001at city council. Was it city council on Monday? You were there last night, right? Right. Yeah. Did I see you last night? Yeah. Well, well, well, you left early. I I I expect Zoom meeting at 8. Okay. You were there and then I turned around. Oh, she's here. How are you doing here? I was still working. I Why not? Now you're here. Sheath weather. I know. Yeah. I mean, you know, um it sometimes it could get really weird if there's like appointments. Yeah. So watered down. It hurts. Yeah. It also hurts national. so full of it. They wanted They're so full of it. I'd just like to remind the board that we are about to start. You can you can chat. I can delay the board meeting for five minutes for your stuff. [Music] I'd
002like to welcome everyone to see Wow, that's it's working. I'd like to welcome everybody this evening to the April 22nd, 2025 board of education meeting, Selen Area Schools. Standing as you're able, we're going to start with the pledge of allegiance led by guest tonight, Michigan Association of School Boards, Mr. J. Bennett. [Music] Yiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with all. Thank you very much, Mr. Bennett. Mr. Goodman. This mic is really tuned up. I got to stand back here for uh I'd like to pass the uh the podium over to uh Superintendent Lodge. He has a quick recognition to share. Okay. We're here tonight to honor the United girls hockey team. Uh goal setting at the start of each season is always
003a challenging task for any team, especially coming off a champion championship season. and they won the state championship the previous year in um division two which was super impressive. Uh while the structure of the league changing for the season, playing in division 2 playoffs this upcoming year would be a step back. Instead, the team hoped to qualify for the division one playoffs and win the group B regular season title. The regular season was highlighted by reclaiming the coveted Treetown trophy. They beat local rivals Pioneer 8-0 and Skyline here on 9-2. United would end up beating rival Pioneer three times over the course of the season. Unfortunately, the team would finish one point shy of their goal to finish first in group B after losing a game when illness kept several key players from playing, which
004is always a struggle. As hoped, Washington United did get placed in division one for playoffs and but lost in the first round to Bloomfield Birmingham. The loss doesn't overshadow the list of accomplishments from team number five this season. And there are many, including the most players ever on the team with 23. Most wins in a season with 18. Most goals for with 123 goals scored. And fewest goals against with 66. Most shutouts with eight. First 20 goal scorer in Daphne Grant. first 40point player and Lucy Sweeney from Seline. Senior Sydney Clark from Seline finished her career with a 100 total points for United. They had four second team all-state players and Daffany Grant, Lucy Sweeney, Sydney Clark, and Abby Schrader. One allstate honorable mention and Trista Tracy. One player nominated for the state all freshman
005team in Ella Cecil. Five freshmen earning letters including Lily Mack, Ava Leopold from Seline. The largest graduating class with nine players including Lucy Sweeney, Izzy Mack, Kendra Wagner, Juliana Marini, Norah Stevenson, and Sydney Clark from Seline. two graduating players continuing their hockey careers at college, including Trista Tracy at Acquaintus in Grand Rapids and Sydney Clark going to Montana State in Bosezeman. We're really looking forward to continuing the tradition of United next season and building upon what team five accomplished this year. players, coaches, and the parents would like to thank all the members of the school staff, including the Selen athletic department and Ashley Mantha and Jeff Pike, Selen School Board, and Superintendent Lot for your support and leadership. We wish you the best in retirement. And I'd like to just say a few words about
006Coach Wyinners and and his assistants. coach winners and his assistants have been great champions in growing the program here at United um and the sport in general and thank you for your leadership in growing girls hockey and Seline the surrounding communities and across the state. Your efforts are greatly appreciated. So we'd like to give Washington United a hand and then we'd like to ask you to come up and if any of you want to say a few words that's great. If not, we want to take a picture with the board. So, great job. Yeah. So, why don't we come on up and if you want to say anything, if any of the girls want to say anything, that's great. And then we want to make sure we're taking a t taking a board. Okay, let's
007all go. I'll take a picture. Here we go. Whoops. We're at the public comment section. We uh a member of the public can address the board for up to three minutes or request to be scheduled on the agenda of a future meeting. Please note students are given priority to speak. Uh the first public participation uh portion is limited to 30 minutes and agenda items. The second public participation portion will be offered at the end for any other comment. Individuals addressing the board should take into consideration rules of common courtesy. The public participation portion can't be used to make personal attacks against a board member, district employee, or student. We have one uh parent this evening speaking. Susan, and I'm pretty sure she knows the timing drill. 20 minutes. No, kidding. Ah, let me try. Um,
008okay, let me find it. Sorry. So, um, I am speaking tonight. Um to action item, let me find it. Um E. Recommended motion to approve the changes to policy 5517.02 transgender policy as recommended by the policy committee. Um I wanted to I mean I've said a couple things um here uh regarding this at uh policy meetings and um the last board meeting and via emails. Um I'm so I'm going to start with the policy that later I I think um you all will clarify but the policy that we are using right now for title 9 um is policy 2266 and that's the non-discrimination on basis of sex and education programs or activities. um throughout our non-discrimination policies um I think we have 15 16 um policies that reference um non-discrimination um it says sex and
009in parenthesis says include sexual orientation or gender identity um so that is consistent that's what Niola had in 2018 um when um the board even before I got on the board in fall 2018 8 um that that was adopted from NEOA. So that's where they stand. Um specifically this policy which is title 9 um it includes that. So um the board of education of Seline school district of the Selen school district um does not discriminate on the basis of sex including sexual orientation or gender identity in its education programs or activities and is required by title 9 of the education amendments act of 1972 and its implementing regulations not to discriminate in such a manner. and you know it talks about the requirements but you can read that um yourself. um the fact that we're
010pulling out our transgender and non-binary students policy, which is not a Neola policy. Um it was something uh we created um as a board. Um Collins and Blaha um supported that. Um Plymouth Canton and Ann Arbor schools also has that. Um they don't have the 2021 um but they have reference to previous um decisions. Um so we it just happened to be at the same time where we adopted the um guidance. Um so in saying that I I don't I don't think it's fair that we have brought this specific policy up when all of our policies are clear that we do not discriminate against our transgender and non-binary students. Um, and I, you know, I'm disappointed that that this has happened and that you are moving on this, uh, so quickly. Um, I do recommend
011that you keep the Title 9 in there because that's kind of what I heard at the table, but it's not reflected. Um, so whenever you all have your discussion, hopefully you can keep that in mind because it still applies. Thank you. Thank you. I have no response to previous public comment this evening. I do have a quick statement that I'll be making a bit later. Under uh revisions approval of the agenda, I have two slight changes that uh board secretary Yonke will note. Under number nine, please would you add under a uh section B, a compensation committee will be giving a brief update and after that number C, there will be a brief update from uh the third party review of athletics that would be done by myself. Those are the only changes. Any when
012who what? Oh, under nine under 9 A and 9 C is going to be a quick update from the third party review. Any other additions, changes, deletions? No. No. Great. Thank you. Um, could I have a motion to Bwick motions to approve the agenda as print as revised? Yes. Berwick support Gerby. Gerby. All in favor, please say I. I I thank you. Opposed and we have all seven tonight of full pack. Under action items, we have a few this evening. Uh, I'd like to entertain a motion to follow the recommendation of Nova Environmental Incorporated in awarding the bid number one for the abatement contractor to Martin and Associates Environmental LLC for the summer 2025 project of Selen Middle School in the amount of $225,000 679 as submitted by Rex Clary, director of operations. So move.
013Tim Austin Berwick second. Darcy Berwick. Uh Rex, do you have anything to brilliant? Oh, you always shimmer up to the podium. Surprise me. With your approval, this uh the asbesus removal will start on June 9th. I think it's the Monday after. Yes, Monday. Monday, June 9th. Uh when students are out of the building, um Nova has worked with us in the past over the last 10 years since I've been here as a facility director. They do an excellent job monitoring, keeping everybody safe. Um they'll be on site and have a project manager on site that will be measuring and do all the stuff that NOVA does environmental as the asbestous removal experts. I have a quick question about that. These days we're not talking about stuff in the ceilings. We're talking about mastic the ceil
014tiles where asbestous is located. Where is the asbesus located on this one? It's tiles uh floor tile. It is piping uh in the in the old bus garage in the old ground shop and there is some ceiling and some mastic on some acoustical panels on the walls in the band area. So, we are taking care of that. Thanks for that clarification, Darcy. Um, so obviously students will be out of the building. I'm assuming that you're notifying teachers. Are clubs who have equipment in the middle school going to be told to remove their So, the music wing will move all their stuff out and then they'll get their work done is really what I'm asking about. robotics should they get? They won't be affected. Okay. And this is only in the con the new construction area
015where pretty much the band the special ed uh remodel space and then everything down the innovation alley hallway which is the old CTE high school. So, thank you. Y any questions? Yes, Brad. Yeah. The only other thing is you mentioned um that we're removing like some in the band room that we we discovered, right? Is there anywhere else in the district while we have this company available to us where we could realize that and move on it and then maybe not incur that expense later as a separate thing. Does that make sense? Yes and no. Because we have to after we remove it, we've got to put new flooring or new paint or new wall, whatever we're remodeling that space got. And there's pipe fittings that we're not going to mess with now, but we
016will do in the future. Um especially when we get to the locker rooms. Uh if we redo those locker rooms at some point here before the phase into phase three, there'll be more in that area as well. As long as it's not disturbed, it is not f farable. Am I saying that right? Um it's safe until we disturb it. Thank you for that. Y I appreciate that. I always learn new words when I talk to you. Um all in favor, please say I. I. I. I. Any opposition? Nope. Thank you very much. Uh is the next one related to you? Yes. Um, I'd like to entertain a motion to accept the recommendation to purchase two model year 2016 IC77 passenger school buses at a combined cost of 310,840 from Midwest Transit as submitted by Rex
017Clary. This purchase will be through the Michigan uh school business officials cooperative bus purchase program. I didn't catch that, but it should be 2026. 2026. I see. I didn't say that. He said 2016. So So a newer bus, newer. 10 years newer. Yes. Thanks. Good catch. Good catch. Thank you for being detail oriented. I'll make the motion. Jennifer Steman. Anyone supporting Jennifer in this? Second. Is it? Thank you. Uh, anything you want to add to that? Aside from the fact that it's not a 10-year-old bus. It is not a 10-y old bus. This continues on our replacement plan that we uh I presented in 2016. Um, right now we have 20 we have we have purchased 26 new buses and we have 26 route buses. So, effectively we've started we've replaced all of our route
018buses which we what we told the public we would do. Um, now we're working on our subs. So, 10 years as a route bus, 110 15 120,000 miles, then you go to a sub bus for four years and then you get replaced. That's our that was how we laid out the plan. Um, we still have subbuses. Our sub buses are we have four 2009, one 2008, three 2007, and two 2006. These are our sub buses that we use for field trips and um athletic events. Um and as we able to hire more drivers, we're able to f create more routes and start doing better customer service to our the community. But now we're getting shorter on uh field trip buses and those field trip buses are still getting older and older. So, uh, we will
019still stay on our replacement plan. Um, also to add to that is the delay of our electric buses. We will not see our electric buses until late October, early November. Um, so with that being we I was expecting them to be here in July. Um, and so with these two buses, it just gives us that cushion until those three up buses get here. So, any questions, comments for Rex? I have a comment. I would say this is very appropriate on national um school bus driver appreciation day and I look forward to voting yes. Is that today? We actually have a bus driver in the audience right now. Could you just wave to us? Thank you. And uh I did I did thank her for her service. Uh um if there are no other questions I'd
020like to put it to a vote. All in favor please say I. I oppose. Okay. None in opposition. Thank you very much. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you to entertain a motion to approve the closed minutes of April 8th, 2025 for the purpose to discuss the confidential attorney client privilege communication pursuant to section 8H of the Open Meetings Act. Well, don't read it yet because we don't have a motion. Brad, thank you, Mr. Austin. Appreciate it. By the way, thank you, Secretary Burwick, for being on top of these. We've had quite a few close sessions this year and this is other duties as assigned when you took on the job. You didn't know you'd be doing that many. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Opposed. Great. Thank you very much. Uh, one
021abstension, Michael. one abstension because I wasn't present. I shouldn't vote. Well, you could vote in favor because you trust us, but okay. Six and traditional processes abstension. So, I'll do that. Okay. Uh I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the round two distribution of CARES discretionary funds in the amount of 88,500 as recommended by the CARES Advisory Council and submitted by Brian Puffer, director of community education. Breakdown is as follows. Best Life Art Fairs and Festival from the dementia friendly Seline Group, $12,000. Liberty Club transportation for Liberty Club, 20,000. Liberty Theater Upgrade Project, Seline Community Ed, 20,000. Seline Park improvements, City of Seline Parks Commission, 8,000. Seline Rec Center enhancements, Seline Parks and Wreck, 8,500. And the Selen High School wrestling room mats, Selen High School wrestling, 20,000. Do I have a motion? So
022move step. Okay. Any support? Was that Tim Austin? Oh, Gerby. Thank you. Any Oh, there he is. Mr. Puffer himself. Mr. Puffer Ma. Uh, questions, comments, queries, quibbriles. I'll just go over a couple comments for round two. Right. Um, first, like we said, we our CARES board met in February and March discussed the six grants. Again, always new CARES board members. So, just to give or board members, excuse me. So, our CARES board members consists of Jim Heft, Chris Michelac, uh, Greg Holberger, Gwen Fergson, and Megan Hughes. And then for round two, we had Darcy joined us as the liaison from the school board. So, she attended both our meetings as well. Um, so thank you for attending those meetings. As you saw, as you just read, we had six grants that were totaling $103,77.91.
023The board approved 88,500. Uh the ones that were partially funded were the dementia friendly Seline. Uh the board denied the consulting fees that they asked for. Uh the commission one, they did not um approve the money for the dog park because they did receive a Sleep Parks and Rec received a car's millage a couple years ago for a dog park at Breen that hasn't been built yet, but still in the plans. So they removed it from that one. And then they felt the SL parks and wreck um one for general enhancements was more wear and tear. So they partially funded that one or recommended the funding. If everything is approved tonight, uh more than likely there would not be a round three because round three is only available if we have funds left. So the
024grants that we do have for round three, which the deadlines is this Friday, they would be recommended to apply for the fall for the 2526 funding. So you don't have any funds left after this? If we approve all this, we'll have about just under 13,000. Um, I don't have I think we've had a couple grants so far. So, we'll see how much we have. If it's worth our time to go over it and we could fund a project or two, we'll look at it. If not, we'll recommend moving to the 25 26 school year. Was the fact that the um consultant was not funded because it's a against the policy to fund a human? Yeah. Yeah. Technically, we usually don't fund salaries or consultant fees uh for projects. Oh, questions? None. All in favor, please
025say I. I. I. Opposed. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Puffer, and please thank the CARES Committee. We appreciate the work you do. We'll do. Thank you. Thank you. I entertain a motion, please, to uh approve the changes to policy 5517.02, transgender policy, which is not quite the correct name, as recommended by the policy committee. So moved. Gold. Second is it is Thank you. Um quick note to Betty. Could we uh modify the title of that to the full name of the policy? Thank you. Uh since it's coming from the policy committee, I'll ask uh Lauren to entertain any questions that we might have as a board. I'll just note that um is not the intention of the policy committee to um deny protections to our transgender students or any student. We're just trying to
026stay true to legal advice and what the current title nine interpretation is. And we did uh recognizing that state law and Elliot Larson uh applies here uh did add that um reference at the end of the policy. I'm not hearing any question. Oh, Tim, I do too. Go ahead. We have questions. One for Mr. Ros. So maybe you can elaborate. So my question is more of a concern of cherrypicking which policies we take time line out of and when. So that's my biggest concern. So it I searched all the policies that referenced title nine and the specific change to title nine made in under the 2021. And this was one of two policies I think that reference those 2021 changes that so I think it's more in reference to um I think we are definitely
027striking the reference to the 2024 guidance but um the question I think is that we struck out Title N reference as well. So we had that talk at the last time of whether or not we leave that in. We're definitely adding the Elliot Larson and there was the conversation about whether or not we remove Title N specifically from there. Again, it's a sub policy um under 55 40 um I'm sorry, 5517. Um I'm amendable either way. I guess my preference is to leave it, but I think that there's some thoughts that it should go. Either way, again, you know, an individual's rights aren't determined by whether or not we reference a policy or a law or regulation and a policy. But just to get back to Tim's question, I I did pull up and looked
028at anytime those particular and it's true title N in general is also referenced, but I did pull up to look if anything else applied because the reason for the legal advice that it was no longer applicable was based on the 2024 changes. And so that's the reason why that's where this that's that was the focus of the the difference between 20 24 and previous interpretations. Jennifer um so first of all I I was not able to be here due to work um for the last board meeting. I did watch the live stream and appreciated the discussion. Um, I also had the chance to read a lot of um, emails on this particular topic and so if anyone has anything to help clarify things that I'm thinking, please dig in because I know that this has
029been discussed in policy. Um, I I don't really see a reason to change this. Um, I appreciate Steve being very quick this afternoon when I had asked for um, Attorney Starland's information in the original email kind of at the root cause of this conversation. It it seemed and I wasn't in the close session. Um, but it it it seemed a little bit obtuse as far as well, this is kind of the my advice today, but it might not be tomorrow. Um, etc. I I do really appreciate um in the new uh version the Elliot Larson Civil Rights Act being referenced at the bottom. Thank you very much. Um but my general appetite is um to leave the red markings on this to accept the Elliot Larson Civil Rights Act ad and um to consult with
030legal for continuity amongst other policies. Former trustee um Susan Eastep just mentioned 2266. So I was just reading that again. Um, I felt like this was a soft log legal opinion and I am very hesitant to change something on this or some other policies. Um, considering the perception to students and families. So, that's kind of what I'm thinking in in reviewing all of this and am very open to any feedback that people might have had from being here on April 8th. I realize we can't discuss things in close session. Um, but that's where my head's at on this one. My thinking has been that if federal law no longer applies and again I understand the argument that federal law for the protection for gender applies but and sex discrimination and so you still have rights
031whether they that potentially having reference to uh title n which will now be administered by the current interpretation might actually offer less protection in that more. I understand that's not trusty interpretation. I can't speak about what the legal terms were, but that's really the the thought. And you know, Title N could be interpreted differently in terms of uh sex discrimination uh depending on who's interpreting it. Dr. Lodge to clarify the timing on the advice from uh Jennifer Starland from Trune that did come back at the beginning of February. She hasn't changed her position on that. I just want to point that out that that even though we're now at the end of April, the recommendation still is to remove that part from this policy. Whether the board wants to do that or not, clearly up
032to you, but that that hasn't changed even though this guidance is changing on a regular basis that that particular recommendation hasn't changed. I guess I'm inclined to to trust our, you know, the the legal experts who are advising us on this and the policy committee that has brought this to us. And then I guess how I see it too is that things are always evolving and changing, right? And so if we were to get different advice or if 2024 or 2021 guidelines had come back into play, I I we'll be on top of that and then we'll we revisit that and we can always then say okay now we wish to insert those or any other type of protections that might be offered either due to the law. So I guess that's the reason why
033I'm inclined to and I also believe that like these individuals will still have rights in our schools and they'll still be important and special and they're going to be individ you know we will still care about them immensely in our classrooms and in our buildings. So that's where I land. Thank you. Treasurer Gerby are there any other comments to make on this? I would echo what uh Treasure Gerby says. The transgender policy is staying. The protections are staying. It's really a reference that we're changing. That's it. Based on legal advice. Great. Well, thank you for that clarification. So, I just wanted to say I'm sorry, Michael. I And then I totally appreciate that and I know I know how you feel about this, so I I don't want to ignore that. Um, I just feel
034like this is this is a little quick and it there's a lot going on in the world right now. Um, and to to jump on something I don't know and and not like holistically look at everything as one piece I absolutely know is not an intention by anyone sitting up here. Um, it just causes me pause. Thank you. Uh, I think we're ready to The plane has landed. I think it's time to put it to a vote, please. Uh, all in favor of the approval to the changes to the 5517.02, please say I. I. I. And opposed. Is that two? Okay. Thank you. So, it's 52. Thank you very much. Uh, in FA, the nays are uh Tim and Jennifer and the pros are all the rest. Thank you. We have a brief scheduled report
035and from community education our annual update. Yay, Mr. Puffer once again at the podium. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thanks for having us back again. Um, last year we was the first time we presented in a while, so we kind of give you more of what we've been up to in the last since co pretty much 10 years or so. And so this year is kind of more of a review of what we've been doing in the last year or so. So um first kind of sharing the same slide we shared last year been updated here and you can see um I guess should introduce myself new board members. My name is Brian Puffer. I've been with the district now for 21 years. I've been director since 2008. Our community department oversees eight different departments
036as you can see at the top of the graphic. I've been very very lucky to be one of the most committed hardworking staff during my tenure. As you can see we've had 19 years of average service for our full-time staff. Unfortunately, that year's that's going to go down this year. Sue Fend, who is our PU corner director, is retiring this year. She'll be retiring in August and so she's been with us for over 20 years. So, uh we will miss her. Uh but again, it's just been a great staff and um couldn't have been doing this without them. So, I'll do just have some brief slides on each department. Um if you have any questions, please let me know. Like I said, it'll be a brief overview of what we're doing. Um, first is kind
037of just a reminder of what community education is. And I'm not going to read that word for word, but basically we try to serve the community at every stage of life. Uh, offering preschool programs to programs about retirement. Um, so we try to fill in the gaps where we can. Sometimes during school day where we can't have certain programs, we try to offer them after school day. Uh, like for instance, we have, you know, health or health, excuse me, PE in the summertime. We've offered French classes after school before. So we try to fill in where we can. Some highlights for the 2425 year. Uh community, we did a little staff reorganization last year. Well, for this school year and um what we did is we took uh Sharon Donnie who's my admin assistant but
038is also now in charge of afterchool recreation. Uh Linda Davis who's our design specialist and also now is our enrichment program specialist. And then Ashley House, who was our recruitment program specialist, now oversees all youth and middle school sport programs. And I'll elaborate on that a little bit later. Uh we implemented 43 new programs this year. Um from bridge classes to summer booster classes to new sports camps. Another thing that we're very proud of is that um Sharon Don helped us spearhead the implementation of our facility use guide. Many districts don't post their rental rates on their websites. It's hard to find those. Um, I know that because when we go to do our rental rates and increases, we look for them. Some of them are 10 years old. Um, and so we do post
039ours every year. We update them every year. But what we also have now is a 20page facility um, use guide. It covers everything from our facilities, our rules, our AD locations, our rates, our building supervisors. Uh, so it's a very comprehensive guide. It's about 20 pages long. Uh, so it's listed right on facility page, right underneath our rates. Uh it's a dock that we're always updating. Uh we're very proud of it. So that was one of our big niches this year. Um we had an expansion of our bridge programs. So for those who don't know what those are bridge programs are, it's for students that are going to Heritage students that are going to the middle school. They go to a three to four day class that are taught by the teachers at that school.
040Um and then uh just to get to know the building and get to know who their schoolmates are going to be. And last year we increased that to ninth grade. We had a bridge nine last year which we had I think 35 uh incoming freshmen attend. So we were excited about that. Uh we were finally able to reopen Heritage before and afterare full times. It was the first time since CO we've been able to open that. Um staffing was always the main reason for that. And so we're not fully staffed yet but we're getting there. But we we've been able to keep that open all year and I believe we've only had to close once. And um that's a lot of credit to Lee Seabbero who's our director and his staff. They've done a great
041job um running that program. Uh we also received the community uh award for um Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan award for our continued support of their program providing facilities and just trying to be a great partner. So we just found that out a couple weeks ago. And then we'll be celebrating our 40th year of Safety Town this year. So Safety Town will be back again. It'll be back here at Liberty School. uh Janet Marian who's a pair in the district has done a great job with that program. So we'll have some special things for the program this summer regarding that. Uh next is our aquatics. Uh Sandy Stafford who's been the aquatics specialist there since the building opened. Um as you can see we have a couple things go over there. Um our SST swim
042team continues to grow. Uh we had a record enrollment this fall. Uh we serve our mini rake kids from eight and under all the way up to the 15 18 bracket. Our Seline pool is uh very soughta facility. Many many rentals. We host the boys and girls meet competitions almost on a yearly basis it seems. Uh one thing people might not know is what the pool's used for. It's open pretty much 6:00 in the morning till almost 9:00 10 at night depending on uh what's going on. Um, we have obviously PE classes, special ed classes, young adult programs, uh, cardboard box braces, you can see robotics have been in there. Um, and so to keep that in mind, that's all going on. And we always have to have a a CE person in that room
043when it's going on, lifeguarding. So, uh, Sandy and her staff do a great job with that facility. But it's more than just swimming in there, as you can see. Um, another thing that we added this in this last year is a adaptive swim lesson program. and we actually run that conjunction with SL parks and wreck and we run that um it's a community class but we do run it at the rec center um we're pretty proud of that program. So that was just added um within the last year and Jessica Yak who's a teacher over at Heritage is the one that runs that program. Another thing too as we mentioned we have about four to five weekends a year that we have available to rent that facility out. Um and we do that obviously for
044um those meets. We've had um water polo teams from uh USC. Uh we had Eastern swim team here to use the pool. So we're a soughtafter facility, but it's because of Sandy and uh what they do and keep that place up and running. Uh our next one, before and after care. Like I just mentioned, um staffing are our challenge with the program, but like I said, Lee has been doing a great job. Uh we're operating out of Heritage, Woodland Meadows, Pleasant Ridge, and Harvest. Uh I know we do fill up fast and that's the case. We try to do our best. Uh we staff it to the best of our capability. Um currently we have 387 kids registered in school this year and right now we're on pace between 90 and 100 for summer camp.
045So we're looking forward to that. Our summer camps staff is um summer excuse me summer camp is staffed by our before and afterare staff and our college returning students. Uh this is a good tool for recruiting uh teachers. Um we've had multiple teachers start with a before and afterare program then have student taught here and actually now teaching in the classroom. So it's always a good avenue to get into the school district. Um, I asked all my employees to kind of give me a highlight of something from their apartment and uh, Lee actually sent me this. A parent just sent that. It's very long, but if you can read it, um, it's just kind of kind of why we do what we do there. And just to have a parent, um, kind of single us
046out like that and just kind of tell us how happy they were the program, how much we helped them through difficult times, including the pandemic, it it really it's, as you know, getting comments, you don't get as many of those, you do complaints sometimes. So, it was kind of nice to see that. Uh, Liberty Club. Um, is somebody here from Liberty Club? Hey, Zach. Yep. Yep. All right. All right. You know that. That's right. Uh, we continue to provide continuous learning, life skill development, uh, social interaction for our participants ages 26 to 59. Um, we currently have 29 full-time participants in the program. And kind of some highlights we did this year with our program was we worked with 21 local organizations. Um as you can see there delivered 500 meals and wheels. Uh purchased
047packet delivered over 800 paper pantry items, collected donate over 300 items of social service. Uh you may not know that they wash and fold uh laundry for the preschool that's in the building. And they've also raked 13 Selene residents yards for rake a difference. And as you can see, we have another comment there from a participant uh parent. And again, it's, you know, why we have these programs and why we do this. And it's important to remember to know, too, that this is one of the few programs in Southeast Michigan um that operate in one of the very few that operate on a community- based programs and activities. So, we're very proud to have Liberty Club. Uh next would be our facilities. Uh this past year uh as you can see 33,512 facility requests were
048processed. Uh that's everything that goes on in the district at all the buildings during the school day, evening, weekends. Um I mentioned that we implement the facility use reference guide. Uh we're future planning for the middle school sports complex. Obviously you've seen that construction's already taking place out there. Uh we're looking forward to that coming online. Uh we've hosted a wide range of events in the last year. We've had U of M wheelchair rugby. Uh we had AU state championships for girls basketball, boys basketball. Uh taekwond dos we've had in the district as well. It's really a great way to spotlight our district, but it also leads to partnerships with other groups. Um UFM adaptive sports, we're talking to about offering programs with them. uh Peak Cycling if you if you've seen them out before
049they've always at the high school or harvest during the summer and that's always been a rental but um starting this summer they're be part of community education um so we've been working with John Waterman over there so we're very excited about that um and then like I say our reputation for our facilities is just good customer service and asked Jeff Berman if you guys know Jeff I'm sure you have you seen him around before um just two weeks ago we had a basketball tournament here at the high school Liberty and the middle school. And we got a I got a call about 7:15 in the morning saying they were short one court at Lincoln because the tournament was taking place in Lincoln, Chelsea, and Seline. Is there any way we could help them? And within
05010 minutes, I was able to talk to Jeff Berman. Then I talked to Willard, our custodian here at um Liberty. And within 10, 15 minutes, we had the court set up. We had it ready for them. We had staff of the custodial service, and they were able to go all day and run their tournament. you know, that wouldn't have happened without obviously community, but buildings and grounds, everybody works uh well with us. We work well with them. So, we're not a lot of districts wouldn't be able to pull that off. So, that's something that we're pretty proud of. Uh, next would be our recreation and enrichment. Um, as I said, the bridge program was expanded, as I said earlier. So, now we're in fourth, sixth, and bridge 9 2024. We had 252 students participate in
051the program. Uh currently we have 215 students already registered for this year. Our bridge six class actually filled already with 20 kids in 08 list and we have never filled before um this early and so we're excited about that. We're working with um a couple of our instructors who've been there since the assumption to add more spots so we can have more kids into the program. Our youth basketball registrations um 578 this year. That was a record. Uh it's kindergarten through 8th grade. It's it's a lot of kids. Um Ashley who oversees that and has to plan all the practices and all the gyms is quite the chore. Um but yeah, we had 500 uh 56 of them were K through eight and then our C interural league here for the high school kids. We
052had 72 in there. Um so we had a record number of kids uh which was great. Uh we creation of summer boosters program. Um, so it's kind of those programs that uh we created last year with Cara Davis and Caroline Stout to address the summer slide. Uh, it's for classes from kindergarten through sixth grade. Uh, we had those run and they're running again this summer. Uh, our after school volleyball was a big hit this year. We had 109 participants. So, it's right after school as well. And another thing that's really been popular this year is our chess Lions program grew from a 40 to 113 students in one year. Um, so it demonstrates a strong interest and um, engagement from our students across all chess playing levels. Next one is our middle school sports. And
053I kind of touched on this a little earlier. Uh, last year in collaboration with athletic department, community ed, uh, we agreed that we would have Ashley House be our main point of our middle school sports programs. And this was to help to streamline the communication and support for our student athletes and our families. You may not know, we have multiple middle school sports programs, which we're proud of. We have a lot, uh, probably more than any district around. Some of those are community ed based, some of those are funded by the general fund, but sometimes it could be confusing for families. Who do I contact for this program? Who do I contact for this one? So, this year's been our first trial year, and so far it's been great. Ashley's the main contact for um,
054house is the main contact for all the middle school sports. She meets with Jeff Pike and Ashley Mantha. We have to do something about the Ashley's. We're still working on that. Um, which one we're talking about. Um, but they do a good job. It's been going pretty good this year. And again, Sharon, Donnie, and Linda Davis have taken on Ashley's role. So, it's kind of we reorg the department a little bit, but just to streamline it and so far so good. Um, again, this isn't just help with the parents, but ensuring logistics regarding officials, facilities, all of that stuff. And this is also kind of done in mind knowing that we're having a brand new middle school complex come out here which will add more programs and whatnot. So, we're looking down the line to
055see how we can streamline everything and make make it easier for everybody involved. And as you can see here, we had uh uh 20 plus middle school pro programs with through community ed and the middle school serving approximately about 500 students. All right, only two more left. Uh cultural arts and music. Ben. Um, we had 32 outside organizations rent our auditoriums over the past year. At least one auditorium is rented every weekend of the year in the district. Um, so we have churches that rent our auditoriums, but that's every year, including during the holidays. Um, so we always have somebody here renting our spaces. Um, 170 students from first through 8th grade participated in junior theater, Broadway boot camp, and youth theater guild. And as you can see, this year was our 20th anniversary of
056Junior Theater. And there's a famous dog up there on there, Hank Hank at Liberty. He was one of our guest appearances at our um our annun theater program. And so, um, also we also like to mention that we had a hund we have 180 students that are participating in Swarm of Voices, which is our elementary choir, our middle school jazz band, middle school fiddle club. And new this year, we have uh Selen High School drum line academy. So, we excited about that, too. And then our summer orchestra and summer band programs. Every year that we have in the district, we get between 30 and 40 kids for each program. And they always uh the summer band always sings the national anthem at the Tigers game. You can see the picture down there. And then our
057orchestra program sings at the Mud Hens game. We like to recognize also Janet Pinto has been leading our summer program for 34 years. So to have that kind of stability has been great in that program. Our last one we want to talk about is Poo Corner. Like I mentioned, uh Sue Fen will be moving on in August. Um but still we've had some great things to share this year. We had 72 enrolled in our preschool in our GSRP program and we will be adding another GSRP program in the fall. So we be taking 32 students in the fall. Some highlights from this year is we ran a rodeo for parents and children's beat the blues. You can see the beat uh bag toss and chicken dance we had with them. We also visited a library
058as part of this is my community projects experience the new uh library. And one thing Sue Fen really want me to show with you guys. She gave me a long explanation. I told her I was going to murder that if I tried to explain to you guys what it meant, what it is. But as you can see up there on on the bottom uh right there, it's called scaffolding writing. And basically the first one was taken to the left was taken in January and the other one was taken in April. And so basically the first one the kids we tell them that they're going to they want to go play in a sandbox. So they just say draw what you want to draw right there. And this one right here to the left is them
059drawing what they're going to play in a sandbox. Then the second one which was in April to kind of explain it, it's like teaching a kid to ride a bike. You kind of help him out. Kind of help him out. Then you let him go. So as I did that four months later, that was the same kid's handwriting in a picture trying to draw a picture of going play in a sandbox. So you can see he's kind of on an animal in a sandbox and there's more of a picture there. So you can kind of see as the months go on the progression the kids learn how to draw. So that's kind of neat. And the last one, I think that's that's it. Uh what I really want to say is too is just uh
060a thank you. Uh I work with a lot of different community departments in different districts. Uh I'm the state chair for McKay's community ed committee uh for and I'm also the chair for beware which is our local community ed parks and recreation um directors and it's we know we meet once a month in both groups and there's a lot of horror stories and stuff like that about what they can't do they can't do this they can't do that and we're very lucky in Selen community because we are able to do a lot of things but the only reason we're a lot un able to do a lot of things is the support of the board from you guys we appreciate that uh the buildings and grounds uh Cody and Rexu here, they're great. Uh we
061could not do half the things we want to do if it wasn't for the support of them and their staff and obviously the principles, the teachers, the clerks. We're in everybody's what I always tell our staff is we're always in everybody's business because we're in all the buildings. We're always somewhere. We're doing something. Um but we try to stay positive and obviously the Sling community and all the parents and everybody that take our program. So, we wouldn't be able to do what we do if it wasn't for them. So, that's it. Thank you very much, Mr. Puff. Are there any questions for I do have a couple, but go ahead, Vice President Stein. That has to be the happiest presentation I've seen in a while. I was like smiling. I made a couple of notes
062with a lot of exclamation points, so I can't comment on everything, but what an incredible tenure team. Like, impressed. Super impressed. that basketball situation. Like I've lived that. It's chaos. I can't imagine 578. Good job. 40 years of um safety town. Yeah. And the retirement coming up for like the so much. Right. Um I also wanted to tell you that I um flew home with Brian and Techi from U ofM um adaptive sports. Oh, did you? Okay. and he like we just got talking in the gate area when we were in Orlando about a week ago. He was down there for nationals with the um adaptive wheelchair tennis team. And so we got talking a little go blue and he told me about all of this and he spoke with a lot of pride about
063how impressed he was with community education and what we're doing in the district with adaptive sports and all of the programming. So good job. Thank you. Um, and then I would be remiss if I wouldn't say one thing about one of the people that was um mentioned on here. Sandy Stafford has to be um I have two years till graduation. I'm already getting I feel like Jenny like getting getting almost to to that point where you have kids leaving. Um she will be one of our best memories of this school district. the impact that she has on students, the positive um environment that she provides, the leadership, the tough love. I am eternally grateful to her. Um so, thank you very much. Thank you. Ambassador, go ahead, Fred. So, I want to echo that and
064you know, one of the things that I really like about our relationship with community ed is it's under the umbrella of the school district, right? We're unique in the regard that we do that, right? And so that we work hand inand with one another. And so I appreciate that partnership. I appreciate the creativity and the mechanisms through which you evaluate things all of that right like that's very much in line with our what you guys do very much helps with our facilities improvement and helps with our management custodials all those things. So thank you for for being so diligent. Um so I have a couple of things. So, number one, I wondered, you got me wondering about yearover-year data with regards to before and afterare enrollment and the summer enrollment. Has that been a pretty
065consistent number over the years? Yeah, it's since co it's like everywhere like it fills up quickly unfortunately because we could probably take 150 200 people for summer if we wanted to, but it gets to a point where you can't control it. Um, and so we're capped. Yeah, we're capped for the most part. Yeah, I for summer I would say it's just spacing and staffing and just be able to run a quality program because we get 150 kids, but we did that a long time ago here where we took as many as we could and we had 140 and it was the money was good, don't get me wrong, but it was it was chaotic. Um, and so yeah, we're pretty much full at the schools for what we can staff. Three gets us this one
066to 18 is a ratio. So, if we can get three staff, um, and we try to do our best, like we look at what others pay in the in the county, we try to stay right with it, if not the top one. Uh, but it's a funky schedule, you know, and try to get somebody in there. And so, like I said, I can't say enough about Lee and his staff and what they do. But the numbers have been steadily, yeah, inclined. I mean, just going up since co to be honest with you. Well, and we offer a great program, so people want to be part of it. And I can remember like now that you're making me think about it in the summertime even like the um innovativeness that you guys have had to have
067with bond projects and moving around and some of that kind of stuff. So I'm sure that you're going to be doing that for the next few years and thank you ahead of time for some of those those things. So um the last thing I have is one a wonderment um about an area of opportunity. One of the things that, you know, we're losing an incredibly awesome poo corner director, uh, but then there's some plans for universal prek and some of those kinds of things. I'm wondering, are we utilizing when we think about where we want that position to go next? Yeah. Oh, yeah. We are. We're actually in the process of working on the interviews for that. We do have a plan. We've been meeting for what we're looking at to address that coming up
068in the future for universal PK. So yes, we've definitely been in talks with that uh working with Cara Davis and Sufan who's on her way out but has been heavily involved because we're adding that second um GSRP room for the fall. So yes, that's on our mind and for the future planning want to be able to accommodate that. So yeah, trying to streamline everybody together with the kindergarten teachers, us making sure we're all on that same page, ECSE. So yep, definitely. Right. And as that becomes a bigger priority of our of our governor, we're going to think we need to think about that staffing space where we're going to put people all of it. So 100%. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. There any others? I just want to say thank you very very much.
069I I you covered a couple of my questions. I did want to say one day I was at at home and I heard the strange noise out front. It was in the fall. My next door neighbor had the rake a difference folks over and they said uh you got a lot of leaves on your uh lawn. Yeah. Shall we? That's when I learned about rake a difference. It was pretty awesome. Great. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Puffer. And uh do come back again next year. All right. We'll do. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We have uh three discussion items. I just want to go again the policy committee followed by compensation committee followed by a quick thing from the third party review and then Tommy if you have anything you want to add
070at the end of those two three presentations that's great and then we will release you because you know you don't need to be here for the next part. I appreciate that and I notified him earlier about this. Uh Lauren Gold. Okay. Um I'd like to start by mentioning something that came up um at the last meeting regarding policy 2264 which we had passed in December. Shortly after that passage as our excellent um administrative professional was getting it ready. Uh it was rescended by um Niola and so it was no longer available. We received and I think you all should have in your email uh the documentation of that and so their um advice to us is that it does need to be formally rescended. Uh so I'm wondering if someone would like to make a
071motion to rescend. What was the number again? 2264. 2264. I would like to formally rescend. I would like to make a motion to formally rescend policy 2264. It's not posted. It's not in the system. We No, that's why we're resending it because before before it even got posted, it was it's not in there. It doesn't exist because it was Yeah, it's it doesn't exist, but we do have um you know, there's an email about it on April 11th. Um, so I mean we can't have if we want something like that we have to rewrite it entire because we can't we can't have the policy. Well, before we have too much of a discussion on it, do we have anyone else who's ready to support? Is that Tim? Thank you. So, are there any um other
072things you want to add about that before we move on? I'll let you call it. All in favor, please, of resending formally, please say I. I. I. Opposed. I I I with Brad. I would abstain if we have to vote. I don't know what it I was worried about this because if we don't rescend it, it's a policy that basically doesn't exist. It doesn't exist anywhere. Right. But but what I was hearing is that we had voted it into policy in December. So we would need an action hear what you're saying that it doesn't exist in our online policy. It doesn't exist now. Yes. I mean it should exist in previous minutes, right? It does. Yeah. But I would like I guess I'd be comfortable with that maybe as a future act more as a
073future action item and I probably might be in favor of it, but I just want to I I don't like the surprise of it quite frankly. Lauren, Dr. Gold, are you okay with uh tableabling this until the next meeting? You said as that we brought it up as like a policy or we could just stick with the vote of 52. I assume there's a n Vice President Steven. I guess I'll be a nay for I I just don't feel comfortable voting on something that I'm not reading. Great. 52 then. Thank you. Okay. And then getting to tonight. Um so we met just before this meeting. Uh we discussed policy 5330.01 again which is epinephrine auto injectors. uh which is being edited to again uh reflect the uh fact that now there are nasal delivery systems.
074Um so this will put us ahead of state law. But that's how awesome our school nurses uh that she was on top of it. Karen Harvey before the state has changed the language and the law. But I can testify that she is uh right in line with new medical developments. There is now um a nasal epinephrine um for kids with food allergies. Uh so in looking at this policy with her um there were a few um there were a few things about the policy that I thought could be made a little bit more clear beyond just that edit. And so we and the policy committee are working with her in conjunction and we will likely bring that to you at a later date. We're still working on the wording. Uh there are two policies essentially
075looking at artificial intelligence policy 7540.09 and policy 5500. Um and we have some questions for Niola regarding um those policies and some redundants but uh stay tuned. Uh, and then policy 5540, interrogation of students. Uh, you'd recall that we talked about this last time. I don't love the title of the policy, but interrogation. And I don't but it covers both instances the best practices when child protective services come to interview a student and also best practices when uh law enforcement needs to interview students hopefully rarely here at school. Um and so uh we will be bringing that for a second reading and discussion uh to an upcoming meeting. And then um there was also some recommendations that I think were shared with the entirety of the board um from the DEIC about how we can
076involve um how we can best involve uh seeking input to policy for marginalized students which are appreciated and we had a discussion about that. That's it for policy. Thank you very much Dr. Old. Uh, a quick update from the compensation committee, please. Yep. So, tonight Brad, Jason, Carol, Diglio, and I met before the board meeting. Um, we are really excited about where we are in the process. Um, we reviewed our contract and our finalizing and making sure we are both competitive and we are benchmarking against other districts. Um, we discussed the possible length of the contract and possible extensions tied to the MASB evaluation tool. We discussed the importance of professional development and educational stipens and we will continue to model lifelong learning hopefully balanced with district work and um, application of theories on the
077job. Um, we discussed other contract facets around language with roles and responsibilities, contract extras, um, to make things more attractive to applicants, um, and not timebinding us. So, some of the contracts that we looked at had a specific month in which you had to complete the superintendent evaluation. Just making sure legally in compliance with the Michigan Department of Education, but not saying it has to be in December and kind of timing us in such a way because we know certain things come up. Um, and then talked with Carol a little bit about insurance and termination information, just making sure we were up to date on that. Um, that's primarily governed by human resources and by legal. Um, and yeah, hopefully we'll have uh something for everybody very soon as well as applicants and we're looking
078forward to the upcoming discussion. Thank you very much, Vice President Steman. Uh, I'd like to make a quick update on the third party review of the Selena Area Schools athletic program. Scott Robertson of 53 Consulting, sorry, 53 Consulting, has visited the district twice. And tomorrow, April 23rd, he and his partner will be meeting with randomly selected uh student athletes during Hornet time. He's also reached out to the parents of student athletes and he'll meet with them later in the evening tomorrow. I'd like to remind the community that this is not an investigation as it has been sometimes referred to. This is a review generally focusing on climate and culture, training on MHSAA compliance, title nine compliance, leadership development, recruiting and hiring athletic department staff and coaching staff as well as a verification of student athlete
079reg residency. Toward this goal, Mr. Robertson has been gathering a great deal of data uh through interviews and through an online sports climate questionnaire of both coaches and student athletes. And uh these questionnaires have been in the field for the last two weeks. Mr. Robertson shared with me that there have been excellent response rates and he told me that the response rates and I was pretty impressed as a researcher at the university. This is pretty darn good. Uh the final goal of a May 17th final report still seems reasonable. And that is the end of my report. I will pass this over to uh Tommy Almond if you have anything to add or say from the student pers. You have nothing from the students. Are they all exhausted and ready to ready for the summer?
080Oh, thank you. And when does that happen, sir? Two weeks. All right. Well, are you in any AP courses this year? All right. Well, I wish you and all your fellow classmates all the best. Good luck. Okay. I'd like to welcome Mr. Jay Bennett, MASB assistant director, executive search services, who is going to walk us through one of the more interesting jobs we have to do as board members. Interesting is a good word for it. Interesting. Fantastic. Thank you. Good to see you all. So, I just handed you all a packet of good stuff. Uh interview questions which we'll get to in a minute. So you can set those aside. Um a copy of the presentation that I'm about to give. And then I just want to briefly uh go over two uh homework assignments
081uh that I've given you. Uh one is a bias awareness guide that was developed by the Oregon School Boards Association. I think it's a fantastic resource to take a look at and and to read over as we uh start this process of the interviewing. The other one is some tips on behavior-based interviewing and it talks specifically about the STAR system and that is something that we employ in our interviews. Uh and your interview guide will be laid out in such a way that once you read the STAR process you'll see uh how you can use the interview guide to keep your notes and keep track of your thoughts on the candidates. So those are for yours for you to look over in your own abundance of free time which I know you all are wallowing
082in much like myself. All right. So let's talk a little bit about uh interview prep because we will be conducting our first round of interviews on next week and then once we complete that conversation then we'll get into our selection of candidates for tonight. So before I proceed into interview prep, any questions I can address from you right off the top? Good. Okay. Uh, next slide, please. All right, so remembering that the purpose of the interview is to learn more about the candidates. Okay, we want to see how they conduct themselves in a public meeting. We have to remember that we're going to come across a couple different types during these interviews. We'll come across skilled interviewers. We'll come across people that have been in any number of interviews over the course of their uh
083of their career, possibly even superintendent interviews for other opportunities that they've applied for. And so they will be well practiced and they'll be well prepared. We will also come across some individuals that have never been or it's been a very long time since they've been in an interview. We also have to remember that interviewing for the superintendency is much different than interviewing for just about any other job in education. in that in those other jobs in education, yes, you may interview in front of several people, but it's usually behind closed doors somewhere. Okay? And it's just those six or seven or five or however many people on the committee. It's not the committee plus however many people we have back here in the audience plus video cameras that are recording everything that we're doing. So,
084there's a little bit of a higher stake uh to this interview process than we see in a lot of the interviews that we're uh accustomed to in education. All that is to say that while the interviews are an important part of this process, they're actually the least predictive part as to whether or not that person sitting in front of us is going to be an effective superintendent. The most predictive part as to whether they're going to be an effective superintendent for us here in Seline is evidence of what they've done in the past. if they've been successful in their previous employment situations, assistant superintendent, deputy superintendent, possibly superintendent, teacher, whatever it is, if they've been successful previously, then there's a high likelihood that they'll be successful here in Seline as our next superintendent. Okay? So,
085we want to balance this. If we are absolutely wowed during the interview process, that's great. But don't let that overshadow and don't let that put us in a place of complacency where we don't continue to look through their application materials and do the reference checks and make those phone calls and all of that. Conversely, if they absolutely tank or just don't really have a very good interview or we just don't feel there's just something not there. If everything else is telling us that they should be a fantastic candidate, then let's not put so much weight on the interview that we discount somebody who could be a fantastic superintendent who for whatever reason just didn't interview well. for any number of reasons. Maybe it's just not a good day for them, right? Whatever it is. So
086again, just trying to find that sweet spot between the materials that we have in front of us, the things that we know about that candidate and the interview. Okay, next slide. So beyond the first interview, we've already talked about reviewing their previous experience, uh the thorough reference and factchecking, the remembering that this is not one bite at the apple that we will have another bite. We will have a second round of interviews. So if we hear some things in the first round, we're kind of like, okay, all right, I want to hear more about that. If we put, you know, put this person forward, then we can make note of that. And then when we have that person here for our second round interview, we can dig a little deeper. First round interviews, as we've
087talked about, very structured. 55 minutes, they're all going to get the same questions, and we're going to keep it very tight. Second round interviews, then we can dig a little deeper. We can have follow-up questions. We can ask more in-depth questions. We can give them an opportunity for longer answers. We're not going to be on as tight of a time crunch in that second round. That's an opportunity for us to get to know them even a little bit better to help us then decide, okay, who do we want to bring back in for negotiations? Okay. So, before I get too far ahead uh in the presentation here, uh I have a question to pose to all of you. Um it has become my practice as of late uh to provide first round candidates with their
088questions ahead of time. They get them about 24 hours ahead of time. They get an email with the questions 24 hours before their interview. So, we're interviewing next week on Tuesday, Wednesday. Is that right? So on Monday around four o'clock the Tuesday night applicants would get the uh interview questions. On four o'clock on Tuesday the Wednesday night applicants would get their interview questions. They have them for 24 hours ahead. What that allows is it allows them to come in with their best examples. Okay? So when we ask them a question about the time that they've had to make a tough budget decision, instead of heming and hawing and trying to figure out which example they want to give you, they've got their best example in mind. The other thing it takes out of play the
089advantage or disadvantage to being the first night or the second night because there's always the potential that the second night interviewees have watched those interviews the first night and they get to see the questions ahead of time. So that eliminates that because everyone's getting the questions ahead of time. So there's no advantage to being able to see how those interviews go. Um it helps speed up the process because again like I was saying instead of heming and hawing they have that best example and so they can give thoughtful answers to you as a board but then we can also make sure that they get to all the questions that you want to ask and so it helps us uh economize those interviews as well. So unless you have any great uh issue with that I'd
090like to propose that we do present them the questions ahead of time. Any issues or questions about that process? Yeah I have one small comment. So, no issues with giving them and I I like how you're um making sure it's um fair for night one and night two as long as that we're not hearing a scripted response that it's a conversational because yes, I've seen that happen and it's so awkward. You're absolutely correct. Uh in fact, uh so I was just talking to some applicants today for another search reminding them that I want them to prepare but not to overprepare and that if they type up their answers and then read them verbatim during the interview, that is not going to go well. Um, so don't do that. Make some notes. Come with your best
091examples. Um, one of the best interviews I've ever seen was someone that had bullet points for each of the questions. They had their thoughts down there. They told the story and they just seamlessly weave those bullet points into their story as they told it. And they answered the question completely and had their best examples and it was fantastic. And that same pool was another applicant that did exactly that. Had typed answers, read them. It was one of the most robotic and um, painful interviews I've ever seen. So to your point absolutely um I have that conversation with them. The advantage to getting the answers ahead of the questions ahead of time is they can come up with their best examples. The disadvantage is that they can have that potential to come in overprepared and uh
092so we again just try to find that um that sweet spot. I'm perfectly cool with that. I'm wondering would is that the same process that you would do on a second round just because it is not. I like some amount of like exactly think on your feet if you will to some extent. Yes. uh you know and I I push back just a little bit on you uh there only because for the most part superintendents have an opportunity to think organize our thoughts present to you information very rarely do we have these think on our feet kind of things and those things where we do have to think on our feet are generally the kinds of things that we really can't get at in an interview so we can ask them a question about okay
093a bomb threat comes in what do you do well no one knows I mean they have procedures they have policies to follow but until they're actually in it. No one knows how they're going to react in that kind of situation. So, we can ask a question like that in an interview, but they can pretty much say whatever they want because, well, I'm going to follow the procedures that we have in front of us. Well, I mean that of course that's what you're supposed to do. Um, so I understand where you're coming from. The second round, yes, we will not have them ahead of time. The second round is going to allow us to dig a little deeper. And even though we did give them the questions ahead of time for the second round, remember during
094the second round, you have an opportunity to ask follow-up questions. So, you can always ask questions above and beyond what we have in the second round. But usually, logistically, it doesn't usually work for us to get on the second round questions ahead of time. Um, just because we're pretty much pushing the envelope of turnover between the time that we end our first round interviews, get questions together, and then start our second round interview. So, okay. All right. Uh, remembering interviewing is the only part of selection process. Important not to base your selection exclusive on the interview. Okay. Next round. All right. Review the interview guide in advance. So, when I put together the interview guide, at the top of every question will be your name, uh, if you're responsible for that particular question. So, read
095through your questions. Um, yes, unfortunately, you'll be reading the same question, uh, for both nights of interviews. And so, or the same probably, it'll be about two questions for each of you. Board President may have three, uh, vice president may have three. Uh, I usually have the board president start us off and then vice president and then secretary and then treasur and then trustee and then trustee and then trustee and then we flip them again. Um, and so uh we're looking at right around about 14 questions plus an opener and a closer which we'll get at in a few minutes. Um, and so we're looking about 16 questions in in 55 minutes. Okay. Um, so just go through your questions, make sure that you understand uh everything that's in your question and that you've read
096it so that you're ready to ask it. uh give some thought as to what you'll be looking for uh in the answers to these questions and then like I said know and practice the questions that you'll be asking. Next slide. Quick question though. If they do start to dribble over the time aotment or do are we we're not going to time them though. Correct. For first round we will. First round's 55 minutes. If they go over an allotted time we're just going to they're just at 55 minutes. You're cutting it off. You're cutting them off. We are going to cut them off. You're going to cut them off. We're going to keep them all to 55 minutes. No matter how many No questions. I mean, let's say question number three, they go on for seven,
097eight, nine. No, they'll they'll take as long. They're gonna The other nice thing about having them having the questions ahead of time is that they can then help economize their time because they'll know, okay, I've got 16 questions here. I've got 55 minutes to get through them. And so, if we have it in this room, uh, you know, if we have the interviewe down here at this end of the table, uh, kind of slanted just a little bit so that they can see you, but then also so that people can see them. There is a clock right there. So, they'll be able to see the clock from where they're sitting. They can have their phone in front of them to keep track of time. I will put myself in a position probably right in that
098chair right there. And I will stand up and I'm going to give them the high five right here. Let them know they got five minutes left. And that's their indication to start getting it tied up because as soon as we get to zero, I'm going to get your eye contact, let you know because we want to keep them that 55. Some will go over or get, you know, they'll push right up to it. Some will leave with 20 minutes on the table. it's going to be kind of all over the map. Uh but they do have the questions ahead of time. They know it's 55 minutes. They know that we're going to keep them uh you know to that time and uh we want to do that again so that we're playing at a level
099playing field for all the candidates. Thank you. And I apologize if that was slide number 12 you just covered. Thank you. You're good. All right. So, uh, as we're working through these interviews, again, remember that sometimes, uh, when they're answering the questions, they may be telling you what they think you want to hear. And so, I want you to be aware of that and listen for that. And if you hear some of that, make note of it. And then if they are someone that is available for us in the second round, we can dig into that. So, in the first round, we asked you a question about this. I'm not sure you gave us the answer we were looking for. tell us more about your thoughts on whatever it is, right? And so we can
100dig a little deeper in that second round. So I want you to kind of be aware of that cultural noise, right? They're saying what they think is the appropriate thing to say because they think that's what's going to make you happy as opposed to giving you a legitimate answer, a legitimate experience. That's another reason that we try to stick to those behavior-based questions. Tell us about a time, tell us about a situation you were in. Again, just kind of reflecting back on what they've done in the past to get an idea as to how they would do that in our district. and then give us an idea as to whether we think that would be, you know, workable for us as a board or not. Okay. Um and and this kind of more applies to
101the second round, uh that last bullet point where it talks about redirecting the fax experience. That's interesting. That's fine. But tell us about a specific time when uh during this first round, we're just going to kind of let them flail. So, they've got the questions ahead of time. They've had an opportunity to prepare. If they don't answer the question that's in front of them, I mean, that's pretty much on them. um you're going to get a little frustrated because you're like, "Well, we asked them a question about curriculum and they start talking about school finance." Well, that's usually because they don't have a lot of experience with school curriculum, but they've got a great story about school finance and they want to squeeze it in there wherever they can. Again, because they've got the questions
102ahead of time, hopefully that helps alleviate some of that. Um but it is something that unfortunately we do see sometimes instead of not instead of saying well I don't really have a lot of experience with curriculum uh but uh this is how I would go about gaining that experience or you know I make sure that I lean on the people that do have that experience they don't want to admit that they don't know the answer to something and so they try to opuscate and it it never works and as many times I tell them the board is going to see right through that they ask you a question about curriculum you said nothing about curriculum you don't think anyone's going to be like they didn't see anything about curriculum of course you are right. Okay,
103next slide. Uh, I want you to be aware of your body language as you're going through this. Uh, remembering that when you nod that can be taken as I hear you, I understand you, I agree with you, any number of ways. So, do your best to just kind of, you know, I mean, it's it's I know it's hard uh to not show any emotion during this, but we're going to try not to reinforce their answers uh or hey, you good. Let's just kind of keep it nice and nice and steady. Um remembering that you know this is essential part of everyday conversation and uh those listening responses um from you should not be overly supportive. Okay. All right. Next slide. Um we want to go into these interviews with an open mind. I want you
104to listen objectively. Don't rush to break a silence. Ask the question. Give them an opportunity. Some of the individuals, especially with having the questions ahead of time, some of them will answer the question before you even finished asking them the question, right? Because they know it's coming. Some of them will take a thoughtful minute to reflect and then we'll answer the question. Taking that thoughtful pause does not mean that they don't have an answer for you. It just means that they're collecting their thoughts and they're going to then answer the question for you. So, just let them sit in that silence for a second. Let them get to you uh the answer that they're ready to to give. Uh, and then as we talked about, don't validate their answers. All right, next slide. Maintain good
105eye contact. Make sure that you remember that all of your notes are subject to FOYA. So, anything that you write down in those interview guides is subject to FOYA. So, keep it PG-rated, please. Um, I want you to listen for facts and actual events. And after the interview, I want you to take a second to note questions you have for future interviews. So after each round of interviews on Tuesday night and Wednesday night, we will break down the candidate interviews. We'll talk about those things that we heard that we really liked. We'll talk about those things that we're still wondering about. Okay? We are not going to uh have any kind of negative conversations around any of the applicants. Um you know, as your mother all taught you, if you don't have anything nice to
106say, don't say anything at all. We have to remember that we're in a public meeting. Only one of these individuals is going to be our next superintendent. the rest of them have to go back to their current districts and their current jobs. So there's no need for us to throw them under the bus or anything else. If we're not happy with them, we're not happy with them. I have nothing to add on that applicant is perfectly acceptable. Okay? And that's basically your way of saying I really don't have anything to add. Whether it's negative, positive, whatever else, I'm done with this conversation. Let's move on to the next. So just remembering that we are doing this all in an open session and we want to be mindful of that when we talk about uh the
107candidates. Okay, next slide. First round, our goal is to create those like circumstances. Follow the script. Second round, that's our opportunity to explore the strengths and weaknesses. Next slide. Okay. Questions about the interview process? Questions about the interviews? Yeah. Are we going in this order? Which order? The order. Yeah. the way that they're set up here because I just if there's going to be a time limit, we could potentially only get to vision and interpersonal and not get to management and decision making. Oh. Oh. Uh so, gotcha. All right. So, these two these two pages here, uh we're going to go over these in just a second. So, let's put that put a pin in that for just a second. Any other questions about the interview process before we get to the questions? Is there
108any uh time in between the interviews? Like five minutes to get Yeah, we'll have a little bit of time between the interviews. So, we're going to schedule them uh on the hour. We know that we're going to start a meeting at six o'clock and that we're going to do the pledge and we're going to do roll call and we're going to do uh public comment. So, that may push us a few minutes behind and that's fine. If we start that interview at 6:10, then that one's going to go until uh 7 There you go. 7:05. Um and so then we'll take a five 10 minute break and then we'll start the next one. So, it may push us a little bit. Um, but they'll start around six, around seven, around eight on each night. Okay.
109Yeah. I see 31 questions here. Um, yeah, we'll get to we'll get to the questions just a second. We haven't gotten to the questions yet. We'll get to the questions just anything about the process. Yeah. Um, this probably isn't the appropriate time, but I wanted to make sure before we submit our numbers that we have time for a couple clarifying questions. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. Okay. All right. So, with the questions, first and foremost, not looking to finalize questions tonight. So, we're not going to word smmith this. I'm just trying to get an idea of the types of questions that you'd like to ask. Then, I will put together an interview guide for you all to review. So, if we will go over this tonight, I'll have something for you tomorrow. And then if I can
110have that back from you with input by uh close of business on Friday so that on Monday I can start to work on getting it together for you all and have it ready to go uh so that I can get those questions out Monday afternoon to the Tuesday and then Tuesday afternoon to the Wednesday. Um so we generally start so now we're looking at that that those two pages interview questions. Our general starter in most of our interviews is we've had the opportunity to review your resume. Please tell us how your background experience make you a good fit or match to be our next superintendent. This is not an opportunity for them to regurgitate your resume at their resume at you because you've been through all their materials. This is an opportunity for them to
111kind of tell you a little bit about why they want to be your next superintendent. Okay? And I instruct them all on that. I tell them all this is not an opportunity for you to regurgitate your resume. They looked at all your materials. Tell them something that wasn't in your materials. Tell them why you want to be the next superintendent in Seline. So this is their opportunity to do that. So, anybody have any significant issues with using this as a starting question? We're good there. Okay. All right. Now, looking through these questions, envision 2, three, four, five, and six. I'll give you a few minutes to look through those. Anything in there? 2 3 4 5 six kind of jump out at you as something that you think you'd like to ask. As soon as
112you see something you'd like, go ahead and just shout out a number. I'll shout out a number. Okay. Uh, five. Five. Okay. Are we looking at about three questions per We're looking at vision right now. Two, three, four, five, and six. Are we looking to There's four sections. Are we looking to pull about three? I will take as many from these as you want and then I will start to kind of coales them into a workable guide for us. Three. Okay. So, Jason, you were saying you like number five. Is that Yes. Okay. Okay. I just I didn't know if you were asking to have it taken out or No, Jason has five. Uh Lauren has mentioned three. Okay. Tim says two. Anything else from vision? I like four. Gonna cover all the bases. I
113That's all right. That's all right. I like five. Okay. All right. uh interpersonal 7 through 14 uh and then 15 on the next page. So go ahead and take a few minutes to look through those and again if you see something you like shout it out. Okay. Okay. 11. All right. I also like 15. And just for clarification, I want to make sure we're not we're not trying to divvy up all the questions, right? We're we're identifying the questions that we would like to ask, not necessarily I want that one from that section. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. I'm just trying to get a feel for the types of questions you're looking for because remember we're only going to have time for about like I said about 14 to 15 of these in addition to the opener
114and the closer. Um so seven okay I like a lot of them. I like seven eight I know it's 7 8 9 11 13 I know it's like it's like when I'm in a shoe store. I like those. I like those. I like those. Sorry. Did I tell you too much about myself with that? Sorry. What's that? 10. Yeah, 10's on there. Yep. I got seven, 10, 11, and 13 right now. And 15. 14. 14. Okay. Yep. I've got 15. I like 15, too. And you got 13. I've got 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15. I see a lot of correlation between the 11 and 15. There is. There is. And so when I when I write them I can go along with 15 as well is what I want to say since I
115threw out 11 and nine. I like shopping. Thank you. Okay. Uh management decision-making 16 through 24 there. Anything jump out at you there? There's a typo. Um 19 and 20 are combined, but it's really one item, right? Uh yeah, the Yeah, the the uh word processor got a little over aggressive with the numbers there. So, I'm going to throw 16, 22, and 24. Okay. I don't think it's fair that Jen just uh just picked three, but uh I'm greedy. Um I was going to say 21. 21. Okay. Okay. All right. 25 through 29. What do you got? I'm sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean to jump. I'm I like a lot of these. I know you do. The teacher me loves this section. I'm mostly big on 21. Okay. Uh 23. Got it. My My list is
11617 18 19 21 22 23 and 24. Uh-huh. I love this section. Brad likes shopping, too. Gotcha. Okay. I'll try to be more efficient on the others. That's okay. All right. Uh, professional background 25 through 29. 26, please. 26. I have three again. I'm gonna say 28 before Jen picks her three. 28. I I agree with 28. Um, I picked 25 and 29 as well. Okay. All right. Does anyone like 27? No, but I like 26. All right. Brad probably does. Maybe Tim doing right now. Yes. Tim and Brad are gonna like that one. All right. So, uh, with our closer, there's basically two ways you can go with the closer. So, you can either provide them an opportunity to ask questions of the board, or you can provide them an opportunity, uh, to kind
117of make a closing uh, statement. Do you have a preference one way or the other? Would you like them to ask a question of the board? Would you like them to give a closing statement? Will you be asking them to prepare one based on what we say or will they be coming with a closing statement? Well, they'll have the questions ahead of time so they'll know. They will. Okay. Thank you. Yep. I have a preference for closing statement because it shows a little bit of their personality. Okay. Yeah, I'd like closing statement as well. Okay. I concur with that. And then also I think if there was someone we were really interested then second interview could do their questions. That is generally how most boards go about it. Yeah. So consensus on closing statement. Okay.
118All right. So as I said I will gather uh the rose buds. Well I will gather the questions here and I will put together an interview guide. I'll get that all to you sometime either tomorrow. Tomorrow's Wednesday. Yeah. Sometime tomorrow. and then uh you can uh take a look at those and then get back to me by Friday. Okay, I have a spreadsheet in front of me here with the numbers of the candidates and then also your names across the top so I can keep track of your numbers. So, all I ask of you is just to, you know, kind of be patient with me and give me a number. let me enter it on my spreadsheet and then I will ask you for your next and then I will repeat back to you at
119the end the the the numbers that you've given me then we'll tabulate see where we are and we'll go from there. Okay. You had some clarifying questions that you wanted to ask before we got into this. I did. Thank you so much. Um so the first one is can you explain the rationale between your kind of bucket one and bucket two? Yeah. So bucket one is generally those candidates that most closely matched what you as a board community staff said you were looking for. when we think about the um the selection criteria that you set and then you also uh when I sent you that information I sent you a rubric um that I put together and the rubric kind of highlighted so uh you know if they had a 10 if they had uh
120had a master's degree they got a point if they had a PhD in ed so I use that rubric to help me kind of you know as well uh and then also uh things that I had either discovered during my um reviewing of the candidates or things that know about those candidates based on the fact that they've been in other searches uh either searches that I've done or searches that some of my consultants have done. Um and so while you may think looking at some of the candidates in the bottom tier that maybe they met a lot of the requirements that we had, uh the reason they're in the bottom tier is because there's probably some information that I came across that led me to believe that maybe that's not somebody that you would want
121to bring in front of your uh community and staff for consideration. um or just didn't quite rise to the level of uh the other candidates in level one. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um my second question was around conflict of interest. Has um we have 25 candidates in front of us. Have any of them disclosed any potential conflict of interest to you or has the board or any other staff members including central administration um presented any possible conflict of interest for people they might know have applied? Sure. Not with not with any of the candidates that are in front of you. No. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And then I had a question about um general leadership style, but I don't want to deflect from um I don't want to deflect from the prioritization that everyone's
122going to submit. So is the process that we'll kind of throw it out. You'll see you'll see the numbers that we have and then you can give some personal anecdotes about individuals. I'm just curious. So, uh, I what I'd like to see once we get the numbers done, if we're if we're pretty clear on the candidates that we're that we've all kind of coalesed around, um, then we can have a little bit of discussion, but there won't be a need to have a lot of discussion because you pretty much all decided, well, I mean, these are the candidates that that, uh, that we'd like, um, or that we'd like to, you know, to learn more about. Um because we're trying to uh do our best to guarantee the anonymity of the candidates at this point,
123I'm kind of reluctant to have a a very deep discussion on a lot of the candidates just because I want to make sure that I you know that I or any of you don't inadvertently say something that everyone's like, "Oh, wait. I know exactly who they're talking about." Right? And so we just want to kind of keep it as as tight to the uh to the vest as we can when we're in this in this open session. Okay. Any other clarifying questions? Can you give them an in order of preference? No. Just give me your numbers. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? All right. So, I'm just going to go in the order that I have it here. And I'm not even sure where I got this order, but it is what I have. Um, so
124I'm going to start with uh Lauren 54 71. Okay. What? 54. Got it. 71. Okay. 53 62 All right. 53 62 Uhhuh. Okay. and 57 and 57. Okay. Let me read them back to you. I've got 71, 53, 62, 61, 54, 30, and 57. Okay. Uh one, two, three, four, five, six. It is seven. Okay. Uh Jennifer, I'll go. And these are not in any particular order. 34. Okay. 34. One second. Uh 34. Okay. Uh 54. 54. Okay. 13. Okay. 30. Okay. 72. Okay. 61. Okay. And four. And four. All right. Let me read these back to you. I have 72. 61 54 30 13 4 and 34. That's correct. Okay, Michael sir, start with uh 29. 29. Okay. 53 53 54 54 61 61 second Okay. 71. Okay. And 72. I stopped at six.
125Okay. Uh Austin, here we go. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Let me read uh yours back to you. Yes, please. Uh 71 53 72 61 54 29 correct. Thank you. Okay, Tim. 54 54 61 57 One second. Okay. 72. 72. Okay. And 62. 62. Come on. All right. Let me read them back to you. I've got 72 62 54 30 57. Is that correct? Okay. Uh Brad 54 54 61 One second. One second. 54 61 61 Yes, sir. Okay. 13 13 Okay. 57. 57. Okay. 62. And that's my list. Is that it? All right. 62 61 57 Yep. Okay, Jason. 61. 61. Okay. 57. 57. Okay. 54. Okay. 30. Okay. And 72. All right. 72 61 54 30 57 Correct. Okay. And last but not least, Darcy, I went a little high. I have eight. Um
126I have 71. Okay. 53. 62. 62. 61. 30 and 57. Thank you for going in order. Okay. 71, 53, 62, 61, 59, 54, 30, and 57. Correct? Okay. So, let me do a quick tabulation here, please. Okay. So I have six applicants that received a majority of board votes. Okay. So generally speaking, when I see that we have six applicants that have received a majority of the board votes, then my suggestion would be to bring those six back. I'll read those numbers to you right now. Okay. I've got 61, 54, 30, 57, 72, 62. Those six all received four or more votes. Yeah, sure. No problem. 30 57 62. Correct. So, those six individuals all got a majority of board votes, four or more votes. Yeah. Uh, apparently it's very busy for superintendent hiring season.
127Um, are we going to shoot for a couple of more on the off chance that these any of these have accepted positions elsewhere in the meantime? So, uh, that is a possibility. Um, my inclination would be to say, uh, that we stick with the candidates that have received a majority of board votes. um even if one or two decline interviews, you've still got, you know, four or five to interview. Um we have beyond those first six, we do have two individuals that received three votes and then one individual that received two and then the rest were we've got four that all received one. Uh 71 and 53. Can you Can you tell us the two votes? Uh the two vote was 13. you know, uh, like I said, I've got six applicants here that got
128a majority of board votes. Uh, that's usually right around the number that we're looking for. Um, and we tend to stick with those applicants that have gotten a majority of board votes. That's, you know, that's how we kind of do things as a board, majority majority rules. So if someone has I would love a few minutes to just reflect upon these like someone I just feel like if only four people are coming like to say they're not interested or not coming. Well and I guess I um yeah I perhaps I did not understand the process but I would have um if I had perhaps I should only have voted for seven and that would change the results. Um I would really like to advocate for number 71 to add to the mix. I'd like right
129but it it received three. I would like to reread the ones that received three votes and two votes. I'm so sorry. I sure votes did not were 71 and 53. Two votes was 13. Okay. So, yeah, I'm going to just take a few minutes because I want to read those. And again, I'm sorry. I know you've read this a lot of times, but could you do the six again? Yeah, no problem. Uh 72 62 both Brad and I. Brad, you voted for four or five. Five. And I think I I voted for five or six. I voted for five. Brad voted for five. I I voted for five or I I I do have 71 on my list, but I reduced my list because I wanted to limit I wanted to limit it. Sure. So,
130um I'm not changing a vote. I I would have voted 71. And I do agree with Darcy that we may have conflicts with, you know, two or three of these choices might have accepted positions or decided to retain their current position. Um, so if it's permitted, I would add 71 to my list. Okay. If it because it is on my list and I can prove it. It's right here, Jay. It's on my list. I I believe you, Jason. I believe you. So, what I think I would recommend is actually what's that? This is funny. It's also the one that I was thinking about. So, in full disclosure, you're not the only one. So, 71 has some appeal to me as well. For what it's worth, I really like 71. I I I I think we
131I think we should add something. Again, I was I was running on the philosophy that Darcy had mentioned when she said maybe she should have voted for fewer, but I that's what I was going for, but realistically, I probably should have voted okay for So then what I would what I would recommend then is uh if someone would like to I mean, we don't have to we don't have to formalize it with a motion, but if uh if we'd like to add 71, then uh if someone would like to make a motion to bring forth the following numbers. Okay, are you ready? I I'm actually still reading. Hang on. I wanted to I just finished reading 71. Okay, I wanted to go and look at this other one. I wanted to go look at 53
132because that was the other one that had the three votes. Did anyone else want to add number 53 since that was the one with three votes? So 71 and 53 were probably among my favorites, which is why I groaned when they got three. But I feel like I can't be too greedy and we've already gotten 70. Yeah. I mean, I I I tend to include more than exclude, I guess, at this point. I wish we could discuss a little because there were some things, but since we Yeah, I know what you know what you mean. Um, I had thrown out and I realized in the tabulation that this only had one vote, but um I threw out number 34 because of several different reasons. Again, not breaking confidentiality, but I didn't know if there was
133any appetite there because it only got one. But I just wanted to double check. Uh you say 34? Yeah. Uh I can tell you that 34 has recently accepted uh a superintendency. Okay. I am not surprised. All right. Thank you. Sure. And let me give me give me a half a second because I haven't looked yet at the I've just got the numbers here. I haven't looked at the names corresponding to the numbers yet. So give me a half a second to take a look at the numbers to see the names and see if anything in case somebody else Yeah. see if anything jumps to In light of in light of that information as you as you do that um just to talk to the table I would then be in favor of adding 71
134and 53 because 34 was the only one I had a question about additionally and those were the two on the cusp. I would not object to adding 53. 71 is no longer on the cusp, by the way. And you're saying, Jason, what number? I I I would not object to adding 53. 53 was on one of my eight lists of how I broke candidates down or I'm sorry, more than one of my eight lists. I I wouldn't object to that. Adding 53, what we're looking at is eight candidates. The only thing I would say is this, and it's fine with me if we do this, but then can we I'm thinking about fatigue, interview fatigue, and some of those kinds of things. And I want to be at my absolute best for every single one
135of these applicants. And so, if we go to eight, that's four hours plus time in between all of that. I'm willing to do the work. I just want us to realize that like that is a a big ask to go to eight. Would it would it be possible to since we originally had six, would it be possible to extend the invitations to six with a timeline and then take 71 and 53 if we have rejections? Or I'm even proposing a third. Could we add a I know schedules are funny. A third night of interviews. Not next week. Not for me anyway. I I think we either do six or seven taps. I'm I still like the idea of sticking with six and figuring out which six we want. And obviously if one of the six
136can't make it, we would have a fall back. Correct. We would have We have two others we can reach out to. I just want another minute now to review everything. There's important work. Thanks. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I can tell you that uh none of the individuals that you've selected have accepted other positions that I'm aware of. I can tell you that some of them are in other searches. Uh, I believe one is even interviewing uh tonight. Um, but uh other than that, as far as I know, the rest are are available. Like I said, the only one someone had mentioned uh what was it? I can't remember the number now, but 34. Yeah, I do know that 34 did accept the position. I mean, I I would pull my vote from 62 if we
137needed to decrease. Can I ask a question? Yeah. There's one of the candidates that I'm seeing that was not in your top tier. Okay. Uh and you had said to us that there might be information you knew. Sure. If we had that information, perhaps you would not want we would no longer want that person in our top tier because we're leaving behind some people. Yeah. Yes. Um so I don't sure uh what I will say is that uh if we look at uh job previous to their current employment their their current job uh was a short-lived stint uh and was not um a very successful uh stint. Um, so even though they have uh even though they technically have experience in the role, um, their experience in the role was not all that successful. And
138the fact that they went from that role to their next role kind of gives me a little bit of pause. So that is one of the reasons that uh that I was just kind of definitely on the fence. Um, but I think ultimately some of the applicants in the top tier shined a little brighter. Yeah, I and I thought that that particular candidate did a nice job of addressing that. Um explained that. Sure. Well, um and considering their long-term experience was in a was in a larger district. Sure. You know, that might translate to superintendent here. I mostly just wanted to make sure there was nothing like No. again. Uh, no. So, I'm sorry. So, 57 and 62 I did not have on my list. And so, my specific question and follow up to Laurens's,
139there is no hesitation with 57 then because that was a no for me. Uh no hesitation as far as um it was more based on job experience than anything else. So there there was there was nothing untoward or anything along those lines. Okay. And what about number 62 because that was also uh 62. I did not have that one. Uh nothing as far as I know on 62. Okay. Thank you. So, so the the question now is what we have two clearly at the the rank of first rank and sorry we have five clear applicants to bring in and we have five is what I got and then three that were sort that that are sort of tied. Correct. Uh no, we've got six that got a majority. But what were the Could you give
140us maybe the numbers as we went along? Like for example, I'm pretty sure 54 was unanimous. Uh yes. Seven for 61, 7 for 54, five Can you can you please? Yeah, sure. 7 for 61. 7 for 54. Five for 30. Five for 57. Four for 72. Four for 62. Three for 71. Three for 53. Well, hold on. Two of us have said that we would now include 71. Correct. Yeah, that's So that is a five now. Am I Am I correct? Yeah, I got five for 71. That's why I'm saying we had we have five in. All right. So, I'm adding a vote from Jason and a vote from Brad on 71. Yes, sir. Okay. So, I guess maybe I'd propose that we debate 72 and 62 as our four vote. Well, and 53 if
141you want to because they also that person also has Did we four? Jay, didn't I? I only had three. Didn't I have a vote for 72? Because I I have a different count for 72. I have five votes for 72.2. I have four votes for 72. I have Jason for 72. I have Tim for 72. I have Michael for 72. And I have Jennifer for 72. Correct. And are you saying yes, you wanted 72 as well? No. No. What I'm saying what I'm saying is that like if we're unanimous on 6154 and even like our five votes on 30 and 57 and 71 my my I guess what I was trying to target us on is if we're trying to keep to six interviews and I actually think that is what we should do. Um
142then maybe we just debate those two numbers 72 and 62 and 5. That could make our work a little easier. Well I I would withdraw my vote for 71 then because I voted for 72. Well, I I know I'm trying to be okay. I No, I I understand, but I I would not withdraw my vote for 71 now that I've looked and thought again. Well, that would give us four votes. So, now we got All right. So, now we're down to three people. 71 72. Yeah, I don't want to overly complicate it, but I would really just suggest we do seven. I know that that makes for one late night. And as someone who um you know has a as a job that is engaging the entire day um sleep is very important to me
143but so is this and um also in looking at the diversity of experiences I just think that having seven gives us a lot of diversity of experience. Okay. So just to make sure that I've got it here. So the seven that I have 54 30 57 71 62. So that is seven with majority of votes. So if that's where we're headed then if someone would like to make a motion to ask those seven in for interviews. I will make a motion. Beg your pardon, Brad. How? So, I'm just wondering how do we break it up then? Do we do My my uh my preference would be f would be four on Tuesday and three on Wednesday. Okay. That gives us the last hour to discuss. Yeah. The question though then becomes um whether we start
144at five or we stick with six and then tack one on at nine. I'm just looking at our technician. I thought we were live streaming the the the big interviews. It it it is hard with office jobs and kids to be here at five for some of us. Yeah, that's 5 5:30. Can we do 5:30? I thought the plan was that we were having dinner at five, so it was kind of a soft start. Am I not I wasn't going to be able to do dinner. Okay. So now now what are we doing? I'm sorry. Well, if we if I'm just That's what I'm asking. If we're gonna if we're going to attack an interview on Wednesday night, we either need to make it earlier than six or we need to make it after 8.
145Let's compromise and go 5:30. 5:30 for both. Just for just for when uh Tuesday dinner still at 5 and we'll start the first interview at 5:30. Does 5:30 work for everybody? Everyone will be here can be here for 5:30 interview. That's Wednesday. Tuesday. and six o'clock the other night. And six o'clock on Wednesday night. Okay. Could I just I I I do need to clarify. I was under the impression that we were going to be able to live stream those ones, but not the final interviews. Tuesday, but we can't live stream on those two nights. All right. Record and post as soon as we can. So, our public will not see them in real time. Correct. Correct. Are we gathering them when I come in? I have to tell you that we've had lot we've
146had discussions about this option. We've had discussions The option is to record. We had discussions about this behind the scenes. Our con our our license only allows us to live stream one feed on the uh community channel and we're booked those nights. So people wanting to find it, people people who are interested in following along will be able to follow along uh asynchronously the next day. And then will the feedback opportunities be during round one and round two because um I remember last time getting the feedback from the public was important. Um how how does that work? Yeah. So after each of the interviews there'll be an opportunity to fill out a public uh a public comment form. Uh then those forms will be copied and handed back to all of you um for your
147recordings. Uh then they can reach out to you just like they would reach out to you for anything else. They can email you, they can text you, they can call you, they can give you their feedback in any way that they they deem appropriate. Could we offer that feedback form as an addendum onto the recording and let people still offer their thoughts that way? I mean the feed the feedback form is fairly simple. It's uh the top half of the form is things that you heard that you liked and the bottom half of the form is things that you heard that you weren't all that thrilled about. So I mean it's not really much of a I know but I really like getting that feedback and reading absolutely you could definitely you could definitely provide
148an opportunity for feedback. I'm always reluctant to provide an opportunity for online feedback only because anybody that has access to your website could then provide feedback. So if we limit it to if they watch the, you know, because they have opportunities to reach out to any of you via email, via text, via any of the normal ways that they reach out to you with feedback, they can still do that after they watch the interviews. If they see something that they really want to make sure that you know, then they can reach out to you and and find or they can even email me. I would I I respectfully disagree with that. just because of the the the inability of us to be able to do it in a live way for people. If we could,
149then I'd be all about them emailing me and giving me their feedback that way if they like watched it on YouTube after the fact. But like that I've said my piece on it. That's how I feel about I'll make a motion to invite those seven to come for interviews. Okay. Uh let's just get the numbers first. Uh and 61 No, I've got those two. Okay. 61 54 54 30 30 57 57 71 71 72 72 62 62 to interview and you know exact dates to be determined. Do we have a second? I'll second it. Tim, do we have any discussion before we vote? All right. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Thank you. Uh opposed. Just making sure. All right. Thank you. Okay, next steps. So, I will reach out to each of
150these individuals. As soon as I have confirmed from all seven individuals that they are either willing to or not willing to accept an interview, I will put together a press release and get that out to uh staff so they can then release it. Once I have them established as yes, we've accepted an interview, I will then send them a form to select interview slots. We're going to start at 5:30 on Tuesday, six o'clock on Wednesday. Once they have selected their interview slots, I will then create another press release for the interview slots, get that to uh staff to disperse. Um, and then I will also along with the interview slots, I will also release redacted resumes of all seven applicants. Uh, and the only thing I'm redacting, I'm just redacting identifying uh telephone numbers, addresses,
151email, you know, email, things like that. Their name and all of their uh whatever else is on the resume will remain. And so then you'll have those redacted resumes that you can release on your website. Released if anyone from the press would like to see redacted resumes, they'll have them as well. I will start background checks on each of those seven individuals as well. Uh I'm going to get the interview questions to you tomorrow to take a look at and approve that guide. Um I think that Oh, and I will uh once I get confirmation from the seven that they've accepted interviews, I will then email the other applicants that did not get an interview. So, I would send them an email letting them know that the board has decided to uh not push you,
152you not bring you forward in the process, etc. Will you be informing us of the background check just in case that should happen to impact any of the choices? If anything in the background check pops, I will let you know. Um, you know, if uh I mean, and the background checks, I mean, I get speeding tickets in some of those. I don't generally let you know about the speeding tickets because that's really not impactful. Uh, and the and the background check does also include a social media uh check. And so if there's anything in the social media that I think is something that rises to the occasion, um I can tell you right now that it's again very thorough. Uh I had one applicant that retweeted the picture of one of their wrestlers uh and
153they had you know blood dripping down their face and you know way to go and it tagged that as a violent image and so it was a high school wrestler blood on the face but they still tagged it as a violent image. So I take a look at those and again if anything rises to the level of concern I will definitely let you know. Okay, any other questions? Think of anything between now and next week, let me know. Otherwise, I will keep you up to date. If I get confirmation from all seven yet tonight, I will send your board president a text and let him know and then he can let the rest of you know that we've got those seven confirmed. And like I said, first thing tomorrow morning, I will get a press
154release uh to as soon as I confirm from all seven, I'll get a press release to uh staff and get that out. Okay. I would the blood on the face thing be something that you would just let us know about just so that if we start hearing because if you can find it then somebody else can find it. So I I don't like being caught unaware of things that are going to hit the I would rather just know. So if you if you if you'd like me to report back to you everything that AI flags in the social media search I can certainly do that. I mean I think if you if it gets flagged I I have timing. I already went through hours of all this. I'd just sort of like to know because
155my guess is if you flagged it, somebody else is going to find it and message us about it after the fact and be like, "Why weren't you on top of things?" So, I'd like to have due diligence. I don't need to know about every parking ticket. Oh, we at that point, we would throw Jay under the bus without any hesitation. Correct, Jay? Correct. I I think your clarification though was that your your system flagged it. It's not a violent image. It just so happened that your system flagged. The system flagged as a violent image because was because it was somebody with blood on their face. Correct. Someone with Right. There was another one. Someone went to a prohibition party. Uh there was a picture of a plastic Tommy gun and it identified that as a
156weapon and so it flagged it as a post with a weapon in it. Um so uh in fact it has flagged even school mascots wielding uh you know foam swords and things of that nature. So it the the AI not perfect. It flags lots of things that most of us would probably consider fairly party. Doesn't he have an axe or something? Uh, yeah. Great. Um, if there are no more questions, this is the point at which I say I was just joking, Jay. We will never throw you under the bus. You've done except you've done exceptional work so far and thank you for getting us this far in the process. I know the rest of the next big steps after your heavy work is on our shoulders and we appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Anything
157else? You know how to get a hold of me, let me know. I'm going to go in the parking lot, make some phone calls. Okay, great. All right, thank you everybody. So, administration board updates. It looks like we're going to wrap up by nine o'clock. I'm afraid I did not have that on my bingo card. It's all you. If you have anything, I do. I have a couple uh three updates actually. And uh the first is that I got a great article from Vice President Stein on the importance of durable skills as it relates to um adjusting in an AI world. And I I think this is really important because as we've adjusted our SAS compass, our graduate profile, which are the durable skills, it's that we need to be doubling down on that, not
158not, you know, um shying away from that. So, I think the timing is perfect on revamping and reassessing and re-implementing the the SAS Compass because these skills are going to be more important than ever to help our students have those employability skills that are going to stand the test of time when other skills are, you know, going by the wayside. So, I think that's really important. Uh, second thing is, uh, last night I was at the superintendent circle. This is a dinner for uh donors from the Foundation for Selen Area Schools. It was great. We've been doing this for years. Uh and then Wall-E and Cindy from Max do an incredible job. I just want to thank them publicly for being such great supporters of the foundation and the school district. And it was great
159uh for Jackie and myself to go and we presented on the state of the district and and really did just honestly say that, you know, even though I'm retiring, I'm feeling very very good about the direction of the district and um it's in very capable hands with with so many uh great staff, students, community supporters, board of education, and so it was a great night. And then finally, I just want to thank uh our it's admin professionals day tomorrow and that's for all those support staff that help us do our jobs, including Betty and and countless others in Liberty and all our buildings. Uh we just want to thank thank them for their great great work. We'll start at uh Tim's end and work our way over to Jason's end, please. And thank you. I
160was just going to mention the um bus driver appreciation day. Thank you. All righty. Um yeah, shout out to bus drivers. I tell you, I don't take my kid to school too often, but when I do, I know that the bus is the safer option. Um so I appreciate the fact that our bus drivers keep our kids safe. And you know what is it like drive what we used to send to parents like in emails like go yellow or whatever it was but drive yellow or be yellow whatever. Um number two I want to thank everybody who is currently associated with and accompanying young people in Washington DC. My kid is there. He better be behaving himself. All right Bryce. So uh but I want to thank everybody who's associated with that trip and just
161those types of experiences in general for kids right? like those are above and beyond things that kids get to experience that are real life examples. So, thank you for that. Um, number three, real quickly, I I just want to give a a personal shout out United being here tonight. I want to say proud of specifically Adam Winters who did start up that program and um who really believes in women, hockey and women's sports and wanted to provide that opportunity for women here and I am so incredibly proud of you. He's leaving. he's no longer gonna be I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but he's gonna leave the coaching position and there's be someone else. So like I just want him to know how much I acknowledge that for kids. And then the
162last thing is um I am a huge huge fan and I want to thank everybody associated with Steve sent us um the solar cost like differential website and I was totally geeking out read about it and all that kind of thing but there's a website where we are able to like track how much energy we are recapturing and that kind of thing and I have to admit that gave me a lot of happiness with the bond but also just happiness as a human being and that we're conveying those things to the So, thank you. My next board uh notes have us standing in front of that dashboard, which is pretty cool. Not much from me, just a big thank you to bus drivers who are up at an hour that I don't prefer to see.
163So, thank you. I just want to thank first of all, I'll be attending the WISD budget presentation on Thursday and making a presentation to us. Feel free to join. It's virtual. Just saying. Um, if you want more information, I'm happy to share. I also want to thank Steve Lotch for being one of the folks in attendance at a panel discussion we had with some some really interesting folks at EMU a few nights ago. And thanks for thanks for showing up and giving your support. We had two other district superintendents and uh one or two of my online students whom I'd never met before uh were in the audience as as well as almost my whole department. So, thank you Jennifer. Um, I wanted to also acknowledge um autism awareness month. I know a lot of
164you said something last uh board meeting, but I wasn't here. So, thank you very much for that. Uh, I also wanted to send safe travel wishes to our eighth graders. The Washington DC trip was crazy. I got to chaperon it. I loved it. I never thought I'd like that many hours on a bus. I did. Um, have the best time. Be safe. Listen to your chaperoons and staff, please. Um, and I I am trying to stop by different um events that I haven't typically seen in the past. I went to see some men's volleyball, which was very good. I I highly recommend stopping by and seeing them. And I also um know that we have a new girls varsity lacrosse uh coach. So, I was able to stop by and see them um all within
165the last two weeks. I was very sorry to miss the superintendent circle dinner last night. Clearly, I don't feel very well. Um, but it's not lost on me that it's Steve's last one. And um, reflecting on talking about all these numbers and remembering when we he when we did this and he was part of our process. I feel grateful that he has spent so many years in the school district and the last four as our superintendent. So, thank you. Uh I will echo the thank you to bus drivers and I'd also like to thank uh students uh who use okay to say um because uh that can't always be easy to do and I know it was has been in use and um I think it's it's a great program and I'd like to thank
166the students who speak up and use it. I will go as quick as I can. Shout out to community ed because the bridge programs are fantastic. My youngest daughter is doing bridge 4 this summer already registered so she's one of the 215. Um, of course, bus driver appreciation day. I think I mentioned that at our last meeting. Uh, the bus drivers are fantastic here. Uh it is uh public school volunteer week this week. So it is public schools volunteer week this week. So uh shout out to all of our volunteers that that coach and mentor and everything. Uh uh just fantastic. Um and uh next week we have uh we have two pretty cool ones. We have uh school principal day next week and we have uh school lunch hero day next week. So, our
167lunch staff, our support staff that handle all those lunches for our 4,800 kids or so. Uh, so thank you to all those folks. Thank you very much, board, for all your wonderful, warm, and uplifting comments. Uh, I'd like to entertain a motion to authorize a consent agenda as printed, please. So, move stubben. Stubben supported by supported Tim Mosen. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Thank you. Seven opposed. Just checking. Uh items on the next agenda. Dr. Lotch. Right. We have a scheduled report from special education. They'll give an annual update and then the WIC budget. Uh great resolution. Good. I see there are no public commenters out there. The next board of education meeting will be held on April 29th, 2025 at 6 PM. That is our interview night. It's not our regular
168board meeting. Oh. at 5:30 April 29th at 5:30 p.m. Right. Okay. Uh entertain a motion, please, to adjourn the regular board meeting of April 22nd at 8:50. So move tisswick. Thank you very much. All in favor, please say I. I oppose. Hearing none. Good night. Hold on a sec. Uh oh. Uh oh. I can un I can untap. They've all accepted positions. No, but it didn't occur to me until after I started looking through the names again. Um, you have two potential out ofstate candidates. So, the question is one, are you open to reimbursement for travel? If not, for first round, would you be okay doing a Zoom with them instead? No, this is not them bringing up. This is something I need to know because if they ask me, well, you know, if I
169travel, is the district going to Generally speaking, second round, you you definitely want to see them in person. And so, usually districts will reimburse travel for second round. First round is kind of up to you as to whether you want to say you're on your own dime or you can do it via Zoom. You can set a limit. Before we continue on, Ben, I just want to make sure. Are we still live and on? Thank you. We're still live. So, good. That's fine. I guess I'd want to know how does that impact because we're recording it. Can you record and then have a Zoom placed inside the recording? We can record the Zoom and I can share I can share the recording. We can either use a district zoom. If you have a district zoom,
170we can use a district zoom and then so we would just have multiple recordings people could watch. Um, we're gonna I had a quick uh um procedural question since you came in just as we hit the hammer. Um, let's just do a quick u move to uh reopen the meeting, please, at 8:52. So, move tiss. I've got a whole bunch of people sitting here. I'm going to write this down for Betty. Uh, Tissides and Burwick. Berwick. Thank you. All in favor, please say I. I. Yeah. I apologize. Like I said, as I started looking through the accounts, I'm like, "Oh, wait a second. We've got some out of state here. I didn't get clarification on what your preference would be on that. Great. Good. We're still We're still here. There you go. What numbers, Jay?
171Um I know 30 is because my answer will be different depending because if it's some something we have major consensus on that I believe 61 and 30 it is or no wait I'm sorry it is. No, it's not. No, it's not. I'm sorry. 72 and 30. Okay. To to be equitable, I I would recommend that all are in person and that we reim reimburse for a coach ticket. Are you making a motion? Um, sure. I'm fine with that. I just don't want to put somebody at a disadvantage. Sure. Potentially. Right. There's a motion then. Do you want me to draft it? You might have. That would be great. Well, I'll let you do it to all of you. You're not feeling well. So, let's just uh I'd like to entertain a motion to uh cover
172the travel expenses. Are we speaking just the airplane ticket or accommodations as well? Well, travel is like your accommodation would have to include a car as well. Right. She just said the plane ticket. Yeah. Yeah. So, so entertain a motion to reimburse for two potential candidates. Coach ticket, one night, reasonable local accommodation, and transportation to and from the airport. Can we get I think we should just leave it at the plane ticket because other people in Michigan might need a hotel room for coming back and forth. It just doesn't seem fair. Like that sounds like we're we're reimbursing airfare is what you're recommending. I I like it sort of just evens it out a little. Yeah. No, Lauren has a point that I'm not looking at where they all are coming from, but the potential
173is that somebody would want to come in. Maybe I I agree with that. It should be a coach ticket, but not I think some of the other candidates would probably have to. So, yeah. So, let's stick with for first round, at least for first round, we'll stick with coach tickets and then if we decide that we're going to bring back somebody from out of state for second round, then we can talk about possibly extending that beyond uh just the airline ticket if that's something you deem appropriate. All right. So, if either of those two candidates, I will let them know that the board is willing to So, I just to clarify, did we say airfare and do we say accommodation? No, just the air. Just the airfare. Coach air. Do you want to say airfare
174up until only because I had a friend who got stuck here and we were looking and to lay over and it was like a $1,000 one way if it's last minute. I don't think that's going to be the case, but I feel like we should put like a $500 limit on it. You put a cap on it. Um I fly almost every week and the potential of this being over $500 is very very large. Yeah, I I was just I was just especially last last minute you're looking at last minute tickets. I was thinking I was thinking 750 is what I was thinking. 750 at least. Yeah, I I would actually go to I mean we're talking less than a 7-day notice possibly. Yeah. So, yep. So, what are you thinking? I I think we
175would have to go to a thousand. I would agree. Okay. The $1,000 cap. Thank you. All in favor, please say I. I. I. I. Opposed. Okay. Who made the second on that one? Uh that was u sorry I thought we had two. Okay thanks just to clarify that who who made the motion right and then and just let you all know I will let them know that the general process is to uh you know send a copy of the invoice or the bill or whatever to district so that you can see that they spent however much they spent and then reimburse them appropriately as opposed to them just saying oh yeah I spent $1,000. So, I'll make sure that they understand they have to provide proof of what they purchased so that you can reburse
176them appropriately. All right. So, coach air $1 thousand limit first round. Okay. So far, you're two for two on phone calls though, by the way. So, two confirms. I will make the rest of Thank you. Sorry about that. If you want to stay in the building and make your calls, feel right. Sorry. I was sitting on the bed of my truck. It's nice out there tonight. Oh, great. Thank you. Let's uh reopen this uh with with let's reopen the motion to close. Jason sec moved and Darcy seconded. And now we're going to just change the time to 8:57. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Opposed? No. Hey, thank you.