we could look at some potentials to create some of those vertical um vertical alignment pieces as well. So maybe they do one class at the middle school and they do one at the high school. I'm not suggesting that that happens on August 25th at all. What I'm suggesting is I've done this work. I've done a lot of this work before. The master schedule at each of these buildings is the heartbeat. It's how you set the vision and the equity piece for these buildings. And it also, ironically, is really a majority of your district budget. Um, and so that's how I would address that question.
068I understand I've managed smaller budgets. Every dollar in my current district counts. It might not be 78 million, but I promise you this more than the work that goes in that now because I have great people supporting that work. Um, I can level that up. I can learn. I can learn. I mean, you have an amazing team. Can learn um beside them. But I do think I bring a lot to the table in terms of a district budget. Thank you for your answer. Thank you. We've gathered questions from the audience. Great. President McVey. Is it possible to ask a follow-up? Uh, no. Uh, I think there it's acceptable. Yeah. If Well, I I would still really like to get to the audience questions as well, but Jason and I think Brad had one. Brad Darcy
069has one. So, two I'm sure we could. I say two quick follow-ups. Okay. Uh, so, uh, I'm going to give you forewarning that this is going to be a difficult question. Uh, and this is not the only executive search that I am in the middle of right now. So that's why I'm asking this question. Uh when trustee Austin had asked his question, you referenced a number of times the parents that you talked to and the difficult questions that they give you uh that they had given you and you had made mention that they were the hardest ones of any interview that you've gone through. We are looking for a long-term leader and you have an impressive resume. Uh but each role has been short and your role right now uh has only been a few
070years. What can you say to uh the board and our community about the dedication to being that long-term superintendent that we're looking for? Thank you for that question. Um, I don't I want to weave a little bit of my answer through personal reasons and the ability to grow and meet the needs of my family quite honestly. But I also don't want you to think that that means that it has to be contradictory to what Seline needs. Um, I, you know, left Michigan during a recession. I chose to go to a hard I mean you know I was used to different places in Orlando of going to visit for Disney. I didn't get a free backpack though Brad. So um but you know I chose to work at a title one school where my kids parents
071went and worked at hotels and cleaned hotels all day long. I didn't have like I didn't have to worry about parents calling me at Ocul High School. I did the work with my kids and we had sure parent conferences, things like that, but I chose to to move with my now husband and to give to that work there. At each point in Florida, I was approached to come and do something different and elevate my leadership on a bigger scale. Um, that probably doesn't sound humble. I'm being really honest with you at this table tonight. It might not sound humble, but I was approached and those were reasons that I changed um jobs, but I was in Octo for 10 years from teaching and leading um in Orange County up until the time I made the
072decision to move home and be my by my parents. Clintondale schools um has a I think some I think a couple of you might have some familiar with Mcome County. Um, Clintondale schools is a very challenging place of which I was called to that work. Right? There are things that when you are serving um multiple leaders in the span of 10 months that you aren't going to be able to elevate that work in a way that makes you feel like kids are getting anything from it. That is what I felt that spring. Not only that, without, you know, saying names or anything like that, I was also approached by some um former superintendent through the work that I had done. Hey, we think, you know, you might be a good fit for a small district.
073I had a pathway. I had a number of interviews. I looked for a community. Um I found Colon to be at least close enough to home where we could go for a day. And so I I again want to bring you back to like personal reasons, right? Okay. I didn't move to the UP. Um because I wanted to be still close to my family. Um the hardest part of this question is now I've arrived at this moment right where I talk about where I am now and why I want to be here. I feel like I've outgrown that work. But tomorrow at 8:30 because that's my first meeting. I will be back there doing the work with my team, with our kids, uh with people I deeply care about and might miss in the next
074few weeks. But I don't and I'll continue to do it because I love it. And that's I've shared that with my team. This is a really hard thing. But I do feel called. You Google Seline. You can Google Seline to some of the challenges that you face. I feel like I have a grounding and a purpose in my values and beliefs also with the experience of working in a small rural district where there's lots of different perspectives that have brought me to you tonight. And that is how I would address what I would agree is a hard question. Um, but I hope that you see some humility in that and some au authenticity. Thank you very much. Uh, we'll let Darcy have a quick one and then um I would like to address as many
075questions as we can from the audience. Thank you. Um, I agree that our students are amazing and uh they come often and speak at the board meetings and it's incredible. How would you prioritize student voice and their involvement in the decision-making processes? Thank you. Um, it's hopefully not a cheap answer to start with, but you set up systems and structures. So, one thing that I um have noticed in my own growth and learning is that unless you're intentional about the way that you plan for these things, they will not happen. Um, and sometimes, you know, when my team's like, "Okay, we're going to do that again." But it's important because we have to get capture these voices. Right now I um do twice a year. I haven't made it over to our fourth and fifth
076graders yet at Cool Elementary. Um advisory committees, student advisory committee. It's same name as the teachers I meet with. Um and so if you want to know some real facts about things, you ask fourth and fifth graders like our friend today. Um and and actually they give you more actionable things. Sorry high schoolers if you're listening. um than high school students sometimes because they have grandiose and they're great ideas, right? Um but our fourth and fifth graders tend to have things that actually you can work with the principal and the building team um on addressing. Um and so I think being intentional um planning for them. I think um what resonates here with me too is it is I won't be able to step in the classroom Mondays for an hour and a half, but
077my ability to be on campuses and balancing that with um my role as superintendent is something I know I can do. And again, I know I've talked about your central office team and your principles. I I know you know this, but just in case I haven't said it, I'm going to say it one more time. The C the team you have here is the most outstanding professionals I've met. Um I just from what we talked about today and remember I got to exist on the seventh floor of the downtown Orlando right the board of education building and I've met some amazing people a few of them I still stay in contact with but um these are amazing leaders and I know I'll be able to be um be able to be immersed while balancing that
078with the important work that I'll do alongside you and meetings and all of the things um that I I know happen. So, in about 10 minutes, let's see how many questions we can get through. So, there might be rapid fire. So, you're gonna read them. Okay. Yes. I I'm going to make sure they're the I've chosen the simplest questions, the most straightforward. Oh, I think she'll be able to get these. Are you ready? Yes. So, how will you celebrate and advocate for marginalized students, including LGBTQIA students? I just want to capture the whole thing. Celebrate and advocate for advocate. So my role in this work um is to ensure that I am charged with the student experience and working alongside the team that students when they enter our buildings have the most opportunity to feel
079like they belong to feel affirmed through action. Not just because we say it's like, you know, awareness day, not any of those things, but because they see and they hear the tone of voice that we use, the administrators use, our teachers use, when we have students who have diff, you know, thing that we want to celebrate and that we want to affirm. Um, I think that when you balance a safe a psychologically safe learning environment where you have um things set up and you have things that are set up in place, but they not every system is foolproof. I do think that um looking at restorative practices, I would I really I propose in my plan um digging deep down into that data is really important. uh you have an incredibly high percentage of bullying
080incidents in your SID report. I don't know if that's because other districts don't report it accurately because that is a potential. We know that from people accounting or that it truly is something that is a 911 for your next superintendent to look at. Um so I would let data drive some of that. I would uh listen to the team in place to hear what is set up and um and what's working to make sure we capture those things. I will lastly say that um you talk to people in my current district. When we have incidences where a student or a staff member, but in this case a student has been targeted for their race, for their uh status as a special education student, for their status um u regarding gender identity, whether they are gay
081will be dealt with with the fullest intent of the handbook and through restorative practice. is as balance. It needs to be balanced because we cannot we we cannot allow those things to be prevalent in our schools. We may not agree with that this table here tonight. I don't know if I will agree with all of your parents here on that, but those things must be addressed regardless of the comfort of others and the status of them or their parents. And that's the honest answer. Thank you. Next question. How would how do you hear all the voices in a district of this size? I got this question. This is the second time I've had this question, so it's not fair. No, I'm just not fair to you. It's fair to me. I'll take it back. Um,
082I think uh some of it comes down a little bit to Darcy's question about this intentionality and reflective leadership. Where am I? Right? Um, am I always at the same set of events? Am I always surrounding myself with the same group of principles? Am I always with the same board members collaborating about things? Or am I seeking out viewpoints that I might not agree with? Um, and it doesn't matter, right? Because if it's student centered, that's where the conversation needs to be. Um, so I think being intentional. I gave the example of um, just recently wanting to talk about um, specials at the elementary and knowing a couple of parents that had great interest in that and um, could potentially help me actually with some funding for it. Um, knowing that they were track parents
083and planning to, you know, to go to that event so that I could run into them, right? So, a lot of it is quite frankly intentionality, planning a calendar that reflects your values. Um, I try to do that now. I model that for my team like where are you spending your time, right? Are you spending your time doing things that impact kids? I know we have work to do. They'll tell you, you know, there's work to be done. um sometimes they push it off into the evening which isn't always great but um I think being intentional with your time and ensuring that you can um accomplish it that way. Thank you. I think we're going to have time for maybe two more. Great. Um we're very proud of our record of excellence here in this
084district and we realize we are not perfect. Could you identify and you already have at least one or two. Could you identify two or three things that our our district could do better than it currently does and perhaps explain how you might bring about those changes? Okay. So, one area I want to go back to is school of choice and enrollment. Um, I alluded to this last time. I want to tie this idea together with um your your wanting to continue to ensure you do have diverse viewpoints in your student body. Um I think looking at entry points that are beyond um early elementary is something that I would really love to talk to you about. Um I think that when we've I know for in my experience currently we have about the same percentage
085of school of choice students in my current district as you do. It's almost like the exact same. And what I've seen that do is create these pathways where there's kids that are being exposed to things that they wouldn't normally have been exposed to, which I think is your vision. And I've read actually that um that that's why you um have the things in place that you do. But I think that looking at entry points in high school and in sixth grade also would allow um us to continue some of that um ensuring equity and diverse viewpoints beyond just early elementary. I think that would be one area and I want to expand a little bit on that for my first interview. Not that we would change it, but that I I think that that is
086something to definitely look at. Um, I think that, um, you know, your opportunities for English language learners are vast. Um, you have a number of them. 130ish is what I see. And it doesn't seem like a big number in your big district, but the gaps are wide. And so, um, I know we talked about staff today and knowing that um, a key player on this team actually has a special education background. So, someone um that works in our MTSS our MTSS department um that is so incredibly valuable, but I'd like to explore extending that a little bit to English language learners and seeing if we maybe can't connect some systems. I think that's definitely an area of opportunity. Um and the reason I uh focus on that too is it's not just academic achievement, it
087is attendance. So, if you look at in my um transition entry plan, I've identified what that difference is. um it is vast and I have a feeling it's because maybe some discussion around importance of school and making sure you're at school every day. Um or maybe just a language barrier. Um so those are some things that I would point to in terms of opportunities. I've laid out many others. Um and I'll let you appreciate that. Uh you touched very briefly so you provided the segue yourself. Could you talk just a little bit about MTSS, the multi-ter system of support? Yes. Okay. Um, MTSS, I consider it to be part of special education in my current district. That's still something that is like we're working very hard on. And and the reason is is that if
088you've been in the same district for many years, I think there's sometimes um you might lean towards special education identification and um with with MTSS in place that's strong and um special education, but general education teachers understand as well and understand exactly what those what those processes are. Um I I think that that's really important. So in my current setting um now let me talk about uh how we did this in Florida. So you know we have these um teams of seven eight teachers that teach social studies and it's not like elementary. You can't do wind time. You can't pull the you know 10th graders out and do interventions. So what do we do? So what I worked with principles on in our 20 high schools um was looking at bubble student data like where
089some of our students were just right on the bubble of reaching proficiency and feeling successful and then matching that data to teachers who did that content and taught that content really well. So they performed um high on a on a specific unit from a formative assessment and maybe another teacher performed better on another formative their students performed better on another formative assessment. Um, and so we built structures that were outside the box and we actually rotated 10th graders through different classes um, over at Evans High School on a weekly basis. We pulled that data and the coaches pulled that data. I helped them with the content piece and aligning the students. Um, that's an MTSS structure. It's an MTSS structure that didn't even exist in, you know, US history at Evans High School before the
090work that we did there. Um, so I guess I would just say I could talk to you about MTSS and Colon and you know we've set up these connected systems between PBIS um our wellness data and how we pull that wellness data and then we create groups from it and we do all that work but I think um what to to your point about the amazing um achievement out of students here there are areas of opportunity and I do wonder if it's those things that are outside the box that I've had experience with in large districts that actually might help move the needle and provide some new perspectives to your team. Thank you. Although the script says we are winding down our time, I feel like we're just ramping up. So, if you have any
091uh do you have any questions for the board before you uh as your final remarks? Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I have to find it. Sorry I couldn't get to all the questions. Sorry, Brandon. Okay. If we were to be here together a year from now, what would have to happen to make you feel like you made the right choice? That question wasn't on our list. No, I'm just I'll let someone else on the board respond. I don't want to be the only one that responds, but I don't think I'm going to be the only one that responds. Um, one year from now, I would like to see a um a healthy relationship with our board of education. Um, respect for boundaries and roles and responsibilities of course, but working together symbiotically. I
092would like to see our staff. Um I I saw a lot of things I liked in your presentation and I would like our staff to have that positive culture. I would like to pass them in the hallways and and and at bushes and and everything and hear positive comments, but also also feedback for continuous improvement and know that their voices voices would always be listened to. Um, I would like our um I would we're a district with high achievement. I would like to see um our our test scores, but I also are our our students um excelling and continuing on the path in the pursuit of excellence. Um I would like them to be happy and healthy, but also doing very well academically because we are a school district. So, I'll leave it to those
093three. So, um, you just recently brought up a good point and I think it's something that a year from now we'd like to see some change in the bullying a 911 point for the ne new district leader and I we have had some reports come in and to the board and they are somewhat alarming. I I agree with you though they could be some aren't reporting the data correctly and some are but it does the trajectory insane for bullying hasn't it's not been going down so um I guess I'd like to start seeing that take a turn down I would like to see a strong trend in uh supporting the teachers and staff as it as it pertains to uh as it pertains to uh basically anything uh parents incidents with students. Um I' I'd
094like to see the administration uh take a hard stance on what is right is right and that we have to protect our teachers and staff so they can protect our students the right way. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. Um we have started um some great conversations uh on building consensus uh with something like the bridge to civility. I would like to see more uh more opportunities for us to come to together and build consensus because difficult situations will arise and um I think that if we have a system in place uh to address that um I think that that will create a better a better resolution and outcome for all involved. Um, I would like to see our uh teachers and educators supported by the culture in the building, by the community, and
095in um how they can support their families um financially, culturally. Um, I'd like to see our special ed students um continue to receive uh supports from uh prek, you know, infancy to young adulthood. And we didn't talk about our young adulthood program, but um it is, you know, one of the, in my opinion, as a pediatrician, the jewels of this community. Um, I would like to see us continue to um improve our um welcomeness to um diversity, geographic diversity, racial, ethnic diversity, gender diversity. I'd like to see the community retain um some of its uh community feeling but expand that to others to new people moving in. Um, I think as a new person moving in, you may have a real ability to um, understand and move that forward. Um, and I'd like to see
096um, our students sort of be very future focused. I think they are, but I love to hear you. I really enjoyed the part where you talked about um, one student and how you could kind of see her her path layout in front of her. And that was actually the sort of the presentation that I had suggested we do tonight. Like what would the life of a student like sort of when I think about this work I think of one patient, one child, my child, my friend's child walking through their years here and whether that's they go to the CTE, they become the next generation of Seline teachers, they're going to Harvard, they are working at Bushes because we've supported them through the young adult program. Like I would like to see more and more of
097those like future focused kind of vision around here. I think we have it but I think making sure that we all understand it and our students understand it from a young age and that can change over time but I'd like to see the kids be future focused. Thank go ahead. I'll bring it home for sure. I want families to know you. I want students to know you. I want staff members to know you. I want you them to to feel a trust that has been built with you. And I want them to know that things are steady, right? That things are stable, that things are supported and that we are doing our best to support and nourish every single student, every single staff member, every single community me. I want them to have that indepth
098ability to tell me about their relationship with you and about how that that has come along and how we disagreed about this but we worked through it in this way. We aligned in this way and I was really proud of what we did. Like I want that kind of feedback about the superintendent about your presence about how they feel about when you're a part of their their career, their lives, that kind of thing. I was going to ask you a question about data, but I believe you've already answered it. As long as we make our decisions grounded in data, I'd be extraordinarily happy with you as a superintendent. Um, your question has enabled us to chew up what was left of your time with us. So, thank I'd like to thank you for that and
099we appreciate greatly your interest in our superintendent position. And of course, the board will contact you if you are selected. And thank you very much for coming. We all enjoyed meeting you very much. and I know members of the community did as well. So, thank you. Thank you, Dr. McPay. And I would just close with Brad. Um, take a look at that uh page, too. And it might res resonate a little bit. I hope it's okay to take a moment just to shake your hands and I'll No. Yes. No, of course. Thank you. I'd like to encourage the audience to uh fill out their paper forms if they have any in front of them and return them in to uh anybody along the back table. Cara Davis in fact will be happy to take your
100forms. Thank you. Without objection, I'd like to take a 10 minute, 8 minute, five minute break. Thank you. Pick one. 10. 10. I've been told. Thank you again. Brad, mics are on. Um, thank you. I'd like to call the board back to the table. Oh, look. They're back. Oh, look. They came back. Um, thank you very much. Uh I'd like to remind those of you in the audience please that uh we have feedback forms paper actual paper feedback forms that you can write on. If you prefer to use a uh the QR code feel free to do so to to get provide us uh electronic responses. We will be reviewing those uh at the end of the meeting for about 30 minutes after this the next interview. I have no more ad liibms. So Jay,
101well I can talk while Jay Bennett from the Michigan Association of School Boards is going out to get our candidate. And if I haven't had the chance to say it yet, thank you to the audience for coming here tonight. It's, you know, time out of your evening, but it's a very important thing and we're really helpful, really happy to have your input, which we do read most of it. Looking at you, Sickler. Thank you. I'd like we now p we'll we will now proceed with our interview of Nick Steinmets and the candidate will be escorted to the table by well you're going to find your way there all by yourself. Actually, we're going to escort you to the podium first. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for being here with us today.
102And uh following the uh interview questions tonight, Nick, we will have the opportunity, you will have the opportunity to ask us a question or two as time allows. Great. Thank you very much. Excellent. Thanks for checking the mic. So, um could you we'll just get we'll just dive right into it. Thank you. I'll just check the time. Thank you. Uh could you please share your thoughts on creating and supporting a positive culture for school employees that improves staff retention and recruitment? and please also discuss how you might implement your plans in Selen Area schools. Absolutely. Uh first I want to thank you guys for having me back. Um I'm excited to be here and um have the opportunity you know we only had an hour last time so listening to some of the feedback I
103can address some of those wonderments that you had since um we only had an hour together. Um I was asked to create a presentation on my approach to uh creating a positive work culture that would uh then benefit recruitment and retention. um for that should pop up. I mean, I can follow the other one, but it's not mine. Nope. Yep, I see it. I guess the clock hasn't started. Oh, it's okay. This one's going to make a little more sense to me. Um, so this is the presentation that um I created and click to the next slide. Um, my comprehensive approach to uh positive culture, recruitment and retention f focuses on six key areas which you can read on this slide. a positive work environment, streamlined recruitment process, competitive compensation and benefits, professional development, onboarding
104and mentorship programs, and work life balance. Um, some of these areas Seline already does very well. So, we would look to continue on those practices u maybe modify them a little bit and then uh put a different touch on them. Um, the first piece is positive uh positive work environment. Um, this is essential to building that trust piece. Um I am very big on relationships um and having that face-to-face communication. I think that collaboration in an inclusive environment is is key for having any stakeholder uh feel respected within the within the work environment. Um I prefer face-to-face communication. Um there is a place for surveys um and questionnaers and I think that that is in the initial information gathering stage. Um, from those I like to follow up with face-to-face conversations to get a deeper
105understanding. Um, so that that goes to that inclusive environment and for that person to feel both respected and valued. Part of valued I don't just mean monetarily. There are many small things that you can do uh for staff members to make them feel valued. Um, one of the ones that I brought up during my first hour together that was was mentioned in some feedback was Jean Day. Um, that was you, President McVey. Um, Gan Day, I was the lead negotiator for our district's last contract. Um, my board felt very strongly that our staff um, needed to have professional attire for our students. Our teachers wanted in the worst way just to be able to wear jeans every day. That was not an item that was going to become a consensus in the contract. So what
106was agreed upon was gan day Fridays, casual Fridays. Now being at that table with that group and speaking with my board, when I'm able to throw in a gan day here or there, it is like icing on the cake for them because I fought that battle with them alongside with our board. Tried to come to a common ground. So that was the piece. It wasn't a micromanaging piece. It was a hey, we understand these pieces together. we can add those in, you know, as a small recognition here and there. Um, that's part of that respected and being heard. You know, we can't always give the world, but the things that we can give, um, please, you know, show that that value and support to that environment. Um, supported. One of the biggest things that anyone
107wants is support. That's that inclusivity piece. Um, a large example of this that we're tackling this year is we have a large PBIS initiative going on in our district. Um we uh reviewed a lot of data around attendance and behaviors and we knew that before we could tackle the next learning objectives that we wanted to tackle, we needed to get our behaviors um back in check where they were. So we created very clear behavior matrix. Those behavior matrix um are districtwide, building wide and classroom specific. So those platforms um are a way of showing consistency and overall safety for both our staff members, our students, and our communities. They know how we're going to respond um to those those situations. Overall, um this affects the teachers well-being, their sense of belonging to the organization and
108and from that we have seen higher retention rates and uh job satisfaction. Uh the second piece is streamlining recruiting recruitment process. This is something that um looking at Seline that Selene does very well. Um it needs to be targeted. Um where you're going to post, how you're going to post um and clear clearly defined qualifications, characteristics, job descriptions need to be be in place for all positions. U this is something that I've worked through in two previous districts creating those job descriptions so when we put a posting out people know what we're looking for. Um we have now um a a great deal of files on all of our positions that we're able to pull from. So if we're creating a new position, we're able to pull from some of those pieces to create that
109new position. Um we utilize um as well as Seline does job board postings, social media, uh teacher colleges and higher ed. We have a partnership with those with um student teaching streamlining that we're we're fortunate enough to have two universities um in Adrian um that people choose to uh come and do their student teaching with us um quite frequently. Uh the last piece is um a positive and efficient hiring process. I've linked in this document um we're going through a very um detailed systems approach right now. So every system that we have is a written documentation. This is our hiring process. you don't need to click on it. Um, it is in there. It's a seven or eight page document about how we do business. Um, from retirements and staff members leaving our district this
110year, we had 10 vacancies. We posted them um at after our March board meeting and I'm happy to report that all 10 positions have been accepted and are going to my board of education Monday for their approval. So, um, that streamlined approach has allowed us to have those vacancies filled before we enter the summer months. Um, our next slide will take us to competitive compensation and benefits. What attracts C teachers to Seline? Um, I had the ability to ask a couple teachers that I knew in Seline, "What brought you here?" I got high academics, high achievement, um, athletics and extracurriculars. What are the pieces that we're going to do to keep them here? Competitive compensation and benefits is one of those. Um, for me, um, looking at this position, having that contract completed is a
111top priority. Um, I know that there's some different pieces of negotiation, especially with prohibitive subjects of bargaining coming back, that have complicated some of those things, but having that in place really does build trust with those organizations. Um, I've always strived to not have a year-to-year contract. I've been a chief negotiator on three contracts. Um, one at the ISD level, we settled a three-year contract there. one at Manchester which was a three-year contract and one at Madison which we settled which is a five-year contract. Um I think that long-term security so people can come in and also see what their compensation is going to be um over the next several years is is a benefit to them when we do that to not only look at local comparisons um but also the statewide peer group
112and if you look at Seline and the performance standards of Seline uh district size foundation allowance the peer group that we should also be looking at are Novi Okamus West Bloomfield Northville Forest Hills and East Grand Rapids. when we start to look at those pieces for those contracts. The next um piece of my approach is professional development. We ask our students to be lifelong learners. Our teachers want to be also um want to foster that that uh belief of continued growth, that culture of lifelong learning, the diverse needs and interest of teachers and staff. um external trainings, support, advanced degrees. Um in all of those pieces, part of the work that I've done when I was at the ISD level and in my current district is I created a two-year paraprofessional series uh training series
113um at Madison. I also tied that to a compensation piece because then I felt like they were they were more equipped for the position. Um so each year that they completed they were um attached with an initial piece of compensation um to that um there was eight trainings each year that they they completed um around high high needs areas that they would they would see on a daily basis. And the last piece um I I'm done my doctoral work. I'm all but dissertation. The first three chapters of my dissertation are done. That's the title of my dissertation. Increased sense of belonging and morale. Examining expanded professional development focused on par profofessionals. Next is once you've got those teachers, what do you do with them? That's that onboarding and mentorship program. Um onboarding, I am in
114favor of a tiered approach. There's two types of teachers that you get new to a district. someone brand new to teaching and someone that's been a teacher somewhere else and coming to to you um their needs are different and a lot of times when you have a seasoned teacher sit in an onboarding process they know a lot of the information so let's tear that approach um to those two specific pieces um also mentorship programs this is a big piece of me with me with my cognitive coaching um which I do with a lot of my administrative team uh but also with pair of professionals teachers and the administrator administrative team. Um, I'm big on grow your own, increase your own capacity. We currently have eight pair of professionals that are in the talent together program,
115uh, becoming certified teachers for the district. Um, I've had two teacher leaders transition into instructional coaches positions um, since I've been there. And this morning, I called our early L principal and offered her our newly created director of curriculum instruction position. We sent her through a two-year instructional piece at the ISD um to gain the certification, the state certification and curriculum um to take on that role. Having that capacity built in, I know that if I were lucky enough to get this position, the pieces are already in place. Those systems that we've created as a district over the last 5 years, they're going to continue on. Um, and last but not least in my six sixtiered approach to this is work life balance. Um, if you ask my children, they're going to say that I'm
116not the best at this at all times. Um, but I think that this is huge. Uh, with the staff um, in any district. I always stress to all of my employees the importance of family first. Outside of a job, your family is the one that's always going to be there. So, that needs to be the number one priority. Um, with that is establishing some boundaries and and part of that is promoting district-wide and schoolwide policies. Um, and part of that which I brought up last time was the communication plan. Um, I am always u visible and available for conversations, but I think that um, community members also want to know where to go first for information and that's helps set those boundaries. Um, I don't want staff members responding to emails at nine o'clock at
117night. I want parents to know, yes, we value your child. We value what your feedback is. Here's the timeline where you can expect a response because we also have families outside of this. Um, that helps with the workload and stress and time management. And there's been several uh multiple studies that are done that when there is a proper work life balance, your job satisfaction increases. and there is a positive correlation to how teachers deal with student behaviors. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. Um, does the board have any questions to ask soon to be Dr. Steinment? You can't really say there's ABD. Are you still right? You got to write every day. No, I'm not every day right now. I will say that. Yeah, I'm I'm gonna go a little bit out of order,
118but uh since it it relates to what you just had in your presentation, um kind of the chain of command that you had laid out in your in your call tree. How do you handle situations where the family does not feel comfortable reaching out to those first stages and instead want to go to the board directly, go to the superintendent directly, go to the uh the principal directly instead of following that. Sure. This is actually a question that one of the principles asked me um during the community meet and greet also. Um so I appreciate you bringing it up here as well. Um there's many instances that that happens, right? Um, and I will never ask a parent or community member um if they've gone through these chains of command before they they talk to
119me. Um, I will always be um someone that will listen uh to those parents or family and take down their concern. I will also um then tell them that I am going to circle back um with the people that are more directly related to the situation, whether it's the principal or a specific teacher um notifying that teacher by or principal by email. Hey, this situation happened. This this family reached out. Um here was their concern. Can we address can you address this or should we address this together? Uh to kind of come up with a solution for them. Well, if there are no more questions from the board, we'll transition to uh your hot seat. Thank you. Ben, do you need help? Are you uh is your mic on, sir? Yes, it is. Perfect. Uh
120the next question goes to uh Vice President Steen. So, first of all, welcome back to Selen Area Schools, and I hope you had a really nice day touring our buildings and talking to our students and staff. Um we did go back and forth a little bit on on the draft for these questions. Um and in thinking about it more today, um my question is about special education and I thought it was really important to elevate the voices of special education parents and see what they wanted to know versus what what I was drafting. And so I'm going to go with what they want to know. Um and so if you could please when you're answering this question think about some um specific examples that would be a wonderful thing too. um what strategies would you
121implement to ensure collaborative solutions between families and the district uh with special education in mind? And then also with today's evolving climate around education, how would you reassure families of students with special education needs who are concerned about losing access access to essential services? What steps would you take to ensure continuity, compliance of course, and trust? And I can definitely repeat repeat that if you'd like. I think I got it. Okay. Thank you. And before I get directly to that piece, I also wanted to um the special education was brought up last time. Um and I think that there I don't know that I communicated well the numbers. Um I think because there was a misconception. Um our district, my current district at Madison has uh 1633 students. 961 of them are school of choice.
122our special ed numbers, our school of choice special ed numbers are 113. So the the correlation with um that to the Selen area schools is that Madison is a destination for the special ed services that we provide very similarly to Seline. The programming that Seline has is is well known um throughout the county and parents seek that out and the same is true in Madison. So I did want to touch on that before I went on to your question. Um examples of specific with collaboration with parents. Um we rely heavily on our parent advisory committee. Um our parent advisory committee meets both at our district level and our ISD level. Um with not only our special ed director but also the director the director of special education at the ISD level. Um they're the voice
123for the students. their students. Um they see their their needs at home. Um on top of that, we include our pair professionals um as part of our IEP process. Um they provide a lot of the feedback of the day-to-day interventions and services that are done, especially with our oneto ones. Um so, so that process uh is in place to have input from both parents um and the people that deal with with our special education students um on a daily basis. I think I got it all. Um, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Treasurer Gerby. All righty. Thank you for being here. So, how have you led your school community through crisis situations to ensure two outcomes? number one um student safety and number two um maintain the continuity in their education. Um so I think the
124greatest example that I have of this is um going to I spoke about this a little bit the first time uh when I arrived at Madison 3 months later the pandemic started. Um I had no I had zero institutional knowledge. I had zero trust built with any stakeholders um in the organization and we were trying to figure out um how to do something completely new. Um in that process there was um multiple groups that were formed um parent parent groups parentled groups around certain topics teachers uh teachers and unions involved with that that piece as well as myself and and I relied heavily on the community. um I didn't know the community well going into that. Um so that process knowing um three months of how that school operated and having to bring in that
125continuity really relying on those stakeholders that really had that institutional knowledge whether it was the the staff, my fantastic administrative team um or and the parents as well um to create a plan that could continue that continuity of education. Secret Secretary Burwick. Thank you. Um so I had gone back and reviewed the interviews and um uh looked at looked for questions that uh I was left wondering and uh so these are tailored for each person and for you. Uh I very much appreciated uh your avid support of teachers and admin and as a pair professional I it warms my heart to hear you talk about uh how you include them. Um but I think I did mention that I wanted to hear more about maybe parents and students and so I'm going to ask the
126first part about students and then if we have time I will follow up with a question uh regarding parents or family engagement. Um, so Selen Area Schools works diligently to make our schools more welcoming and safe for our students. As superintendent, how will you improve our work in supporting some of our more marginalized student populations? And I'm hoping that you can speak specifically to racial or ethnic minority students, LGBTQ students, and special ed students, which you've to a degree addressed already. Thank you. um specific examples of this that that I would like to carry here as well. um part of that that PBIS initiative um I work in a very diverse community now uh currently we are um 64% Hispanic um and so we we have several studentled organizations that kind of help us with
127represent those minority groups um we have a Latino leadership group um that represents our our high Hispanic population then we also created in the high school it's called a rise committee it's one of our acronyms rise up. Uh respect has an then that committee um kind of tackles the the pieces um of um any inequities for our other minority groups. Um and then we provide um some different opportunities education pieces that are studentled um bringing into the district to to help support those groups. I'm sorry. Quick follow. Yeah, I I sometimes my hearing isn't 100%. I was just wondering if you could tell me that um percentage statistic if it was 64 or 6.4. Oh, no, not 6.4. 64. 64. Okay. I That's what I thought. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you so much.
128Yeah, I actually misspoke. Um it's 25% 64% is white. 25% Hispanic. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you for clarifying that. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. And my Sorry. Go ahead. Well, mine was you referred to RISE. That was an acronym and I think I heard one of the words the rest. Um, respect, integrity, um, respect. Every building has a different one. Respect. Respect, integrity, uh, success and employability. Yes. Appreciate that. Thank you very much. Um, passing this over to Trusty Austin at the end of the table. How would you better understand the culture of Selen area schools, double down on the strengths and manage possible changes? I think that that um all goes with um the relationship building and the the learning of the community. Um that's a piece where you need to um understand
129the perspective of all stakeholders um to be able to one identify what are are the priorities of the district and what are the pieces that that certain groups are looking to um double down on and improve. Um I think that that's that goes to um data collection that goes to some some pieces about past practice um and where and where the strategic plan uh that you guys have had laid out address those pieces. um for those those areas. Trusty Golden, in answering last week's question regarding cultural competency, you referenced being able to interact well with diverse individuals. I'd like you to please share an example of an interaction with a colleague, student, or family with a background or worldview different than your own and how you grew or learned from this encounter. And I'd like
130you to um since we've already talked about the, you know, sort of the um a few different populations at your current district. I'd sort of like to move beyond those and maybe reference a different kind of uh difference so we can hear a more broad Would you like to choose the population? No. Okay. I really genuinely want to hear like how you grew from interaction, but I just I want to make sure we hear about a different population. Um, sure. Uh, one thing I did, you know, the cultural competency piece to me, I have worked all over the state and one comment uh that I don't think uh was understood the way that I meant it was about the the UP being a little different. Um my the meaning behind that was um the cultural
131the deep cultural roots of the upper peninsula are very different um than this area um or any other area that I've worked in. Um it was the first time that I had been in a district where um I knew what a deer day was. Um a holiday that is taken off school on the opening day of deer season. Did not know that. Um, school cancellization. We canceled school when it was 40 below with windchill or 20 below actual temperature. We did not cancel because of snow. In the first November that I was there, we had 100 inches of snow in November. But they are so proficient at moving snow, you didn't you didn't cancel for that. Our first home track meet my my uh first year there, we had three feet of snow on the
132football field. They plowed the track so we could we could complete our track season. Um, so the the difference there with my my point my what I wanted to point out was a was no way disrespecting or um saying that it was a different population. Um, they have such a strong mining background and it's a group that's been in an economic recession for 50 plus years. So, so the the differences there from anywhere else are huge. Um, so that was an important piece for me me to to point out. um coming back. Um I think that I can relate those pieces um to interacting with a different uh social group um in having that interaction with a family in those pieces. Um the generational poverty in the UP is a real um a real issue.
133Um, so interacting with those families and and first making sure that their basic needs are met. Um, is a piece that, you know, was an everyday occurrence with me. Um, and it changed me as a leader. Um, having those interactions. Um, there's so many parts of that population, the part there's so many pieces of the upper peninsula that can't even access health care. You know, the closest hospitals two hours away, you know, things like that. So building in uh clinics into into the school building, dental services into the school building where they're not able to access those somewhere else um I think is was a real change in in cultural u competency for me. I really appreciate that answer and especially the healthc care part that was not intentional. I think we have a little
134bit of extra time. Could you just clarify are those things that you did building the healthcare elements into the schools or are those things you inherited? No, those are things that we did while we were there. Um, and then when I went to the ISD, it was um more of a broad approach. Um, our our ISD served two counties, the GoPanagen County. In my time there, um, there was initially a um hospital in Anton that closed. Um, Antonagen is close to the Kiwana Peninsula, but to get to uh, H Hotton is still about a 45minute drive where the closest hospital was. Um, there Waters Meat, you had to go down. I lived in Waters meet my last few years there um you had to go down into Wisconsin um to go to a hospital um
135when it the joke always was oh if you want to go here how far is everything was two hours away you know it was oh I need to go to Costco well you better go to Green Bay you know oh we want to go to the mall well you go to Duth you know so it wasn't um it was we had to bring the services to the students because they couldn't go somewhere for appreciate that. Thank you, Jason. I'll be going a little off script because I already asked my uh my scripted question uh as follow-up to your presentation. Uh if you could please discuss your position on supporting instructional and support staff following situations of physical conflict between a student and staff member and how you would go about analyzing the situation for decision-m
136regarding any possible discipline for either the staff or the student. Sure. Unfortunately, this is um a I think an ever rising problem in education um where these situations do occur. Um not only with um you know the I think the immediate immediate knee-jerk reaction is that it's a student uh that may have special education services. That's not always the case. Um we've noticed especially since the pandemic the um amount of social emotional learning loss in our students and the simple um conflict resolution um the ability to um balance your own emotions all of those pieces is something that's um a little behind where it should be in multiple groups. So we do have processes in place um for these to to look at the situations. Um we do have several different protocols to analyze a
137situation to see you know um what was the um item that caused the uh the conflict to arise. How was the situation handled? Um we make sure that all of our staff members are trained in different um uh protocols like CPI um if they are dealing with students with high needs uh that may become aggressive or or have those um needs. We we certify I think I believe 75% of our pair professional staff is CPI certified. Um so we have an emergency response team if there there is an issue um between um a student and and a staff member. Um so there are people to come to assist uh with that. Uh from there we have our emergency response team will then kind of uh review the situation and what happened and and then come
138up with okay what was the the issue that occurred here? How do we handle it moving forward? You know, what are the pieces if there's a discipline piece one way or the other? Pardon me. Thank you very much. So, while answering last week's question regarding controversial issues and decision-m, you referred to the reference uh you use the reference what's best for students. Appreciate that. Sometimes definition of what is best for students differs. uh or there could be a conflict between which students benefit the most. So in those situations, what data or principles do you use in deciding how to proceed in dealing again with controversial issues? Um it's really dependent on the situation and I can give you an example um as we we I kind of progress through this answer um of a difficult
139situation that had to be made u within the last year. Um but Actually, I'll dive into the the example first and see if that answers your question. Um, when we started to look at implementing a PBIS system, um, one of the the areas that we saw the most behavior incidents happening in our elementary was between bus drop off and the actual time that school starts. So, we run a two-tiered bus system. Um, our middle and high school start at 7:49 and our elementary starts at 8:30. Um some of our buses return uh with our elementary students around 8:10. Um so then those students were being dropped off, let into the building and then they would go to the cafeteria um for breakfast. Classrooms would open at 8:25. One of the things that we wanted to
140reduce was that unstructured piece for students in the morning when they got off the bus. So, we knew in order to do that um we wanted to um provide breakfast in the classroom um for for all of our elementary students. We have 800 elementary students that are getting off the bus getting into that building at one time. So, it is chaotic. Um so, part of that uh decision-making process led to a contractual issue. Um however, we knew this was the decision that was best for students. Now in the past the contractual issue um was a piece of teacher start time was 8:10 um students came to their their classrooms at 8:25 you know the the language wasn't specific on you know what is that 810 to 825 piece you know it can be interpreted several
141different ways um but we knew it was a decision that was best for kids um and with that piece um there were some difficult situations around that um difficult conversations ations around that. Sorry, not situations. Um that we had to have that that conversation with our staff and how we were going to implement this. Um I think that due to the relationships that we've built with the union, we were able to come up with a compromise. And with that, um I'm happy to say that students do enter the classroom at 8:10. Uh we were able to use some of our our 31A, uh added instructional time money, um for that piece. We added 15 minutes of instruction to the students day. Um well 10 minutes technically is what is countable uh with the passing time.
142Um which adds over four instructional days a year for our students. It's decreased our absentee rate by 71% so far year-to-year and our behavior referrals before school have reduced 90%. So the difficult situation that we were working through was working through a contractual issue but knowing what was best for students and relying on those relationships to be able to to get through that difficult situation. So in that case it was um attendance data and discipline data that we looked at and specifically in that that scenario. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate it. The next question goes to Vice President Stein. Um I heard today that uh one of the people you were with was Miranda Osley, our assistant superintendent for finance. So um my question is around um if you can tell us the
143the budget development process that you use. Tell us a little bit about your experience in school finance. um we have a a wonderful um partner in Miranda and her team and would love to know how you could possibly integrate with that and what experiences you bring to the table specifically. Yeah. Um I have also been fortunate to always be surrounded by a very strong um business office. Um from when I was in Manchester, it was a a one per one individual business office. Um but Fantastic. Um, I take a very collaborative approach to budgeting. Um, before I got into education. I grew up, um, my dad has owned his own small business since he was in his early 20s. Um, so that financial sense I kind of grew up around um, and how to to
144effectively manage people and budgets. Um, from a young age that was kind of just ingrained to the things that that we did. Um but getting into um when I got into having that business background getting into schools I think was beneficial to me. Um numbers are something that just kind of makes sense to me. Um I always take a very uh collaborative approach with all of the business offices that I've worked in. Um I will always ask questions and judging um by spending a couple hours with Miranda, I'm sure that she's always going to have the answers. Um she was very informative today and and I really enjoyed my time time with her today. Um, I think that through that process and and having that um, knowledge of the budget, but also having that piece
145of understanding the people and the long-term effects of what that has on a budget has really been a great partnership with myself and a business office. Um, one of the things that was brought up in the last the feedback was the budget um, and COVID funding and you know how that that all occurred. Um, yes, we were fortunate to have COVID funding. Um, we used all of that funding on one-time expenses, so it wouldn't be a recurring piece. Um, I'm happy and proud to say that, um, we haven't had to lay off a staff member that we added during COVID with that that funding that's no longer there. Um, and on top of that, um, our bottom, we're we're still in the black on our bottom line. you know, even with that funding being being
146gone and used, we're still adding $600,000 to our fund balance this year. Right. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to take some questions from the audience. Now, I have received a few in the past uh in the last session and uh some of the folks in the audience have said they would like to use the same questions, but looks like we have some fresh ones. President McVey and but but before we do that if there's any followup urgent follow-up questions from the rest of the board please ask now and I'll see if I can manage this just so happens Mr. that I do I do have one in Berwick. Uh I wanted to give you an opportunity uh from from the last interview to clarify something that we got a great deal of feedback
147on. So I'm going to craft the question a little bit on the fly. So uh so forgive me. Uh and if any of my numbers are incorrect, please correct them. Uh last interview you had mentioned your increase in student population when you when you arrived at Madison was about 500. Is that correct? Do I remember 400? Y 400 correct. Okay. So I had the the correct number the first time. Um and you've now grown to 1633 I believe was the number you gave us gave us earlier. Uh my math uh on your school of choice numbers is about 58%. Correct. Uh right about there. Um which which shows more than a double of your population non-school of choice. So a couple questions within the question. One is what was the school of choice population when
148you got to Madison? And the second part of that question is what is your position on school of choice when it comes to growing a district? Sure. Um when I arrived at Madison, since I've been at Madison, um we've gone up 400 students. Um so the unique part about Madison is we have a housing shortage. Um the town Madison Township is very small. We basically are comprised of three neighborhoods um that surround the district. So we're kind of capped at at what can be an in in district student. Um I touched on last time that um Madison doesn't have a downtown and I think that that that is a big piece of the school of choice. We're representative um of our community because uh you know we're really an offshoot of Adrian um which you
149know Adrian has its own public school system but but they are they're choosing to uh come to Madison. So um when I when I came to Madison the the school of choice numbers gone up about 8% um since then. Um, but I think that there's multiple ways to look at um, school of choice. Uh, as Madison sits, um, that's how our district is built. You know, it's built on school of choice. That isn't the right answer for a lot of school districts and and I don't think that's the right answer for Seline necessarily. Um, another way to look at it is a budget stabilizer. Um, you know, I know I think that Selen's current um school of choice policy is 10%. So, you know, if you're looking to um have a diverse population, but your
150student enrollment is declining while your 10% is also declining as well. Um so my stance uh on school of choice and how you can look at that to build a district. What I would um want to discuss if I came to Selene as the next superintendent is um having an approach that that may change yeartoear. Um it may be something like looking at what do we want the the population the student population of Seline to be? Is it 5,000 students? Is it 4,800 students? Then we look at those numbers and we look at each grade level and say, "Okay, how many how many open spots are there?" And we open that specific amount of spots to school of choice annually. And then you see what you're losing every year. So then you have that that
151budget stabilization piece. you're increasing your your your diversity by by increasing um what's coming from outside of the district, but you're also keeping the core of the community the same because I think it's important for the district to um educate the core of their community. So, by varying that number, you might get one year you might be up at 12 or 14%, another year you might be down at nine. because my hope is that you know we decide on what that number is and and then what I want school of choice to look like here is I want past graduates to choose to come back to Seline. So that's the school of choice that I'm looking for is those graduates knowing what they got from Seline. There are houses going up here faster than most
152places. bringing those families back to Seline. So then that community becomes the school of choice also. But then supplementing that with if we do have you know those pieces um in the the school population we can we can supplement that with school of choice as well. One of the things I appreciated about your presentation today um when talking about uh working with teachers was face-to-face conversations over surveys. We do have a lot of surveys here. Um so this question is gearing that towards um family engagement. Uh, our district already has many opportunities for family engagement, including volunteer organizations like PTAs and PTO's, booster clubs, and advisory committees. However, how would you work to energize family engagement in areas where there isn't already an infrastructure in place? I think there's there's two pieces to this and
153um I agree with the most school districts have a lot of surveys and collect a lot of data um and they almost get burned out with it. Um, one piece before I get to the actual the answer to that is um, one of the points um, that the support staff union asked today was about survey and those pieces and you know if we um, have a survey what happens next. I am a big believer in um if we if I send out a survey, that same community that I sent the survey to is going to get the results of that survey and also the action steps that are going to take place because of that survey. Otherwise, I think that people start to ignore your surveys. It's just another thing coming through your phone. It's
154just another thing coming through your email um that they don't see any outcomes from from those. I talked about the in my last interview about the the follow-up piece of now we're at the point we did that I provided you guys that survey summary and now we're we're going back out to say okay did we hit the mark we we thought we heard your feedback did we hit the mark but specifically um with your your question I think we need to identify what those marginal groups are that don't feel like they're represented um or have that volunteer opportunity and create an organization around that or or meet the needs of those individuals um so they do feel represented in the community. Perfect segue to a question from the audience. Um, and perhaps you can just
155uh amplify it or or go off on it. How how would you celebrate and advocate for our the marginalized students you referred to especially and including uh LGBTQIA students? Um, I think that touched on that a little bit in that answer. Um, also as well with those student groups and organizations, we um, at Madison, we give our students a lot of choice on how they those groups want to be celebrated and represented in our community. Um, so I think that that's important. Um, another piece that came up today with those marginalized groups are some partnerships that we've created to support those individuals um, within the community. We have a fantastic um u partnership with uh family medical center um and they provide um 8 to 10 counselors to our district um on a daily basis.
156They only work with Madison students. Um we purchased the um house next door to us also that we're going to transition into. Um they're going to have a satellite office there instead of being in the school building. So then they can provide some services after hours too. so they're not kind of um held to what the school hours are. So I think that supporting them um in multiple different ways is is an approach that I would take. Thank you very much. Another question from the audience. So we're we're obviously very proud of our district and its proven record of excellence in public education. Pardon me, but we also realize that we are not anywhere close to perfect. Could you identify two or three things that Seline Area schools could do better than it currently does
157and explain how you bring about those choices or changes and it's okay we can take it. This is a tough one. Um no I think that there's two there's two things that come to mind and and they're um an area I think that every school district that people think is lacking. Um and the first one is is around communication. Um I think that um there are times that myself and the rest of my administrative team um we are very much on the side of overcommunicating. Um what I don't want is a rumor to start about a situation um that wasn't true. So I will overcommunicate to the entire district about a situation that occurred. So, to dispel the rumors before they start, um there are times where I've had parents calling me and say, "Why
158are you sending me this about something that happened in the high school, an event that happened in the high school, because I don't want you to get the information thirdand turn it into something else. I am very much um attack it headon. Yes, students, staff, districts, everyone makes mistakes. um own them, learn from them, but also I think that the strength in that is showing how you're responding to that. So I think that's one. Um the second I is a difficult piece um just with the continuums the continuum of service and special education um program programs changing um families maybe not understanding why that that changes may result in some um student behavior in different settings um that I think is a difficult piece that also with the right communication pieces can be can be
159handled a little bit And actually the last question from the audience, this gives you the opportunity to say more about MTSS if you would. How do you define MTSS and its purpose? Um, so in my role as a superintendent that looks different. Um, I have a fantastic curricular team um that we we run through what our student support systems are. Um, in my role, MTSS is the systems work at the district level. Um, how do we do business? That's the communication plan. That's the hiring process. That's those are all of those pieces. Having those systems in place so people know um how we do business. Um, so from that piece in my shoes is the the greatest way that I touch MTSS. Do I work with my team collaboratively to talk about that tiered support
160um at the student level, at the teacher level, all of those pieces? Yes. Yes, I do. But um MTSS to me is more of the systems work that I touch on a daily basis. Very good. Thank you. So, we are near the end. Uh so, this if you have any this is an opportunity for you to ask the board any questions. uh and we're happy to take a shot at them. Okay. Um I'm going to kind of give uh one last piece that I wanted to have out there and then kind of piggyback my question off of that. Um it was brought up um in the last feedback about why Seline, why why would I want this position? Um there's a couple pieces with that. Um my career path, um I haven't sought out many
161positions. Um when I was first started teaching, I was um on the outskirts of Detroit and I was getting my master's degree and uh one of my co- u the the people in my class, my colleagues in the class taught in Berkeley and he said, "Hey, we have an opening." And I said, 'I really like where I am. I really love where I'm at. I'm not interested in moving. He said, 'I think you should think about it.' I then got a phone call the next day from uh Daryl Robbins, who was the principal at Patentill Elementary in Berkeley, and she said, "Hey, I hear that you're someone that I need to meet before I make this decision about who I'm going to hire." And I said, "But I didn't apply for the job." And she
162said, "I understand. will you come and talk to me? And I said,"Well, sure. Side note, I'm on maternity leave. Can you come to my house?" Okay. So, I drove up to her house in West Bloomfield and we sat on the couch um in her living room and we didn't talk anything about education for two hours. And when I walked out, she offered me the position. And that I knew then was a leader that I wanted to work with. And um I knew that through my M's program I had to complete a mentorship. So that's why I took that position. Um when after that I went to the UP to become a principal and assistant superintendent and then there were some family I I had three daughters. Um the opportunity that we wanted to be able
163to provide them wasn't in the UP. Um I applied for one position, two positions. I applied for an ISD position that I was a finalist for and then I accepted the Manchester position when I was in Manchester. Might be a question. Well, you weren't there very long. I wasn't. I was not looking to leave there. Dr. Row came to Seline until I met him on a Thursday when he came to Manchester to talk about the consortium and taking over the position. The next week he asked me to come down and look at Madison and what what it was. Um I knew after meeting that administrative team and the teachers there that was somewhere that I wanted to be. So when I saw this position become available, you're not going to see my name in any
164other searches. I am happy where I am. Um I grew up in Royal Oak. I've had um several of my old friends that still live in Royal Oak call me, "Hey, Royal Oak Superintendent, jobs open." I understand that doesn't excite me. Selene Seline excites me. Um it's a top 20 school. It has top-notch facilities. It's known for athletics and extracurriculars. Um what I want to do is take the pieces that I know about organizational leadership and drive that into the top five. You know, we look at our the peer group that I shared earlier. There's some that we're performing higher than there's some that are performing higher than us. I I don't want that to say or those peer groups to ever say that they're they're achieving higher than Seline. I want every event to
165be held in Seline to to highlight our facilities. And I want every district regional state championship to run through the athletic department here. every band festival, orchestra festival. I I want everyone to know Seline for that. So that's why Seline for me. Um with that, I know that there's reservations about um me coming from a smaller district um and coming into Selene. So I think that the question that I'd like to ask is what do you think would be my greatest challenge coming to Seline and how as a board member would you support me in that? I'm going to ask the rest of the board to chime in as they feel able. Jennifer, I went first last time, so I hate to do that, but I guess I I'll I'll do it because I definitely
166had one. Um, and I'm reflecting on um the wonderful reference materials that my colleague sent as well. So, appreciate that. And a conversation that I had when doing reference checks, um you acknowledged that Madison was different, that it wasn't um a community like Seline. Um no downtown I think is something I heard. Um and it's just a little bit different in makeup. Um with schools of choice being, I'll quote Jason at the 58%. I think that is a big difference and that is a big um um we have generations upon generations of individuals that have lived here and we have wonderful new families who are um finding this is their their real home. Um and we want to include all and we do have a downtown and a relationships with our our city of Seline,
167our townships. um very strong community organizations and advocacy. Um so I I see that as a big difference um and potential challenge. Um the follow-up question that you you posed was what would the board do to support Yeah. What would you do to support? Yeah. Um all sorts of things because looking at this team up here, I know many organizations and I know many different volunteer opportunities that we could suggest to you. I I would I personally would probably um want to have a one-on-one conversation with you to your point because uh it is important to have face-to-face relationships and conversations when you can have them. I would detail some of my personal experiences in different organizations within the community. um your network is your net worth and I would try to connect you with
168individuals that I thought that you could um seek to understand more about the very special and unique um culture that we have here in Seline and those would include all sorts of different groups so you would have that diversity of viewpoint. Thank you. Yep. I guess I'll go second as is our tradition now I suppose. Um, I I believe Brad is probably going to want to expand on this, so I I'm not going to I'm not going to grab too much of uh Brad's uh Brad's question uh or or point. We have a significantly larger budget than what you're used to and uh luckily we have a great team that can support that. Uh, so I think that would probably be a pretty big challenge. That's about three times what your budget is, I think,
169right now. And, uh, how we would support you as a board is I would let you talk to Brad as much as you want. Thanks for that support. I I I feel Brad is probably going to talk about so I didn't want to I didn't want to take too much of it. So, um, thinking back through some of the I don't I couldn't find exactly where I wrote the notes, but, um, you might have touched on it a little bit about, uh, staff and, you know, the the discipline with students and staff and how you would, uh, so I guess, um, that is an issue in Seline obviously and, uh, like other districts. And uh I guess I would say how I would support you or how the board would support you is to come
170up with those systems and have those systems in place that everybody knows exactly how this, you know, goes down the line because I think we need some structure around that. So you know the biggest challenge that I would say that I would is that just the the scaling it up piece, if you will, right? this, you know, the $78 million budget, the u the the size and breadth of our leadership teams, the size and breadth of our um staff members, like it's a it's a it's a $78 million organization that is a center place a centerpiece of our our community, right? Um, you know, and then I would say like we have really really passionate individuals who support us and and who will tell us their truths and and talk about what's real in the
171in the schools. And so, you know, like I would say that you'd just have to get comfortable with having those those challenging and in-depth conversations. And also um because we're such a big school, weird things can happen. Like for example, you get a phone call that a bus is in a building, you know, and and it happens on a Sunday afternoon. So like there are just things where the where quite frankly like the job it's it's big and because there's 4,800 students because there there's just a lot of needs. Um, and so I guess what I would say is how we would support you with that is I I would speak to kind of what Jennifer said with just we would support you with with strong mentoring and strong people around. We have a really
172engaged community. We have a f you hit on this and and I'm telling you our leadership teams and our people are people that like will grow into superintendencies and will do great things. And so I would say that those are also supports that are going to be in place for you as well. I had to I had to think about your question a little bit. Um and I want to frame it uh with my own why Seline. So, um we started here as school of choice uh parents um when my young now oldest was starting kindergarten um and then uh elected to move into the district. And uh we were drawn uh by academic excellence uh by uh not necessarily that we specifically were looking to need special education at that point, but I have
173always believed strongly uh that a community can be judged by how it treats um people with specific challenges. Um and so uh I looked around at the community and thought a community that has this kind of special ed program. I also know very well how people can go from being abled to disabled in the blink of an eye. Um, and so that was something that really really appealed to us. And I also liked the community. I grew up in a rural uh kind of community. Although I wasn't seeking exactly that for my kids, I did feel drawn to some parts of that. Uh, and so in talking about what challenges you might face or a person might face, I guess I would like to talk to you a little about why I ran for school
174board. Um, and why I ran for school board was for essentially two major reasons. uh during the COVID pandemic, I saw that we were not um as a community all looking at data and um and uh things were not being always taken in the most reasoned way. I'm not speaking necessarily just about Seline here and I'm not speaking definitely about our school district which I think handled it very well. I'm sort of speaking more as a communal we um this community and beyond. And I thought I had as a physician a way to look at data. I'm not trying to make it this about me. I'm just trying to get what I might offer. Um, and uh, I am I think of myself as kind of an outsider here to be honest with you. I
175didn't grow up here. Uh, I don't know a million people here. And I also tend to identify uh with the little guy, whether that's an LGBTQ student, whether that's a kid who's getting bullied, whether that's um somebody who uh you know has a different skin color than myself. Uh and so I saw that although much of this community was welcoming toward my family and people that it number one uh didn't always have the reputation for that and number two often and sometimes unfortunately didn't deserve a good reputation for it. And so uh I think those have been the challenges I've seen as a community member here and the things that really drove me to spend so many of my evenings uh on this school board. So, I say all of that to tell you that
176the challenges I think that you might face are those is becoming a superintendent who can lead for all kids. Uh who can lead for those kids that I'm here to look out for. And what I'd like to do to help you is help bring their voices and those needs to you. Thank you. Um, I think that you're going to find that we have a great uh community and students and families. And I think that perhaps one of the challenges you'll find is the level of involvement um that we have in our children's education and the expectations that we have uh for excellence in all regards be it career be it academic be it which not to say that they're exclusive of each other but uh athlet athletics special ed um and that we have a
177high expectation of communication uh from our leaders. I appreciate that you are overcommunicating in some circumstances. Um I'm I think that that will that proactive approach will be appreciated. Um I think you're going to find that it's a lot. Um I think that some support you will find from us is just some open and honest conversations. um we're all busy and um getting to the point being direct and supportive is probably the best and fastest way to do that and I think you will find that from us. Thank you. So I I guess I'm anchoring again. All right. As tradition dictates apparently. Um you've already created a tradition. Uh so I I was new to this country and it took me it was some effort to get to figure out the American way and then
178I became new to Seline which was actually harder than just coming to the states. Um because I was I was so new our job as a board because we are engaged with the community now after 20 years I can say I'm somewhat engaged with the community. We can certainly help you uh to understand the you can guess at the value but I can also we can also point out the incredible value of our robotics program our CTE programs are future farmers of America the the relationships we built with the city um you need to know what's in that back room there are historical records that we take enormous pride in the Weber Bless school around the corner which we is a point of pride in this district and uh you have to know the names
179Heft and Feld Camp and Yadley Lee and Gerba and Marl and even Austin, I suppose. Uh you got you got to know those family names. Uh and we will help we will help you. We will help you as a board. We will help guide you through that morass uh of uh of personalities and and and deep rootedness. So um if unless you have we actually have a whole five minutes if you have another question that you I do not. That was a good question you asked. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. So, we appreciate we as a board, let me speak on behalf of the board. We appreciate your interest in the superintendent's position and uh you of course we will certainly contact you if you're selected. And uh I want to say once
180again, thank you very much on behalf of the board for coming here. We did appreciate meeting you and getting to know you. Thank you for taking the time. And let me encourage the audience to fill out your uh your cards and pieces of information. And thank you very much. Happy to shake your hand one more time, sir. Without objection, I believe we're going to take 20 to 25 minutes to review your comments and the comments that we re received online. Thank you. 25 minutes. Thank you so much for coming tonight and staying if you wish. Let us know when Darcy can Thank you. We have returned. I appreciate everybody's time and patience. I am because we will not have any time to go back to the forums. I am going to turn off the uh
181the form feedback in in a couple of minutes so last minute Larry's can get their comments in the last minute lines. I don't know. Actually, I'm going to turn it off now because we won't be really looking at it. Thank you. I'm going to turn this over to uh Jay Bennett of the MASB to lead us through the next steps. Sir, the floor is yours. Okay. Thank you very much. Uh thank you, board. Uh nice job tonight on your uh two interviews. Uh we're going to do this just like we did last week. We're going to talk about the things we heard tonight that we liked. We're going to talk about things that we're still kind of thinking about. And uh we'll also go over uh just some brief recaps on the reference checks that
182you all uh performed between last week and now. Um we'll start with uh our first candidate of the night uh Rachel Kowalsski. So what did we hear tonight that uh that resonated with us? Things we heard tonight that we didn't hear last week that we're really happy to hear tonight. Things of that nature. What do you got? Are you going to um are you going to call out folks or am I going to maintain order? Whoever whoever would like to start go any which any which way you want because I'll go first. That's fine. I'm not super shy about this. So, um I just had to laugh at Jason because I didn't know if we were going to go two and one or one and two if we were switching. Um so, right up front
183she said, "I am a teacher." And that made me appreciate um remember how much I appreciated Steve's expertise all these years and having that experience and I enjoy um when I see that passion for teaching and that um respect for our our staff and love for our students. Um, I had feedback. I asked for a little feedback from various individuals that interacted with our um, candidates today and I heard also some favorable comments about engagement in the classroom with both the children and the staff and um, I thought it was very interesting that she led with being a teacher because I think that's really important to me. Um, this workbook I will be going home and reading. I was able to leave through it. Um it does have and and Michael I think you pointed
184this out as well um a nice section on CTE and that was something that we were looking to see. So I will look forward to reading this in in its entirety. Um I am incredibly impressed. This is extremely Seline forward. Um there are examples that we've heard about things that have happened in past districts um to to kind of amplify or or I should say answer our questions, but this is very Seline forward and this gives me a good understanding of what this individual sees when they see our district. So I appreciate that because um understood the assignment. Um I loved hearing about student voice and about our heritage fourth grader. Um, I also continue to be amazed every single day by the critical thinking skills, the public speaking skills that our students have and
185for someone to recognize that immediately while they were in one of our buildings. Well done, Selen Area Schools. Um, because that's excellent. Um, I enjoyed the answer to my special education question that was was posed and hearing um in one past district that um it wasn't part of that central office function and that it became part of that that she had created working groups um that it was the right thing to do. I loved her saying that she saw Julie out in the wild and that she was in the buildings where she should be. Loved hearing that. Um there was a comment. It was it was it was with regards to the crisis question and I think Brad you answered that or asked that but it talked about um you build those things before they
186happen. And I thought about that because um that's incredibly important and we teach facets of that at work. Um and I realized that she was talking about special operating or um standard operating procedures for tornadoes or or what have you. But it also came through in her answers um to people within her network, right? You you don't call on people when you need something and you're like, "Hey, I need this." But you don't build that network. And I I really had this um collaboration is guess I guess the word I would use. I really felt that she brought people along with her so when she needs something or she wants thought partnership or she wants to learn um that she can go back and and she has those structures um in place. Um she turned
187to the audience several times to connect with them and acknowledge their importance. Um community members, staff, we had a couple of former board trustees. I think that's really important that that acknowledgement occurred. Um she seems humble and ready to learn. She even acknowledged um if she were to start in this role, she would be learning way more than they would be learning from her. And I think that that's a um a wonderful position to have. Um situational leadership. I love that. Um and it's so important right now postcoid in this um truly ambiguous time to lead an organization. Um Jason, you had a question that she started talking a little bit about a guest teacher. It was um interactions with students to help foster a culture of academic and interpersonal growth. And the conversation went
188to a guest teacher kind of coming back and saying quote that the district was completely transformed. Um, I found that piece of the uh, conversation really revealing because it brought up the same story that was said to me on a reference check. And so I was able to talk with somebody and they told me this story about the transformation of the district. And I'm this person was a parent, so I'm not going to share the personal details that that they revealed with their child, but um it was the same exact thing about wow, like I see the difference. My child is thriving and and I won't again go into what was occurring previously, but it was that same story. So I thought that that was really nice. um she knew about a retirement that we
189have of one of our very very um gifted and and longtime staff members in uh early childhood education that told me that she was paying attention to our board me that was just on the consent agenda. We talked about that live at the table and some other retirements. Um and I felt that she really dug into Seline um as evidenced by the workbook and the presentation. Um, I saw the passion, empathy, and expertise and advocacy that I had heard in her specific reference check that I had and that I also gleaned from some of the other documents that board members had turned in. And I appreciated her um, talking about modeling the way and her constant commitment to do better. So, that was my list. Thank you. I'll go. Yeah, that was that was that
190was pretty complete and inclusive. Uh so thank you for that, Vice President Stein. Um uh right at the beginning, uh as Jen pointed out, I'm a teacher first. Something that resonated with me was she kind of had a plan. I I wrote down in my notes the three Rs, retain, recruit, uh uh reignite. I added a fourth one, resonate, that uh she had mentioned a little bit later on. Uh I think that's an excellent uh an excellent strategy. She certainly came uh prepared. I won't I since Jen mentioned most of it, I'm just going to touch on a couple things. Uh data-driven decision-m we we hear that a lot. We've heard it from all candidates. She backed it up with the data and she I mean she studied it uh provided, you know, she had
191seven days to put it together. So, uh, even if there's some discrepancies, uh, it shows that she was pushing that way. I heard her refer to we repeatedly as though she was already a member of the team. And I I thought I don't think that's presumptuous. I don't think that that was uh stepping forward. I think she looked at the opportunity, looked at what she wanted to do, and just referred to it as we right off the bat. Uh so I I respected that. I also liked the fact that she referred uh to the budget line items as 80% or human capital. Uh you know uh it's you know when we look at our budgets we we look at a lot of different stuff but we sometimes lose sight that those line items are people.
192Uh you know they're students, they're staff, they're uh coaches. Uh so we lose we lose track of that. Um, the follow-up question that I had asked regarding uh her roles, how long she stayed there, I didn't want to uh make the question more difficult than what it was, though I was tempted to. I think she answered it well. Um, you know, I I think she she was transparent with it and I think she answered it well. Um, I think she answered the questions regarding uh or some of the questions from the uh community. I think she answered those very well. She even prefaced it by saying that's her honest response and I don't think that or not preface uh uh concluded with that that was her honest response. I don't think she needed to do
193that. I think it almost sounded like she was apologizing for being honest and transparent with her thought on that. I didn't think she needed to do that. Uh and the last thing that I respected uh from her was uh something that I brought up uh a few meetings ago uh regarding Selen's natural entry points for school of choice and and re-evaluating how we look at populations of school of choice and where they enter within the district. So uh those were uh those were all very good things. I have a couple of negative things but I'm not even going to mention them. Um but uh that's it for me. Thank you. So, um, going into this, I really wanted, uh, not just tonight, but in general, I wanted to see someone with vision, um, and, um,
194someone who would really build on and improve and make this district better. I may not have been here for the last 50 years, but I would love to see the community be one that my kid wants to come back and raise his own children here. And I thought that looking at her, if I were um you know, 25 and looking to start in a district, she would excite me as the leader of a district. Um I think she could really um have that kind of appeal. Um, I wanted somebody who had empathy. I thought she had a lot of empathy across a variety of situations that I the story she told about the tornado and getting the student athletes helping. Um, and you know, I realize that that may not like exactly as she said
195scale to our community exactly, but to me it showed somebody who was like really showing leadership in a difficult time and she had those examples really ready. Um, and those questions weren't provided. So, I thought that was an impressive show of empathy and she could say, you know, I felt like she was able to straightforwardly reference marginalized students, LGBTQ identities without avoiding the term. Um, and, you know, had an answer as to how to celebrate and didn't seem to shy away from that at all. So, I was looking for that and I saw it. Um, and not everybody in the community could see this booklet, but I don't know that I've ever seen anything like it. I mean, in between running a district and coming through two interviews, she has a plan with specifics about
196things she researched about the district that we could be doing better. I mean, as a parent of children in the district that's some I mean, I'm not an educator, so I'm also going by our, you know, our team's feedback, but I mean, that's really specific and actionable. There's things about CTE, but like first 10 pages, she talks about the students who are not doing well or as well as she thinks they could. And she talks about like where we're underperforming and how we might help kids rise up. And don't get me wrong, I know that those are hard things and our our current team is working every day, but just the fact that she's highlighting that and thinking about it is good. Um, and I thought was impressive. And then later in the book, she
197talks about preap, which or I don't know the term, but and like how to vertically put I mean, I'm learning just listening to this interview, which I wasn't expecting to do. So, I just found that to be exciting. So, um, you know, she was centering equity, she was centering excellence. Those are things I was looking for. Um, I liked hearing a little more about her experience in Florida today because that really speaks to the large district um, mentality and she would have had very different challenges there. You know, bringing teachers who were coming from different countries, not just different states. And um you know, I liked the way she talked about how she was able to with her team and she always sent her team uh work with those new teachers. Um and I thought
198she exuded a certain uh strength. Um I thought she was willing to answer the questions fully at length honestly and um exuded some strength. Um so I I was very impressed. Okay. Thank you. I I don't mean to interrupt uh really quick, but since both Jen and Lauren mentioned it, and this booklet is fantastic, um she did put a URL for the public to be able to see this booklet. So, I'm just going to read it very carefully so that hopefully the closed captioning will put it in correctly. It is tinyurl.comseline-cowalski-plan. And I I would encourage everyone watching, listening to pull that up because it it is impressive that she put together an entire plan. Jason, thank you. That that's a really good catch. I I see that on the bottom. And thank you so
199much for calling it out because one of the pieces of feedback that I heard from community members was when we had materials passed to us in um round one that they really wish that they knew what we were looking at. So, thank you for calling that out. Okay. Any further comments on our first interview tonight? Yeah. So um I agree with just about everything that has been said about positivity and empath empathy, datadrivenness, reflectiveness, all of that. I find this plan to be incredible. Um I think it's thorough. I think it I think she gave us a lot more depth. Um and and so like this is incredible. Now I will tell you my wonderment about this would be a little bit of how do you find balance between like being like how there's God
200I want to word this correctly. I want our superintendent to find a healthy balance between finding like being involved in a lot of things but also being willing to just like let go and step away when it requires it as well. So like I find this to be incredibly thorough and I find her vision and data drivenness and reflectiveness and all that. I wonder if she'd like wear herself out, I guess, is like my wonderment. Okay. I don't know. Like I I see it as a as a like I see this with Steve too, just so you know, right? Like I see a lot of like positivity where like taking notes and being engaged and like you know, so like I also see that as a positive. I want to make sure that like I'm
201speaking to both aspects of it, but just I I could tell you like you want to talk about like references, right? One of the references that I talked to with regards to her was that they um talked about like they wanted her to like slow down from time to time and like just like be present a little bit more, some of those kinds of things. Um and so like I see this and I'm like whoa. and I just I don't know what I don't know how to compartmentalize all of it. So that's my wonderment. May I may I offer a little piece of feedback on that? Sure. [Music] Um so I I guess where do I start with this? I I totally understand what you're saying. This is a lot. She even spoke to it
202as well about, you know, I'm running this school district and um coming here and it does a lot. And um I I think when someone tells you what they want and what they think that they're capable of, we should we should listen to their words. Um I'm compelled by and again I want to spend more time with this um this very authentic letter. um she said, "Let me assure you I am ready." And she goes into details. And I think when um a person and particularly a a female leader says what they want and that they're ready and then they kind of back it up with data and they back it up with a plan. Um I want to be able to acknowledge that. That's just my fe piece of feedback. And and I believe
203that and I believe that this is incredibly thorough and all of that. I just want her to be here and be happy and be like not overwhelmed, not like like she if she doesn't do all of this in 146 days, I guess then like I think that's what it says on the front, right? Like I think it's an incredible like my gosh, no, she's fantastic. But at the same time, like I just would want her to also just take in Seline and take in pulse and culture. And I I guess that's my wonderment. Not necessarily if I think like she could handle it. There's really no way to know. But I will say that it it doesn't look like from the best that we as board members, as stewards of the community, we we did
204call tirelessly many people and the feedback rang like we wish she would stay. She's full of energy. We don't know where she gets the energy, but not once did I hear a hint of Yeah. And then she seems like she's leaving because she's burned out. like I feel like she's consistently in her career sought additional um challenges uh as they both have actually I think and that's what you want in a leader right I mean we could look for someone who was just going to keep things the same and I think the same is really good around here like our kids are blessed this is a great school district a great community but if we're looking for growth you know it impresses me and I did not hear even in tone or substance and if
205anybody else did anybody who said I did hear that feedback like yes she was very energetic and had high expectations but I didn't hear anything and I listened for it of like and she drove everyone else crazy with unreasonable expectations for them and that is you know not to as to my friend Trusty Steins point um you know that's a hard balance to walk for any leader I'm just going to get real here and say that is a really hard balance to walk for a woman in leadership. And the fact that at least among the references we saw in people who worked with her in a high level, I didn't get any feedback with it was like she was too demanding of staff. She didn't make time for balance. Maybe her feedback wasn't quite as
206positive in that, you know, respect as sty. But I really only heard that she was understanding of her staff. She built good relationships. So I don't get that would be the one risk is if she expected everyone else to operate at that level. And I did not hear that feedback. I agree because what feeds one person's soul doesn't necessarily work for someone else. I mean that this might be what drives her and makes her happy. And and I hope that's the case. Right. I I I gave my wonderment, right? There are a whole lot of positives and there's a whole lot of things that were brought up. I mean, if you guys want to like because I feel like I just got a little bit whatever. So, I saw a lot of vision. I saw
207a lot of authenticity. I saw a lot of collaboriveness out of her. I thought she was professional. I thought she was engaging. I thought that she when she talked about the the Rs that she did a really nice job of trying to prioritize and retain and show appreciation. I thought all that came through. I think she's an outstandingly strong leader, female, you know, like yes, she's she's fantastic in that regard. I just worry that like I want a superintendent who will be here and stay and who will entrench themselves. And so that's my wonderment. It has nothing to do with if I think like it had Why didn't you ask her? What's that? Why didn't you ask her if if if she was going to be doing. Why didn't you ask her if you were
208worried? I guess that she was going to burn herself out because because of what you Yeah. ask asking her about her capacity rather than assuming that you know if she needs to be like everyone else and what uh where she finds her life balance and that if this is if she does this and if she is that engaged with it and all of that then I guess I take it as then yeah she she can do it. I just I'm allow I I I thought I was being asked for the things I thought were strengths and any wonderments I might have and that was a wonderment I might have. Okay. Thank you. Any additional comments on our first interview tonight? I have a few. Tim does as well. Yeah. Um I think most a lot
209of things have already been said. Uh very well prepared today or tonight. the I I was very interested in hearing her say about the um our staff retention especially after five years down to 16%. So I thought that information and data was good. Um and then bringing up the bullying is a 911 point for for any new leader that that she recognized that that was important. Yeah, absolutely. That was one of my comments as well. And in fact I I'm going to have to review the video later. I think I just bolt upright sat in my chair when she talked about that as a as a 911 call from the superintendent's perspective and she's 110% right. Absolutely. And I was greatly appreciated that she recognized that. Uh here are just a couple of my notes
210without repeating anything that the other of my colleagues have said. Extraordinarily high energy and I uh worried about that the last time. Uh she highlighted the gaps especially retention which that's information I did not pay attention to or realize before and I'm gonna pay attention now. I appre you commented on the bullying. She's very prepared. Data driven decision- makingaking absolutely important and she did she brought the receipts. Um her Oola or Oyola experience was quite powerful and I was really glad she talked more about that coming from a large district and um because we kept talking about Colon being so small colon being so I got it. It's Michigan. You have to mispronounce every word. Right. Magic capital of the world. Thank you all. I'll look into that. Uh I appreciate it. Uh let's see
211what else we've always said or at least I've always said equity is excellence and she did look at things through an equity lens discussed excellence and gave very full full answers when I was expecting full answers and she she she satisfied me there and she absolutely as other people have alluded she does seem ready to join the team and to enhance and elevate and encourage the uh the team that she will inherit. That's my two cents. Okay. All right. Um, a few of the things that I really appreciated um about Rachel was that I felt that she immersed herself in who we were as a school district. uh researched us, related to us, um did some seeking to understand and uh I think that she show she talked about being a responsive and a and
212a reflective leader and I think that she she showed her responsiveness and her ability to reflect on who we are tonight. Um her references talked about her going the extra mile and being energetic. um which is something that uh as we move from an austere extremely experienced superintendent to someone who is going to be new to the district and as she noted you know there weren't any internal candidates someone with that energy and uh interest and drive I think is going to be important in sustaining our excellence across several metrics. She also in her presentation seemed very uh forward thinking and planning out into the future and I felt that that was aspirational and uh more visionary than I was expecting. Um, I liked how she talked about um building up the staff so that
213in a few years when you know up to 10 years when she's ready to go that we will have internal candidates. Um, and I think that that's um, you know, strengthening from within. I appreciated that she fully answered most of the questions. There was a couple that I was um I felt sort of missed a little bit, but overall I was really impressed with the depth of her knowledge. And um I will say I have a concern about her coming from a smaller district, but the reference check that I I did for her said that when she was interviewing there, their concerns were that she was coming from a large district and that her experiences weren't a good fit for a smaller close-knit community. But in fact, she said that her skill sets translated really
214well and um that she has brought that district together and advanced them. Okay, you've all kind of peppered in some comments from the reference checks. That's good. Anything else on the reference checks or any other final comments on our first candidate from tonight? No, but I did want to note that you put board president with board president and I assume vice president with similar roles. Uh yeah, I mean if the if the if she had a reference down there for vice president. Yeah, her she listed her board president as one of her references. So I made sure that that that was one that was that belonged to you as a reference check. I I think the comments from I that I've read from the other people on the team was that um the comments were
215very very positive. I I guess I would like to just um cover a couple of comments from mine and I spoke with um one of her principles. Um, and similar I think to what Nick had talked about with a dual role is that she took on the principal role at the same time as a superintendent role so that her uh then dean of students could get her certification in order to advance into that principal position. So, I think that's um reflective of her building up her current team and elevating them into leadership positions. Uh she noticed that Rachel or noted that Rachel is extremely hardworking and her follow through is excellent. She says she's going to do something, she follows through on that. um she is collaborative and that uh I did ask she says
216she has had to have some hard conversations and that they were able to work through that in large part because she's reflective and comes from a place of what can I do better or how could I do that differently. So whether in the moment or a day later her goal is always to improve for the next time. Okay. Anything else on Rachel? Okay, seeing none, uh we'll move on to our second interview of the night. What do we have to say about Nick Steinmets? I guess I'll go. go. Um, I appreciated sort of I felt like he had a a downto-earth presence. I appreciated I feel like he is a very practical and in the present type of leader. Um, I appreciated that he talks about uh having conversations face to face instead of through
217surveys. Um, I absolutely think that is the best way to communicate. I think it's going to be harder to do just based on our volume, but that aspiration um is something that I appreciate. Um, I like that he acknowledges and recognizes expertise and talent uh in those who work with him. Um, and it sounded like he worked to or you know, empowered staff and students and parents um to do some leading. Um along that same vein, I worry that it was a little too handsoff for Seline because of our size. Um I wanted him to dig in a little bit more. Um, and and there was not the depth of answers that I was hoping for that would give me that confidence that he was going to be able to handle that. Okay. So, going
218Oh, sorry. Did you want to go, Tim? Um, no. So if I go back to my list about vision, um I didn't think well so in general I thought that he understood Seline in many ways um and uh but m and um clearly could sort of see himself here. Uh, I thought he did express empathy, um, you know, uh, specifically when he was talking about, um, some of the, um, uh, special ed students, um, and a lot of empathy for teachers, which I really appreciated. And I think he referenced parents perhaps slightly more than Dr. Kowolski did. Um, so as a parent, uh, I thought that was nice. um uh inequity. I um liked that he was really specific with his UP answer and talked about the generational poverty. Um but I did have a
219wonderment that I didn't think that the answer on LGBTQ students really was very clear. And then he referenced health um health centers uh which of course I am for health centers but I left feeling a little confused and I was worried that some of our students might feel hurt that he was tying those two things together uh specifically all students could benefit from health centers but I wasn't certain. I I don't think that's what he meant, but I was left wondering and I do think in our words are the need to be careful with words left me wondering a bit. Um in terms of scale, I I also felt confident that you know he could scale to our district and has strengths in finance. Um, I thought it was impressive that he had been through
220the experience of leading a brand new district during co. Um, so that must have been really hard and um, you know, he's done it well. So I think that was really a positive um, and a strength for him. Um, so those are my thoughts. Thank you, Tim. So, um I will just say it. I think he did better on his first uh interview than he did on his second interview. Um but with that being said, I did like he he seems like a direct a leader with that makes the decision. He's direct. He um you know the face to face. I like that. Uh budgeting, he he's he's strong on that. That's he has good background on that. Um, I do also believe from a diversity standpoint, he has led a lot of some some
221districts that are very diverse, you know, might not be in all the things that in Selene we we want to talk about, but I think it it is diversity and it's, you know, when we talk about diversity, we really need to talk about how did how do they show up for their kids at that time. Um, and um, I think he does that. I think he's is strong with his staff as far as like I think he's very supportive of his staff. Uh I also did like how he um was the lead negotiator for the the union and when I think of like where we're at today in Seline um I think somebody like that could be beneficial right now. Okay. Step in. Yeah. So the thing that comes through the most both in for
222me in the interview and as well as my just my personal right background with Nick is that he really understands and gets the power of of relationships and connections. And so like that came through for me in the interview. Um I found him to be incredibly personable. I found him to be um calm and empathetic and I found those things to be really about him. I think he would be able to take problems and be able to just handle them in a very straightforward pragmatic fashion. I think I now that so he is not a person of you know tons of rel you know words and response and he definitely had the tightest two interviews right you know um timewise and so like he just is that way um but he is someone who I
223could speak to my experience with him that is an expert at that relationship building piece and being able to to say, "Okay, let's figure, you know, I I see with him like a very matter-of-fact problem solver, right? Okay, let's just there's a problem. Let's put it all on the table. Let's figure it out." But he's probably going to do it a little quicker than maybe some other people would would otherwise do it. Um, that could be a blessing and a and a curse. Okay. So, I see that kind of thing. I saw I I know for a fact he's a very focused on staff and and students first leader. Um and I know that he is he's just he's he's an incredible superintendent. I like the fact that he's had a superintendency in multiple places
224and that he has been a superintendent of, you know, an assistant superintendent a very small very like rurally district and then he went to Manchester where he grew in his scope a little bit and then he went to Madison and grew a little bit more, you know, like from a $10 million budget to a $24 million budget. So I see like the link there with 24 million to 78 million a little more than 8 million. Um, at the same time, my wonderment on him is just that I some of the depth pieces of the questions and some of the answers just left me wanting more for myself and for our audience and for those people who are watching who are parents and in our community. I did find myself just wanting a little bit more
225from from him on some of those depth pieces. Uh, and I just kind of I like that he talked about PBIS and CPI. I thought it was awesome that he talked so much about like parapros and and one of the things I guess that I would say is that it just makes me really think about he does just totally get about the total school experience and that everybody has a a part and a piece in it and and that's probably why I felt so empowered by him as a teacher and an educator for him. I thought he would do anything for me, you know what I mean? And I and so that made me pretty darn drawn to him at the same time. Yeah. I I talked about my wonderment about about depth. Sure. Yeah.
226Um so I did appreciate that he attempted to clarify some items from his last interview. Um I have read the feedback online that's coming through the tool. I think that some of that helped him and some of that hurt him additionally. Um, I think I would be a mixed bag on some of it, I'm like, "Okay, I appreciate him him um wanting to explain the answer a little bit, but but for some other ones, I I think it it it didn't it didn't help the interview." Um, I did like uh understanding a little bit more about his current district and um being a place for special education. That was a good thing that came out in that question. Um, if there is a district that is considered a destination district for special education families, I'm
227assuming they are valued and prioritized and listened to in within that district. So, I really really liked that. Um, but I didn't understand why he only answered 50% of my question that was posed by a special education parent. Um he started reading um or he started answering the first half but not not none of the second half with kind of this very um ambiguous climate around what's going on with um potential funding in in public education and and what impacts that specifically has on the families that really rely on those supports for their children. I think that's a valid question to ask and I didn't have an answer on that. Um I really liked his question that he posed to us on um what some potential challenges um or areas that would pop out um
228and how we might be able to help him in that process. I really like that because I had been thinking about through reading the reference checks and my conversation as well um with the person that I I talked to for him um that community question did come up. They they said I I know I've heard what your district is is like. You have a lot of involved families and you have a um a real heart and soul. the school district is the heart and soul of your your community and it's a little bit different uh in this other school district. And so I I appreciated being able to have that conversation with him. Um the other question that I I felt really wasn't answer answered um to my satisfaction was around budgets was the other
229one that I asked. I did not hear again the last half of that question answered describing his budget process. Um my notes are are around um the collaborative approach, having a strong business office, his dad owning a business and growing up with a management um style, understanding budgets and people, numbers making sense. But I I didn't like Miranda, I'm just going to call you out like if I was a new trustee and I remember sitting down with our former assistant superintendent for finance before Miranda came because we started the same month. um when I asked her and I've had subsequent conversations with Miranda, it is a very very detailed answer um on how how you go through that budget process and developing and all of the funds and and and it's it's a um it's
230a story that we tell and try to collaborate with for our new trustees when they are on boarded. It's a very important conversation. So, I didn't feel like that question was really answered. Um the school of choice thing I I'm still thinking about 58% is very different. Those numbers and the escalation of those numbers in the population within the school district are um something that is a little jarring to me in sitting in Seline. like if we were to double our student population um and get that big that quickly, I wonder what growing pains might have been in the school district for for the staff and for the students and classroom size and things like that. So, I was trying to think about that. Um, my more neutral one, and I'm not sure how I
231feel about this because I have had the MASB training around superintendent and collective bargaining, uh, as have my colleagues, uh, for the most part. And I do know that there are different approaches and that our school district typically has taken an approach where the superintendent is not directly involved in the collective bargaining team. And I understand that that was the practice with Scott, that was a practice with Steve. So, I'm not opposed to thinking about this a little bit differently. Um, but it is a very big difference from what we do today and the involvement of a superintendent in negotiating the specific contract. Um, so I just have to sit with that a little bit. Um, but my last comment is overall um the timing felt off for this interview. I I tried to look
232at the clock. I'm going to go back and watch watch the live stream. I felt like it was over very very quickly. I know how much time this board took with these questions and we really were hoping to dig deeper and get some um more detailed responses. And I felt like it was a um it was an opportunity that was missed because I feel like the conversation towards the end was more content and more time than the actual questions that we spent a lot of time trying to surf through the feedback forms and make sure we're trying to get questions asked and answered. Um, and that it it was it was turned a little bit more back to him and his opinions on why Seline and and kind of the story about the the past
233job offer and things like that. And I just felt like it was a missed opportunity to go a little bit deeper. And that's it. Okay. Thank you, Jason. I don't think you spoke yet, which is an unusual sentence to say. Um uh there's a couple things that that really stood out. One of the things uh he said toward the beginning um that he believes in family first with his staff when when talk about how uh how uh time grabbing the superintendent role is. That's that's a rule I have with my staff. It's a rule that I have with myself now after a number of personal things I've gone through over the last year. So uh family first is a big one with me. So that resonated uh pretty significantly with me. Um I share Vice
234President Steins concern still around the school of choice. Uh the reason I asked that followup was so that he did have a chance to more appropriately explain his response from the first interview. I unfortunately I still didn't get that clarity uh that I was hoping for. Um and uh I looking at the feedback I know all of us have read the feedback. Uh a lot of the feedback was that we didn't get a lot out of the answers the first interview and I feel that it was the same here. Um the question that I asked that was offscript. I'm I'm with Vice President Stein. I don't think I got a complete answer to my question. Um uh so that was unfortunately that was that was really disappointing because I I I really wanted to get
235more of that uh kind of continuity from the first interview. Um there there's a lot of good things to look at uh with him. Um I think he has uh a lot more experience on the budget side than uh Dr. Kowalsski does. Uh the the non-complete answers are what is sticking in my head the most right now with him. Okay. Any other comments? I had just uh covered uh the reference check for Rachel, so I wanted to to go over Nick's as well. Yeah. Um, so I spoke also uh uh with a person who was a building principal in Manchester when he was a superintendent. So same same type of position or um work experience with with um the candidate. Um and he did note that uh Nick brought a positive change to Manchester at
236a time that it was needed because they were having a building consolidation and anytime there's change that does get stressful and um he handled that well. U really appreciated and Nick did speak to this that he improved their sort of social media presence and website. um he knows a lot of moving parts as far as administration is concerned. Uh and then he also spoke to and I think it was pretty clear to see that um Nick does well with building relationships. Um that he is collaborative and cooperative. Um that he wants to talk through this uh wants to wants to talk through things um but can make the hard decisions when he needs to. um and that he is sort of a what's best for kids kind of guy and uh he has that skill
237set. He's es uh never seen him escalated. He's calm, cool, and collected and he handles folks in a positive way. So it seemed like you know overall good recommendation. He's a team player and works at relationships. Okay. I just have some um comments or for clarification because maybe I heard things different. Um, as far as a school of choice, the answer on that obviously, you know, they have three neighborhoods in in his district, you said. So, basically they're pulling from other communities or districts around him, primarily Adrian probably. I got the impression that it increased 8% under him. Is that so? So, it was already a 50% school of choice district when he took over. It's increased 8% under him. that that was what my notes were as well. Okay. And when I was giving
238him my math for him to check, he was telling me my math was right, but then he was kind of countering it with different numbers. It the numbers just weren't adding up. I I was trying to get the explanation from him. I was actually trying to lead him to say that the huge amount of growth wasn't from school of choice. And when I tried asking or or telling that my numbers were saying that he that not he but the district doubled non-school of choice. He kind of reverted back and said that that number wasn't correct and that it they're made up of three neighborhoods. And so my number the numbers just weren't adding up. I I don't know how they went from a 400 student district to a 1,600 school district with only an 8%
239school of choice school of choice increase, but they have a they have housing restrictions in his district. It just none of the math was adding up. I just I wanted him to to lead and I thought I asked a leading question for him to be able to clarify and I just didn't get it unfortunately. I just I you know what I'm saying? Just I the numbers just weren't adding up. I I think he said in the previous interview that it was in the 1990s it was at 400 and now it's up at 1,600. So Okay. Well, that would be a significant clarification. I mean that I mean that's a but I mean I believe I started the question was when you arrived I think you said it was four or 500 and he corrected me
240and said 400 and I even made the comment in my notes that my first number was correct. that would have been the time to clarify that that was 30 years ago. Yeah. So I I I don't think it was this meteoric rise be it in in in district or school of choice. And I and I do just want to point out that he did say that while that was the system he used there, it wasn't necessarily what was appropriate for Seline. Uh and that he acknowledged that and I don't think he's hard set on on bringing that here. I I don't think he is either. I I I wanted him I wanted him to answer that for the community that was asking that question and I don't think we got the answer appropriately and we're
241answering it for him now which I don't think is an appropriate thing for the board to do for a it's absolutely not appropriate and so have were you done? Uh, so the fact that you think and you think and you think maybe you heard this and that his answers on school of choice were jarring. I'm using your words to me says this is this is this seems to I'm going to try and be really positive. It seems to be part of the issue uh that he has to clarify a number of the statements that he made. There were facts that he came out the first with the first interview and fully a third of his interview tonight was focusing on correcting misunderstandings or misconceptions i.e. the up comment uh even about gan day. Uh so
242that's okay. So we I'm glad we had the chance to clarify things. Uh but he is I agree with many of you many of your comments the rest of the team but he's a problem solver. I also I did appreciate that he mentioned the parapro toteer program that he has or it's different than what we call it. Um here he had a good question at the end but so Dr. Kowalsski's question was also pretty good. He did miss a few questions that I noted earlier. Um regarding the the the reference checks they were they were pretty positive as well. Um, an interesting thing that came up was uh, sorry to go back to I left this out for for Rachel Kowalsski's was that she came in not knowing as much about finance as she could,
243but devoted herself to learning about it until to to the point that she got right up to speed very quickly being a she is not someone who strikes me as afraid to learn what she doesn't know. And that's what I got. back to uh to Nick. Um I really don't have I'm I'm unsure what to say about or think about with regarding the fact that he was a lead negotiator. I'm sorry I wasn't I'm not as positive. I don't have as many positive things, but you all said a couple of the good things about his finance strength. So I will leave it at that for me. Okay. Any further comments on Nick for tonight or the references or anything else? I have a couple of general comments for both candidates and actually all candidates in
244this process. I just wanted to pause and acknowledge how hard this is on the candidates. Um while we think it's hard to sit here and have these discussions and it's uncomfortable, I think we all feel for them as well both in our first round and tonight. this is a a very challenging thing to do to put yourself out there on YouTube and and in a district where you want to work. So, I just really appreciate um the time that all of them took and the extra time that Nick and Rachel took. Um, I wanted to really thank this community for the feedback that we have been receiving, whether it's been phone calls or whether it's been running into people and having that conversation. The online tool, the folks sitting here during the interviews and filling
245out the paper forms, like all of it is so thoughtful. Um, people are taking this very, very seriously. This is the most important job the board can do and the community, staff, families, everything. They are our partners in this and I'm so proud of all of the comments that have been sent in and I just really really appreciate it. Okay, so uh a couple things. Uh first and foremost, um and I'm sure this is not news to any of you, but uh your staff is fantastic. Um, your staff has been fantastic in supporting uh me throughout this entire process. Uh, Betty's not here, but Betty and Jackie both uh who are are who I worked with primarily throughout the search on logistics and press releases and all that kind of good stuff. Fantastic. Um, I
246really appreciate uh anytime I can come into a district and and I've got those uh district personnel to really support me and all the things that I need um outside of of the uh the search. So, fantastic. uh you as a board, thoughtful, thorough, professional. I appreciate uh you know, all of our interactions throughout this tire search process. Um you've dug in when you needed to. Um you've you've done the work that you needed to uh to get you to where you are now, and I want to acknowledge that uh and thank you all for your your hard work during this entire process. Um, we've talked about the candidates, you've been through all of the input that has come in, you've rethought about the selection criteria that you've set, you thought about the entire process
247that we've started. Um, so with all of that being said, I'm going to turn this over to the board president and uh and allow him to uh take the next steps that he feels are appropriate uh in the search here. I'm not exactly sure what the next step is except that I would happily entertain a motion at this point to offer the contract for superintendent to one of the two candidates. I'll make a motion. Do you want me to Would you like to uh flesh that out? Like fill in the gap that I Yes. Yes. I'd like to uh please entertain a motion to appoint Rachel Kowalsski as the next superintendent of Seline Area Schools pending um contract negotiation. Pending contract negotiation is pretty important. Sorry. I would like to support that motion. We would
248like to open this up to a quick conversation, a discussion if there is anything to discuss. We Darcy. Yeah, I think I'm probably going to be in the minority here where um I feel like this is our our last uh chance to offer time for the community to provide input in this incredibly important decision. Um there are families who are were unable to make it to open houses. While they may have been able to watch things on the live stream, they also may not have. I came in in the field by Weber Blast was filled with parents attending an athletic event. um if we pride ourselves on inclusivity um and hearing from those who uh are in our community at at if we meet them where they are that might be that they're watching this
249tomorrow or Friday or this weekend. Um so I would I I would open up to discussion about giving more time for our community to provide input. I'd love to um I'd love to address that because I love that you brought this up. Um I I can totally share coming into this evening. I was thinking about um I wanted to see how this went. I mean obviously we all wanted to see um these deeper answers and have these conversations. I was so excited for community members and staff members to meet them. I wanted to hear how these tours went. Um, and I was I very much had the appetite to hold off until next Tuesday. I'm surprising myself a little bit. Um, wanting to move forward on this tonight. I I'm reading the room and consensus
250here a little bit. Um I also want to reflect on a piece of feedback that was given to me about if absolutely great to wait but if you do feel that there is consensus it's it's healthy also sometimes to move forward for the staff and for Steve and for for our community and so I stand I stand still and listen to that feedback. Um I I would like to thank another community member who wrote in and gave us some feedback that we had all had also uh after night two the the forum closed and um the participants or the the candidates on night one they had 24 hours worth of feedback and that didn't happen night two and I think that community member eloquently said something similar to what Darcy just said. So, that's one
251of the reasons I came in tonight saying I have absolutely no problem waiting till Tuesday. Um, I still don't, but I know I feel that this is right. I'm excited to have um a conversation about if this moves forward, how we wrap supports around her um for coaching and consultancy and um support of this plan and feedback from from our staff on what this plan looks like now that we had that URL out there. Um but thank you. I like I I that's a really important thing to say because feedback is so important. I think the amount of feedback that we got to I feel like we have a very very firm foundation on what the majority wants. So that's just only my opinion, but thank you very much for saying that because it's important.
252Oh, I was just going to say, so I I don't think I'm prepared to make a decision today myself. Just um I would like to spend some time looking at these two um candidates a little bit more and reflect a little bit more on the interview. Um yeah, just I'm I'm I'm not 100% sure where I'm at. It's funny. I expected to feel the same way that um I would want more time, but like I I've been listening to my colleagues feedback and I tell you like the feedback forms uh that we are getting are pretty telling for me. Um it's incredibly like I mean when I you know when I'm looking at the the depth of the feedback from staff from parents from I mean they are coalescing around her right like the energy
253is there the like I I feel that like while my own personal like experience right has been so incredible with Nick when I look at this feedback back. I see a staff, a community uh who like really feel positively about this and I see a lot of ch I see a chance for momentum I guess is what I would say here. And I'm surprised too like I was really going to be okay with like doing the deep dive and really go home and listen and listen and listen. I'm just not sure I'm going to come to a different decision, believe it or not. Um so as such, I guess I would or I I would not I would come to a decision tonight. So that's kind of where I'm at is like where I was
254and where the feedback is coming in. That's kind of why I think I feel like I just need to spend a little bit more time on it myself. And for me it and I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm just saying for me it actually makes the decision a little more like concrete for me, right? like I I feel more comfortable making the decision now that I have all of this. I I'm going to echo that. I uh you know I I've had a conversation with a with a couple of you and I think you appreciate the conversations when I said I'm not listening to any of the outside chatter until we actually have the interviews and then reflect on the feedback at that time. I know we've all been bombarded with texts and phone
255calls and emails and the feedback forms and I we've all poured over them and uh some of my staff is going to be very angry because I said publicly that this is probably the hardest interview I've studied for. Um, but the the underpinning thing for me is that we were elected to make this decision. And as important as the feedback is, and more feedback coming in, I've read the feedback. I think we've all read the feedback. We've analyzed the feedback. We've poured over it. The feedback that I've been able to grasp tonight just reinforced my notes and my thought process. And I literally had a a text conversation with someone before walking in the door today. They asked, you know, what way why are you leaning? And I said, honestly, I have no lean whatsoever.
256And it's being based on the interviews tonight. That's exactly what I said. And based on the interviews tonight, my decision was not changing. What um I think we have received plenty of feedback as well. What the public may not know is that we have received uh 123 separate uh submissions or points uh on both candidates. uh not equally balanced uh with numbers uh twothirds of those from staff uh or 10% what was I saying earlier 10% from the community and uh not not as many from the community and about 20% from parents. So the bulk of them from from staff members. I personally feel ready to go, but if you want to make a motion to uh hold off for another uh day or so, you're welcome to make that motion. Um, but right now
257there is a motion on the floor to uh support Rachel Kowalsski's uh position hiring of Rachel Kowalsski. Excuse me. Can I just clarify because it was my understanding that if we waited to seek more feedback, it would be seeking feedback for a week because the next potential meeting was left for next Wednesday. So, one of my concerns Tuesday, sorry. One of my concerns about that, I guess, is that um I I agree with everything that's been said. um you know the I feel really good without sort of calling it out too much about the um feedback we've gotten from the people who would know best what it takes to run this district um in in reference to Dr. Kowalsski. Um, and I'm a little concerned that like, you know, we spoke to how hard it
258is to put yourself out here like this since the feedback we're getting about her is almost overwhelmingly positive. You know, sometimes giving people more time brings out, especially if they know that there's a candidate, can bring out more negativity as well. And if that were constructive, then of course I would want to hear it. But um I personally am not at this moment in the position to go the other way. So if she were not I'm just going to be transparent. If she were not the candidate, I'm only one vote of seven. But I would not be in a position where I'd feel comfortable going the other way at this moment in time. So um I think you know that's the other question is like what is going to happen in that week for any
259of us? Well, and I and I, you know, I'm hearing what everyone's saying and reasonable people can disagree or come to a different assessment and if the majority is ready to go forward, then I'm ready to work on that. And I guess I mean I had mentioned to Jason before uh well probably yesterday or the day before that what would make it the easiest is if we came into this uh interview process and there was a clearly better interview. Ra Rachel had that. Now, I do have, you know, I struggle because of some people that I've been that I really trust in in education have really said positive things about Nick. So, that's where my struggle's been. But if if if based on just purely this interview, yeah, Rachel would win it. So, Mr. President
260if I may just before so uh you have a motion you have a second you've had discussion when you are ready not saying that that's right now but when you are ready for a vote I noticed that most of your votes are yays and nays uh a roll call vote for this would be appropriate I understand in fact I was wondering about that um I it does sound like we've landed the plane so to speak and uh it sounds like you're not going to offer up a second motion to delay and that's or not sounds negative to uh postpone so we should really put this to a vote and I agree it should be a voice vote. So we're going to start at the other end of the table with uh um in this order
261uh Jason Tisitis, Lauren Gold, Jennifer Steman, me uh Darcy Burwick and Brad Gerby and Tim Austin. So uh sorry. So the motion is to support Rachel Kowalsski for the position of superintendent pending contract negotiations. Are you in fa I is this yes or no? We'll just say yes or no. Let's just make it that way. Yes, sir. Lauren, yes. Jason, uh, Jennifer, yes. Yes. From me, Darcy? Yes. Brad, yes. Tim, yes. Well, it appears it's unanimous, so we have some next steps. Well, thank you very First of all, I agree. Jennifer had said it earlier. I said it at the beginning of the meeting. This was a very difficult. We did do a lot of reading and thank you for your guidance throughout and I know we peppered you with a lot of questions and
262a lot of edits and I appreciate us getting there. Uh she's not here yet. We have to make a you know a contract offer and she has to agree to it. So we still have some work ahead of us. So Jay and I'm open to your insights for next steps. Yeah. So next steps uh immediate next steps are you and I making two phone calls. So that's immediate next steps. After that, uh, sometime later tonight or tomorrow morning, I will get a press release to Jackie, uh, which he can then release and it will say that you have agreed to as a board on a 70 vote to enter into contract negotiations with, uh, with Rachel Kowalsski. So, I'll get that out, um, so that we can release that sometime tomorrow. And then from there,
263uh, it's generally a, uh, small, uh, committee of the board, usually president and vice president and possibly um, your, uh, finance person. um on your board uh putting together a contract proposal, working with uh Rachel on that contract. The entire contract then needs to be uh vetted by whoever you decide to use for legal who you normally would use. I would have them vet the contract as well. Uh once everyone's happy with the contract, that needs to come back to the entire board for approval. Just so you know, Jay, uh under other duties as assigned, we gave that task earlier to uh to Jennifer to work on the early steps and stages of the contract. I think we're in pretty good shape moving forward and I appreciate that heads up on that and yes, there
264are a lot of there is a lot of fine tuning. So, we will convene later. I don't know. Do we need our finance chair? Is he any good? He's great. He'd be awesome. So, the the three of us will get together. Um, anything else that we need to do? Uh, Jay. Uh, it's late. The next board of education meeting will be held on May 13th at 6 PM. Regular special education re sorry, board of education meeting. I enter like to entertain a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting at 10:51. I will the motion. Thank you very much. Second, tiss. Thank you very much. All in favor, please say I. I. Thank you so much. Uh we'll see you. Oh, good job. Oh. Oh, thank you. Uh we rarely So rarely get a